The Camp Read Free Page B

filled her with loss. She squatted by the running water and closed her eyes, felt his touch, sensed her passion. Sensed his passion.
    She had to get him back. She shrugged out of her pack and fished around the big pocket until she felt the hard, rounded side of her cell phone. She couldn’t read his text one more time but had to send him a message—maybe a picture. She had to get him back.
    It slowly came to her, what she’d do, how she’d get him back. She stabbed at the icon for pictures then scrolled through to Bandon and the beach, among the rocks. She shaded the image on the screen with her hand. There he stood, bare chest firm, athletic legs ascending until they disappeared into the fringe of his cutoff jeans. Ellen clamped her eyes shut and brought up the image of them kissing and caressing each other to the rhythm of the rising tide as it crashed against the boulders. She actually thought she could feel the sand shift as she remembered.
    She’d felt his passion, sensed his urgency, and done nothing. Broke from his embrace, laughing as she danced away among the logs and rocks and boulders. And now it had all come crashing down. She opened her eyes and looked at her phone. She knew what she had to do.
    She grabbed a strap and slung the pack on her back, retaining the phone in her hand. A surge of adrenaline pumped through her body as she imagined the picture she’d send him. Her mantra of loss turned to one of hope.  
    Steven guided the aging Subaru out of the Pizza Plus parking lot, glancing at his watch in the process.
    He let out a groan as he pulled into traffic. “Ah, shit.”  
    David leaned forward from the back seat. “What’s up?”
    Boyd leaned back deeply into the front passenger seat, pressing into the headrest. He turned just his head until he could look David in the eye. “He just remembered ending it with Ellen.” He laughed. “No more pussy.”
    Steven shot him a quick look. “Shut up, man.”  
    He hit the blinker, checked the mirror, and changed lanes.  
    “I’m late. My parents set a curfew and they’ll be all over me when I get home.”
    David turned his head, taking in his two friends. “My folks did away with a curfew for my senior year.”
    “Yeah, well, lucky you.”
    Steven dropped off his friends and it was another twenty minutes before he pulled into his own driveway.
    Ellen entered her house like a ghost, but her mother noticed her anyway. Ellen she ignored her greeting, however, so as not to attract her attention. She visited the bathroom and then went immediately to her room, locked the door, and dropped her backpack next to the computer desk. Squatting down, she retrieved her cell phone from the big pocket then pursed her lips as she surveyed the room.
    Pink, her mother’s idea of feminine. Nothing had changed much since she was in the seventh grade except the addition of the computer and the desk that housed it. The walls were bare. She couldn’t understand the obsession with singers like Justin Bieber or rock groups or actors. She was obsessed with Steven and would have posters of him on her wall if she had any.
    When she stood, it was to face her computer. Reaching down, she propped her iPhone against the keyboard and tried to gauge the angle necessary to capture the center of the bed. Bending down, she tried to look through the tiny viewfinder. Finally frustrated, she stomped over and placed her pillow where she would sit on the edge of the bed, walked back to the camera, pressed the icon, waited for the simulated shutter click, and then snatched up the phone.
    “Not bad.” she carefully set the camera in place and moved to the center of the room.
    She’d applied fresh makeup and ran a brush through her hair in the bathroom. Now, she carefully peeled off her sweatshirt, careful not to allow the material to brush her face, and letting her shorts puddle around her feet.
    The air in the room seemed cool on her bare skin and she suddenly felt awkward and