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The first time that Abi remembers is during the third week of camp.
By the time Abi can get to sit down at the bench, Emma’s already there with her, with that wide grin she always has stuck on her face. That tells Abi she’s about to be dealing with something.
“You’re awfully chipper.” Abi comments, pursing her lips together as her eyes rake over the other girl. When Emma replies, the gesticulations are everywhere this time.
“Dropped the kids off—finally get to take a break!” Emma exclaims and her arms go up past her head, and her smile gets wider that her eyes almost close. Abi watches her from the bench, almost scrutinizing. She doesn’t know why she’s got her eyes all squinted.
In truth, Emma was always like this when she passed the campers off to another counselor. It annoyed Abi less than anything. Not to the point that she’d think anything deeply negative about Emma to the point of speculation but it did tingle her a bit in some way at why Emma even bothered to be a counselor in the first place if she seemed too exhausted all the time at having to be a counselor.
She would ask but she felt like that would be too much, and she didn’t want to chase Emma away as early as now, not when they’ve got an entire month to spend.
Emma brings herself down to sit next to her, sighing loudly, as with almost everything that comes with her—dramatic. Though not dramatic in a bad way, Abi decides. Dramatic in the way Emma can be dramatic. Like she’s in a play or something, exaggerated for those sitting in the back so they’d see.
When Abi fully looks at Emma, she notices that her arm is stretched over the seatback in a way that has her hand slightly grazing Abi’s back. Abi blinks this away, looking at a patch of grass the sun’s shining on.
“Their schedule today is…?” Abi implored instead, thinking back to the campers Emma brought up before.
“Sailing. Ryan’s got them covered.” Emma answers almost instantly, no sign of wavering or stutter in her voice. Abi nods to acknowledge this before going back to sitting silently. Emma does the same, keeping her arm on the backrest with the ghost of her fingers staying on Abi’s back.
The birds chirp around them and it’s quiet until Emma starts humming something Abi can’t decipher. Abi just stays still, mouth turning into a fine line as her eyes try to find something to focus on. Her hands are empty, her sketchbook tucked underneath her bunker bed pillow that she right now thinks is too much work to fetch.
Her fingers twitch. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands and it makes her lips twitch thinking about it. If she spends another time thinking about it she might forget to breathe.
Abi wonders if Emma feels the same. If she feels that same awkward choking air between them, or if it’s just Abi.
It’s somehow always like this with Emma, more so than with the rest of the other counselors. This silent awkward-but-not-really-awkward atmosphere that wafts between the two of them, only ever going away when there’s a third party to diminish it.
“Hey, we should go check out the lake.” Emma says suddenly. That gives Abi a reason to turn to her.
“Why?”
Emma shrugs, her lips turning into a frown, shrugging.
“Don’t wanna watch the kids try sailing?” Emma asks instead. Abi pauses, frowns, then replies.
“You don’t wanna sit around and catch a break?”
Emma scoffs with her eyes rolling back her head but Abi’s sure she doesn’t mean it in a way that should offend her. Just another case of Emma being Emma.
“Come on,” Emma begins, attention fully on Abi, stares become intense, “it’ll be fun. Plus, the lake’s beautiful today.” she says as she gestures around them, up at the blue sky with the pretty white clouds, and she almost feels a breeze graze her cheek.
Abi gives the environment a once over before she shrugs, defeated, shoulders perking up as her eyes meet the other girl’s, giving a silent sign of consent.
Emma’s smile grows bigger at that, rising from her spot and waits for Abi to do the same. When Abi stands, the look on Emma’s face transforms from an innocent preppy smile to a little smirk, one Abi’s sure she’s only seen Emma show to Jacob. The one smirk that had her one eyebrow slightly up and arched. Abi isn’t sure why she noticed this.
“Okay, lead the way.” the shorter of the two says and the other does as told.
When they make it to the lake, Ryan is already out in the open waters with the kids strapped to the boat with their life jackets. Near the shore is another one of their counselors.
Dylan is standing near the lake, also watching the other counselor perform his job. Emma sees him give Ryan a little wave, a wave Abi isn’t sure the young man on the water notices, and whistles at him, but Dylan doesn’t turn to look at them because Ryan apparently did notice it—the wave—because he waved back before stumbling with what he was doing.
Abi looks at Emma funny for that and Emma looks at her back.
“What was that about?” the brunette asks. Emma raises an eyebrow, pouting her lips just slightly.
“What was what?”
“The whistle.” and Abi lazily stretches her arm towards Dylan to help Emma understand. Lightbulbs seem to go off inside the girl’s head because she laughs and shakes her head, and Abi stands there confused. When Emma looks at her she brings her brows together, her face almost wrinkling into something nearly close to curiosity.
“Wait, do you actually not know?” Emma teases.
Abi shakes her head, the joking tone in Emma absent from herself.
“See, Abigail, my dear, our friend Dylan might have a little crush.” the girl incompletely elaborates, leaving Abi to puzzle the rest. Once she digests it all, she looks at Emma like she doesn’t believe her.
“Wait, Dylan?” she says out loud to confirm it and Emma nods, her smile returning wider.
“Yeah, did you not know? He’s, like, totally obvious about it.” the blonde declares it like it should be information everyone should know. Like Emma explained a math equation she feels everyone should find easy.
“And Ryan? Does he know?”
Emma considers it first before she shakes her head, and that head shake turns into a shrug half-way. Abi looks back at Dylan watching Ryan, staying still in the one place he stood. Abi thinks she’s thinking about something but she doesn’t know what it is. Next to her, Emma gives a big inhale as a big gust of wind appears suddenly, blowing her ponytail and the strands that framed her face. Abi doesn’t realize she’s staring until Emma calls her name, a teasing look on her face.
“What?” Abi deadpans, bracing herself for the teasing. Emma spares a long look at her before she turns her head away and up towards the lake, dismissing it.
“God, I love it when days are like this.” Emma sighs, her head tipping back. Abi agrees. The lake seems nice and cool to swim in, and the breeze that blows through them is refreshing. When she looks up at the sky, the clouds are all big and white, and her heart does a little flip for a quick second, like it’s ascending to join the birds that fly overhead.
Abi nods minutes late to what Emma said but Emma doesn’t seem to notice.
The second time is when Emma pulled her off to the sides when it was during lunch break on the fifth week of camp.
Dylan just announced over the speakers that lunch was on and the mess hall was already packed with the campers, noise and senseless racketing bouncing off the wooden walls. Abi almost considered skipping lunch just because of that. That maybe she’d just go to the lake or take a stroll around camp while no one else would be around, but then she spotted that familiar head of blonde hair start approaching her and her plans immediately went straight to the scraps.
“Hey, Abigail,” Emma drawled, the trademark grin plastered onto her face that Abi doubted it ever left. In her hand were two sandwiches, wrapped in kitchen paper. Abi could already see a little bit of it sap through the paper’s thin quality, and Abi fought herself back from visibly cringing at the feeling of sog and grease.
“I got Nick to sneak us some of these bad boys,” said Emma, prouder than ever, or that’s what Abi hears. Emma turns to the side, tilting her head towards the mess hall’s open doors. “Come on.” she prompted, seemingly leaving no room to deny her based on how she held herself, so Abi shrugged and stood, patting her back from any dirt and dust that may have been on her seat, and lets Emma lead the way outside.
Stepping out, the noise from inside the hall fades into a small blurry echo, and the weather is just the right amount of cool, with enough clouds to keep them safe from the sun. Beside her, Emma takes one deep breath, her chest expanding and rising as she takes it all in, releasing with a loud and content sigh.
Then, she turns to Abi and gently shoves the spare sandwich into her stomach, Abi reflexively going to reach out for it and receive it, almost ignoring how their hands brush for a little more longer than all the other times as Emma makes sure she doesn’t drop what she got them onto the dirt ground.
“Quick reflexes,” Emma teases, or compliments? Or maybe both? Abi can’t tell. She never really could.
“Okay!” Emma chirps, head tilting, eyes closed, “Follow me.” and then she goes and walks forward, not stopping to even see whether Abi is following her or not, almost like she knows Abi will regardless. And so Abi does follow, not even trying to deny that she would follow Emma wherever she went.
They walk for a bit, encountering a few woodland wonders, like a squirrel crossing the desire path and then climbing up a tree, when they finally stop. They’re at the cabins, empty and unusually quiet. The tree at the center rustles as the wind blows and Abi thinks that for a moment she can even hear a bit of birdsong.
Emma continues to walk forward, not stopping until she reaches the tree’s shade and finally sits down, despite the fact that there are picnic benches just right there, patting the spot next to her for Abi to follow.
“Sucks that it’s not as picturesque over here but it’ll have to do. Nowhere else to get shade.” Emma says as Abi sits down, patting the ground of any sticks and stones. Emma’s right. There really isn’t anything much going on here in this part of camp, just cabins and cabins from here on out, so it makes Abi wonder even more why Emma brought her here.
If she wanted shade, they could’ve just stayed in the mess hall.
She looks at the girl in question, already starting on her sandwich and instead of asking, looks up at the canopy above them. As her eyes trail back down to start eating like Emma, she sees it . Carved into the wood of the tree is “Jacob + Emma 4 Ever.”
Abi wonders when they did that. She doesn’t remember seeing this yesterday. Speaking of—
“Hey, where is Jacob?” muses Abi, though in a way that’s obvious she doesn’t really care, that she’s only asking to not seem like a jerk.
“Hm?”
“Like, why aren’t you hanging out with him instead? Aren’t you supposed to be girlfriend and boyfriend?”
“Just because we are doesn’t mean we have to be stuck together at the hip every time, Abigail.” Emma declares. “I need my own time alone too, you know.”
Abi decides to continue the metaphorical poking, “And, what, hang out with me instead? That’s your idea of alone time?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
That gets Abi to finally trip over her words, losing the cool she maintained so well just seconds before.
“Well, obviously, it’s not, it’s just—“ and Abi talked herself into a corner, stumbling over the next words she was supposed to say. Emma beats her to it like she always does.
“Is it so hard to believe I might just like hanging out with you?” Emma asks, and it’s weird because her voice suddenly just got soft and it’s obvious she isn’t teasing her right now, and her eyes are all on Abi, looking like they’re not even Emma’s, the mirth and smirk gone, replaced with something else entirely. And Abi knows it isn’t a question that’s meant to be answered.
“Thought you said you wanted some alone time.” Abi replies rather offhandedly, shrugging her shoulders as if she’s willing the conversation away, looking away from Emma completely. She doesn’t know how to respond to what Emma said, she really doesn’t. She even wonders why Emma would even say something like that in the first place.
Her eyes focus on the sandwich Emma gave her, thinking that it’d be better off if she paid attention to it instead of the girl sitting right beside her who always had the tendency to make her stumble over her own feet each time she was around, like Emma was some garden that just suddenly appeared beneath Abi’s feet, and Abi’s limbs suddenly felt too big, and she was too scared to ruin any of the flowers.
She doesn’t know why that’s the first thing that popped into Abi’s mind when she thought about describing Emma. Or—
Emma was this big giant thing when Abi was something so small, careful in the way most little things are—or not. Maybe this is just Abi. She doesn’t know how else to describe it—just that Emma was Emma , and Abi was Abi.
She chances a glance at Emma, and she’s looking up at the canopy, the dapples of sunlight dancing all over her face in small bright dots. She’s wearing this green button-up crop-top with sleeves loose enough to not make her arms itch in the summer heat, and sunlight dances on the skin over her collarbones that are exposed, and Abi thinks this color fits her just right.
Her heart’s suddenly stuck in her throat, and she has to look away.
She doesn’t even know if Emma knows she makes her feel this way. She doesn’t know if she wants to know the answer to that too.
“Anyways, enough about me. What about you?” Emma speaks again, “Do you like anyone? Any guys caught your eye? Ryan? Nick?” Emma lists down like a roster.
Abi isn’t sure what she feels.
She shrugs, “Nick’s cool.”
Emma grins at her. “Nick’s cool , huh?”
Third is when Abi’s sitting on the picnic bench, the wave of the canopy leaves shadows on the wooden flat of the table, brittle and worn and with chips and carvings on the wood. She’s hidden perfectly away from the sunlight, whatever light that does fall on her merely grazing her arm.
Her shift with the campers ended only minutes ago, and now she has time to spend with herself, and so she chose to spend it with her sketchbook, drawing lines and curves onto the page.
Across from her is Emma with her batch of campers, just a few feet away on the camp stage. She’s taking campers from the crowd and dragging them all the way to the front and on the stage, letting them do what she needs them to, all with a big smile on her face that seems to radiate past her, shine bouncing off from her in waves.
The kids look like they’re having fun too.
It’s at that moment, in that little space of time where Abi looks at her that the brunette realizes, Emma would make for a good model.
And before Abi realizes, her hand’s moving on its own, leading the pencil across the page as graphite begins to form lines that transform into hair that falls and cascades over a face, nose, eyes, arched brows, and grinning plump lips.
Even in Abi’s drawing of her, Abi still won’t let Emma look at her.
Emma’s eyes are focused at something off the page, and she looks like she’s smiling. Abi doesn’t know herself.
The lines are thin, light on the page that it might get erased in just one run, so Abi lets her hand run again, tracing over lines and adding details that she isn’t even sure why she knows. Like the way Emma’s eyes always have that crinkle in them, and how her brows can never seem to be brought down.
Abi stops, the tip of the pencil breaking and leaving bits of graphite over the sheet. She tilts the page and blows on it to make it go away.
This doesn’t even look like Emma.
She looks too soft here to be Emma. When did Emma ever look like this?
Why did I draw Emma like this.
She isn’t given any more time to ponder over it when the sketchbook is suddenly snatched away from her hands, and she looks up to see the girl she was just thinking about.
Emma’s looking at it with a smile, her mouth nearly agape, eyes wide with a sparkle Abi doesn’t recognize. And she wants to snatch the drawing away, close the sketchbook and place it tight on her lap. But that almost feels worse than just letting Emma look at what Abi drew. Like that itself means she’s admitting to something.
So Abi lets the sketchbook stay in Emma’s hands, lithe and careful as she holds the pages, careful to not graze over the lines so they don’t smudge.
When Emma finally looks away from the page and turns her head to look at Abi, she almost can’t breathe, because Emma’s looking at her with that softness she didn’t realize before when that sketchbook was still in her hands.
Her heart leaps and jumps into her throat before it goes back down to where it should.
“It’s beautiful, Abi.” Emma says as she hands the sketchbook back to her.
Of course it is, Abi thinks, careful of Emma’s fingers getting too close, it’s you.
That doesn’t come out the way Abi wanted it to.
All she does is smile. Emma won’t stop looking at her.
The cabin’s feeling too hot tonight.
Abi rolls around her mattress, every single fabric that makes contact with her skin making her wanna tear all of them off and maybe lie on the floor instead.
It’s quiet and that makes Abi stay up even more. She can’t even open her phone because it’s stowed away in Mr. Hackett’s office, and even if she could, she doubts there’ll be any service here at all.
The blankets and even the pillow are all the way at the bottom of the mattress, kicked away from her completely, and Abi’s starting to hate how the windows can’t open. She instead just keeps her head facing straight up, watching the bottom of the top bunk where Emma is.
She hates how sticky she feels right now.
The sound of the cicadas and the soft hum of crickets outside blur into her mind as she continues to stare blankly above her, along with the rustle and blow of leaves.
Thankfully, eventually, the chill starts to come back, even if slowly, and Abi’s eyes start feeling heavy, and she yawns before her eyes completely close.
Then…
Tap. Tap.
Abi almost doesn’t notice it at first, herself being too engrossed in blurring in and out of consciousness to decipher anything that happens.
And then,
“ Pssst. Abi? You awake down there?”
Her eyes fight to stay open when she finally blinks herself awake, fully recognizing the other girl’s voice.
“Emma?”
She’s not even sure if she actually says that out loud. But she thinks she does when Emma replies and tells her, “I can’t sleep.” And then, “I don’t know why.”
There’s silence again, and Abi’s pretty sure she fell asleep this time, but it’s one of those times where you know you’re asleep but know you’re not fully asleep yet because she thinks she can still see the shape of the room and the way the darkness of it looks like to fully be considered unconscious.
And then, she hears it.
First, it sounds soft, like the creek of wood, and then loud, almost obnoxiously so, and so she has to strain her eyes when she lifts them open, and before she can even discern anything, Emma’s suddenly crawling in next to her.
This time, she forces herself awake, blinking away any feelings of exhaustion when she realizes that Emma’s suddenly right next to her. Like, right next to her.
Emma’s face is a hair's breadth away from her own and Abi braves herself to look at Emma herself, finding the other girl smiling at her, her shoulders hunched in on herself as she holds both her hands to her chest, her sleepwear smarter than Abi’s t-shirt where she’s wearing spaghetti straps instead. She doesn’t mean to do it, but her eyes drop for a second to where Emma’s chest is before she looks away.
“Your face is a mess.” Emma giggles.
Abi wishes her pillow wasn’t so far away from her now when she forgets it’s all the way to where her feet are and she attempts to dig her face into it to hide. All she gets is nothing besides for the gentle graze of the mattress against the side of her face. She wants to move her arms up to her face but there’s so little space.
Emma must’ve realized how her words made her feel because she chuckles and says, “I’m sorry,”
A moment passes after.
“Why are you here, Emma?” Abi chances, feeling brave enough, a little irritated and confused, and too tired to notice what comes out of her mouth.
Emma shrugs, the side of her mouth tilting up in a grin as she whispers, “I don’t know. I just wanted to, I guess.”
And suddenly Abi’s too tired to argue, only giving Emma arched brows and a pouting mouth before she closes her eyes and falls asleep.
Something rustles, the folds of the sheets wrinkling, and Abi feels a weight on her shoulder before she fully blacks out. Even then, she’s fighting her heart to beat normally, careful with the way she adjusts her breathing so the girl beside her won’t notice.
When she wakes up in the morning, Emma isn’t there anymore.
That was the fourth time.
She forgets when all of this happened.
Abi isn’t sure how she made it into the kitchen, but Emma’s leading the way so she can chalk it up to something particular, she’s sure.
“Emma–”
“Shhh.” is what the girl says.
Her hand’s around Abi’s wrist, leading her to where she wants them to go, and Abi thinks if anyone were to see them now, what they’d think of them. What does this look like to them? Emma, bright, bold, and too much to contain, and Abi who’s there beside her each time.
Emma continues her way towards the cabinets and the pantry, rummaging through stock Abi’s pretty sure they’re not allowed to touch. She lets her hands go, Abi’s hands going back to hanging lamely by her sides. Again, she wonders why they’re doing this.
The kitchen’s fairly quiet, all the campers away doing their own fun since it’s break time, and the other counselors aren’t around.
“Wanna go in the fridge?” Emma perks, looking in her direction with raised and curious brows.
“No.” Abi replies, quite verbose.
“What are you looking for, Emma?” she pries again, going to stand next to the girl in question, scrutinizing the shelves and cabinets.
“Just exploring, no big deal.” she shrugs easily, a little heave leaving her as she goes to readjust her tiptoes.
“Just exploring-? We could get in trouble.”
Emma doesn’t reply, only smiling at her instead. Abi’s fighting to not roll her eyes.
Emma rummages furthermore when shuffled footsteps start getting louder outside, the footfalls heavy that makes it clear that it’s approaching them.
Before Abi can even respond, Emma’s already dragging her away to hide behind a counter, seemingly fighting a giggle. The abruptness of the whole thing knocks them out. Literally. When they’re behind the counter, Emma pushes Abi to sit down with just enough strength to get a person who’s too clueless to move on their own down on the floor, and Emma follows quickly after that the motion of it all bumps them both together, and now Emma’s crouched over Abi’s lap—Abi, who’s sat against the counter on the floor—and when she tilts her head up, their noses almost touch.
It’s then that Abi notices the small tupperware box in Emma’s hand filled with strawberries.
And all Emma does is wink at her and mouth, “Shhh.” with a grin spreading across her cheeks.
When Emma finally sits up, it’s only then that Abi notices she can breathe again.
But apparently, and not to Abi’s surprise, they’re caught immediately after, Dylan’s head poking out from over the counter with his brows raised in question, saying something about how he was scared about whatever was in the kitchen.
And then Emma just laughs.
And Abi can’t feel anything else, especially not anything bad, because all Abi does then is just look at her.
Fifth.
It’s the last day of camp.
They’re all about to go home now. If Abi’s sure of anything, she’s pretty sure the campers are already out and on their way back home, and all the other counselors are probably at the front, finishing things up, but she’s still all the way back where the cabins are, seated on the wooden stairs after her failed attempt at opening their cabin door.
She was supposed to get her and Emma’s bags, but she never really anticipated the part where their cabin would get locked by now. So she sits down by the door instead, the only thing in her hands is her trusty and dependable sketchbook, never leaving her side since the start of summer.
She finds herself on that page again.
Of Emma’s portrait that’s looking away from her, with new add-ons of things that are all of Emma too. A sketch of Emma sitting down, her back being the only thing drawn. And then her hands, delicate and seemingly dancing on the page.
The tip of her pen leaves the page, floating midair as Abi ponders over something. The only image that comes to her mind is dappled sunlight and a blonde in green. It’s only then that Emma comes and strides in, announcing the leave of the campers, calling both of them empty nesters.
When she raises her hand for a high five, the touch lasts longer than it should, and the look they spare at each other’s eyes lingers far more longer than usual, before they both let their hands down, and Emma’s once again telling her to do something they shouldn’t.
It’s routine at this point, so when she and Emma come crashing down on the cabin’s dusty floor, it’s not even a shock for Abi anymore. When she stands up, her heart gives a little squeeze and that feeling lodges deep into her throat, growing spikes that claw its place deep in there, and she feels it there that she’ll miss this.
She spares a glance at her bed and the memory of that night resurfaces, almost like a thing placed in water that won’t drown when you push it in, before she walks away to explore more of the space.
The exploration transforms into a little stroll down memory lane and spans past the area of their quaint cabin room, with Abi walking the entire grounds of the cabin area while Emma waits by the golf cart for her to finish.
Once that’s done, they both get into the cart, Abi taking the wheel as they drive their way back to the lodge.
This’ll be the last time they’ll be together like this.
Like all the other times before since the start of summer, Emma acts like Emma. She stretches and makes herself comfortable in her seat, resting her leg over the other and lets her back rest perfectly against the seat as the cart bumps steadily on the pathway.
“How are you so…” Abi begins to say, dragging the sentence since she can’t find the right words.
“Dramatic?” Emma fills in for her.
“Annoying.” Abi says instead. Emma frowns at her, the corners of her eyes finding their way back to softness as the corners of her lips tense into a frown.
“Confident.” Abi fixes, shrugging.
Emma looks away from her then when she says, “Eh, it’s just acting. It’s what the people want.”
“So you’re faking it?” Abi questions.
“I mean, in a way…“faking it” is just being yourself…but louder.” Emma reasons, smiling at Abi once more as she nudges her with her arm. It’s a different kind of smile.
“You should try it sometime,” Emma continues to say, that drawl coming back, “you never know who you might impress.”
“Nah. It’s too late now anyway.”
“For what? You and Nick?”
Oh, right.
Abi remembers the green of trees and grass, the bright and golden sunlight piercing through thin leaves, and of skin drenched in bright warm gold, when her heart missed a pulse and all she could do was sit with it.
Abi stays silent, glancing at Emma covertly before she looks away and back to the path.
“You’ll never know unless you put yourself out there.” the girl beside her continues. Abi stays silent, paying attention to the path instead as she steadies her grip on the wheel, narrowly missing a bump on the ground.
The silence between them lasts for a while longer, wheels against the rough surface of the forest the only thing they can hear.
Eventually, Abi concedes, adding onto Emma’s earlier tirade about her and Nick.
“Okay, so, hypothetically, if I were to “put myself out there”...what if ends up being a dud? Kinda like you and Jacob?”
She thinks back to the altered carving on the tree from when she was exploring the cabin grounds, where the words “forever” were crossed out, undoubtedly by Emma herself.
Abi glances back and forth at the girl beside her, waiting for a response, her arms stiff. Eventually, the answer comes.
“Well…he’s actually really sweet.” Emma looks fond as she says this and it only makes Abi wonder why they quit, so she says as much.
“Summer fling!” Emma says easily, and then follows it up with her reasons.
After that, Emma shifts the conversation back to Abi and Nick , with Abi quickly answering and dismissing everything Emma says, not without being handled a few insults about e-mail.
And then out of nowhere…
“I’m really gonna miss you, Abi.”
It sounds soft, and careful…and so unlike Emma but it feels like her enough, and it almost sounds like something else too. Abi nearly smiles, and she lets herself.
And then the moment disappears when Emma raises her arm towards the path away from the lodge.
“Go right here.” Emma says to her, never leaving her gaze on Abi’s confused face, and she feels some sense of déjà vu wash over her.
She’s pointing to the scenic route.
“Why?”
“Come on,” Emma begs. “One last victory lap around the camp.”
Abi sends her a skeptical raise of her brow, and Emma looks at her like she knows Abi won’t say no.
So Abi doesn’t, sighing as she diverges from the lodge’s path and into the scenic route.
“What’s the victory?” Abi asks as they pass the sign.
“Two months, no technology.”
“I kind of thought it was nice to be offline.” Abi inserts. Emma scoffs.
“Ugh, I didn’t. Plus, my subs need me.” she reasons.
Emma told her she ran a YouTube channel back home way back when they were just starting to get to know each other. It was nothing big, Emma said, just daily vlogs about her life, talking to her audience about things they felt comfortable enough telling her and what Emma felt like she was big and wise enough to understand.
From what Abi’s known of Emma these past two months, she can see Emma’s face fit perfectly on a thumbnail, and her energy fits that criteria well enough. Energetic, bubbly, confident, and pretty. She can’t imagine anyone else more fit for the job.
“You know what?” Abi says after some time, “I actually believe you.”
Emma pauses for just a quick millisecond, and then she smiles wide again when she teases Abi.
“Was that a compliment ?”
“Your charm is infectious, what can I say? I’d subscribe.” Abi shrugs, and Emma keeps smiling, way wider than she’s ever seen before, almost like she’s won at something.
“You better,” Emma replies to Abi’s earlier words. “As soon as you get home: sub, share, smash that like button! The holy trinity!”
Abi winces.
“Okay, well now, I’m really regretting it.”
“Oh, no. You looove me!”
She says it like a revelation, and almost like a victory on her side, and her joy shines like an outpour when her eyes never leave Abi. Even right now, Abi can’t understand what Emma means.
Abi loses her words now, only staying still as she continues to drive. Even as Emma smiles at her and pouts her lips into kisses.
When Abi’s unresponsiveness seeps into Emma, the girl just smiles at her again, but small this time, her eyes glazed with something solemn, and she looks away from her with a hum. But the smile stays on her face, even if it fell for another quick second just before.
It’s only then that Abi turns to look at her, her face tinged with something that looks like a question, eyebrows raised slightly upwards to make it more clear to her that there’s still something she doesn’t understand.
The sunlight starts to seep in through the shade of the trees, the golden shining through the strands that fall over Emma’s face, and even from this view, it makes it look like it’s shining, and it’s a shade of gold Abi’s never seen before.
And Abi looks away.
Maybe…
Maybe.