Small

Leave

"You shouldn't have let her walk back on her own. What if she ran off?" Ethan said. Outside the tent, leaves crunched as he and Darren approached our campsite.

I rolled onto my other side, facing the opening of the tent. Not long after Darren started fishing, I went back to the tent for a nap. Darren had given me the keys to the truck and let me get my bear out myself. I'd thought about running away but I had nowhere to go. I'd only ever lived in two places and I didn't know more than the people they knew.

"She wouldn't do that." Darren said but I could hear the wavering in his voice.

"You hardly know her. She's like a scared little mouse. One wrong word or move and she could just... bolt."

"That doesn't mean she'd run away."

"Does she talk to you? Because I've heard like five words since we met."

"She's shy."

"Or she's hiding something."

Darren sighed. "You're being paranoid. She's just an innocent girl."

"That's what she wants you to think. But deep down? Who knows."

"I don't think so." Darren's voice came from just outside the tent. He stuck his head inside and his eyes landed on me in my sleeping bag. "Hey, did you sleep okay?"

The warm sun and water made me tired pretty quickly. I was so used to having a nap that I knew it would hit me at some point during our camping trip. I hated to leave while Darren and Ethan were enjoying themselves but I also wanted some time to myself, too.

I nodded and pushed myself into a sitting position.

Darren looked behind him before he climbed inside the tent. He came over to my side and sat back on his sleeping bag. "How long have you been awake?"

I swallowed and looked down at my bear. Darren and I had been enjoying ourselves until Ethan came. I didn't want to deny Darren of time with his brother but he didn't exactly welcome me in with open arms. But I was used to that, as sad as it was. "I'm not gonna leave."

"I don't want you to."

I pulled my backpack over to me and unzipped a front zipper. I took the keys out and handed them over to him. "I don't even know how to drive."

"There's a lot you don't know, isn't there?"

I nodded. I'd missed out on so much yet I barely knew just how much. I didn't know what I wasn't experiencing and that made my heart ache at just the thought.

"Now I know what we can do in our spare time." He said with a smile.

I bit the inside of my lip. I was excited about the possibility of learning more but I was also scared at not knowing just how much there was that I missed out on.

"You wanna come see what we caught?"

I nodded.

He climbed out of the tent and held the flap open for me. I stepped out and walked over to the campfire with him. Ethan was trying to get it started.

He opened a cooler and nodded inside. There were several small fish, all brown. One of them was still flopping up and down.

I grimaced and took a step back.

He smiled. "It'll taste good even if it doesn't look good."