First There Was You

Chapter 19: Greyson

July 1

Loon Call Island, Lake Rosseau, Muskoka

Summer is just flying by, the first three weeks have come and gone in the blink of an eye. I've been consumed by Elle and Liam, leaving little room for anything else in my life.

Tess calls me nearly every day now to see how Liam is, how I am. I told her about Elle last week. Each time I mention Elle's name, she laughs, like she can't quite believe it, I want to grind my teeth and hang up on her every time it happens.

I told her this morning how important Elle is and how she's been holding it together for Ryan and me.

Finally, Tess seemed to get it, and her voice changed from teasing to seriously sisterly in a flash. By the end of our call this morning, she promised to check in on Elle, too.

Despite the teasing I'd gotten from Brodie, Tess, Steph, who my sister had obviously spilled the beans to, I'm happy to be spending my summer with Elle. There is a lightness to my heart that I barely recognize. So, I cling to it, desperately, wondering what drove me away from her, from my friends in the first place. Maybe we can even make it stick through the year.

Tonight, more than anything, I wish Brodie were here. It's our annual Canada day party tonight, and he's never missed one before.

Brodie was, is, the only one who understood my need for distance, for staying on the outside of our little group.  He's the only one who's understood me for a while now, having his own reasons to be angry, although I've watched his own anger fade over time, giving me hope. I don't feel so different from the others when he's here.

Rumor has it Elle's dad, Linc, and Geordie have bought hundreds of fireworks to put on a show from the barge they'd explicitly rented for this purpose.

I can tell Elle's happy to have some female company, with Tess and Steph away, she's been on her own with us. I smile, thinking back over the past weeks. Man, we have been a handful.

Theo's need for action and thirst for excitement, and adrenaline drives most of our activities, so we've been pushing the limits harder than usual.

More often than not, I find that I'm looking out for Elle, making sure she feels okay about what we're doing. I know it's not like the others don't care, but their recklessness and daredevil ways, mingled with excitement might be clouding their judgment, just a little. It feels good to be the one who looks out for her, and it pulls me back to a simpler time, where she'd always trusted me to do just that, to hold her hand if she was scared, pick her up when she fell.

Elle's always been cautiously adventurous, but these past weeks we've pushed her. We've taken her cliff jumping on multiple occasions, Hud's been teaching her to waterski and wakeboard, Theo taught her how to do a backflip from the deck of her boathouse. She probably did fifty belly, back and side flops in the process, her body bright red from slapping the water. Theo even chased Elle across the dock with a snake he'd caught, forcing her to dive into the water to escape.

She hadn't been able to check the temperature, and we'd all felt the chill of her frosty attitude for hours afterwards.

I laugh to myself at this memory. She'd been less than pleased. I'd been more pleased when at the end of it, she'd hidden from Theo, using my body as her shelter.

I've also watched Hud practice the ski tricks with her, tossing her up in the air, twisting her, catching her on the water trampoline by his place. He's serious about wanting to get her into the ski tower. She's small enough, and athletic enough, to manage, she's just so damn shaky on the skis.

Shaky might even be giving her too much credit at this point. Then again, if she's part of the tower, or just doing acrobatics with Hud, she won't need skis, she just needs confidence and trust in Hud. The trust she has in spades, it's the confidence with the tricks, and in herself that needs work.