Page 59 of Wild About You
When he gets to the ground, we run over to the flag, and our second-place finish is official. We don’t hug or high-five. Finn is a frown away from the most sullen I’ve ever seen him, back when we first got paired up. But this time, I don’t know if it’ll get better.
* * *
“Your partner just growled at his half-eaten veggie burger before throwing the rest into the fire. You know anything about that?”
I look up at Harper from my perch. Like Finn only a few long days ago, I’ve settled onto my own log of loneliness at tonight’s campsite, apart from the rest of the group around the fire. Harper’s features shift from amused to worried at whatever’s on my face.
“He’s mad at me because I tried to switch partners,” I say, crunching my uneaten potato chips between my fingers over the plate on my lap. It’s the bubble-wrap-popping kind of therapeutic, in that it’s not very helpful but gives me something to do with my hands.
“Oh good, because that’s what I really wanted to ask about, but I didn’t want to just dive right in,” she says, taking a seat a couple feet down the log. “What was up with that?”
A sad smile pulls at my lips and I brush chip crumbs off my fingers before leaning back onto my palms. “I thought it’s what he would want, too.”
“Why? Weren’t you all friends at this point?” Her usually flat tone is animated enough to suggest I’ve truly baffled her.
I consider how much to divulge. Finn and I had decided at the hotel that we wouldn’t tell anyone we were teammates who kiss, not wanting others’ opinions or TV cameras involved in this brand new thing. But if the thing isn’t even a thing anymore, does it matter? I’ve always told Reese and Clara every detail of my relationships from start to finish, and now that a similar, if newer, friend has sort of kind of asked, it’s occurring to me how much I want to spill. So with a sigh, I begin.
“We were possibly a little bit more than friends.”
If I’m expecting a dramatic pause or gasp, I’m let down. Harper’s reply is instantaneous. “Whew, I’m glad that’s out there, because I totally thought so, but I wasn’t going to make you talk about it if you wanted to pretend otherwise.”
I’m the one who gasps now. “Harper!” I gently swat her arm, catching her mischievous eyes and unrepentant smile. “From now on, why don’t you just come right out with what you want to know, okay? In fact, if you have anything else on deck, now’s your chance.”
I wait a few moments with my most patient, expectant face, and she seems to think about it before shaking her head. “Nope, that was all. Carry on. More than friends and stuff.”
So, I tell her everything. The whole progression of Finn’s and my relationship, from its glacially chilly beginnings to the fiery peaks of mini golf and hotel beds, all the way to when I threw a bucket of cold mountain creek water on our undefined more-than-friendship today. I don’t go into everything Finn and I have revealed to each other, but I do let her in on my anxiety issues, how they started during the school year and have followed me all through this experience. Harper seems to get the gist. And she’s observed plenty on her own, more than I could’ve realized.
“Oh, I knew it was gonna happen from that day we went swimming. You guys have it all—forced proximity, grumpy-sunshine, there’s-only-one-tent. Romance was inevitable,” she deadpans.
“I didn’t know you were a romance reader too!”
“Of course,” she says. “All the bad bitches are.”
A good point. But I replay her words. Were we really inevitable? Should I have seen it all coming?
“I don’t think I’ve been very sunshiny recently.” I draw a circle in the dirt with the toe of my boot. Add two eyes and a frown. “Maybe that’s our problem. Now we’re just grumpy-grumpy.”
“You didn’t ruin shit,” Harper retorts. “Hard as you’ve tried to. Pushing him to get another teammate and all. How did you ever think he would choose switch?”
“I’ve been holding him back!” I cry. “We both know it! He said as much when he more or less warned me that we were going to lose.”
When I look over at her, Harper is shaking her head, looking thoughtful. “I wasn’t there for the conversation, of course, but it sounds like he also told you how awesome you are and how much he likes you. But obviously the hurtful stuff is going to burrow deeper in your brain. And because you, like me, have anxiety, you’re going to overanalyze any criticism to hell and back until you’ve convinced yourself it’s way worse than it actually is, and you’re way worse than you actually are, and everything is terrible and there’s no hooooope…Am I on the right track?”
My mouth hangs open. “I—it’s not—” I blow out a defeated breath. “Maybe. You have anxiety too?”
“Of course. All the bad bitches do.”
That gets a real laugh out of me, and she smiles before continuing. “I’ve learned to manage it all right—moments of losing my shit at the top of an observation tower notwithstanding—and from what it sounds like, it’s still pretty new to you. But I promise it doesn’t have to be so terrifying and control everything in your life forever. Your brain’s not a broken thing to fix, it just has some extra features to figure out. If you want, when we get out of here, I can tell you about finding my therapist and experiences with medicine. But I also know people who swear by meditation and mindfulness stuff.” She shrugs. “Point is, you don’t have to navigate it all alone.”
My crying reflex is on a hair trigger right now, and that’s what sets it off again. Through halting, weepy speech, I try to convey that I’m not crying because I’m sad; it just means a lot that she’s there for me. I don’t think she understands half the words, but Harper pulls me in for a hug that’s warmer than anything I’d expect from someone who definitely told me she wasn’t into hugging, letting me get the shoulder of her Unlikable Female Character shirt all wet and snotty and a little mascara-stained.
“I can get these out,” I say when I’ve composed myself, pointing to the black smudges. “Let me take it home with me after this, and I’ll ship it back to you.”
Harper dismisses this with a hand wave. “Not important. You feeling better? Healthy release of emotions done you some good?”
“A little,” I sniffle. “Thank you for letting me dump all this on you and being so nice to me. You didn’t have to do, well, any of it. I mean, we’re technically competitors. You could’ve been like, ‘Fuck you, I hope you do have an anxious breakdown that knocks you out of the running!’ ”
She looks at me like I’ve sprouted a second head. “Well, that would make me a horrible person. And an even worse friend.”