“No,” Hailey giggled, slapping him. “I can’t say that!”
“I set you up for the burn and everything,” Grant shook his head. “All you had to do was take it!”
“I can’t stand you!” Hailey giggled.
“I can’t stand you more!” Grant replied as he stared back at her in awe.
Hailey laughed. “Come-on,” she said, grabbing Grant’s arm, “I have to show you something.” Hailey led Grant around back to the barn. “See those woods?” she pointed.
Grant nodded as he glanced at the brush behind the barn.
“I want to show you something back there,” Hailey said, pulling him along with her. The fall night was illuminated by flood lights on the sides of the old barn.
“Wait,” Grant said, stopping short of the trees. “First, there is something I want to tell you.”
Hailey looked into Grant’s eyes, waiting to hear whatever he had to say.
“You asked me if what we had at camp was just a careless fling,” Grant said in a tone less guarded than Hailey had ever heard him use. “The truth is…I never sent the letter I wrote you because it was so honest it scared me.”
“What did it say?” Hailey asked softly.
Grant thought for a moment. “It said that the two weeks I spent with you were the best of my entire life. It said that I thought about you, and I missed you, and I hoped you would forgive me for disappearing like I did.”
“Why didn’t you want me to know how you really felt?” Hailey sighed.
“Because,” Grant confessed, “I’ve spent my whole life meeting people and losing touch. I know how to pack up and abandon one life for the next…friendships don’t last…relationships are brief…. I can walk away from anyone and not think twice about it, but, Hails, walking away from you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and thinking I would never see you again…”
“We could have stayed in touch,” Hailey replied. “That’s what I wanted more than anything…that’s what I expected when we left…I never dreamed I wouldn’t hear from you. You were all I thought about.”
“I know,” Grant nodded, “and I can’t tell you how sorry I am Hailey. It’s just that in my world…you cut ties… people always leave. I knew I had to forget you, even though all I wanted to do was see your face again.”
“Did you forget me?” Hailey asked.
“I tried,” Grant replied.
Hailey smiled. “What happened on our last night wasn’t your fault. I’m the one who snuck into your room. I think that’s why I was so angry…I wasn’t angry at you…I was angry at myself. I was angry at myself for being somewhere I had no business being. I was angry that I compromised what I believed in, hoping you wouldn’t leave thinking I was this snow-white picture of innocence who had no idea what she was getting herself into. I was angry that I got caught…angry that we got in trouble…angry that you were upset with me for that reason.”
“I wasn’t upset with you,” Grant assured her. “It’s just that my natural reaction when confronted has always been to blame somebody else, so that’s what I did; I was wrong to let you take all the blame. I have to start taking responsibility for my own actions and stop blaming others…it’s what I wish I had done that night.”
“If my dad knew about this…” Hailey sighed.
“We were just kissing,” Grant smiled.
“Trust me,” Hailey laughed. “My dad paid a lot of money for me to go to camp and polish my basketball skills, not my make-out skills…he would definitely kill me…and you!”
Grant laughed as he looked toward the woods. “What was it you wanted to show me?” he asked.
Grant followed Hailey through the woods in the dark.
“You can’t tell anyone this is back here,” she said as she made her way past tree branches she seemed to know by heart but Grant struggled to navigate. “It’s my secret spot.”
“Your secret spot?” Grant laughed. “You have a secret spot?”
“There it is,” Hailey pointed.
Grant stared up at the faultily constructed contraption in the tree in front of him. There was a row of wooden pegs nailed into the trunk of the tree, and they led up to a shoddily crafted shack. Its crooked, splintery boards looked as though they could collapse at any time, and Grant found himself pondering how this hangout, this secret spot, had managed to survive wind, rain and snow.
“I don’t know whose tree house it was,” Hailey said as Grant examined the rotting wood, “but ever since I found it when I was playing back here as a kid, it has been my hideout. It’s where I come when I’m mad, sad, confused…so I spent a good bit of time up here last summer.”
Grant touched the bottom rung of the ladder, almost sure it would crumble at his touch.
“Go on up,” Hailey pointed. “There’ll be a flashlight on your right.”
“Hailey!” Grant protested. “If you think I am about to crawl up into this little safety hazard of yours…”
“It’s stronger than it looks,” Hailey promised.
Against what he knew was his better judgment, Grant climbed up the ladder in the dark, crawled into the tree house and felt around for the flashlight. He shinned it on the wall, and a giant grin stretched across his face as he read the words written across the wall in big, bold, red letters: I HATE GRANT COHEN.
“Nice touch!” he called.
“Mature, huh?” Hailey laughed as she started up the ladder.
“I like it,” Grant nodded. “It’s challenging; it’s got personality…just like you.”
Hailey poked her head into the tree house entrance, and Grant helped her inside, praying the secret hideout didn’t collapse under both their weight.
Grant and Hailey sat cross-legged across from one another, and Hailey blinked as Grant playfully shined the flashlight in her face. “Stop it,” she giggled as she lunged for his hand, and they found their lips inches apart.
