Trust Me Read online

  And if I was leading him…

  To keep myself distracted from those thoughts, I kept taking pictures of all the interesting things we passed. A rabbit hiding in the brush. A web with a humongous spider on it. An occasional brightly colored flower.

  Finally, it was just Sean and me.

  “Figure out who is going to lead who,” Ed said. He patted my shoulder. “Good luck getting back.”

  He walked off.

  “That had an ominous ring to it,” Sean said.

  “I can’t believe they’re just leaving us out here.”

  “Honestly? I don’t think we’re that far from camp. He was circling around, trying to make us think we’d walked a long way.” He shrugged, pointed. “But it’s just over there. Go ahead and cover your eyes with the bandanna.”

  I stared at him. “And why do I get to be blindfolded?”

  “Because I was paying attention to where we were going, while you were distracted taking pictures.”

  “Sean—”

  “I know. You don’t trust me. The thing is, Jessica, I don’t trust you, either. Not when it comes to following a trail that you weren’t paying any attention to.”

  That hurt. I couldn’t believe how much it hurt. To not be trusted. I didn’t deserve that. I hadn’t done anything to earn his not trusting me.

  I turned around, looked at the area where Ed had disappeared. No toilet paper to mark the path.

  Sighing, I pulled the bandanna through my fingers.

  “Come on, Jessica,” Sean said. “It’ll be getting dark soon.”

  I looked over at him. “You know the way back?”

  He nodded.

  What did I have to lose? And who knew? Maybe I’d gain something. I tied the bandanna around my head so my eyes were covered.

  “All right, Sean,” I said. “Prove to me that I can trust you.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “We’re lost! I don’t freaking believe this!” I turned around slowly. Nothing looked familiar. But then I wasn’t on a first-name basis with trees. And that’s all that surrounded me. Big, towering trees.

  I saw no trail, no lake, no cabins.

  No sunlight. Only the dim glow of Sean’s flashlight. It was night!

  “I’m not believing this,” I repeated. I glared at Sean. “Why didn’t you say something sooner?”

  “Because I thought I’d find the way,” he said, seriously irritated.

  I couldn’t figure out why he was irritated. I was the one who had trusted him…. Whoa! No, I hadn’t completely trusted him. And my lack of trust was apparently well deserved.

  “What now, Daniel Boone?” I asked. I plopped down on a hollow log. “Weren’t we supposed to be back before dark?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you think they’re looking for us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I looked at him suspiciously. “This isn’t one of your tricks, is it? You know, like the snake in my bed?”

  “I wish.”

  He sounded seriously bummed out.

  I worked my backpack off my shoulders and removed the water bottle from the side pocket. I drank some water and then held the bottle out to Sean.

  He shook his head.

  “Look, you don’t want to get dehydrated,” I said.

  “I’ll take some when I’m really thirsty.”

  “Fine.” I put the bottle back. Then I flicked my wrist to turn on the indigo light on my dad’s watch and looked at the compass. “Do you even know if we need to go north or south?”

  “Not really.”

  I glared at him. “My mom always gives my dad a hard time, saying that men have this gene that prevents them from asking for directions.” I shook my head. “You should have told me we were lost. I could have taken the blindfold off earlier and helped you figure out where we were.”

  “That would have been cheating,” he said absently, looking around the small clearing.

  I stared at him, knocked the side of my head a couple of times, pretending to clear water out of my ears. “Excuse me? Cheating Sean was worried about cheating?”

  “Can you get over that already? I told you I’ve changed.”

  “You also said you had a good reason for doing what you did. Well, I can’t think of a better reason than survival. But this afternoon, you wouldn’t cheat? Explain that one, Einstein.”

  He said nothing. But it made no sense. He would cheat to win a game, but not to survive?

  He started gathering up limbs and sticks. Then he put them in the middle of the clearing.

  “Are you going to build a fire?” I asked.

  “Just a little one. Maybe someone will see it. If nothing else, it’ll keep us warm.”

  Not that it was really cold or anything, but it was a bit cooler than it had been earlier in the day. And having a fire would allow us to turn off our flashlights and save our battery power. Who knew what the night would bring or when we might get rescued or find our way back to camp?

  I shoved myself to my feet and began to help him. We worked in silence for a long time, until we had a pile of dried branches, leaves, and twigs in place, surrounded by a tight ring of rocks so the fire wouldn’t spread. Sean crouched down and began rubbing two twigs together.

  I’d always heard about people starting fires by rubbing two sticks together, but watching Sean, I realized it was a lot of work, and sparks didn’t instantly appear.

  “Do you know what you’re doing?” I asked.

  “Sorta. Friction is supposed to create heat that will start a fire.”

  I reached into my backpack and took out a small box of matches. I struck a match and lit the leaves we’d placed beneath some twigs. They caught fire immediately. By the time they’d burned, the smaller twigs were flaming.

  I figured that, before long, we’d have a full-fledged campfire.

  Sean dropped back. He didn’t look too happy. “You could have told me you had matches.”

  “You could have told me we were lost.”

  He withdrew a stick from the pile before it caught fire and began to make X’s on the ground. “I was embarrassed, okay? I knew you didn’t trust me to get you back to camp. I wanted to prove…” His voice trailed off. He sighed.

  What did he want to prove? That he could be trusted? Had he really changed that much? I hated to admit that, if not for last summer, I might have developed a serious crush on this guy. He was cute, seemed nice, dependable, made me smile, and sometimes made me laugh. But I’d fallen for that routine before.

  Still, I felt really bad that, for whatever reason, he’d tried to go it alone. “I’ve got a great sense of direction,” I said lamely.

  “I know. That’s the reason your team always wins Capture the Flag.”

  “Is that why you cheated?” I asked.

  He didn’t say anything, but that wasn’t a good reason: jealousy. But weren’t cheaters and liars the same? Could you have one without the other?

  “Maybe if I climb a tree I’ll be able to see the lights of our dormitory,” I suggested.

  Sean stood up. “That’s a good idea, but I thought you were afraid of heights.”

  “I’m not too crazy about jumping from heights. But I can climb a tree. No sweat.”

  Only none of the branches were low enough for me to reach. It was my being vertically challenged interfering again. I knew without even pondering it that Sean was going to climb a tree. Just hop up and go.

  And that irritated me.

  He reached for a branch.

  “It was my idea,” I said.

  Sean stared at me over his shoulder. “So? You can’t reach a branch and I can.”

  “Boost me up.”

  “You’re going to trust me to boost you up?”

  Did I trust him? It was strange. I didn’t trust him, but I did trust that at this point he’d do whatever he needed to in order to get us out of this. At least now that survival was a real issue, and he’d realized the error of his ways. But even I separated tru