Trust Me Read online

  “Tell the truth or take a dare,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Not playing.”

  “Come on, Sean. One question each.”

  “I’ll take a dare every time, Jess.”

  “Because you’re afraid I’ll learn the truth about the map. You know I’ll ask about the map.”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care.” He stood up.

  I scrambled to my feet. “You didn’t swap out the maps. Your brother did. And you lied to protect him. I remember you were talking to him—”

  “Let it go, Jess.”

  “I’m right,” I stated emphatically.

  “What does it matter?”

  “Why would you let me think you were a cheater?”

  “Because that’s what big brothers do.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I’m supposed to look out for him.”

  And I realized that, before Sean’s dad remarried, Sean had never been a big brother to a little brother. To sisters, yes, but not to a brother. He’d been trying to protect Billy.

  “Will you at least confirm that I’m right? I won’t tell anyone. I just…I just always liked you, Sean. Even when you put a snake in my bed.

  “And then you confessed to cheating, and it wasn’t so much that my team lost…it was that I’d started to really like a guy who could do something like that. So not only didn’t I think I could trust you, but how could I trust my own judgment?”

  He dropped his head back, stared at the sky that was beginning to lighten. “You have to promise not to tell.”

  “I promise.”

  “He did some other things last summer. They said if he got into trouble one more time, they’d send him home. He was just a kid, acting out, angry because suddenly he had a dad and an older brother, and he wasn’t the oldest anymore, wasn’t the one in charge.” He shrugged. “At least that’s what the family counselor said.”

  “So you took the blame so they wouldn’t send him home?”

  “Yeah. And so they’d let him come back this summer. Summer camp is the absolute best. And Billy has changed a lot. Like I said, family counselor. He had some anger issues. But he’s basically a good kid.”

  And Sean Reed?

  My instincts had been right. I shouldn’t have stopped trusting them.

  I dangled the blindfold that I’d been wearing the day before. “Maybe you should wear this today.”

  “Maybe we should work together.”

  “Don’t you trust me?” I asked.

  “Jess, seriously. We are way lost.” He looked around. His brow furrowed. “Does any of this look familiar to you?”

  I glanced around. “A little maybe.”

  “I think we’re back where Ed dropped us off.”

  “I’m not sure that information helps us much.”

  He spun around. “You still have the pictures on your phone that you took yesterday?”

  “Why wouldn’t I have them?”

  “You can delete them, right?”

  “I can, but I didn’t.”

  “Great. Show me the last one you took.”

  I pulled out my phone, brought up the picture. Sean looked at it over my shoulder, standing really close to me. That little electric charge went through my body again.

  “There’s Ed,” he said slowly. “Why would you take a picture of Ed?”

  “I was crushing on him.”

  He looked horrified. “Seriously?”

  “No! But he’s part of the camp experience. I like to document my experiences.”

  “Right.” He looked back at the picture. “The tree he was standing in front of is…right there.”

  He pointed across the clearing. Then he spun me around, grinning broadly. “All we have to do is look at your pictures backward and find the same landmarks.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Is that cheating?”

  “It’s genius, Jess. You’re a genius. You discovered a way to mark a trail that’s better than bread crumbs.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far,” I said. “But it doesn’t really matter. Let’s go.”

  We walked until we found the next spot I’d taken a picture of.

  “I don’t understand how we got so lost yesterday,” I said. “You should have had the sun to keep you oriented. It’s not like you’re in the jungles of a rain forest or anything.”

  “I wasn’t in any hurry to get back to camp,” he said.

  “I don’t understand. Once we got back to camp, we’d have the rest of the afternoon to goof off.”

  I saw his jaw tighten. “And you would have goofed off with Liz.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “You’re really thick, Jess.”

  Like an ancient tree.

  “You wanted to spend the time with me?”

  He stopped walking. “Is that so hard to believe?”

  I stepped back and leaned against a tree. “So were you working up the courage to tell me you weren’t a cheat?”

  He leaned back against another tree. “I was never going to tell you that.”

  “Because you didn’t trust me to keep the secret?”

  “Because you don’t trust me. You would have just thought I was lying, trying to score points.”

  I nodded, looked down at my hiking boots, my scraped shins. Scary how alike we were. “Can we agree to be totally honest with each other from now on?”

  “Not totally,” he said. “I’ve got secrets.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret.”

  “You’re crushing on Edna, aren’t you?” I asked as I pushed myself away from the tree.

  “I’m crushing on someone,” he admitted.

  My heart skipped a beat, maybe two, while I watched him shove himself away from the tree. “Let’s see the next picture,” he said.

  I brought the next picture up on the screen, and we started comparing the surrounding area.

  “I think this bush is that bush,” Sean said, pointing west, according to my compass.

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  It was kinda strange to work with Sean instead of against him. To cooperate.

  It was strange but also nice.

  He did have a killer smile. The most beautiful blue eyes.

  And if I was honest with myself—which I usually was—I admired what he’d done for his brother. I wasn’t convinced it had been the best thing for Billy, but who was I to judge? Alex had been my brother since the day he was born. I didn’t know what it felt like to suddenly find yourself with three extra sibs.

  To try to be an older brother to a younger brother.

  “Hey, this is really starting to look familiar,” Sean said. He took a deep breath. “I think I smell bacon.”

  “Here, take my camera,” I said.

  “I don’t think we’re going to need it anymore,” he said. “I’m pretty sure the main camp is…Hey, what are you doing?”

  I was wrapping the bandanna around my head. “You’re supposed to lead me back to camp.”

  I felt his hand circle my wrist. He pulled the bandanna away from my eyes.

  “I’m not going to take credit for something I didn’t do,” he said. “We did this as a team.”

  I smiled at him. I’d really been hoping he’d say that, but I’d been willing to give him the credit if he wanted it. Although what I was starting to feel for him would have come to a grinding halt. Instead I felt it expanding. Scary.

  Before I could say anything, I heard a scream and then—

  “You’re back!”

  I spun around. Liz ran to me, nearly knocked me over, and hugged me tightly.

  “I was so worried!” She leaned back, looked me in the eye. “Are you okay? I wanted to form a search party, but Edna said you were all right—”

  “How did Edna know we were okay?” Sean asked.

  “I don’t know. She said Ed was with you.”

  “Ed?” Sean and I asked at the same time.