Inri finds her just after sunset, poking idly at the cooling embers of someone's abandoned campfire.
"Hey - haven't seen you much today."
"Yeah... I've kind of been staying away from camp. I've been thinking about a bunch of things.
"Want to talk about it?"
"I dunno that I can. It's all just so weird. I just needed a little time to figure out what I thought about it, you know?"
"Sort of. I mean, I imagine that a lot of this..." Inri waves her hand vaguely in the direction of the loudest noise at the moment, "seems... wrong? Is that it?"
"No! Well, sort of. Not quite though. It's more like... ever since my mom left, I've been wondering whether she left to get away from Dad, or whether she was trying to get to someplace that felt better for her. I mean, I don't really want to just get married to some guy and have a whole pile of kids, but that's just what you *do* in Gerberville."
"And this almost feels like too many possibilities."
"Yeah. I mean, I ain't going back, but I don't know where I do want to go or what I want to do when I get there. I don't wanna keep you all from doing whatever it was you were going to do after this, but... I got nowhere else to go. And I feel like I'm running out of time, like something's going to happen and I won't have any choice at all once it does. Does that sound totally crazy?"
"Actually, no. No it doesn't. And I don't really know what to tell you, because I don't want to be someone else telling you what you should do. But the fact that you're thinking about it, instead of just trying to avoid it, is probably a good sign. And we're not going to just leave you here or drop you off somewhere in California, because aside from the fact that it would be a really shitty thing to do, we like you. Our plans are open-ended enough that you're not going to be in the way, however long you decide to stick around, okay?"
"Okay. Thanks, Inri."
"Hey, no problem. You want to head back and cook up some cheese dogs on the fire?"
"Sure. That sounds great."
* * * * * * * *
So after that I felt a little better, even though I still didn't know what I wanted to do. And the big thing, when it happened, just opened things up even more.
But that was later on. We went back and the boys looked relieved to see us, so I guess they did like me, at least enough to worry. And everything looked better after a couple of cheese dogs and a whole mess of s'mores. I felt kind of goopy though, so I got some change out of my purse and went to grab a drink from the lemon-head guy. When I was standing there, though, one of the guys from Fata's camp came up and started talking to me.
"Getting some lemonade, hey?"
Which was kind of a stupid question, since that's all Lemon-head sold, but I suppose he was just making small talk.
"Want some tea instead? Not like hot tea - cold. Like what you had at Fata's the other night."
And all of a sudden that was all I wanted.
[TBC]
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