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As the van’s heavy wheels groaned to a stop on the gravel path below, Kelly felt her heart perform a somersault in excitement. Or at least, she was fairly sure that was excitement. It must have been, because finally, at long last, her and Ari were doing the very thing she had requested all the way back on their first date. A true, proper camping trip!
Ari, having been a girl scouts member since she was eight, had been camping several times before. She had mentioned as much to Kelly on their very first date, and as such, Kelly had always been so intrigued to see what that might be like. Both the activity of camping, and her girlfriend’s no doubt amazing skills at said activity. After all, Kelly had taught Ari how to ice skate (sort of), so now it was Ari’s turn to teach Kelly the wonders of the outdoors.
Popping open the passenger seat door, Kelly hopped out. Her boots collided with the rough dirt beside the path they had parked on. Within an instant, she was hit with the whiff of pine trees and everglades slamming into her senses, creating an instant moment of sensory wonder. It was weird, Kelly thought, what a little outdoors could do for someone like her. Someone always so caught up in the hustle and bustle of suburban life, so to be so far from it all at long last, why it was practically… it was…
A little scary, actually.
Huh, that was new. Probably not anything to worry about however, as Kelly made her way back to the end of the van, to meet her driver and girlfriend already popping the trunk open. Ari turned to her, her vibrant periwinkle eyes glowing with anticipation as her smile widened further than Kelly thought had previously been possible for a smile to reach.
“Thanks!” Ari said, catching Kelly off guard as she swooped in for a massive bear hug.
“Woah- heh!” Kelly laughed as a bit of air was punched out of her lungs by the hug. “What’d I do to deserve this?”
“Mmph,” Ari mumbled into Kelly’s neck, before pulling back to smile even brighter at her. “Well, first off, you agreed to the camping trip with me.”
“Agreed? I think I practically begged.” Kelly laughed as Ari turned back to the trunk and began to pull out various camping equipment.
“Well, bonus points in that case,” Ari laughed, passing a rolled up tent to Kelly. “Then second, and far more importantly as to why you earned that hug…” Ari said, plopping another tent-roll on the ground next to her as she turned back to Kelly. “Is because I had to drive five hours without getting to hug you in that entire timeframe. Consider that interest.”
“Pft, that’s cheesy.” Kelly giggled.
“What? No it’s not, it’s sweet!” Ari smirked, closing the trunk and picking up her tent and backpack.
“Something can be both sweet and cheesy at the same time, Ari.”
“Yeah?” Ari asked, taking the lead off of the main path, “name one cheese that actually tastes sweet.”
“Norwegian Gjetost!” Kelly announced confidently, causing Ari to stop in her tracks and give her a look.
“The hell is that?”
“The sweetest cheese! Or at least, what most people consider to be the sweetest.”
Ari stared at her, dumbfounded, before a giggle overtook her, “where you learn these weird facts, I will never know.” She said, turning back to lead the way, an equally giddy Kelly following behind.
Traversing past trees, and rocks, and other epitaphs of nature left long standing to mark their way, Ari expertly managed to weave them through until they finally arrived at a clearing. As Kelly stepped through the last of the brush, she felt as though she must have left her breath behind, as upon looking out at the scene before her, she found she was truly breathless.
A wide, vast clearing that led down into a massive lake. Mountains in the distance catching the sunlight, and trees spilling along the edge of the lake all around. Then, just where they were standing, a large enough plot of land for them to pitch tents, start a fire, and do whatever else it was typical to do during a camping trip. Hell, Kelly even saw a perfect overhang for fishing, which Ari had been sure to note as a highlight of the trip.
Kelly tried to manage a woah, but all that happened to come out was a strange sort of gasping as she stepped forward, placing her box down at her feet to fully take in the wonders ahead.
“This is…” Kelly trailed off.
“Gorgeous?” Ari finished.
Kelly nodded, turning back to Ari with a wide grin. “Yeah,” she nodded. “That’s a good word for it.”
As Kelly sat on the rough ground, she found herself, somehow, at peace. Or at least, as close to peace as she was ever going to find. The fishing rod held lazily in her hand as she laid back against a perfectly placed tree, that Ari was also leaning against with her own rod in hand. The smell of the water below wafted up to her nostrils, combining with the faint and usually distasteful smell of bug spray, that for some reason just felt like the perfect combination today.
She and Ari had finished pitching the tents about an hour ago (with great effort on Kelly’s part), and both had made their way to what Ari had referred to as the ideal fishing spot. Kelly, trusting Ari’s judgement, had agreed to the activity, even despite every instance of fishing she had been unlucky to partake in previously having been the most boring slog imaginable. Yet today, as she sat there, rod held firmly now in her grasp, she couldn’t help but see the point.
“You know,” Kelly lazed, staring out at the water ahead. “I used to not really get the appeal of fishing.”
“No?” Ari cocked her head to the side.
“It was always just so… boring.”
“Yeah, I feel that honestly,” Ari laughed, “it’s all about finding the right spot. Somewhere that you can just kinda, exist in, y’know? What my dad always used to say was to find something amazing to stare at, something you don’t mind staring at for hours on end, and you’re set.” Ari nodded towards the mountains ahead, before turning back to Kelly.
“Yeah,” Kelly hummed, glancing over to meet Ari’s gaze. “I think I get what you mean.”
“Cheeky.” Ari smirked, raising her elbow to nudge Kelly slightly, before her other hand was suddenly yanked in the opposite direction by the rod. “Oh!” Ari yelped out.
“Oh?!” Kelly yelped in unison.
“OH!!!” Ari affirmed, a mad grin overtaking her face as she shot to her feet, clutching the rod with both hands. “I’ve got something!”
And sure enough, her rod had indeed hooked something. Clenching her rod with an iron grip, she moved her left hand to the small winch and began to wildly twist it, all the while pulling the rod back over her head. For a second, Kelly half expected her to unearth some form of ancient megaladon from the energy Ari was exerting just to keep a grip on her rod, but ultimately that proved futile. After a moment more, whatever hindrance her line seemed to have hit disappeared, and suddenly out of the water shot…
Nothing. An empty hook, no bait, and certainly no fish left on it.
“Drat.” Ari grumbled, before she turned to face Kelly. It took Kelly a moment to realize that was likely because she had started laughing, and soon, Ari joined in. The giggling fit that overtook the both of them lasted for a good minute, until they eventually found themselves once again leaning against the tree, their laughter dying into the afternoon air, and Kelly’s rod still seeking something in the waters below as Ari attached a new worm to her own hook.
“So, what do you think are the odds we’ll actually catch anything today?” Kelly smirked back to Ari.
“Unless you’re a secret fishing master, probably zilch. I’m terrible at it.” Ari chuckled, standing up so as to cast her rod over her shoulder, before flinging its hook out into the open waters ahead. “Sorta why I said the main location is so important,” she breathed, sitting back down beside Kelly. “Cuz the activity itself doesn’t tend to offer much on its own. I mean, I’ll be shocked if we even have another bite, much less…” Ari trailed off, her voice caught, “ooh OOH!! Speak of the devil, look at that!” Ari shouted, pointing out forward at the distant mountains. Following her finger, Kelly glanced up to see that the sun was finally beginning to set against the far mountains, the hazy orange glow being reflected across the waters.
“It’s gorgeous!” Kelly breathed, her eyes held captive by the sight ahead. And while that was true, it was a definitively breathtaking sight, there was still something deep inside of Kelly, something very much like dread sitting deep in her chest. Waiting for the perfect moment to rise up.
The prior scene filled with water, and greenery, was now replaced by a vibrant flickering orange amongst browns. The scent of burning wood now meeting and melding with the prior one of the lake and trees as Ari managed to finally get the fire going in the safely picked out spot of assorted logs and firewood. As the flame crackled to life, instantly the darkening trees around them seemed to dance with the newfound life. Kelly took her seat on a log opposite the side of the fire that Ari had pitched herself at, pulling open the bag of marshmallows, as Ari passed her a stick upon which said marshmallows would soon be impaled.
“So,” Ari mused, holding her own captive marshmallow over the open flame. “How’s it been so far?”
“Hm?” Kelly glanced up, “oh yeah! It’s been fun!”
“Just fun?”
“Amazing, then.” Kelly leaned forward towards the flame, the flickering dance catching her eyes.
“So,” Ari asked, also leaning forward. “When’s the part where we start telling each other spooky stories?”
“Uh,” Kelly leaned back slightly, her marshmallow dipping down deeper towards the flames. “I dunno, do you have any prepared?”
“Hmm,” Ari glanced up towards the treeline above them, clearly trying to assemble one in real time. “What about… a tree that, like, eats people…?”
“What, does the tree have a full digestive track too?” Kelly smirked, watching Ari’s face further contort to make some sense of logic out of her elevator pitch of a campfire story.
“Uhhh, yeah actually, throw some body horror in there. Someone tries to stab the tree, and it just starts gushing blood!” She looked back down to Kelly, a fierce smile overtaking her face as she fully embraced the absurdity of her story now. “Then, THEN, the tree like, uh, gets up on its big tree legs.”
“Tree legs?” Kelly snorted, her eyes fully leaving the flame and marshmallow now to observe Ari.
“Yup, big wooden stilts jutting out from its trunk, and it stomps around and, like, attacks people!” Ari flapped her hands about to demonstrate the chaos of her tree story.
“Is this a campfire story, or a godzilla story?”
“Uh,” Ari leaned back, still deep in thought. “Y’know what?”
“What?”
“Both!” She smiled. “Cuz then Godzilla comes up from the water and he roars, and the tree monster roars, and BOOM!” Ari barely managed to reach the end of her story before she broke into a fit of laughter, with Kelly, not one to lag behind, joining in. It was stupid, it was dumb, but it was also idiotic. So all in all, a success.
“Right, right,” Ari finally managed to calm herself down, wiping a tear from her eye as she looked back at Kelly. “For real though, have you got any scary stories?”
“Uh, none from me.” Kelly glanced to the side, taking in the ominous forest around her. Almost as soon as the laughter had died, she felt that uneasy weight return to her chest. Like something gnawing away at her.
Glancing back to Ari, Kelly noticed that her face looked almost a little worried, her brows lowering slightly to give her eyes an extra sense of curiosity, but she seemed to snap out of it quick enough at Kelly’s smile. “Right, well, it is probably getting late.” Ari nodded, glancing over to the two tents they had set up.
Both were small, single person tents. Nothing fancy, but cheap, easy to carry, and effective at their purpose. Kelly glanced at hers, that unease still boiling away inside of her, but she managed to stuff it down again with another trademark smile.
“We’ll be perfectly safe out here,” Ari looked back to Kelly, a reassuring glint in her eyes. “No bears, no wildlife worth worrying about, well, unless you’re scared of owls.” She grinned, retrieving her own stick from the flame, and biting into her perfectly golden marshmallow.
“Oh no, the most terrifying of birds.” Kelly joked back, finally reeling in her own stick as Ari chuckled slightly. But as Kelly looked down to her marshmallow, she found it had perhaps fallen too close to the flame, as it was blackened and charred.
“Mmh, you want the rest of mine?” Ari offered, noticing the charcoal lump on Kelly’s stick. “It’s tricky to get these right sometimes, my dad was always better at it.”
“No need,” Kelly said, hiding her wince as she bit into the blackened marshmallow. “I like the crunch.”
Ari nodded, staring at her with that same air of worry, but ultimately didn’t press the issue. So as the fire continued to crackle, Kelly reassured herself. This was going to be fine, everything was fine, she had no reason to be worrying now, and this wouldn’t be so bad.
This was bad, Kelly thought to herself as she turned over again in her rough sleeping bag. She had been giving proper sleep a go for a good hour now, probably less than that truth be told, but it certainly felt like an hour. This was strange, Kelly never had trouble sleeping before. Well, at least it certainly wasn’t common. She was the type to have trained herself to fall asleep on practically any surface. Years of being the go-to party host will do that to you. Beds, couches, floors even, you name it, It was a surface Kelly could comfortably find herself asleep on.
But for some reason, this was different. All things considered, the sleeping bag was rather comfy, but she could still feel the roughness of the ground below the tent, and for some reason that stuck in her brain more than the flat surface of a floor ever did. Twisting and turning to try and find a comfortable spot, proved only to further make her experience more uncomfortable.
For some reason, and one that eluded Kelly, she just couldn’t get comfy in her tent. She tried analyzing her own thoughts, trying to see if anything specific was keeping her awake and yet, she came up blank. Her throat felt as if it had closed itself off, her heart as if it were trying to burst through her ribcage, and her whole body shivering despite the rather warm temperature.
Then, suddenly, a noise. And before Kelly even had a chance to clock what it was, she found her whole body jumping with fright, shifting upwards from her bag and staring at the wall of the tent in sheer terror until her brain finally had a moment to recognize the noise.
A hoot. The hoot of an owl. She had just jumped, at an owl.
“Jesus,” she muttered under her breath, bringing a hand to her forehead. “What the hell is wrong with me tonight?”
Then, another noise, but this one was certainly not an owl. Something scritching away outside of the tent, at ground level, and then, scratching at the tent surface. Immediately, Kelly felt her skin go cold, goosebumps popping up along her arms as she froze in place, staring in terror at the side of the tent the noise was coming from. Then, with added horror, she realized the sounds were moving. Further up the side of the tent, and closer to the zipped entrance which Kelly only just realized was not actually fully zipped shut.
Well, if nothing else, that explained the draft.
Physically kicking herself back to the edge of the tent, gripping the top of the sleeping bag as though it were the only thing anchoring her, she stared, eyes as wide as dinner plates, towards the noise as it stopped for but a moment, and then, something broke through. The small opening at the bottom of the zipper entrance was filled as something popped into the tent, and immediately, Kelly found she was letting out a loud shriek.
A loud shriek that died in her throat as soon as, this time her eyes, caught up with her brain. A squirrel. A tiny, little squirrel, now staring at her in pure horror, before scampering back the way it had come and running off into the dark.
“Ohmyfuckinggod,” Kelly breathed out, her throat dry from the scream. “I’m losing it.”
And then, finally, one more noise to interrupt her night, followed by one more thing bursting into her tent. Quickly unzipping the door, Ari burst in, a panicked breathing as she stared at Kelly, half with worry, and half with just plain confusion.
“Kelly?” Ari asked between pants, “what happened? Are you okay?”
“Uh,” Kelly mouthed, “sorry.”
“Sorry? What for?”
“For, uh, screaming.”
“You’re fine just, uh, what happened?”
“I’m uh,” Kelly paused, trying to think of what exactly had just happened. “I don’t… know…”
Ari’s face glanced around the tent again, as if looking for some signs of something worth worrying about beyond just Kelly herself. Seeming content with the lack of bears or monsters, she looked back to Kelly with a warm if not bewildered smile. Then, without another word, she walked over to where Kelly was still curled up in the corner of the tent, turned around, and plopped herself down right next to her. Leaning onto Kelly slightly, and letting the warmth of her body flow onto the still shivering Kelly.
“Jesus, you’re shivering. You do know it’s a summer night, right?”
“Yeah it’s just, uh, I’m not so sure my body has realized that yet.” Kelly half-laughed, and Ari leaned her head further onto Kelly’s shoulder. Kelly, in turn, rested her head on top of Ari’s mop of red hair, and finally she felt her shivering starting to die down.
There was a long pause, the silence settling, and the warmth spreading. Kelly took in a breath, and then let it back out.
“You’re…” Kelly began slowly, “amazing.”
Ari tilted her head ever so slightly, so that her large purple eyes could look up towards Kelly, but not enough so as to shake her head off of her own. “I’m really not.”
“No but, you are. All this stuff you can do, how easily you can do it.”
“What? Camping?”
“Well, yeah, but like… I dunno… You just keep going. You keep being amazing, meanwhile I’m here jumping at owls and squirrels.”
Kelly prepared herself to wince, expecting that anyone would make at least a small jab at her over the owl thing, especially given earlier, and yet the jab never came. It was only then that Kelly remembered, Ari wasn’t just anyone.
“You know,” Ari spoke up, her voice soothing and soft. “The first time I went camping, I wasn’t any good at it either.”
Kelly bit her tongue to prevent the cliche utterance of the word, “really?”
“Yeah,” Ari responded to the word Kelly hadn’t realized she had still said out loud. “I was terrified too. My first trip, when I was eight years old, I got lost in these very woods. I wandered out, probably looking for some firewood, and got turned around.”
Ari paused, and Kelly shifted the weight of her head slightly, asking her to continue.
“Well, I recalled the safety instructions, you know the ones, ‘stay still until you're found’ and all that. Don’t wander any further. So I stood there, then I sat there, and then I cried. It felt like hours and hours to me at the time, but turns out it was closer to five minutes before my dad found me.” Ari giggled slightly at the memory. “He picked me up, brought me back to camp, and gave me an extra marshmallow for good measure.”
Kelly hummed her response, her hand slowly finding Ari’s, which she was happy to find had been searching for hers too.
“But I used to hate all of it,” Ari said, holding Kelly’s hand in her own. “The bugs, the trees, the weather, everything about it. I mean I used to get mad, and I mean mad whenever I couldn’t get the tent pitched properly.”
“What changed?” Kelly finally asked.
Ari hummed for a moment, considering her response. “After I got back,” she finally settled on, “from my first trip I mean. After returning, I felt… strong? Yeah, yeah I felt strong.”
“You are strong.” Kelly nuzzled her nose into Ari’s hair, earning another giggle from the redhead.
“Yeah, well, even if that’s true I certainly never felt it at the time. Except for then. I was proud I guess, I mean I managed to do it. I had braved the elements. So while I hated every second of the trip at the time, almost immediately upon returning home to the normality of it all, the only thing I wanted was to go back. So we did, me and my dad. The next year we went back out, and suddenly I found that I loved it. The outdoors, the smells, the sights, all of it.”
“The sorta thing you didn’t realize you’d miss, until it was already gone?”
“Yeah, basically. From there, we made it a routine thing. Every year we’d go camping, and as life went on and he got… busier, I started going on my own. It’s become this ritual that I look forward to, despite how it started.”
“Hmm,” Kelly hummed again, leaning her head back off of Ari’s, giving her cause to look up at Kelly. “I’m sorry.”
“What are you apologizing for now?” Ari asked, sitting up and turning her full body to the blonde.
“I ruined it, your trip.”
Ari’s face contorted into one of dumbfounded stupefaction, as if the words Kelly had just spoken were entirely alien to her. “What on earth are you talking about?”
Kelly nodded towards the zipper door, still hanging open. “I overreacted and woke you up.”
Ari continued to stare at Kelly for a moment, before she did the very strangest thing she could do at that moment. She laughed. “Kelly, with all due respect, you’re an idiot. My idiot who I love dearly, but an idiot.”
Kelly glanced back to Ari, her sorrow being replaced entirely by confusion. “Eh?”
Then Ari’s face again wore that familiar smile, but this time so much comfort and warmth emanated from it. “You didn’t ruin anything Kelly, you made this trip for me. I mean, like I said, I used to do it all the time with dad but, well, he hasn’t been able to in recent years with his, y’know, health stuff. But to do it with you, with someone else, that means something. And hell, as far as I’m concerned, getting jumpy at owls is a massive step up from my first time. I mean, at least there aren’t any tears.”
“Well, to be fair,” Kelly finally managed a small chuckle, “I am about a decade older now than you were then.”
“Maybe,” Ari nodded, “but still, you’ve done amazingly. I mean, this is your first time out in the wilderness right? And you’ve kept a smile all day!” then Ari’s face fell slightly, “I’m just sorry if I didn’t quite pick up on the fact you weren’t really as into it as I am.”
“Oh, nonono,” Kelly flapped her hands up, waving them about frantically (and nearly taking Ari’s head off in the process), “I’ve genuinely loved every second of this! Well, up until the owl. I mean, I dunno, I’ve never been so far from home, from my family and… I mean, it’s all just so new to me.”
“The wilderness?”
“Yeah, but also…” Kelly trailed off, looking up to Ari again, and into those glorious purple eyes. Ari seemed to understand then, and again took her spot beside Kelly, leaning into the familiar crook of her neck once more, this time with an arm draped over her shoulder to boot.
“You know,” Ari giggled, “sometimes I think we’re both idiots.”
“You only think that?” Kelly smirked back to her.
“Fair. But you are amazing, you know that?”
“So are you.”
“Then I guess we’re just a pair of amazing idiots.”
Kelly let another laugh escape her, “that’s so cheesy.”
“Yeah, maybe. But it’s also sweet, right?”
“Sure,” Kelly held Ari closer, her eyelids starting to finally grow heavy. “Keep telling yourself that.”
“I think I will do that,” Ari responded, nestling herself up closer into Kelly, forming themselves into a ball, as the two girls finally let themselves drift off into sleep.