Willa

Chapter Forty One: Summers with a little bird

The summer that Harper was fourteen, she came to stay for her first six weeks of summer with me. This would be followed every year after, until she was eighteen and leaving for college. It started with an invitation for her to come to camp with me, where I taught basketball for the summer, and she, as a newbie to the court, loved the challenge and accepted it appreciatively. Harper came to that same camp with me the next two years until she was seventeen, that was when she assisted me to teach instead. Teaching becoming her professional interest, and what she would go to college to become. She was my little personal assistant of sorts, and that was the year I noticed, and perhaps realised, that Harper didn't just come for summers with me. She had quite the crush that I hadn't noticed. I mean I noticed how they were together, they had a wonderful bond and were playful, but never more. I'm not sure if the object of her crush ever saw it, the way she looked at her, but I clocked it that summer she was seventeen. I never did tell anyone, that was Harpers business, and nothing had happened, it was a crush, but it was obviously the moment I learnt she was bi, another thing for her to announce herself. Harper did tell me, that year, and I swore to keep it to myself. I was beyond touched that she felt she could confide in me about big things in her life. Harper never did tell me about the crush though, and I knew the reason why, she was older, and she was not someone I would have happily had her crushing on. It was not because I disliked them, but because I loved them both, and it wouldn't have ended well, not then. Not that it would ever have happened, that relationship, like I say Harper was only seventeen that summer, but I was glad it didn't happen after that either. Harper was so innocent and naive to dating and adult relationships. I didn't want her caught up in casual relationships she longed to go further, because with her crush, I didn't see her settling down, not in the immediate future. No, Harper was destined for college and adult life, without the dramas of young love. I was relieved. The only positive of her being brought up in the church, was that Ben and Allie both kept her to the same dating rules we all had, the appropriate ones for teens, no dating, just friendship groups and getting to know the opposite sex on a friendship level. I bet Ben let her have girlfriends over though, not knowing she was bi, isn't that how we all sneaked a girlfriend past the parents?!

The queer right of passage.

***
"I think we took a wrong turn at some point Wills...this hike suddenly feels ankle deep in horror movie territory. Are those trees moving?" Teddy whispers, looking around a little worriedly above us.

Harper grabs her arm and they fall sideways a little off the path, falling onto their full backpacks. I stand over them and roll my eyes as they laugh, deep, guttural belly laughs that are almost contagious. I find myself joining in and reach out a hand to both of them.

"I don't know why I do this to myself... hours of hiking with you two nervous nellys"

The national park we were walking in was pretty huge, the part we had entered was darker than the rest of the route. The tree canopy was thick, and it did feel a little creepy, but I couldn't let a fourteen and seventeen year old know that.

"Come on, it's an hour this way" I say, pointing to the path to the left.

Teddy stands, hand on hip, at the bit of path that parts into three separate routes. "I don't know Wills...this kind of feels like the part in the movie where our fate is sealed by the way we go from here. Have you seen wrong turn?I'm literally stood at the crossroads"

She looks dramatically down each path, as I turn back and keep moving.

"Harper ignore her and keep moving. If we don't give her the attention her dramatics so desire... her batteries wind down" I tease.

Harper races to catch up with me, wrapping her arm in mine. I gaze at her sideways, with a wicked grin.

Teddy can be heard racing towards us "wait wait" she calls out panicked "do not separate me from the group...for gods sake" she calls.