Taint, Time and Tangents✔️

≑ Chapter Nineteen

To Lexi (Alexachan1202) for the most gorgeous cover I'd ever seen. I'm sorry, I said I'd be using this after I completed my book but I couldn't help it. XD It's so adorable. Thank you soooooo much! Mwah! <3

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 C H A P T E R    N I N E T E E N 

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CALLIE

Calm down, Callie. Relax. 

If only those words were magical incantations, then I should have been breathing easier now and my heart's pace was normal. But after repeating those words in my head like a thousand times already, I learned there was certainly no magic here in human world. My feet had been planted firmly on the ground for about ten minutes now, and yet my heart was still racing inside my chest like a runner sprinting the last meter of distance from the goal.    

Anyone would probably find me ridiculous if they hear the erratic beat of my heart and learn its cause. They wouldn't understand why I was acting this way from a mere person standing several feet away from me, his back facing me. 

I had been praying for the last hour that what I was seeing was just a product of my mind- a conjured image from my strong desire of seeing him. But with his midnight black hair tousled gently by the hands of smooth sailing wind and the way the muscles of his back rippling across his blue shirt with his little movements, I knew that he was definitely here.

Zeke is here... finally.  

I was on the verge of believing that he was not going to make it here. That he was injured or maybe he had decided that it was not wise to continue the camp anymore with only five days left. 

But this morning, still half-asleep, I went outside for our breakfast outdoors. It was the usual. Just as always, it was like a celebration or a picnic of a large family as everyone bustled their way to cook, to pick foods, to search for a vacant bench to eat, to get drinks or to wash their plates with a water hose on the side. Bright smiles and relentless talking filled the morning air. With the sun saying hello to the new day and new beginnings, I would have thought that this would be another day with foreign humans around me.

However, the moment I spotted Tim, standing on the right edge of the lake, talking with someone standing in front of a barbecue grill, my world stopped. Amidst the smoke around him, his usual relaxed posture was the one I noticed along with his striking hair. 

I stopped dead on my tracks as I stared ahead, dumbfounded, ignoring the busy people, excited on their new day- a start of new beginnings. My eyes didn't waver for a bit as I drunk the fact that he was here, standing on the same ground as mine, inhaling the same air as mine. His back was turned to me but its image was enough to leave me paralyzed on spot. 

My mind was still moving its hinges to assess my situation, to suppress the urge to run into him and hug him, to plan for a more appropriate to approach him or maybe to just go away, when Tim's almost-always-alert eyes flew to my area.

I saw him blinked fast before grinning at me. Before I could understand what that sheepish smile meant, I saw him grab something on the edge of the barbecue grill before patting Zeke at the back. He mumbled something to him for a couple of seconds before walking away and headed towards my direction.