Kicking Eternity

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter 14

Cal hung back in the dark away from the campfire. The last cabin of elementary kids scooted over the seawall to head for camp. Raine stood beside the fire talking and waving her arms while Drew added another log to the fire. Kallie and Jillian, the first arrivals for the teen campfire, inched toward the circle of firelight. 

Maybe he should walk over and tell them about his encounter with God, but it felt like spun glass inside him—fragile and hard to put into words. He didn’t want to do anything to disturb what had happened. He’d catch Raine later, when she was alone.

#

Aly closed her eyes. The pain in her ankle throbbed with the pulsing chirp of the crickets. She repositioned the plastic Zip-loc of ice. Yellow light glared from the dining hall porch. She picked loose a chip of white paint off the gazebo bench with her fingernail trying to focus on something other than pain.

Who was walking up the road from the beach? “Cal! Over here.” It hurt to yell.

He walked over. “What are you doing sitting in the dark?”

“I wrenched my ankle playing Capture the Flag with the teens. Jesse went to get the van to take me to emergency.”

Cal sat down and squinted at her foot. “Oh man, Aly, how did you do it?”

“Tripped over a wire the landscapers—probably Gar—put up to protect some plantings.” She held her hand up to stop Cal’s question. “Do I ever know where he is?”

“Why don’t you break up with him?”

“Yeah, that would be something new—me breaking up with a guy.”

Headlights shone on the dirt road, then Jesse wheeled the camp van around in front of the dining hall to get as close to the gazebo as possible.

“Cal!” Jesse jumped out. “I’m supposed to be at campfire. Can you run Aly to ER?”

“You got it.” Cal positioned one shoulder under her arm and eased her to a standing position.

“Thanks, bro.” Jesse supported her on her other side. “Check to see if her mom is working tonight.”

She gritted her teeth. “Hello! Guys, can we get moving? I’m dying here.” She put all her weight on Jesse and Cal while she swung her good foot forward. “Nice of you two to be close to the same height,” she said through clenched teeth.

“Anything for you, Al.” In the yellow light from the dining hall porch, Cal grinned inches from her face, a shot of anesthesia. But by the time Cal pulled into the emergency room breezeway, tears ran down her face. “Hurts,” she said when Cal opened her door.

“I’m sorry, kiddo.” Cal kissed her eyebrow and took off at a run toward the electronic doors.

Two hours later, after her mother had come downstairs from intensive care and fussed over her, the ankle had been declared badly sprained, and she had been plied with pain meds stronger than Cal’s smile, she bumped along in the camp van.

She woke with a start as the truck came to a stop. The pain had blessedly gone and she felt fuzzy-brained. Cal opened the door, pulled her arm around his neck, and picked her up.

“Put me down.” The words sounded funny. She wanted to tell him to take her back to camp, not her house.

“No.”

No?

Cal set her carefully on the edge of her bed in the dim light coming in from the hall. Had she told him which room was hers? She couldn’t remember. She pulled down the covers and lay back on her pillow pulling her hair up so she could feel the cool of the pillowcase against her neck. Cal came in with an ice bag and extra pillows he layered under her foot. Her eyes slid shut as she looked at her ankle wrapped like a piñata.