Every Summer Has A Story

Ch. 30 - Throwing Stones

Eve was probably asleep before her head even hit the pillow, falling dead to the world in a heap of exhaustion. While Auden and Zayne seamlessly handled the dinner meds rush, Eve found herself stuck a strange dream. She had been dealing with the reoccurring nightmares for years and the vicious delusions typically centered around the day of the tornado. Sometimes she and Asher were walking across the graduation stage when the twister hit, sucking him from her side and up into the heavens; his screams of terror and pain echoing around her. Other nights she used her own body to shield Ellison, leaving her father to endure the debris turned projectile weapons in the insane winds all alone, knowing he wouldn't survive the assault to his body. None of it was accurate. Her brain took stories and images and knit them together in a way to inflict maximum damage. In recent nights, however, Eve's nightmares had taken a new twist on reality. This time she was dreaming of her grandmother. Her memory seemed to be playing truly cruel tricks as her mind's eye showed her ghastly images of her grandma trapped and terrified in the rubble of her nursing home. Grandma turned to her with wide eyes full of pain, her cracked lips silently pleading for help, but Eve was too busy out in Michigan to respond. She was gallivanting joyously around camp while her grandmother bleed out all alone beneath the pressing weight of rubble.

Eve woke with a start, her body tangled hopelessly in a mess of sheets. She blinked back tears and scanned the room with wild eyes, realizing she was in her bedroom at camp, not at home, and that it had fallen much darker while she slept. Snapping back into reality and shedding the long tendrils of residual dread, Eve reached for her phone and checked the time. 

"7:15!?" she squealed into the darkness, panic over-taking her.

Auden had promised to wake Eve up promptly after dinner!

"That little shit," she mumbled, climbing out of bed to change into clothes for the evening activity. 

It was skit night and with a full camp this week, Eve was excited to see what the cabins were able to come up with. The first week of summer camp had been a small group comprised mostly of homeschoolers and out-of-staters sorted into a handful of cabins, so there wasn't much variety on skit night. Eve haphazardly wiggled into a pair of basic black yoga pants, a comfortable lace bralette, and a cute University of Michigan tank top she'd picked up when Victoria's Secret had a big sale on their PINK collegiate gear. She grabbed her can of mousse and scrunched some life back into her waist length curls and liberally re-applied her deodorant. She knew the temperature outside would drop into the comfortable 70's as the sun set, but with all of the kids smashed into the lodge ;it would be nice and toasty in no time. 

With a fresh coat of mascara applied to her lashes and an all-over spritz of her favorite body spray, Eve grabbed her keys and radio and stepped out into the lodge feeling pretty refreshed. Her eyes were drawn to the windows over-looking Lake Michigan where the sun had begun its descent over the lake. A stellar sunset was most certainly promised by the looks of things. She smiled to herself and started walking toward Zayne's room. They still had a solid 15 minutes before the counselors would start bringing their cabins up and Eve wouldn't have to administer night meds until after skits were done. Thursdays were usually pretty late nights. Eve rapped her knuckles on Zayne's door and felt her heart began to flutter when the soft noises of his movement reached her ears. He pulled the door open a moment later and his stern expression melted into a dazzling smile. Eve's insides preformed a magnificent back-flip at the man's sheer beauty. 

"He's so much prettier than me..."

"Hey Evie," he greeted warmly.

"Hi Zayne," she replied tentatively, suddenly unsure of how to act around him.

Zayne briefly peeked over her should to scan the lodge and his smile turned devilish. In one swift motion he pulled her into his room, closed the door behind them, and wrapped his arms around her waist.