Before You Go

Chapter Seventeen

The sky is dark and illuminated with hundreds of twinkling stars scattered all throughout the vast space. It's all so quiet, except for the sounds of the wind wafting through the air and the rocks and leaves crunching and gravelling underneath Kevin's shoes.

Carter is down on one knee, arranging stones around the pile of branches and twigs we collected earlier so we can start a fire. We've already managed to make a small fire and we're just waiting for it to be a little bigger before we start roasting marshmallows.

After the scapegoat incident late this afternoon that ended with Kevin and Camilla off their canoes and swimming in the lagoon, we decided to call it a day and just get dinner which we just finished half an hour ago.

"If you had let me bring all of my food, we'd have chocolate to go with this" I say playfully to Carter and help him stack the sticks on top of the flame. "I'd even have graham crackers so we could all make s'mores."

"You and your bag of food." He laughs and shakes his head.

Once we're satisfied with the fire's intensity, we take a seat on the large rocks nearby. Kevin and Camilla are seated at the opposite side. They pass us a bag of jumbo sized marshmallows and some extra long bamboo skewers.

We stab a few pieces of the fluffy mallows on the stick and hover them a few inches above the flame.

"This would be great if we had some music." I say out loud and twist the stick so I could get an even roast.

Kevin stands up hastily with a grin. "I told you that bringing my guitar was a good idea." he says to Camilla and skips to their tent and comes out a few seconds later bearing a guitar.

"I didn't know you're the musical type." I say with intrigue.

"Me? You should listen to Carter." Kevin says with a laugh and hands him the guitar. Carter shakes his head and refuses to take it.

"You play?" I ask, astounded at this fact that I didn't know of. "I never heard you play."

"I used to play." He shakes his head.

"And is great at it." Kevin finished for him and pushes the guitar to him. "C'mon, man. Just one song."

"Let Valentine hear you play." Camilla joins in the conversation, prompting him to take the instrument from her husband.

Carter closes his eyes for a second and turns to me. "Do you really want to hear? I'm terrible, really." he asks, but his eyes are pleading me to say no and put an end to this.

I love Carter, I do. But I really want to know what this is all about. "Yes, I do." I say with a nod, much to his dismay.

He scowls and bites his lip, thinking things over before hesitantly taking the guitar from Kevin. Kevin hurriedly goes back to his spot beside Camilla with excitement. I watch Carter intently as he positions it properly. He tunes it for a few seconds.

Carter drags his eyes to me and sighs with a nod. With his left hand on the neck of the instrument, he tugs his fingers over the string to start a tune.

The familiar melody of Frank Sinatra's This is Life starts to radiate from the guitar and it fills our ears. I look at him in a mixture of in awe and surprise. I half expected it to sound terrible and that they were kidding about his guitar playing skills which is why he's hesitant to let me hear it.

But boy am I wrong.

He has his eyes closed as his fingertips are brushing against the strings. "That's life, that's what all the people say." He starts singing.