Chapter 6: Breakaway

-- NOVEMBER 25 --

I felt someone gently rocking my shoulder and calling my name. "Marie ... Marie..."

As unwelcome consciousness flooded my brain, I turned my head and accidently put my face in the direct path of a beam of sunlight. Clenching my eyes shut against the sudden illumination, I flipped over and then blinked my eyes to find Zoey standing over my bunk.

"Hey ... You okay? Bad hangover or something?"

I stared at her in confusion, not understanding what she meant. But then memories surged forth, and it all came back to me in a rush: getting royally drunk at the Thanksgiving dinner, joining in the sex between Deedee and Nick, discovering just how badly I hated myself while sitting on the floor, and then Zoey coming back to the room and waking me up just enough to put me into my bed with all my clothes on.

"Or something..." I mumbled through crusty eyelids as I grimaced and smacked my dry lips. Something told me I wouldn't need to pretend to be unattractive right at this moment.

"Well breakfast starts in about ten minutes," Zoey told me. "Figured you'd want to clean yourself up a bit before going down there. Unless you'd rather go back to sleep."

I turned my head and glanced at my pillow. I felt anything but rested, so going back to sleep was a very tempting proposition. And if I skipped breakfast, I wouldn't have to see Nick or Deedee again until lunch.

Running away again?

Damn. Just when I thought my conscience had gone away. I knew I couldn't avoid them forever, and the intellectual inside me knew that the safest course of action would be to nip any awkwardness in the bud and meet them as soon as possible. I wanted anything but a confrontation right at this moment, but I had a feeling that the awkwardness was more on my part than theirs. After all, -I- was the one that had embarrassed myself.

Zoey left me to my own devices, and I used all ten minutes to clean up as best I could, short of a shower. Fortunately, almost everyone had already left the staff cabin to go to breakfast, leaving the place to myself as I scrubbed away day-old makeup from the party and tied back my oily hair. And as I puttered about going through the basic, mindless mechanics of getting dressed and putting on my shoes, I realized that much of the darkness from last night was gone from me.

I hated myself, that I knew. At least, I hated who I had become: the girl who had cheated on her soulmate, blackmailed a professor into awarding her an undeserved 'A', and generally made a fuck-up of her entire carefully constructed life. But I wasn't that girl anymore. True, I had gone out of my way to become the exact opposite of that girl, and this 'opposite' wasn't the real me either; but at least I knew I wasn't THAT girl anymore. Now I was ... well ... I didn't KNOW who I was, but at least I didn't hate the current "me" as badly.

I felt like it was the morning after a big storm. The air smelled of electricity and dampness, but there was no more lightning and no more rain. Those things were now in the past, the worst of the danger over. When you're at the pinnacle of perfection, it's easy to fear that there's nowhere to go but down. But here, at the bottom, you realize there's nowhere to go but up.

I was only a few minutes late to breakfast, and Nick and Deedee exchanged a glance before greeting me warmly. Neither of them mentioned last night, and they wouldn't in front of Aaron or Zoey. But there was obvious concern in their eyes and I couldn't help but feel heartened by their expressions. Maybe this could all work out after all.

Even better was our conversation after breakfast. Still feeling horribly embarrassed by my actions last night, I pleaded with both of them to just forget anything had ever happened. I blamed things on being drunk and horny, and I apologized profusely while they both told me I had nothing to apologize for. I kept thinking Ben would have made some joke about girls never having to apologize to a guy for sucking on his dick, but Nick made no such remark. He seemed sincerely worried about me, and even ... scared ... that our relationship wouldn't be able to go back to the way it was before.

That's exactly what I was scared about, too. So both Nick and Deedee promised that we could be friends again. And as we all hugged and made up, I sighed in relief that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't completely alone after all.

"Hey, you made it." Nick smiled as I made the final turn and came upon The Balcony.

I managed a weary smile of my own. It hadn't been a terribly hard day of work, but I was sleep-deprived and emotionally running ragged at this point.

"It's a great sunset today," he commented, sweeping his arm out across the vista.

He was probably right, but I wasn't really in the mood to look at it. I really wasn't in the mood for anything right now, feeling the urge to go back to my room, curl into a ball in my corner, and cry myself to sleep once again. But I told myself that I still needed this, still needed to hold onto what little friendship and companionship I still had lest I completely lapse into the schizophrenia of talking to myself at all hours of the day.

Nick must have sensed my mood, because only three seconds after he gestured me to the brilliant horizon, he realized that I wasn't looking at it. Without hesistation, he turned his back completely on the view to focus entirely on me. I'd sat down on the bench and leaned against a tree, and Nick sat down beside me before putting his hand on my knee. "Hey, you okay?"

I don't know why, but I jerked my knee away from his hand like it had been on fire. Instinctively, I looked up at him with wild eyes that said 'Back off fucker!' And my whole body twisted away from him like it hadn't done since the first week of our arrival.

Instantly, Nick's hands were both up in the air defensively while he tried his darndest to give me an unthreatening expression.

"I'm sorry," I said quickly, forcing myself to relax (which if you think about it, is kind of an oxymoron). Taking a deep breath, I apologized, "I don't know what came over me."

He winced and remarked, "It's okay, I know you were never a touchy-feely person."

It was true, except not lately, and not with him. I'm not saying we had our hands all over each other these past couple of months, but little innocent touches like his hand on my knee that hadn't bothered me in a LONG time and truth be told, I had sort of been going out of my way to touch him a little more in the recent few weeks. "I'm sorry. I think last night just really screwed me up."

He blushed and looked at his lap. "I wasn't going to mention it."

"Yeah, let's not," I agreed.

Nick nodded and looked away again. He wanted to ask. He wouldn't, though, and I appreciated that about him. But it would have been impossible for him to NOT want to know why. Why had I asked to watch him and Deedee? Why had I joined in? Why had I sucked his dick?

How could he NOT be curious? And at that moment, I realized that going back to the way things were could never really happen. Bridges can't be un-crossed. Bells can't be un-rung.

Dicks can't be un-sucked.

Lots of people I'd known had tried to go back to being "just friends" after a relationship; none had succeeded. It wasn't that they couldn't be on friendly terms anymore, or even be perfectly comfortable around each other; it's just that once the relationship line had been crossed, there was no going back. Those people could only move forward, accepting what had happened as a part of their past and constructing a new friendship from that point on.

Even though Nick and I had never been in such a relationship, a line had still been crossed. Going back to the old friendship, as wonderful as that might be, was impossible. Nick had told me as much this morning, when he admitted that he wouldn't be able to erase his memory. If I wanted to continue being his friend, I couldn't just sweep this under the rug. And really, if I wanted this to be a TRUE friendship, then I had to start being a BETTER friend than I had been so far.

Taking a deep breath, I said, "You know what? Let's mention it."

"Huh?" His eyebrows went up.

"Last night. Let's talk about it."

His forehead now furrowed in confusion. "Uh, didn't you say just this morning that you wanted to forget it ever happened?"

"Yeah, I know, I know. But human brains don't really work that way, unfortunately."

Gawd, if only I could find some way to forget all the horrible things I'd done to Ben.

Fiddling with my fingers, I looked down at my lap. "I've held back so much from you. There's so much I haven't told you about myself, or my past. I want to be a better friend than that. Once upon a time, you wound up face-down in the dirt, my friend. Remember that?"

Nick smirked and gave me a wry smile. "Yeah, I remember."

"Yeah, well last night was my face-in-the-dirt moment. And I'm going to try my best to climb upward from here on out."

"Really?" His smile broadened.

Taking a deep breath, I held out my hands and offered, "Okay go ahead: Ask me anything."

His eyebrows went up. "Anything?" A million questions suddenly raced across his eyes. Where was I from? What school had I attended? Why had I come here? What dark secrets was I hiding in my past? Why did I cover up my appearance? And why the hell did I suck his dick?

"Let's start with asking me about last night," I said quickly, limiting his options and thus shutting down the momentary acceleration of both his mind and his heartbeat.

"Okay..." he began, taking a deep breath. "Well here's one: Why didn't you ask me about coming to watch me and Deedee?"

I pulled my head back, surprised by his question. I had expected him to ask WHY I had wanted to watch in the first place, to better understand my motivations and thought processes. But now I realized that was my own self-centeredness, believing him to be entirely concerned with MY mental state when really, he was just like anybody else and his first thought was to wonder about himself. Why had I had gone and asked Deedee and not him?

"Uh ... well..." I fumbled, looking for the right answer, or even IF I wanted to give him a straight answer. Nick had been completely candid with me for our entire time at camp, and he'd been quite forthcoming in general, in stark contrast to my reticence at every turn. His forthright honesty deserved some reciprocation, or at least that's what the rational part of me believed. But the scared little girl inside me still wanted to curl into a fetal position and just say "No" to every question put to me, and I didn't know how I really wanted to proceed.

But fortunately, once the answer came to me I realized it was an answer that actually didn't have much to do with my feelings for him. Latching onto that as a way to get past my own defenses, I sighed and explained, "I didn't tell you this before, but Deedee tried to seduce me a couple of weeks ago."

"Really?"

I nodded. "It was that day we first got assigned to kitchen duty together. She'd been flirting with me off and on for about a week, and then after dinner she followed me back to the cabins and stepped into the shower with me."

"I see," Nick said with a squeak in his voice. He tried to cover it up by raising a fist to his mouth and coughing, but I could see that little visual had gotten to him and couldn't help but smile.

"You want me to give you the nitty-gritty details? You want me to explain about how she got naked and then started rubbing her bare breasts against mine while the shower's spray cascaded all around our nubile young bodies?"

Nick's eyes popped open wide and I saw the bulge forming in his pants. His ears were turning pink again, and his lower lip dropped an extra inch. I could see him wrestling with himself, a big part of him wanting me to continue, but instead he gulped and shook his head. "Uh, that won't be necessary."

I shrugged, "Your loss." And I grinned to myself at the tease, my heart feeling lighter already. "The point is: she told me she was into girls and invited me to come join you two that night."

"Really?"

I nodded. "Obviously, I didn't go that night."

His face fell, but he nodded. "Obviously."

"But because of that," I explained, "I already kinda knew that she wouldn't object to my presence. So when I found myself wanting to watch, I went and asked her."

Nick blinked a couple of times and NOW asked the question I'd thought he would have asked earlier. "Why DID you want to watch?"

I took a deep breath, forcing myself to recognize my own actions and really face up to my motivations for doing them. Giving him a shrug, I said, "This may shock you, but I DO actually have hormones."

Nick chuckled. "I never thought you didn't."

"Didn't you?" I asked with a skeptical look. "C'mon."

"Well ... okay. Maybe a part of me thought you were this asexual being," he admitted. "You're clearly the only one here who has shown no interest in hooking up with anyone else, male OR female. And if nothing else, if you lacked a serious sex drive, it certainly would explain a lot about why you dress and act the way you do."

I sighed, closing my eyes as I admitted to myself as well as to him, "I DO have a sex drive. I DO get horny. And I spend a lot of time by myself ... well ... taking care of myself."

I think Nick blushed more than I did at the mention of masturbation. It was rather cute, actually.

"But I don't want the complications of sex, and I don't want to get involved in a relationship."

"And there probably aren't a whole lot of lesbians here, are there?" Nick added while nodding in agreement with me.

Lesbians? Oh, right. I almost forgot. He still doesn't know I'm into guys.

"Right ... well..." I muttered. "There might be more than you think, actually."

Nick picked his head up. "Really? Who?" I giggled and Nick quickly held his hands up, waving them while staring at the ground in embarrassment. "No, no. Forget I asked that. Not my business," he stammered.

"ANYways..." I continued. "I've had a lot of pent up arousal. We're in double-bunk rooms and there's no internet porn or magazines."

"Maybe Aaron can let you borrow his stack of Playboys," Nick commented off-hand.

"He's got a stack?" I gaped.

Nick turned his eyes to me and grinned.

"Maybe ... Huh." I actually considered it. Extra eye candy couldn't hurt.

Nick squeezed his eyes shut and waved me off again. "Okay. Now I'm starting to imagine you alone in your bed with Playboy magazines in your hands, and that's NOT imagery I want in my head."

"Sorry, sorry," I laughed. "Get in the way of the friendship we've built and all."

"Right." He nodded.

I smiled though. I'd always felt comfortable around Nick, knowing he would never make a move on me. But somehow, I felt even MORE comfortable around him now that we were broaching that taboo subject of sex and yet weren't getting truly awkward about it.

"And so last night," I continued. "I'm sure it was partly because of the alcohol. I was drunk, I was horny, and my imagination just wasn't cutting it anymore. I remembered Deedee inviting me to join you guys before, and while I knew I wouldn't be comfortable actually joining you, I figured the visual stimulation would be really, really nice."

"Except you DID join," Nick intoned quietly.

Oh ... right...

All those warm and fuzzy feelings I'd had a moment ago evaporated. The awkwardness I had been so pleased that we didn't have now suddenly showed up in full force. And a blanket of heavy silence fell upon both of us as I turned my eyes away and felt Nick look at me rather strangely.

I didn't have an explanation. I still couldn't remember precisely WHAT I was thinking, and yet, Nick's voice floated around me, asking, "Why did you do it?"

I felt Nick's hand touch my shoulder, and this time I didn't jerk away. I turned to look at him, saw his expectant face, and only now realized that he'd ACTUALLY asked me that question. I didn't know how to answer him, and from my blank expression he seemed to realize that. So taking a deep breath, he gave me a serious look and said, "I don't want to pressure you. If you're not comfortable telling me anything, you don't have to, alright?"

I nodded silently.

"But ... I ... I..."

"You still want to know," I finished for him.

Now it was his turn to nod silently.

"I don't know," I said. And then I turned away.

We were both silent for a long time. I was lost in my thoughts, still trying to understand myself and just what had happened to me. I'd gone into that cabin with certain intentions, but also certain barriers that I told myself not to cross. But I'd crossed them, and I couldn't come up with a rational explanation why.

As for what was going through Nick's head, I couldn't say. He was just as silent as me, perhaps waiting me out, waiting to see what I would say. Perhaps he was figuring out what HE wanted to say. Perhaps it was a little of both, because in the end, he was the one who spoke.

"You want to know why -I- did it?" he said. "Not last night, but a night that feels like an eternity ago. It was the night I totaled my Mercedes-Benz. It was the night I got behind the wheel while intoxicated and parked my car at Table 12."

That got my attention, and I turned back to look at him. Though the reason for his current 'prison sentence' here at Morris Camp was something we'd discussed a few times, the REASONS why had not been mentioned. I did want to know, and after gathering myself, I nodded in the affirmative.

He wasn't looking at me anymore. He was looking off into the distance, at a horizon that had long since gone dark without either of us paying attention. He was looking beyond, back through time and space into the past, putting himself in that situation once more and grimacing as he did so.

Nick pursed his lips, pressing them together until they formed a flat line across his face that matched the flatness of his gaze. And as he slowly began to shake his head, he turned back to me and shrugged, saying, "I can't tell you. I don't know."

I frowned. "Huh?"

"Why I did it? Can't tell you. There IS no rational explanation for what I did. No reasoning that makes any sense. It was completely irrational, and it happened like that." He snapped his fingers for emphasis. "It was in the heat of the moment. Just a moment, is all it took. And that momentary lapse in judgment cost me everything.

"I had the car keys. My friends were demanding them. I knew I was drunk. I KNEW better. I KNEW I shouldn't get behind the wheel. There is no logic, no reasoning, that says 'Get behind the wheel and drive'. None. Zilch. Nada. But I did it anyway. I knew it was wrong, but in that moment I said 'fuck it' and went anyway.

"I can't explain it. I can't defend it. I wish to hell I could take it back, do something different. I wish I could make myself UN-stupid and UN-reckless, but I can't. I can't change the past, and nothing I do will ever make up for it, even though supposedly that's what this court order is supposed to accomplish. I fucked up. I did wrong. I'm helpless to actually FIX anything, and now I have to live with the consequences."

With that, Nick dropped his hands onto his knees and used them to push himself off the bench. He stood and paced a few steps away from me, exhaling loudly before spinning around, his eyes turned skyward as he scanned the trees and the darkening sky. He was lost in his own thoughts, still back there on that street in LA. And that was okay, because I was lost in mine.

I had done the same, hadn't I? The moment with Jaron. The cheating. Oh, there were a million other things I did wrong in my relationship with Ben, but all of them were recoverable until I slept with Jaron. If I hadn't done that, I might have been able to face Ben the next day. I could have told him about the turmoil in my head. I could have shared my pain and asked for his help. Together, we could have fixed things. Together ... we'd still be together.

But I didn't. I fucked up. I KNEW better. I KNEW I shouldn't sleep with Jaron. There was no logic, no reasoning, that said to cheat on my boyfriend and sleep with another man. I couldn't rationalize it in any way that might equal 'the right decision'. But I did it anyway. In the moment, I said 'fuck it'. And I fucked him.

It was heat of the moment. I'd nearly died, trying to re-cross that street. Jaron saved me, saved my life. My mind was off its axis and my brain was flooded with adrenaline. My cognitive functions probably weren't so different from Nick's when he was drunk. We'd both made bad decisions. And now we were both living with the consequences.

The reality was that Nick's consequences were rather more survivable. Nobody died. Nobody he knew had gotten hurt. All of the damage was monetary, and money is replaceable. Though he felt helpless to make amends, there really weren't any amends to be made. At the end of the year, he really COULD go back to his old life, pick up where he left off, and just be a little wiser, a little more careful, and a little more abstinent from alcohol, the way he'd refused to drink at last night's party.

But not me. My actions had HURT. My actions had torn apart a relationship.

I thought back to that first day up on the ridge when Nick first told me he was here by court order. I remembered thinking that here was a guy in a situation like mine. He'd made mistakes in his past. He was here to serve his sentence. For both he and I, this was a chance for a fresh start. And together, we could learn from our past mistakes and change ourselves for the better.

But Nick was already light-years ahead of me in that. He'd lost the weight. He'd gotten physically stronger. He'd stopped whining. And he'd learned to appreciate the little things in life. He was building a house with his bare hands. He was starting a relationship with a freakishly hot and busty blonde. And he had learned the one valuable lesson he'd needed to learn here: be careful with alcohol.

That's it. That was fucking it. Nick didn't need to learn anything more from his past mistakes. He wasn't a fucked-up human being who had torn apart a perfectly good relationship and broken the heart of someone who had been truly in love. He'd been sent here by the people who loved him to grow and learn, and that's just what he'd done. Nick was ready – right now – to leave this place and go HOME to the real world. He was a fully-functional member of society who could make financial reparations for the harm he'd done and stay away from alcohol and NEVER get into the situation he'd gotten himself into before.

But not me. I'd HURT people, people that were probably still in pain from the damage I'd caused. I'd ABANDONED people who loved me and who didn't want to see me go. I was STILL fucked-up. I still didn't know who I was, or who I was going to be. I still didn't understand myself, let alone how to fix myself. I'd been here for three months already, and I wasn't any closer to knowing how I was going to get back to Ben.

My friendship with Nick had been borne out of a mutual sense of not belonging. We had both been outsiders, recovering from our past mistakes and trying to discover how to find our way back again. I had bonded with Nick because I didn't feel threatened by him, and because I saw in his lost soul a kind of kinship, knowing that we were both in the same boat.

But all of a sudden, I didn't feel that kinship with Nick anymore.

And once again, I felt all alone.

-- DECEMBER 2 --

"Balcony?" Nick suggested as he caught up to me just outside the staff cabin.

I had just been about to step off the porch, but paused for a brief moment to turn and shake my head. "Nah. You go ahead if you want, maybe take Deedee for a romantic stroll. I was just on my way out on my own."

"Again?" Nick almost whined, catching himself and taking a deep breath. We were both fully aware that I'd been going out on my own a lot over the past week, and Nick certainly could tell that our relationship was not what it once was. But rather than press me, he backed off even MORE than usual, constantly reminding me of his presence and willingness to talk about anything if I would only take him up on his offer.

But I couldn't. Not anymore. It wasn't because of Thanksgiving, although he'd been making a conscious effort not to bring that up anymore. It wasn't even because of anything Nick had done. This was all me, and it was really because I just didn't feel that connected to him anymore.

He was the same nice guy I had always known. He was still attractive to me, even more so now that I had come to appreciate his endearing cuteness, sense of respect and boundaries, and obvious warmth for me. But I just didn't feel that connection with him anymore. I didn't feel that kinship. And really, half the time I looked at him I was reminded that he had succeeded in turning his life around where I had failed.

That's not to say that we weren't friends anymore. Zoey and Aaron were still all over each other, and my interactions with my own roommate were now polite greetings in passing or casual conversations at mealtimes. I was still at arm's length with most everyone else in the camp, so my choices were to hang out with Nick and Deedee, or with nobody at all.

We still went on hikes together, just ... not ALL the time anymore. We still spent mealtimes and common times together, just ... not ALL the time. And we still talked a lot with each other about what was going on or the funny anecdotes of the day, just ... not the deep personal stuff anymore.

We were going backwards. For the first three months of our friendship, Nick and I had gradually worked to a point of comfortability that included casual touches, comments without fear of judgment, and a complete lack of tension. In the span of seven days, we'd regressed back to early September, with Nick second-guessing everything he wanted to say to me for fear of my reaction, and me second-guessing everything I wanted to say to him simply because my guard was back up. He didn't hug me anymore. He didn't touch my arm. And the few times it happened by accident, it was such a surprise that I couldn't help but recoil, feeding the vicious cycle of further regression.

The awkwardness that had not been a part of our recent relationship was back – not all the time, or it would have been impossible to stay friends – but it cropped up more often than either of us would have wanted. I didn't like it. I wished it would go away. But I knew that the majority of the awkwardness was because of me, and I simply didn't know how to change it. It was almost like we'd had drunken sex, and then didn't know how to face each other in the aftermath.

Well, that's sort of true, isn't it?

Not helping...

"Just got some things I need to sort out in my head. We'll go out tomorrow night, okay?" I promised, forcing myself to smile as I looked back at Nick. "And I'll see you in a little bit for dinner."

"Dinner. Right." Nick nodded, seeming anything but satisfied. He was worried about me, but he knew that once the wall was up, it was staying up. "I'll see you later."

With a tight smile, I shrugged and stepped off the porch. "Bye."

-- DECEMBER 10 --

"Hey." Nick smiled as I approached. We had just finished lunch, and he was leaning against wall by the dining hall doorway, waiting for me. It was a Saturday, a day off when friends would gather together to hang out, couples would pair off for some alone time, and when Nick and I used to go for a long hike somewhere remote to talk for several hours until hiking back for dinner.

Used to.

He looked at me hopefully, but when I didn't immediately respond his smile faltered. I slowed down and took a deep breath. I gathered myself to offer an apology, but Nick read my face and his expression fell before I could say a word.

I couldn't say anything. I didn't know WHAT to say. So I didn't. I just bowed my head and walked outside. And I didn't start breathing again until the door closed behind me.

It wasn't fair to him. I knew he had feelings for me: a crush for certain, maybe even "in love". But what could I really do? I'd told him from the beginning I didn't want a relationship, and even assured him I was lesbian to further dampen any futile hopes. I'd encouraged and supported his relationship with Deedee, so he should have always known we would never be together.

And yet, I HAD given him every reason to believe we were close, platonic friends. We'd spent the whole program together up to this point. I had been his one confidante, the companion he could count on to ward away the loneliness and isolation of being so far away from home in a rustic, Sierra retreat with people he'd never met before. Now, I wasn't even being a dependable companion.