Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

River

I NEED TO GET him alone again.

I don’t know how I’m going to manage it, but I have to find a way. I haven’t stopped thinking about Clark since the moment the lights of the lodge house swallowed him up and took him away from me. Those tantalizing glimpses of an unburdened, unrestrained version of him have only deepened my desire to pry open every corner of him and learn him as intimately as I can.

It’s not attraction. Okay, it’s not just attraction. We can do more together. We can explore deeper. I’m sure that exploration won’t merely satisfy my own selfish desires, either. Clark stands to benefit from this work too.

I’m still telling myself this is for his benefit, this is to help him, as I enter the lodge. It’s been a long day and my stomach is a hollow pit. I had classes all day, even though none of them were Clark’s group. I don’t think I’ve stopped moving since I woke up. It took all the energy I had left to make myself shower and change before I came over here for dinner. My hair sits piled in a messy bun atop my head, water dripping down my neck. I threw on a comfortable sweater over my favorite yoga pants. It’s how students expect me to look, so it’s fine. If I appeared in jeans it would probably seem more strange than appearing like this.

The cafeteria is bustling when I enter. I find a group of instructors sitting around one table. I head over to join them, resisting the urge to scan the room for some sign of Clark. It would be pretty inappropriate for me to sit down with one particular student … not that I haven’t already crossed some lines there.

I shake the thought free and slap on a smile as I join the other instructors.

“Hey, River, just getting here?” one of the coordinators, Ava, asks.

“Yeah, had a long one today,” I say.

“Well, you should have a break tomorrow. We tried not to overload anyone’s schedule.”

I nod, but I’m too tired to talk about logistics right now. I just go where they tell me when they tell me.

There are a few more people around the table, but all I offer them is nods before I head for the food line. Only there, when I’m stuck waiting for people to shuffle around with their trays, do I allow myself a peek at the room.

I spot him right away.

Clark sits on the far side of the room, almost directly opposite the group of instructors I’ll be expected to eat with. The line bumps forward while I do the math on that. No easy way to catch his eye. No casual way of running into him. It would be weird if I kept looking his direction for no reason.

He must feel me watching. Before I can turn away, he looks, and for a moment our eyes catch from all the way across the cafeteria.

I whirl away, picking up a tray and trying to seem engrossed by the salad bar. I fill a bowl with greens and dump on croutons and dressing. I even remember to grab a brownie before the flow of people takes me to the other end of the cafeteria. All the food is included, so I carry my tray away and head for my table … but Clark’s eyes catch me again.

He’s closer this time. The flow of cafeteria traffic moved me from one side of the room to the other. If I keep walking straight instead of cutting diagonally across the room, I’ll go right to him, and, crazily enough, that’s exactly where my feet take me.

His eyebrows rise. We’ve been staring at each other for too long, but it’s Clark who breaks first, not me. I could keep following those dark, warm eyes the rest of the night, going wherever they lead me. Only when I’m a couple steps from his table do I realize I have no idea what I’m planning to say or do.

“Hey,” I say. It’s all I can think of as I stand beside where he sits.

Panic streaks through Clark’s wide eyes as he gapes up at me. I check, but there’s only a couple people with him, and they don’t give me so much as a glance. I don’t know what he’s so freaked out about. Sure, what we did at the lake was technically inappropriate, but no one saw us, no one knows. To everyone else, we’re acquaintances at most.

That’s not how Clark regards me. He looks at me like a horse about bolt. He looks at me like his shoes are on fire and he means to run to put them out. He rises, and I nearly flinch back, afraid he might physically push me away.

“What are you doing?” he mutters under his breath.

“I was wondering how your events went today,” I say.

“Fine, but why are you asking me this?”

“Because I care about how the retreat is going for you.”

It’s the truth, but it seems to take him aback. His fear flashes into surprise.

“I… It was fine. It went fine,” he says. He sounds a bit less terrified, but that merely leaves space for anger to creep in.

“We’ll probably have another practice soon,” I say. “Your group, I mean. Not just you.” Super smooth, River. You’re really making this awkward interaction better. “I’m looking forward to working with you again.”

I try to smile, to seem reassuring, professional even, but Clark’s jaw locks up tight, as though he’s clenching his teeth.

“Fine,” he says.

Then he sits back down, and it’s clear I’ve been dismissed.

I blink, but turn away and walk as normally as I can across the room to the other instructors. I think they greet me, but the conversation floats outside me as I try to soothe the sore spot where his words stung me. Is he really that angry at me? That upset? All I did was say hello. It shouldn’t be a big deal, regardless of what we did beside the lake. No one knows about that but us.

Beneath my own hurt, my heart aches for him. He’s even more closed off than when I found him, even more shut down and hunched. He’s like a building boarded up before a storm. Except there’s no storm coming. There’s no danger worth battening down against. There’s only me on the other side, and all I want is to help.

I eat my salad quickly but listlessly, and I don’t bother with the brownie at all. I probably need the calories, but I can’t stomach it at the moment, so I wrap it up in a napkin and excuse myself as soon as I reasonably can, hoping the other instructors simply think I’m tired from a long day of working. Whether they do or not, no one says anything when I get right back up shortly after arriving and take my tray to the busing station. I tuck my brownie into the pouch at the front of my sweater, throw up my hood, and leave the disaster of the cafeteria behind.

The hall is quiet after the bustle of the cafeteria. The voices grow more distant as I hurry toward the doors of the lodge house and into the welcoming dark beyond. I sigh when I step outside, when the scent of pine needles and earth replaces the smell of food, when moonlight replaces florescent illumination, when the chitter of insects replaces the chatter of conversation. Nothing accompanies me but the crunch of my footsteps on the path leading from the door of the lodge to my private cabin, but I only make it a short way before footsteps pound after me.

“Wait,” Clark calls.

I turn out of sheer surprise to find him jogging toward me, the lights of the lodge at his back. We’re only a short way from the building, but the dark rolls in thick and cloaking from the forest, cutting us off from the rest of the retreat.

“I’m sorry,” Clark says.

It takes a moment for the words to register. “For what?” I say.

Clark waves irritably behind him. “For in there. I’m sorry. I was … curt, but you can’t come up to me like that. I was with my co-workers. What if they thought it was weird that you approached me?”

“I’m allowed to talk to my students,” I say. “There’s nothing weird about that.”

“It’s weird when it’s me ,” Clark insists.

“I don’t think so.”

“River, you keep giving me special attention. They’re going to notice.”

I shrug. “And? What happens if they do?”

Clark glances around himself like there’s anything out here but us and the trees. He lowers his voice regardless. “What happened by the lake,” he says, “was not supposed to happen.”

I can’t deny that, but the danger exists far more on my side than his, so what is he really concerned about? Is he in the closet? Perhaps he doesn’t want work to know about his personal life. Or has he simply denied himself for so long he doesn’t know how to live a full and authentic life?

I hate that thought, hate it so much it turns my mouth sour. My stomach churns, even though all I had tonight was salad.

“I don’t care about that,” I say, the words slipping out on their own. I wouldn’t have stopped them even if I’d known. They’re the truth, and Clark needs to hear it.

“You should care. This is your job.”

“Yeah, it is,” I say. “It’s my job to help people. Clark, I want to work with you more.”

Even in the dark, I can tell he’s gaping at me. I adore the surprise opening up his face, loosening some of that tight control of his. It makes me want to kiss him, but I hold myself back.

“You mean…” he says.

“No, not sex,” I say. “I want to work more deeply with you. I think I could help you, if you’d let me.”

He snorts. “Help me? My life is fine. I don’t need your help.”

Oh, Clark. You need my help so, so much more than you realize.

I bite that back, sure he’d bristle at the suggestion.

“Well, we do have another class with you,” Clark says. “Work with me then. In public. Where it’s appropriate. That’s not what I came out here to tell you, anyway. I came here to say … to say that whatever you want to do with other people, it’s fine with me.”

What? Where is this coming from? Where does he think I’d find “other people” at this retreat?

“You’re young. You’re…” He waves vaguely at me. “I’m just saying, you should do whatever you want, regardless of what happened between us.”

My eyebrows shoot up. “Clark, I’m not doing anything with anyone else here. It’s only been you.”

He straightens, blinking at me. “Oh,” he says, but doesn’t manage more. “Well, then, I suppose … I suppose that’s fine. I just wanted to be clear, so there are no misunderstandings, but… Whatever. I’ll see you in class, I guess.”

He starts to turn away, but I lunge, grabbing his wrist. I’m barely larger than him, and I’m sure he could break away, but he doesn’t, just looks down at the place where I hold him. Some of the resistance goes out of him when I take control. Interesting.

“That isn’t enough,” I say. “I want to go deeper with you — only you. I want to do the type of work that goes beyond anything you’d get here.”

“Why?” His eyes narrow, and my chest clenches. Does he struggle so much to believe someone might simply want to reach out?

“Because we can go deeper, I know we can. I saw the change in you last time. There’s so much more we could do.”

I expect Clark to scoff or break away or react, but something about the way I grabbed him had a strange subduing effect. As I watch, his shoulders slouch, and he lets out a weary sigh.

“We can’t do it at the lake again,” he mutters.

“I have a cabin here.” Hope makes my words fast and frantic. “It’s private. I’m heading there now.”

Surely, that was too bold. Surely, that was too much. But Clark merely studies me, face taut, before slowly, very slowly, nodding.

When I let go of his wrist, he doesn’t storm away.

“Well? Are we going?” he says. “I don’t want to stand out here all night.”

I blink several times as I replay the words in my head. Then, half sure he’ll disappear when I turn my back, I lead the way down the path through the forest.