Playing Hurt - By Holly Schindler Page 0,37

I moan, glancing at the screen saver. “How ironic.”

Instead of an orchid, I see bilious, neon-orange letters pulsing at the top of the picture: VIRGIN. VIRGIN. VIRGIN.

I imagine myself stepping onto the screen, throwing an enormous rock at the glowing letters.

“Where’d you go?” Clint asks. He tucks a piece of flyaway hair behind my ear.

I don’t stop him, or flinch, or pull away. I just stare up into his eyes, at the irises that are every bit as dark as his pupils, their depths swirling about me like an eddy. I’m afraid to speak, afraid I might scream out the words lying in wait beneath the touch of his fingers: I want more.

Gabe Gabe Gabe Gabe …

“Listen,” he says finally. “Since I know you don’t particularly like the idea of kayaking, I wanted to ask if you’d like to make up for a day off by going to a birthday party tonight.”

“Yes,” I say. His invitation reduces me to a giggly, romance-novel-reading pile of girly mush.

Clint

sin bin

A birthday party for a fish,” Chelsea says, shaking her head in disbelief. But she doesn’t look like she really thinks it’s stupid at all. Her eyes sparkle, and her shoulders are so relaxed that the strap of her sundress keeps falling off and dangling across her upper arm.

Just as I start telling myself to stop looking at her, to stop thinking about how pretty she is today, my eyes hit the bottom of her sundress. The yellow material ripples around her knees, which are as pink as the wads of cotton candy that dot the crowds. And I bet they’re just as sweet …

“A fish,” Chelsea repeats.

“Not just any old fish. A two-ton concrete fish. Willie’s a legend,” I remind her.

She smiles, her sandals scraping against the pavement of Baudette’s Main Street, which is overtaken today by a carnival. Booths line the curbs, advertising homemade jams and pickles, wire jewelry, door wreaths twisted out of grape vines. Runners who competed in the morning’s 5K still wander through the crowd, easy to peg in their running shorts, numbers still pinned to their backs. Entries in the lumberjack chainsaw-carving competition are still perched on a wooden ledge outside a camping gear store: a bear, an old man’s wrinkled face, and three different versions of Willie Walleye himself.

Umbrellas cover wooden tables, shading jugs of frozen root beer, plates of fried food, laughing faces. And there doesn’t seem to be a single face here that isn’t smiling, isn’t laughing.

For the first time in my life, Willie Walleye Day sure seems like some sort of magical cure-all.

At least, it’s a cure-all for everybody except me. I just can’t make my brain shut up. Or get my nerves to calm down. I keep asking myself what we’re really doing here. I mean, it’s not like we have something to celebrate, not like the day she caught that walleye. And it’s not like this can pass as some boot camp exercise. Sure, we’re walking. But so what? Walking? Not even hiking. She wasn’t hurt so bad that walking would be considered a real workout.

What are you doing, Clint?

“This is nothing like the Heritage Festival back home,” Chelsea admits as she takes it all in.

I nod, staring down the street, doubting that her heritage festival looks much different. But the fact that she said it, that she’s so happy, makes me feel insanely good. Kind of adrenaline-high good.

“Frozen lemonade,” she says, reaching for the little purse she’s got twisted around her wrist.

“No,” I say, kind of offended by the way she’s reached for her money. But why should I be? I fork over a few dollar bills. It’s not like we’re on a date here—right?

Only I did put on a clean shirt before I left to pick her up. I shaved. And when I swore I could still smell the lake on my skin, I took a shower. I feel like an idiot for picking out a button-down shirt that looks like it should be in a sit-down restaurant instead of an outdoor festival. At least I put on jeans instead of khakis.

I pay for her lemonade and steer her away from the booth with the flashing lemon sign. Point out the sign above a large tented area that proclaims Beer Garden.

“Hmm,” she says, swirling her straw through her lemonade. “That makes me feel a little silly for wanting this. If I’d known you were going to have a beer …”

“Just come on,” I say, pushing her toward the garden.

“Don’t make