"Want me to go with you?"
"Thats probably not the safest idea. I think I can handle it. " I stand, ready to face Avi and whatever news hes about to tell me. "Ill be right back. "
"Good luck. Youll need it. "
"What do you want to talk to me about?" I ask Avi, whos standing close enough to our team to be seen but far enough away not to be heard.
"You didnt even try on the obstacle course, Amy. "
"Are you kidding? I tried. Sorry if Im not all buff and perfect like Liron. "
"Yeah, not many girls can compete with her. "
"Thanks. Next time you could give your team some pointers along the way. You are our team leader, you know. "
"And as team leader, I knew your team could do it on your own. Amy, admit youre lying about dating Nathan. "
"No. "
"Then whyd you make me take you somewhere private that first day and let me kiss you?"
"I had a brain fart. "
"No, youre having a brain fart right now by pretending you and Nathan are a couple. God is definitely inscribing you in the Book of Liars. "
My blood is way past boiling now. "How dare you! Ill have you know that Nathans kisses are the best Ive ever had. By far. You could take lessons from him. "
He opens his mouth to respond, then snaps it shut when someone walks by. We cant have a conversation in true private and Avi hates dishing his dirt in public. "When are you gonna stop playing games, Amy?"
"Never. I like games. It makes life interesting. You should try it sometime, you know. "
"I dont have time for games. " He looks behind me to Nathan, whos chatting with Miranda and Jessica. "So this is how you want to end it?"
"Dont you?"
"No. Didnt you talk to Noah?"
"Not about us. Listen, Avi, you and I both know its not working. "
"Im not good at relationships, Amy. "
"Well, thats one more obstacle wed have to get through if we were dating. Youd have to deal with my games, and with your girlfriend being an obstacle-course flunkee. Id have to deal with your commitment phobia and the fact that you dont really want a full-time girlfriend you have to answer to. We were doomed from the start. "
He lets out a slow breath. "Please dont make more out of this than it is. Ive been trying to be who you want me to be, Amy. "
"I just want you to be yourself. Ive never once asked you to be someone else. It may not seem like it now, but Im actually doing you a favor. Now you can have Liron or any other girl all to yourself, with a clear conscience. "
Nathan slides up beside me and puts his arm around my shoulders. "Sorry, Avi," he says. "You win some, you lose some. "
Liron comes up out of nowhere and stands next to Avi. She nudges him. "So you told her?"
He nods.
"Im so sorry, Amy," Liron says so sincerely I want to rip those blond streaks right out of her head. "But Im glad you know. Now I wont feel so weird around you anymore. "
Great. That makes one of us.
Avi puts his arm around Liron. I want to swat it off her, but as Nathan said, you win some, you lose some. I just wish I wasnt the one whod lost.
Chapter 14
Second place is the first loser. Last place is the biggest loser.
At night, Im so shaken up by the finality of our breakup that I skip my normal facial
cleansing routine and just climb into bed. Avi and I have broken up before, but this time its for real. I try sleeping, but with the squeaky springs above me (Vics indentation getting more and more pronounced), along with the fact that I cant get the awful conversation Avi and I had at the obstacle course out of my mind, sleeping is impossible. Listen, deep down I know I should have come clean to Avi about my non-relationship with Nathan. But I couldnt.
Avi uses a rifle, Krav Maga, and non-communication for self-defense. I use games, attitude, and manipulation.
No matter what Ive thought in the past, we might just be too different.
In the morning, our team gets assigned kitchen duty, (thanks to Tori and her tirade yesterday on the obstacle course). Its not bathroom-cleaning duty, so Im okay with it. Again, they wake us up at the crack of dawn. Actually, its before the crack of dawn, because its still pitch black outside. My team is held back while everyone else does an activity. Ronit leads us to the kitchen, and even though I dont want to see Avi, I cant help scanning the base looking for him. Hes nowhere in sight.
Noah, the American IDF soldier from Colorado, is in the kitchen waiting for us.
"Hey, Noah," I groan, my eyes still at half-mast.
"Hey. Im going to give you assignments. " He points to a humongous pot half the size of me. "Two of you need to set baskets of bread on the tables. Two of you need to put water in that pot. When it boils, put three hundred eggs inside and let them sit in the boiling water for fifteen minutes. Two of you need to put jam in the bowls. And two of you need to make coffee. "
We divvy up the jobs.
As soon as Miranda and I start pulling jars of jam from the huge refrigerator, bees swarm around us.
"Noah, the bees are bothering us," I tell him.
Noah waves some of the bees away. "Yeah, thats kind of a hazard of working here. Living with bees becomes part of your daily life. "
"I hate bees," Miranda tells him.
"You also hate me," I blurt out.
"I cant believe you just said that. "
"Why not? Its true. "
Miranda huffs and walks over to talk about me or complain about me to Jessica. I just want Miranda to tell me what I did to piss her off so much. If I dont know what it is, I cant fix it any more than I can fix what went wrong with Avi.
Noah helps me pull more jars of jam out of the fridge. "Whats her problem?"
"I wish I knew. "
Noah shakes his head. "I keep my expectations low, so nobody disappoints me. "
"Yeah, well, I have high expectations. " I look toward Miranda. "I guess my friends do, too. "
"Expectations make people miserable, so whatever yours are, lower them. Youll definitely be happier. " Noah waves his hand around, gesturing to the entire kitchen. "You think I wanted to be assigned kitchen duties? Nope. But to be honest, at least its quiet and the biggest pests I have to deal with here are the bees. Besides, Im only here for three months and then Im getting transferred to another base to get trained as an instructor. Its all good. "
"Youre a better person than me. "
Listen, I know who I am and what my strengths are. And my strengths do not include having little or no expectations. I guess I shouldnt be surprised, then, when people let me down.
After Noah leaves me alone for a minute with instructions about how to ladle spoonfuls of jam into the plastic bowls, Im having trouble fending off the four bees hovering around me. Youd think dropping globs of the jam would be easy, but its not. Its sticky and messy and two of the bees just got stuck in the jam.
"Umm. . . Noah. . . I think theres a problem. "
Noah is at my side. Miranda is right behind him, so I guess he was able to coax her back over here. "Whats the jam?" he asks, then laughs. "Get it. Whats them? Youre scooping the jam". "
You gotta love it when someone laughs at their own jokes.
"Yeah, I dont know how to break the news to you, but a few bees are stuck in the jam," I tell him.
"Just pick em out before you set the bowls on the tables," he says, as if it happens every day. He doesnt even peer in the bowls to see the annoying stinging creatures struggling for their lives. Thats what they get for hovering around the jam, I guess.
Noah leaves Miranda and me to fish out the bees while he helps Eli and David with the eggs.
I look down into the first bowl of jam. I can do this. Im trying to think about the consequences of an IDF soldier, jam on his bread, biting into a little bee corpse as a bonus treat. At least theyre not those fuzzy bees, because having a mouthful of that fuzz would definitely not go over well
.
I spot a bee in the next bowl. With shaky hands, I slowly fish it out with a spoon and flick it into the garbage can. "This is so gross," I say to nobody in particular, since my partner Miranda is pretty much ignoring me and everyone else is doing other tasks.
Within five minutes Ive inspected and de-beed eleven bowls. I look into the twelfth bowl and find the next bee. Seriously, dont bees have eyes and see their cousins and brothers drowning in the sticky stuff? Youd think theyd be smart enough to stay away, but no. Their little bee brains arent equipped with street smarts.
I slowly fish out another bee and head for the garbage can. The bee is still alive--I can see it walking in the jam on my spoon. Eww. I suppress a gag. If it crawls anywhere near my hand, Im dropping the spoon and running out of here.
Im almost to the garbage can when I feel a sharp pain on my butt. "Ahhhh!" I scream, whipping myself around to see what or who was the cause. But instead of it being an insect like I suspected, its Nathan. "With his thumb and pointer finger in a pinching position. My fake boyfriend just pinched my ass.
"Hows my sweetie?" he asks, raising and lowering his eyebrows at me. Tori is beside him, giving me the evil eye.
Speaking of sweet mixed with evil, I examine the jam/ bee on the spoon in my hand.
Oh. No.
The jam isnt there. Neither is the bee. I quickly scan the floor, but its not there. I frantically scan my shirt. Sure enough, theres a big glob of jam on my sleeve. The bee is stuck in it, creepily walking in the jam. "Get it off! Get it off! Eww!"
Nathan takes my elbow, looks up at me and says in a sexy voice, "Let me get that for you. " He checks to make sure Tori is watching him be my hero. I expect him to flick it off me, but instead his tongue snakes out as he leans close to the jam. . . and the bee.
I quickly realize he thinks hes only licking jam off my sleeve.
"Nathan, dont. . . "
"Im here for you, babycakes. " Before I can pull away, he licks off the jam and struggling bee with the tip of his tongue.
My hand flies over my mouth. "Oh, my God. Nathan-- you just ate a bee!"
Nathans face contorts in shock, and I realize I didnt have to tell him he ate a bee. He figured it out all by himself. "Ow! What the fu--"
He runs to the garbage can faster than Ive ever seen him move and spits jam and the bee out of his mouth.
"Nathan, are you allergic to bees?" Miranda cries out over the commotion.
"No. "
Theres a sigh of relief that Nathan isnt going to die. Ive never heard so many swear words come out of his mouth at one time since Ive known him.
I rub his back as he rinses his tongue in the big metal kitchen sink. "Im so sorry. I tried to warn you--"
"It sthung my tung. Thit," he swears. He sticks his tongue out and points. "Take de sthinger outh. "
"Okay. " I examine his tongue. "What should I be looking for?"
"The sthinger!"
Is it white? Red? Black? Ive never taken out a stinger before. Im frantic with worry.
"His tongue is swollen," Miranda says. "I think he needs to go to the infirmary. "
"Mirandas right," I cry out. "Nathan, Im so sorry. "