He was wrong when he said she’d ever feel more than a family bond for me. She’d told me herself, and despite my guardedness on her explanation, I tended to believe her.
She was ten years my junior, and I saw her as fresh-faced innocent and far too young to share the sort of relationship I wanted. But I’d forgotten something important. There were two sides to everything, and I’d failed to see how she must view me.
I’d been stuck-up to think she’d want me in any other way than as a guardian.
She had to be telling the truth because at ten years her elder, I was boring and surly and far too old to share the sort of fledgling romance she would eventually seek.
I didn’t need to show her I was human.
She knew who and what I was.
She knew me better than anyone, and when the time came for her to meet another boy, then I’d show her exactly how flawed I was by interrogating the hell out of him before he could go near her.
John was incorrect.
Della loved me.
But it wasn’t wrong or tainted. It was just as it had always been, and as the roles we’d played faded from view, and we turned toward the forest instead of the farm, I was grateful we were leaving.
Grateful to delete past expectations and remove outsider’s opinions because no matter that they came from a good place, they didn’t know us…not really.
No one truly knew the lives of another.
That was why I liked being alone, and by the time we reached the outskirts of the forest with our stuffed backpacks and wanderlust bubbling in our veins, I gave Della one last chance. One final choice—to admit this was truly what she wanted.
To run just like I’d done from the Mclary’s.
To turn her back on everything and start new.
Unlike the last time we’d lived in the forest, Della had her own backpack with extra tools and equipment and would be expected to pull her weight. Our tiny tent would be a struggle, but at least we had separate sleeping bags. Washing in rivers would come with strict privacy, and dinners would be a chore shared by both of us.
This wasn’t a vacation. This was real life. It would be hard. It would be constant. From here on out, we would be homeless until we found a new place to stay.
I needed her to understand that.
For her to accept the burden of running from people who cared because once we said goodbye, that was it.
“Are you sure?” I asked, glancing at the wind ruffling her butterscotch hair.
She didn’t look at me, keeping her gaze on the beckoning trees. “I’m sure.”
“Okay, then.”
For better or for worse, we didn’t look back as we vanished into the wilderness and said goodbye to civilization.
* * * * *
Unlike the other camping trips we’d taken over the many summers at Cherry River, this was different. What we carried was all we owned in the world. What we gathered as we wandered was all the food we’d have for that night or the next.
And slowly, gradually, the stress of living around people faded.
As a day turned into a week, and Della gave me no reason to worry, I smiled a little easier. I laughed a little louder. I didn’t wince when she touched me in passing and didn’t freeze when she pressed a kiss to my cheek.
The fear that she’d overstep grew less and less as our bond returned to what it had always been.
If anything, things grew better between us.
Different, yes.
Older and more grown-up, but still connected.
Before, when the stars woke and darkness descended, Della had been too young to talk before exhaustion put her to sleep. Now, she stayed up late with me.
She was older, and I finally had no choice but to see the changes in her. To notice the roundness of hips and swell of breasts. She could’ve become a stranger as she lost her childish angles if it wasn’t for the blue ribbon she still wore either in her hair, around her wrist, or in a bow around her neck.
I still recognised the girl I’d raised thanks to the untouched joy she showed when I agreed to tell her a story, and the unsullied sound of pure happiness when I made her laugh.
Della was still Della, despite my fears of losing her, and after we’d eaten and banked the fire for the night, we lay side by side squished in our tiny tent.
As our legs brushed and breaths found the same rhythm, our natural freedom and ease with each other erased the residual mess and balance returned.
Nothing felt forced.
Nothing felt hidden.
Our ages didn’t matter as much out here, only our ability to survive.
By the end of the third week, I stopped bringing up the fact that we needed to find somewhere so she could return to school. I accepted, after multiple convincing from her, that the term was almost over, and she could slip into any educational system with her current grades with no problems.