Daydreamers - 19. Chapter 19

I never switched rooms with Tyler and started to room with Sam. I never really had the intention of doing that. I just wanted to show Ryan how serious I was. I supposed that not going through with the move was counteractive if that was the point that I wanted to make. But after everything he's done, Ryan's still my best friend.

When we were packing for our camping trip, I felt certain closeness to him. The awkwardness was over. Even though we didn't say anything, I knew that I was no longer mad at him.

"Ryan, I'm sorry about what I said to you."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"When I implied that you weren't a real brother," I said.

"Oh...that," he said with his eyes down.

"I just said that because I was really mad." I sighed. "Why would you do something like that? You knew that it would only hurt your brothers."

"I wasn't thinking, Jules. I love my brothers. I see what you go through every day at the college. I don't want them to go through that."

"But when they come out is not your decision to make. They need to do that on their own. If you push them to do it before they're ready, it could traumatize them." I took a breath. "I know."

"What do you mean?"

"One of my friends in high school - we had a falling out and, and he posted pictures of me kissing another guy all around the school. My parents found out and kind of went ballistic. Besides that, the whole school was in my face about it. It really darkened me. I got really depressed and even thought about killing myself. It's not a good thing to be outed before you're ready."

"Why didn't you ever tell me that before?"

"You never asked and it's not something that I like to talk about - for obvious reasons."

"One question, though," said Ryan. "Why have you been hanging out with Tyler so much?"

I almost froze, but knew better. He would know if I froze, so I didn't. "I don't know. He's a cool kid. He kind of reminds me of me at his age, except he's a lot more confident."

"So what - are you like his mentor or something?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," I said.

We packed Ryan's jeep. Apparently Ryan invited an old girlfriend of his. Brian was coming as well and I heard from Alex that his parents would only let him come if his older brother Matt came. So, Matt was coming and bringing his girlfriend Ally as well.

In Ryan's jeep, it was going to be Ryan and Me, Tyler, Sam and Travis. Rachel was driving her SUV with Ally, Brian, and Alex in it.

We drove about an hour outside of Stone Lake to a little tiny dinky town called Bridgeport. It sort of reminded me of an old western town with small wooden buildings, connected and lined up neatly along the road.

We stopped in Bridgeport for a quickly supply check. We made sure that we had everything that we needed. We got a few more snacks and then we were off down a small winding road that seemed to be in the middle of nowhere.

The road started to life up and around a hill and it eventually leveled out and we ended up into the middle of what was like a coliseum of mountains with a lake in the middle and filled with tons of pine trees.

When we reached check-in was when I realized that we were going to be sleeping in trailers and not tents. Everyone was in trailers. It was something that I figured I'd wait to ask about until later. We slowly drove towards the back of the campsite and settled at our two trailers.

"Why are we staying in trailers and not tents?" I asked Tyler.

"It's too dangerous to sleep in tents because there are a lot of bears here," Tyler answered.

He looked so cute in his t-shirt that hugged his body and his shorts. I think I might be starting to love this boy and that scares me because of my fear of what Ryan might think of our relationship. The bears didn't worry me much, especially since we were in trailers.

We unpacked and worked out who was going to stay in which trailer. In trailer one was me, Sam, Travis, Rachel, and Ryan. I was sort of disappointed that I wasn't going to be in the same trailer as Tyler, but I knew it was a good decision. I didn't want to run the chance of getting caught before we were ready to tell Ryan.

In the other trailer, of course, was everyone else; Alex, Brian, Tyler, Matt, and Ally. I liked Ally. She was a short girl with wonderful big eyes and short brown hair. As for Rachel, she was beautiful as well, but it was more of a cliché type of beautiful. She had wonderful skin, green eyes, curly red hair, and a near perfect body. She's totally Ryan's type.

When I walked into the trailer, it was a lot smaller on the inside than it seemed on the outside. It was basically a shrunken version of an RV. There was a tiny sink, some cabinets, a table that can probably only fit two and a closet that you could probably fit a leprechaun in. Then there were the beds. There were two sets of bunk beds and a queen sized bed that was in its own separate room. Ryan and Rachel claimed that immediately. Though, I thought it should go to the actual couple in the trailer - Sam and Travis. But they seemed fine with the bunks. Also there was a bathroom even smaller than the ones on airplanes if you can believe any bathroom can be smaller than those.

The inside of the trailer was incredibly small. You had to walk sideways if there were more than two people inside of it at once. This was especially difficult to do when we were all just getting our stuff into the trailer. But once we were done, we were all on the outside of the trailer.

On the outside, it was a fire pit, and two picnic tables painted dark green. Oh and there was one of those small grills that you see at parks that people usually have birthday parties at. There was also a grill rack for the fire pit if we wanted to use it, which I thought was neat.

And the campsite - the campsite was like a little town. There was a restaurant with a bar, a motel, a general store, and even a few cabins that I imagined were a bit pricy. And, of course, there were showers.

"So," I started after we were done putting everything away. "What do we do know?"

"Do you guys wanna eat?" asked Sam. "We can cook some burgers."

"Naw, let's go fishing in the lake," said Tyler.

"No, it's cool. I think we're gonna stay here," said Ryan, referring to himself and Rachel.

"Yeah, us too," said Travis. He looked at Sam and Sam agreed.

"I'll go," I said. I was hoping for some alone time with Tyler.

"Cool," said Tyler with a smile. "We can go to the beach."

"That's on the upper side of the lake," said Ryan. "Why don't you go right here to the sandbar? It's closer."

"But the beach has the best fishing."

"I thought we could all go to the beach tomorrow though," said Ryan.

"What is this - a family vacation? Chill with the family bonding Ryan. It's not gonna make up for what you did."

Tyler walked into his trailer and came out with his fishing pole. I walked into my trailer and walked brought mine out. Ryan gave me the keys to his Jeep. Tyler and I put our fishing poles into the Jeep, got in and I drove us off. He gave me directions to where we were going.

We drove to around to the upper lake and then onto a narrow dirt road. When we got out, Tyler helped me prepare my fishing line, because I didn't know how. Then, we took our poles and walked down a steep and sandy, but small hill that was only about four feet down. I nearly tripped going down, but Tyler caught me because he was in front of me.

When we got there, I realized why they called the spot "The Beach". It was sandy and it had a lot of drift wood and it was a very beautiful spot. And when Tyler found a spot he liked, he cast off his line and then helped me with mine.

"So you've really never been fishing before?" asked Tyler.

"No, just like, you know, camping where you go hiking and stuff." I said.

"Oh, we never hike while we're here. I don't know why. It's probably a good place to hike."

"So what do you do when you're here?" I asked.

"I don't know - just chill." He smiled. "But enough with all the small talk." He sat us down on the sand - our poles were on stands. "When are you gonna kiss me?"

I smiled and leaned my body into his and we gently kissed. He put his hand on my side and leaned over him so he was leaning back. My hand caressed his cheek while my tongue played with his.

"I've missed kissing you," he said.

"Me too," I replied.

"It sucks having to hide this from everyone."

"Sam knows," I said.

"I know, but that doesn't seem to be enough. I..." He stumbled on his words.

"What Tyler?" I asked.

"I think I'm-I'm starting to love you."

At first I was a little scared. I didn't know if I felt the same way, but looking at him pouring his heart out to me was the most revealing experience of my life. I knew that even if I didn't love him at this moment, I would definitely love him in the future.