Page 74 of Delirium

“Glad to see you finally manned up.” Camp smirked down at us. “I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen, or if you two would just pussy foot around each other for the rest of the trip.”

“Fuck off,” James muttered beneath me. “Scarlett, are you sure you like him? Like really sure? Because the man is an annoying fucking twat.”

“I like him. Leave him alone.”

Camp smiled, and James grumbled from the floor. I pressed a kiss onto his forehead. “I like you, too, though, so don’t be too grumpy about it.”

This, too, was a blip. A reprieve from everything about to happen. But of all the things in my life I’d gone through, I’d never found myself as grateful as I was at this moment with one man smiling down at me, another holding me in his arms, and another sleeping soundly across the boat.

Despite it all, despite whatever may come when we left the boat and ventured off into the rainforest tomorrow, we wouldn’t be doing it alone.

It counted for a lot more than we realized.

Chapter

Twenty-Six

CAMP

Life was easier when you compartmentalized things into tiny boxes. This was how I felt about bike riding. This was how I felt about green peppers, as compared to red peppers. This was how I felt about Scarlett.

Some things were harder to categorize, which left my brain a jumbled mess in a way I didn’t particularly enjoy. Usually, if something didn’t fit into its carefully labeled box inside my brain, I would just cut it out completely.

From my life, not my brain, so don’t go thinking I was lobotomizing myself with every breakup. I wasn’t that insane.

Yet. I didn’t think, anyway. If you’d asked me yesterday, I would’ve told you I was at least 99% sane, or at least more than anyone you’d pull off the street. But after last night, I really didn’t know anymore.

I still could’ve sworn I watched James stab Nash, leaving him dying in a puddle of his own blood. And yet, according to the three of them, a very much alive Nash included, a murder simply never happened.

But it seemed so fuckingreal. How was I supposed to trust anything from then on out? Witnessing a murder that never actually happened was a bit hard to categorize. Was I crazy? Was I sick? Was this whole trip just a fucking dream, while I sat rotting in a jail cell somewhere, desperate to escape, if only in my mind?

No. I wasn’t quite meta enough for that. This was definitely reality. The little bits in between though…they were hard to add up.

Another part of what I struggled to categorize was how I felt about sharing Scarlett. I knew how I felt about her, tidily marked in a neat box, shelved asFun.But I’d never given much thought to sharing before. Most likely because I never liked a single person enough to consider sharing them, let alone liking other people they might have been involved with.

This was where the struggle came in. I didn’t like James, so I thought I was going to be far more jealous than I was finding him naked and buried in Scarlett on the deck in the night. It didn’t bother me, sharing Scarlett with Nash, because it made her happy, and Nash was a good guy, but something about James just didn’t sit right with me.

Until I saw her smiling up at me from the floor, looking every inch the beautiful goddess she was, I didn’t find myself jealous at all. The tiniest bit annoyed it was James underneath her and not me, sure. That didn’t quite fit into any of my boxes.

I sighed, stuffing the thin sleeping bag left outside my door into the top of my backpack. I guess at the end of the day, it really didn’t matter. All of this was more of a “if we survive this shit” scenario, than a “let’s debate morals before we go on a suicide trip into the rainforest” kind of thing.

“Camp, you ready?” Scarlett stood in my open doorway, backpack already loaded, hair twisted into a tight braid.

“Yeah. I’m good.” I heaved my backpack around my shoulder, taking one last look around. Thankfully, I’d come onto the boat with only my singular pack. Scarlett was having to leave a good chunk of textbooks and notebooks behind. It had to pain her.

“How are you feeling?” She pressed her wrist to my forehead, frowning. “You feel warmer than last night. Tell me the truth. How do you feel? Did you have any more weird dreams?”

I brushed her hand off gently. “I’m good. I promise. I’ll tell you if I start to feel rough in any way, but right now I’m good.” I studied her, taking in her pallid complexion. “How are you though? You haven’t said anything about seeing anything, but you really don’t look good.”

She shrugged. “I’m fine. Besides, I think I’m the least of our concerns between you and James. A little sweatier than normal, maybe, a bit more tired. But I’ll be fine.”

I grabbed her wrist before she could pull away, forcing her to look at me so I could examine her more closely. She definitely looked paler than normal, her freckles standing out more than I’d seen before. Dark purple swatches painted the delicate skin beneath her eyes, but when I met her gaze, it was as sharp and bright as ever. She might be sick, but she was right. For now, she was okay.

“You’ll tell me if anything changes.” Not a request. A demand.

She bit her lip in response. I recognized a challenge when I saw one. “Why, Campbell, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were worried about me.”

I tugged her close. She let out a quiet gasp as our bodies pressed together. “I might be sick. I might not be able to decipher fact from fiction, but I can tell you precisely one thing in this world I know to be absolute—you matter more to me than anyone else on this fucked up planet. So youwilltell me if you start feeling any worse, and Iwilldo everything in my power to keep you safe. Do you hear me?”

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