Page 13 of Steal My Breath Away

Paige always knew what to say to bring me around. “Fine,” I muttered. “I’ll meet him. But I’m not making any promises.”

CHAPTER 7Haley

NINE YEARS AGO

Dad wanted Ace to have a camping experience, so he invited him to come with us on our first camping trip of the season. Matt was thrilled to have someone to hang out with that wasn’t his irritating little sister, and I was happy to have Ace around. He was kind and thoughtful and he also seemed to show up when I was about to get myself into trouble. He’d been in Riverstone for less than a year and had already become a fixture in our house, and frankly it would have seemed odd if he hadn’t come with us.

Camping was Dad’s favorite recreational activity. Every winter he spent hours poring over maps and review sites to pick the best campsites for the summer. Big Meadows Campground near Shenandoah National Park was one of his favorites. Located in a remote forest with three waterfalls nearby and plenty of hikes, wildlife, and mountain vistas, it was the perfect place to pitch a tent.

Ace was the first one out of the car when we reached our campsite tucked away in the middle of the forest. Usually, Matt and I would wander around checking things out while Mom and Dad unloaded the supplies, but Ace had the hatch open before my feet even hit the ground.

“Bruh, you’re making us look bad.” Matt sometimes got irritated with Ace’s enthusiasm for helping out, because it meant he couldn’t slack off like he’d started doing when he turned fourteen.

“He wants to get this party started,” I said, sticking up for Ace.Although he’d tried to hide it, Ace was more excited than I’d ever seen him, and I didn’t want Matt to ruin his experience.

Ace caught my gaze and thanked me with a smile and a nod of his head.

“Haley, you can help Ace pitch his tent,” Dad called out. “Matt and I will take care of the others so we can get this vacation party started.”

“Prepare yourself.” I looked over at Ace and grinned. “You’re about to experience ‘vacation Dad.’” I grabbed our spare tent and took it to one of the clearings. “Where did you go on vacation when you were younger?”

“My parents didn’t do vacations,” he said quietly. “They didn’t like to leave the city unless we were moving somewhere new.”

“My parents don’t like to leave Virginia.” It was the first time I realized that we’d never vacationed anywhere else. Paige and her mother were always going on trips to Mexico, Florida, Costa Rica, and California. They’d even gone to Quebec City for the winter carnival, and once they’d gone to London to visit Paige’s grandmother.

“If I could camp here all the time, I wouldn’t leave either.” He helped me lay the ground sheet and I showed him how to peg it down.

“Don’t you want to travel and see the world?” I was desperate to get on an airplane and visit other countries. I wanted to experience new cultures, new foods, beautiful buildings, and different people. “I saw a show about Florence and that’s the first place I’m going to visit when I grow up. It looks so pretty.”

“I want to fly.” He glanced quickly over at Matt like he was embarrassed by his admission. “I don’t care where I go.”

“Fly like a bird?” I teased, trying to lighten his mood. “Or in an airplane?”

“I want to fly airplanes and helicopters.” He looked up at the sky, barely visible under the canopy of trees. “I’m thinking of joining the air force when I graduate…”

Something told me to tread carefully, that this was a dreamAce had never shared. “I think that would be very cool. You could see the whole world from up in the sky.”

“I’d be free.”

Dad had told Matt and me that Ace’s parents had often left him alone in their apartment when he was a kid, sometimes for days at a time, and that was why he was quiet, and that we shouldn’t think he didn’t want to be involved. I didn’t know what Dad meant because Ace always talked around us, but in that moment, I got a glimpse into the pain he’d been hiding.

“Think how fast you could go,” I said, hoping to pull him out of the memory that had made his forehead crease and his shoulders slump. “Maybe you could fly one of those planes that breaks the sound barrier.”

Ace shook off whatever had pulled him into the darkness and smiled. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you, bug?”

Ace had never called me by my nickname before, but I liked it. He was like family and that was my family name.

“I love going fast. I can hardly wait to be able to drive.” Ever since I’d been little, I’d loved speed, the roar of the car engine when it accelerated, the invisible force pushing me back in my seat, the world racing by so fast it took my breath away. My favorite part of our road trips was when Dad had to pass another vehicle on the road, and I would yell, “Hit the gas!”

“I’d be afraid to be in a car with you driving.” He helped me unfold the tent and we laid it on the ground.

“No, you wouldn’t.” I smiled at him. “You’re not afraid of anything, and you like to go fast, too.”

Early the next morning, I left the campsite to go for a walk to one of the mountain vistas where I could see the entire Shenandoah Valley. We’d hiked the short trail many times before, and I was confident I could do it alone. I picked a handful of wildflowers along the way for my mom and found a few smooth stones in the creek under a small bridge for Matt to skip in the lake. By thetime I reached the lookout, the sun was almost up, and the last streaks of the pink-and-orange dawn were fading away.

I drew in a few deep breaths of mountain air, fragrant with pine, and took in the valley spread out below me. I loved being up high and would happily hike to any mountain peak for the feeling of being at the top of the world.

“This is amazing.”

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