Page 10 of Loathing Ryan
With a sigh, I dropped my hands and looked at my best friend. “I don’t hate her.”
“Okay, well, she sure does hate you.”
Liam was right. Izabel hated my damn guts, and I had no one to blame but myself. It didn’t really bother me that she didn’t like me—tons of people didn’t like me. But what bothered me was that this was all by my own doing.
“Probably well deserved,” I muttered and turned away from my friend. I found a basketball stationed in the grass and grabbed it, lined up to the net, and took the shot. The basketball swished through the net and fell to the concrete before bouncing away.
“Hey! You guys playing without me?” Todd shouted from the building. I turned to look at him and sighed. He came trotting over and grabbed the ball, taking a shot himself.
As the ball fell through the net, Todd turned to me and echoed Liam’s earlier question. “What was that back there?”
“Nothing,” I repeated my earlier answer.
“You’ve been in a mood ever since we got here,” Todd observed, watching me with a scrutinous eye.
“I’m not in a mood. I just don’t really want to be here. I’ve got some shit going on at home, okay?” I told him.
Todd paused, and his suspicions gave way to concern. For as big of an idiot Todd was, he was still my friend too. “Anything I can help with?”
I shook my head and grabbed the basketball again, bouncing it a few times before taking a free throw. “Nah. I think my mom’s gonna tell me she got engaged to her boyfriend.” My friends fell silent, both aware that was abig deal. “So if it feels like I’m a little uncommitted to whatever game this is with Izabel, maybe that’s why. Because it doesn’t really matter.”
Also, it was just dumb.
I wanted to say that out loud, but I didn’t. Even still, I was holding up the front that my friends expected of me. Maybe not Liam, but definitely Todd. And the rest of my classmates, for sure.
Maybe if I continued to be nonchalant about it all, they’d finally get the hint that I wasn’t invested anymore. I figured the chances of that were slim, but still, I held out hope.
5
IZABEL
So far,camp was living up to its unfortunate expectations. After the embarrassment of yesterday during the icebreaker games, I was feeling defeated. I tried my hardest to rally my spirits and come off as enthusiastic as possible, but it was a struggle. I wanted to go home and be finished with this damn camp forever.
But as much as I dreaded it, today marked a new day. The camp had their capture-the-flag game later this afternoon, and everyone was buzzing about it. Though I despised being here, even I couldn’t deny that I enjoyed the annual capture-the-flag showdown.
The event occurred in a giant field with a playground on one side and a creek and woods on the other. The field was divided down the middle by red scarves so we would know where the boundary was.
Counselors randomly picked the two teams out of a giant bowl to prevent the jocks from teaming up. There was a 50/50 chance that I would end up with Ryan, but I resolved to avoid him either way. After yesterday, I aimed even more to keep our interactions to a minimum for the remaining weeks of camp.
Juliet and I ventured out with the crowd toward the large field. Between the two schools, Bennett and Hawthorne, there were just over a hundred seniors. The schools made it a point to keep the classes at a manageable number. Students from all over the country applied for acceptance, but only a few made the cut.
I was forever thankful that Juliet and I had made it in at the same time. Before Hawthorne, Juliet had been my best friend throughout all of elementary school. It just so happened that we grew up in the same neighborhood in Cedar Ridge. We became friends early on and somehow were destined to stay friends throughout the rest of our schooling career.
It was only Juliet, myself, and one other student at the schools who were from Cedar Ridge. Unfortunately, that other student happened to be a green-eyed, tousled-haired menace. Ryan’s family only moved to Cedar Ridge when he got accepted into Bennett. Now, I only had the pleasure of occasionally running into him on school breaks.
I shuddered to think what life would have been like if Ryan and I had actually attended the same school at any point in our lives. Even now, my only required interactions were with Ryan at Camp Wildwood.
After these few weeks, I would leave for college and hopefully never have to see his annoyingly attractive face again.
As we walked closer to some of our friends from school, my anticipation started to build. The capture-the-flag game was one of the highlights each year. The winning team didn’t get prizes other than simple bragging rights, but the competition rolled over each year. Needless to say, the game became intense and highly competitive.
In the many years that I had been coming to this camp, I had only been on the winning team a handful of times. I just had bad luck.
Two of the camp counselors were standing near the edge of the opposite side of the field on a small stool so they could see everyone. They held the bowl full of our names, ready to be drawn and assigned to the correct team. Red or Blue. Each counselor wore a bandana around their head corresponding with their team color. The counselors wouldn’t play with us, but they would act as “team captains” per se. Assigning different positions and making sure we worked well together.
Jules and I found our way to the middle of the mass of seniors, and we all huddled together. The sun was shining bright today, confirming the day would be warm. I stood on my tiptoes to try to see over my classmates’ heads in an attempt to get a better view.
“Do you want to switch spots with me?” a deep voice addressed me. I turned to the side, not recognizing who it was. A guy stood just before me with dark brown hair and rich chocolate eyes. He gave me an unconfident smile as he waited for my response.
