Chapter 204: Embrace Your Inner Child
** Harper ** Late Saturday morning was a busy time at the campground. The three of them arrived to a lively sight of dozens of tents getting pitched up all along the side of the creek, a bright dash of colors sprouting through the lush summer woods. Birds flitted through the dense canopy of treetops, adding tweets of cheery songs to the lovely scene.
"Wow, this place still looks exactly the same as I remember!" Harper gasped in amazement at the natural beauty unfolding before her eyes. "The creek, the woods, even that log cabin amenities house over there. I remember us trying to climb the big maple tree behind it back then. It was so much fun!"
She casually caught up with the two guys walking in front of her, patting each of them on the back with one hand in a "brotherly" gesture, hiding a soft brush of her fingers over Eli’s shoulder. She grinned when he surreptitiously reached up and held her hand for a moment, before pretending to brush her off with a nonchalant snort.
"It was fun until we got caught and your mom lectured us for half an hour," he reminded her.
"Didn’t stop us from trying again with the oak tree at school though," Tyler chimed in. "Hey, I was proud to have gotten so close to the top without anyone having to call firefighters to help me get back down."
"You what?" Harper gaped at the childhood anecdote that her brother casually tossed out. "Wait, did Mom never know about that? She would’ve grounded you from backpacking for the rest of your life!"
Eli chuckled. "I convinced our teacher that it was my idea and I coerced him, so the school didn’t bother with his parents and only called mine. Sometimes it’s actually convenient to not have parents who care too much."
Harper looked up instinctively at that, searching his face for the familiar expression of carefully hidden hurt and regret. But to her surprise, she saw none this time. There was only a faint trace of nostalgia, as if he understood that this was simply a memory from long ago, and nothing more.
She wasn’t sure how to interpret such a subtle change, though she preferred this expression much more to the usual. Knowing she was in his peripheral vision, she patted the head of the teddy bear in her arms and gave it a light kiss on the forehead.
Eli: "..."
Tyler: "??"