I unzipped the front of the tent just wide enough so I could crawl into it and then zipped it back up. The tent was old and broken down; its green sides sagged into the sleeping area making it so its occupants had to squeeze together to avoid them interfering with their sleep. I unzipped my sleeping bag and crawled into it. I removed my shirt and shorts and put them at the top of the sleeping bag so I could use them as a pillow. I then heard the noises coming from outside the tent and then the door zipped open. I was blinded by his flashlight, and so put up a hand to block the foreign stream of light.

“Get that the hell out of my face!” I said, a little more angrily then I intended.
“Oh, sorry.” He replied lowering the light.

His face came into focus and I was astounded by how tan he had gotten on just this short canoe trip. He pulled out his sleeping pad and began to blow air into it. His pad was basically a small blow up mattress and so it took a lot of lung power to blow it up. His face started to turn red from the pressure and I could tell he was definitely out of breath.
“Here, let me help you with that.” I said, reaching out a hand to grab the straw like instrument that you blew the air into.

He handed it to me without saying thank you. He almost never does. Common courtesy really isn’t his thing. I started to blow into the tube, feeling his saliva that was already on the outside of it and liking the way that I felt this made us closer. I blew into it for about thirty seconds without stopping and I could tell at that point it was full, so I put the stopper into it and handed it back to him.

He climbed onto the pad and took off his blue and white tye-dye shirt. He was kind of a hippie. When I first met him he only ate organic food and most of his closet was comprised of tye-dye tee shirts. He was far different now. Just recently I had to rescue him when he got stranded at a McDonalds without a ride and needless to say, McDonalds is NOT organic.

I glanced up at him as he started to disrobe, diverting my eyes whenever he would look over. When he was done he crawled into his orange sleeping bag and turned over on his side, his eyes staring into mine. Just as he did this, a mosquito landed on my face. I tried to kill it, but it flew away before I could.

“Will you help me kill this damn thing?” I asked him as I flailed about waiting for it to land somewhere for long enough so I could hit it with my palm.

He sat up in his sleeping bag and we both sat there, watching for this bloodsucking vermin to land on the tent. It flew above me and I swatted it, hitting, but not killing it. It flew over to his side and he also was able to swat it, this time in my direction.

“This is like freaking ping pong.” He said in both and amused and exasperated tone.

“Well we play enough ping pong for us to be able to kill this damn thing.” I replied, laughing.
“Yeah, and you always win, so why haven’t you killed it yet?” He replied grinning at me.

Finally it landed on my side of the tent. Apparently I was too busy staring at him to notice because all I saw was him flying at me. He hit my side of the tent with his right hand, but his elbow came down hard on my stomach and his face landed directly on my heart. We both took a few seconds to recover, him still lying on top of me.

“Ow, I think you broke my heart.” I said, more comically then painfully.

“It wouldn’t be the first time.” He said pushing himself off of me so that his arms were on either side of me and he was in a push up position over my body.

I looked into his bright blue eyes, his sandy brown hair falling into them. He was smirking and in that moment I hated him. I hated him for thinking that he could joke about it. I can joke about it because I was the one that got hurt, but he cannot, even if he didn’t do it on purpose, it’s still not funny. Call this a double standard if you want, but it seems fair to me. He glanced down and saw that laying next to my sleeping bag was the dead mosquito.
“I killed it. Must have gotten lucky.” He said still smirking, obviously oblivious to my discomfort with the situation at this point. He often is oblivious to my feelings.

“Well you are Irish.” I said as if that explained everything.

He moved back over to his sleeping bag and got into it. I stared into his eyes trying to figure out what he was thinking, until he closed them and began to nod off. Then I turned around so I was no longer facing him so I might be able to get some sleep of my own. About half an hour went by and the whole time he was snoring like a bear. I was just about to fall asleep when I felt something hit me.

I turned around and saw that the fact that we were on a hill had finally gotten to us and he had rolled over practically onto me. I was not complaining however and decided if this is how I got to be close to him I would take what I could get. Another few minutes went by and then I heard him mumbling something in his sleep. I couldn’t make out what it was the first couple of times, so I pressed my ear up closer to his lips, just close enough to make out the words “I love you.”

Tears welled up in my eyes almost instantly because I knew that he wasn’t talking about me. I knew I had to get out of here. I got out of my sleeping bag and put on my jeans as quietly as I could as not to wake him. When I got up, he rolled into the place where I had been sleeping, his head hitting the side of the tent, but he did not stir. I unzipped the tent and tip toed out to the rocks next to the bank of the lake we were sleeping next to.

I sat down on a rock and looked into the crystal clear Wisconsin water. I could see the crescent moon reflected in it. I buried my head into my knees and cried softly wondering why I wasn’t good enough for him. Wondering why he had said “I do not love you, and I can never see myself having any type of romantic feelings for you ever.” It was hard enough to sleep next to him, but to hear him say “I love you” when he obviously did not mean me was just too much. I looked up and saw my reflection in the water. My tear stained face twisted in the way everyone’s does when they cry.

I picked up a pebble and threw it at myself. I could not stand the image of what he had turned me into. I had to be stronger than this. I then felt cloth on my shoulders and turned around with a start. I must have not been able to hear the sound of the tent unzipping over my crying, but he was there. I wiped my tears out of my eyes, refusing to let him see me crying about him. How pathetic is that? He had wrapped his blue plaid blanket around my shoulders and had sat next to me completely in silence. I saw him shiver as we sat there and I scooted closer to him so that we could share the blanket.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” I said my voice still shaking from the tears.

“You don’t have to be sorry.” He said staring out into the lake, ignoring my question completely.

I didn’t respond. I just sat there and looked up at the moon then down to the still water again. I still don’t know if I loved or hated the image I found there. The reflection of the two of us huddled together, both shirtless, under his blanket. All I knew is that it was my pain that was reflected back at me from that water. We sat there in silence for about ten more minutes before we both got up and went back to the tent. He went back to sleep five minutes later and his hand moved over fingertips pressed against my back and with the warmth and comfort of his touch, I fell asleep.