Four nights in a row at the gym.  Running, staring at a plywood wall that makes my mind run faster than the six miles per hour of my feet.  I feel his eyes on my back, and sweat falls from the ends of my hair onto the thin skin of my chest.  He steps onto the treadmill beside me, and we're running at the same pace.  His lean arms and legs, determined and disciplined.

You're a cardio powerhouse says Jessie, after I come off a ten km run.  This from that kid, so cocky and sure, warming up to me.  He and Matt go off together, and I want to know what they are talking about.

I like it when she's here.  We can actually have a conversation. 

He says this and I'm right there.  Rain continues to fall.  I pretend to not hear.  

We sit in the trailer alone and he asks me things and something is happening that is bigger than I can explain.  How chemicals and genetics can draw two people together. 

In my room at night, alone.  Thinking about everything that is happening to me.  How I can be falling into a friendship with someone like him.  Wondering what he is thinking.  That the impossibility of it all makes it so bittersweet.  I'm not a fool - chemistry is rarely one sided.  

Water pools between the trailers at camp.  They stagnate and it reminds me if tide pools.  An old man makes a lewd comment as I traverse the boardwalk towards the commons.  I run on a treadmill in an Atco trailer on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.  Leaves come out on the trees and grass begins to emerge from the top soil stockpiles.  Faint bird calls from the forest edge. Clanging metal and back up beepers.