You'll Thank Me for This by Nina Siegal (top novels txt) 📗

this way, puffed out “Whatever” and marched off toward the car. Karin claimed to have forgotten something in her backpack, though no one was listening anyway, and scampered off too. She didn’t even bother pantomiming that one. As soon as she walked over to Lotte, the two of them leaned against the minivan and watched as Dirk and Margot tussled playfully with each other.

Lotte said softly, “Once, my family went camping in the South of France in the summer and we heard wolves howling the whole night through. I was so happy that we had a cabin and not just a tent. And in the morning, when we woke up, everyone was talking about how the wolf had come to our camping area and made off with someone’s pet rabbit. I don’t even understand why someone would bring a pet rabbit camping with them. How stupid is that?”

“That does sound kinda stupid,” agreed Karin.

Karin and Lotte continued to lean against the car in silence. Right now she could really use her cell phone. She could check Instagram or find out what was trending on YouTube or even look at a Google map. But no. They just had to stand there like idiots next to each other with nothing to say.

Their eyes wandered up toward the sky. It was really overcast but not entirely covered. Some clouds looked like hillsides and others like shorelines. There was a tiny bit of light cresting over one of the clouds, like it was hoping for an entrance.

Rutger, who had walked off a distance to talk on his phone, bounded back over to them, his hair flapping on his head like a toupee. “Great, they’re on their way!” he said. “They said they’d be here in about ten minutes. I’ve got their blessing to let you go ahead. Otherwise it’ll be too late when you get to the campsite.”

Without a word, Dirk hefted his backpack over his shoulder and walked off down the bike path. The girls looked at one another quizzically and Lotte shouted after him, “Why are you going that way?”

Without turning around, he shouted, “I thought we decided this was the way to go.”

“We didn’t decide anything,” said Lotte, but it was no use. Dirk was the only boy in the group and so he thought he would appoint himself the leader, and now the three of them either had to follow and catch up with him or else forfeit the only requirement of the dropping: to stay together as a group.

“Come on,” Margot said to the other girls, a girlfriend wannabe. “That way is as good a way as any.”

Chapter 4Reflections on

the Lake

Grace looked up at Martijn, whose eyes were absently following Riekje’s movements as she got the final gear for the trip into the old Volkswagen. The Scout leaders had had a debriefing with all the parents involved in all the droppings, and now the second car—and Martijn—were about to leave the Scout Clubhouse.

Why was it that whenever they were alone, without Karin or his kids, or some other kind of company, she felt a kind of generalized anxiety, with her heart racing?

“I’m really sorry about this morning,” he said to Grace, leaning down to kiss her goodbye.

Her reaction, completely involuntary, was to flinch and pull away. As soon as she’d done it, she wished she could take it back. She knew he would pick up on this, and it wouldn’t help. “I know,” said Grace, putting a hand on his arm, trying to compensate. “I’m sorry too.”

His face fell. “Oh, so it’s like that?” he said. “Really?”

During the fight this morning things had become too heated. She’d told him that he didn’t have to be so angry; he’d screamed that he wasn’t angry. She’d thought to show him his face in the mirror, so red, eyes glaring. He would be able to see that he was, indeed, angry. But when she had pulled him toward the mirror, he’d pushed her. Shoved her, actually, right up against the kitchen cabinets. She was sure he hadn’t tried to hurt her, but the handle of a cabinet door had sliced through her shirt.

She reached up and drew his face toward hers, trying to be tender. She felt Martijn’s soft lips meet her own, and she stayed there for a moment, letting the sweetness of this connection linger, the tingle of lust they still had between them. “No, of course not, honey.”

He pulled back gently and studied her eyes. Then he walked out of the cul-de-sac where the cars were parked and toward the Scout Clubhouse. She dutifully followed him, footsteps crunching in the pebbles of the path.

He turned back toward her, looking defeated. “It’s a mess right now, but we can sort it out,” he said. “You know I didn’t mean all that this morning. I certainly regret what I did; I feel sick about it. I’m not like that. I never want to hurt you.” He moved closer, putting his arm around her shoulder and drawing her face to his kiss. “I want it to be better with us.”

The embrace, after so much tension, made her chest feel heavy, and she knew she might cry if she didn’t hold it back. She swallowed and looked up at him.

“Look, I don’t want to get into it again. Let’s let it go for now,” Grace said, trying to keep calm, her voice controlled. “All I want to say is that I think it would help if we got a little counseling together. It would probably only take a few sessions. What we have is so strong, Martijn. But sometimes it becomes too intense. It scares me. I feel…anxious.”

She hoped that this show of her vulnerability would crack open a door to him. That he would tell her the last thing he wanted was for her to feel anxious around him. But he shook his head. “Grace, come on,” he said. “It hasn’t even been a year that we’ve been living together.