Trouble in the Tent

This book is a work of fiction. All characters and events are imaginary, and any resemblance to actual people, alive or dead, is purely coincidental. All characters are over the age of 18.

Why the hell is it so cold in spring? Especially on these damn mountains. Maybe the weather just hates me, because I already felt like an outcast on this trip—and now Mother Nature herself is broadening my horizons in the “masochism” department. She’s trying to freeze me out, too.

Freaking fantastic.

I stick like a popsicle to the sides of my dinky tent, rolling one way then the other, never content for more than a few seconds because the ground is as bumpy as my relationship with this family.

And, most importantly, because my blanket only covers eighty percent of my body at a time. There’s always a section of Trevor open to the raw night air, which has complete disregard for warm-blooded mammals.

Lips pressed together to stop my teeth chattering, I glance at my family in the distance, scattered around a super lush camp site.

There are other eclectic family units staying here, but mine takes the cake—and eats it, too.

My dad Bob is already snoring to my left inside an upgraded tent/swanky air fortress, alongside my mother, Deb.

Until he’s asleep, he alternates between asking me if I “remembered to hang up my wet clothes” and kissing my mother’s neck.

My own sweet mama congratulates me on remembering all my equipment (not that she can’t tell I’m freezing) and crows about me being “independent.”

Yes. So independent I’m going to lose a pinky toe by morning if I don’t get creative.

And yes. I forgot my sleeping bag at home like a moron.

In my defense, I was playing Call of Duty until the last possible minute. I overslept, my mother lurking over my shoulder with the pink duffel bag she’d bought for this trip—filled with toiletries, socks, snacks.

Everything a normal mother would include.

I was like a teenage girl being sent off to band camp for the first time and Buddy, my pet python, was coming along for the ride, too.

Of course, I left my freaking sleeping bag at home. Of all things.

Could have been my phone. Or deodorant (by the way, still have that and it’s marked down as a victory). Instead, I left the very item I needed to survive the outside world. The one thing I need to avoid dying.

Ten out of ten for effort, Trevor.

I’d like to say the cold is making me melodramatic, but I was born with the ability to exaggerate for dramatic and comedic effect.

My sister, Elena, is no stranger to my “I’m so uncomfortable” soliloquies. Lucky girl.

Elena rolls over in her tent like I’m the world’s most infuriating alarm clock, her eyes slits in the moonlight. She’s got her pillow on top of her head, but her visual daggers trigger me.

The fact that she thinks she’s a badass for serving me up dagger eyes only makes her more badass.

I can’t tell if she can even see me fr