I laughed a little. “More like I’m obsessed. Maybe I think about it too much. Maybe I’d be more mainstream if I didn’t.”
“You want to be mainstream?”
“I want to belong, feel like I fit in somewhere. Doesn’t everyone?”
His eyes looked past me and around the space. “If we’d had this when we were younger, we wouldn’t have had to sit in my sister’s tiny playhouse.”
“The RV? I know, right? My parents definitely bought it at least a year too late.”
“It’s nice. Do you ever sit in it at home?”
A smile stretched across my face. “Do I ever just go to the side of the house and chill in the hot RV alone?”
“Are you mocking my question?”
“Yes, I am.”
He reached over and squeezed my side. I gasped and grabbed hold of his hand to stop him from doing it again. But then I kept hold of his hand and he didn’t pull it away. My body, without moving, seemed to float closer to his.
I took a deep breath and looked around the RV, then answered his question for real. “I never even thought to use it as an escape. I guess I was too busy trying to blend in.”
“I was the one who always needed an escape.”
“That’s not true.”
He was silent for a long time and I squeezed his hand, which was still gripping my waist. I decided if we stayed just like this forever I would be perfectly happy.
“Maybe I do play rugby because of my dad. Or at least that’s how it started.”
“But you like it now?”
He nodded. “It didn’t help anyway.”
“Your dad is still just as hard on you?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I don’t know why I let it bother me so much.”
“Because he’s your dad and he should be proud of you no matter what.”
“We’re both old enough to know that we don’t always get what we want.”
I rolled onto my back, the heaviness of that statement weighing on my chest. “True.”But we can sometimes, right?I wanted to yell. Instead, I just held on to his hand tighter.