Chapter 33: Face to Face
The path toward the outskirts felt different this time.
I wasn't walking hidden among dirty thoughts or with my head full of the image of her bent over the basin. Or at least that was what I was trying to tell myself. The heat was still just as heavy and the dust rose with every step, but now there was a clear decision behind each one: I was going to see her face to face. The way I should have from the beginning.
I recognized the crooked post again, the fence about to fall over, and the uneven ground. The cabin appeared between the trees with that strange mix of the familiar and the changed. I stopped for a second in front of the entrance, took a deep breath, and walked up to the door.
I knocked.
The sound of my knuckles against the wood felt too loud. For a moment I thought about turning around. About leaving before she opened. About letting Camila keep existing only as the memory of a tomboy girl and not as the woman I had been spying on that same morning.
The door opened.
Camila was there.
No longer with her back to me. No longer bent over the water. She was looking at me straight on, her dark brown hair still a little damp and loose, the lighter strands stuck to her neck from the heat. She was wearing an old, loose T-shirt and short shorts. Nothing especially revealing… and even so the contrast with what I had seen hours earlier hit me hard.
Her olive-green eyes widened when she recognized me.
"Ethan?"
Her voice sounded lower than I remembered. More like a woman's. But the tone was still the same: direct, without ornament.
"Hey, Camila," I managed to say.
She looked me up and down without hiding it. The way she used to when we were kids and she wanted to know if I was lying to her. Then she leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms. The gesture made the T-shirt tighten a little over her chest and made it clearer just how much her body had changed.
"Eleven years," she said, as if checking that it wasn't a joke. "You're… taller. And broader."
"You changed too."
She let out a short, dry laugh.
"I hope so. I don't climb trees every day anymore."
There was a brief silence. The kind of silence that fills itself with everything left unsaid. I couldn't stop comparing her with the image from that morning: her bare back, the lighter tan line on her hips, the way she had taken off her clothes without even looking around. Now I had her in front of me, dressed, talking to me, and the guilt twisted in my stomach along with something else I didn't want to name.
"Are you coming in or are you just going to stand there like an idiot?" she asked, tilting her head.
That was Camila. Direct. No beating around the bush.
I nodded and stepped inside. The interior of the house smelled of wood, soap, and something warm I couldn't identify. There was less mess than I remembered. She closed the door behind me and walked ahead toward the small living room.
"Sit down. I'll get you some water, or whatever there is. It's fucking hot."
While she moved toward the kitchen, I couldn't help following her with my eyes. The shorts were short and marked the movement of her hips with every step. It wasn't the same spectacle as that morning, but my body recognized it just the same. I looked away toward the old photos on a table. In one of them we were kids, sitting on the fallen log behind the house. She had shorter hair and a crooked smile, one of those that always made me feel a little stupid.
Camila came back with two glasses and sat across from me, at the other end of the sofa. She handed me one.
"So?" she asked, taking a sip. "What are you doing back in this town? I thought you'd left for good."
"I came back yesterday. I'm staying at my mom's."
She nodded slowly, as if that information fit into something she already knew.
"I heard you'd arrived. News travels fast in this town. Though I didn't think you'd come see me so soon."
I shifted in my seat.
"I wanted… to see how you were. It's been a lot of years."
Camila watched me in silence for a moment. That direct look again. As if she could see through the excuse.
"You're acting weird," she said at last. "Weirder than usual, I mean."
"It's strange being back."
It wasn't a lie. It also wasn't the whole truth.
She set the glass on the table and leaned back a little on the sofa, stretching her legs. The movement made the shorts ride up a little more on her thighs. I swallowed and pretended to be interested in the glass in my hands.
"You grew up well," she commented suddenly, with that brutal honesty she had always had. "You look different. Like they polished you with punches."
"Something like that."
She smirked.
"You were always a little intense. Quiet. One of those who keep things to themselves."
That sentence hit me right where it hurt most. Because yes. Because that same morning I had stayed hidden watching her instead of calling out to her. Because now I was sitting in front of her pretending this was just an innocent reunion.
"Not you," I replied. "You always said what you thought."
"And I still do."
She leaned forward a little, resting her elbows on her knees. The neckline of the T-shirt opened enough to show the upper curve of her breasts and the contrast of her skin. She wasn't doing it on purpose. Or at least not in the calculated way Lila would. With Camila everything seemed simpler… and that was exactly what made it more dangerous.
"Are you staying long?" she asked.
"I don't know yet."
She nodded again, as if accepting the answer without pressing. Then she looked at me with a softer, almost nostalgic expression.
"I missed you, you know. Even if I never said it."
The comment left me breathless for a second.
"I missed you too."
I didn't know what else to add. Eleven years of silence weren't fixed with two sentences. And even less so when in my head there was still the version of her I had seen that morning, half-naked, vulnerable, without knowing I was there.
Camila suddenly stood up, as if the moment had become too still.
"Well. Since you came, you're not going to sit there like some awkward visitor. Come on. I'll show you the log is still back there. Even if it's more rotten now."
She walked toward the back door without waiting for an answer. I stood up and followed her.
As we crossed the yard, my eyes inevitably went to the basin. There was still laundry hanging. The water was no longer moving. The place where I had hidden hours earlier was right there, a few meters away, under the shade of the same trees.
Camila didn't know.
And I walked behind her, watching the way her hips moved, feeling once again that mix of nostalgia, guilt, and desire that hadn't left me in peace since I returned to town.
The fallen log was still in its place, older, more sunken into the earth.
She sat on it, the way she used to, and patted the space beside her.
"Sit down, Ethan. We've got eleven years to talk about."
I sat.
The heat, the smell of earth and soap, and her so close made my heart beat with a stupid force.
This time I wasn't hiding.
This time I was in front of her.
And somehow, that felt even more dangerous.
End of Chapter 33
Sorry, dear readers. I haven't been able to post a chapter for several days. I'm going through some financial difficulties — I just graduated from university and finding a job isn't easy. I made this chapter longer than the previous ones to make up for it; it's twice as long as the last one. I hope you like it.
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