Chloe hesitated when Darius mentioned leaving her bag with him. It was silly of her really, it wasn’t like he had drove all this way just to drive away with her bag. Still, one of the things she had learned living in the city was never to leave your personal belongings unattended and it was a difficult habit to break. Darius seemed trustworthy and soon enough he would know where she would be spending her night, holed up in a flimsy fabric tent so she really had no choice but to trust him. Chloe almost laughed at herself and how ridiculous she was being. ’My dear Chloe you need to relax,’ she thought.

Approaching the car door Darius held open, she backed into it’s opening and propped the bag on the back seat to make it easier to ease off of her shoulders. Without the weight of it dragging down on her body she felt extremely light. She hadn’t realized how warm she was carrying it but now that it was gone she could feel the perspiration on her back seeping through her white tee shirt and hoped that Darius wouldn’t notice as she walked away. Brushing her hands on her faded jeans, Chloe smiled again, ”Thanks, I’ll only be a minute.” With that she headed off in the direction of welcome house.

The checkin went pretty smoothly. Her reservation was in their system on the computer and they had only to look at her ID before setting her up with everything. The campsite came furnished with a cooking grill and a picnic table and at an extra cost she had added a tent, a sleeping bag, a cooler, and some firewood for a reasonable price. From the small minimart area they had set up, she selected a bag of ice and a few staple foodstuffs to get her through a day or two. Once everything was checked out, she loaded the food into the wheeling cooler, and balanced the wood on top of it then hefted the heavy tent onto one shoulder and the sleeping bag onto the other.

Though she didn’t look it, Chole was pretty strong for her size. Two years of living on a 6th floor walkup had strengthened her legs as well as her arms from various trips up and down the stairs hefting heavy grocery bags and laundry loads. Still, the load was an awkward one and about halfway across the parking lot she felt the tent starting to slip off of her shoulder. She jerked her shoulder in the opposite direction hoping to hitch it up higher and ended up nearly tripping when the front of her flip flop jammed on the pavement. The tent slid to the ground and she hissed as she felt the skin of her big toe scrape against the blacktop.

Once she righted herself she looked down to see a tiny drop of blood forming and rolled her eyes at her own klutziness. Of course she hadn’t bothered to bring a first aid kit either. Still, it was just a tiny scrape, it would heal over on it’s own overnight. Her pride hurt more than anything. First she nearly got ran over and now she was tripping over herself. She wasn’t usually such a klutz and it annoyed her that she would be so clumsy now with Darius watching. With a sigh she waved to Darius, ”Hey, do you think you can help me with the tent?” she asked, afraid of repeating the same mishap trying to balance everything.