Tina looked into my eyes. “Shane. We don’t want anything from you. Just you.” She paused, letting that sink in. Then she patted my knee, and stood up. “Bette, I need another drink. How about you Shane? Need a refill?”

Relieved for the break in tension, I shook my head. “Nah, I’m good.”

Bette stood up and went to refill drinks again. Tina stretched, “How about a swim?” I shrugged, and started stripping down. At first Tina seemed a bit shocked at my forwardness. She had just met me and here I was stripping down in front of her. After a moment, as if accepting the situation and embracing it, she began to strip down to her bra and underwear. We jumped into the pool and treaded water, waiting for Bette to come back out and join us in the water. The three of us splashed around a bit, then settled on floaties and watched the stars start to come out. The two of them were hugging a raft together, their torsos out of the water, their legs still slowly kicking under the water. I was floating on my back, just looking up at the stars. They weren’t expecting any answers from me, and for whatever reason, it suddenly seemed OK to tell them something. I just didn’t know what to tell them.

Still floating, not looking at them, “I ran away from a foster family and came out here. I did what I had to do to survive.”

There was a long moment of silence, probably the two of them trying to register my sudden answer. It was Bette this time who asked the question.

“Does your family know you’re here?”

“Nope.”

“You know, its no trouble if you wanted to use my phone to call them. Anytime you want.”

“Yeah… I wouldn’t know where to call…”

More silence. More time just floating. As if Bette had just put all of it together, she sounded like she was trying to stay casual and even toned, but you could hear the confusion and urgency in her voice.