CHAPTER 25
Dear Zander,
Thank you for your letters. Your dad and I are so happy you are getting along well at camp. We are so happy. See. I’m trying.
The truth is, Zander, I thought I would be prepared. I thought I would be prepared for your sister to die. But I wasn’t. I don’t think parents are ever prepared, because no matter what the situation, we always hope it won’t actually happen. It’s foolish, I know. But the alternative . . . well, sometimes hope is the only alternative because the reality is too much.
It was too much.
I couldn’t let go of Molly. When you have kids, and I pray you do some day, I hope you won’t want to let them go either.
I knew it was wrong to keep her with me. But she was my baby. And I needed her until the very last day.
I still need her.
And I still need you.
Maybe there is something to this letter writing. I feel better just putting that down on paper.
I told Cooper you have a new boyfriend at camp and that you said this guy’s a good kisser. I never liked Cooper anyway. He eats like a Neanderthal.
Love,
Mom
I hug my mom’s letter to my chest, the paper crinkling around my hands. I lean against the outside of the mess hall as campers file in for dinner. I can’t seem to put it away. I need to hold it for just a little while longer as her words settle in.
I reread the letter one more time.
“That better not be from Coop trying to get you back.” Grover peers over my shoulder. I fold it quickly and stuff it in my back pocket. “Nice hair.” He touches a braid.
“Cassie did it,” I say, running my hand over my head. “The letter is from my mom.”
“Did you tell her about me?”
“Maybe.” I give Grover a half grin. We don’t move. He picks up another one of my braids and spins it around his finger. Shivers cover my arms.
Grover’s eyes sparkle more than usual tonight, and he’s wearing his “Having fun isn’t hard when you have a library card” shirt again. And the longer Grover looks at me, the more the butterflies flutter in my stomach.
“Will you do something with me tonight?” he asks.
I don’t ask him what it is because I don’t care. I just say yes, and we walk into the mess hall holding hands.
“And leave the braids. I like them.”
Cassie is already sitting at our table. I didn’t see her back at the cabin. I left early to read my mom’s letter. There were too many eyes in one place. But seeing her now sends a surprising rush of relief through me.
When I pass the bin of apples, I run my hands over the fruit. I don’t need one tonight. The memory of why plays on constant repeat in my head. That’s good enough for right now. When I sit down next to Cassie, I offer her my roll.
“No, thanks, Z.” Cassie pokes at her lettuce with her spoon.
“We can practice diving tomorrow,” I say. “I can show you how to do it.”
“Great. Can’t wait.”
Cassie doesn’t say much through dinner, and her food stays mostly untouched. At one point she looks at Bek.
“Didn’t your dead mother teach you not to smack your lips while you eat, Baby Fat?”
Bek looks at Cassie with big eyes. He swallows down his food in one big gulp. The comment isn’t that off for Cassie, but her tone was different.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She finally looks at me. “We’ve covered this, like, a million times, Z. I’m never okay.” Then she smiles and the relief is back.
“So who was your letter from?” I take sip of my milk.
Cassie jabs a piece of lettuce with her spoon. “My Aunt Chey.”
“I didn’t know you had an aunt.”
“Most people have aunts, Z.” Cassie stabs at her plate again.
I can tell Cassie doesn’t want to talk about it, so I drop it. At least she told me who the letter is from. That’s something. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned about Cassie, it’s that I can’t force her into anything.
After dinner and the nightly medication distribution, we have another bonfire of butchering James Taylor songs while Hayes plays guitar. Kerry asks if any of us want to come up and sing a solo.
“As a practice of courage,” he says. “It takes guts to sing in front of a group.”
To my surprise, Dori actually raises her hand. She sings an entire verse of “Fire and Rain.” Her voice is light and sweet. Dori is probably in choir back in Chicago. I shift in my seat at the thought of going home. I’m comfortable with so much now, but that . . . I touch the letter in my pocket. This is as close as I want to be to Arizona right now.
As we head back to our cabins, Grover comes up behind me and pulls on my shirt.
“Remember you said you’d do me tonight,” he whispers.
“I believe you’re missing a word in that sentence.”
“Two words, actually.” Grover pulls on my shirt again. “You’re not opposed to breaking and entering, are you?”
“Why?” I ask.
“You’ll see.” He starts to run back toward the boys’ side of camp. “Just wait for me.”
“Where?”
He stops. “In your bed, duh. Where else are we going to do it?”
All of the girls, including Cassie, fall asleep quickly, but I lie staring at the bunk above me, eyes wide open. I glance at the closed bathroom window. Madison reported to maintenance that it was missing the screw that keeps it closed, but they said they’d fix it at the end of the summer. In the meantime, she put tape along the bottom.
I can see Madison’s face as she sleeps. Her long hair falls in front of her shoulder by the key dangling from her neck, and for a brief moment, I wonder what her broken pieces are. No one is perfect. Even when you have the key needed to get out of a locked room, that doesn’t mean you use it. Some people are more comfortable stuck in their own traps.
The minutes feel heavy as I wait for Grover, like every tick takes longer to get to the tock. When I hear the door click, I sit up. The door opens so slightly that anyone who wasn’t looking for it wouldn’t notice, but I do. Because I’ve been waiting. And, turns out, waiting isn’t so bad.
I put on my tennis shoes and tiptoe over to the door. As quietly as possible, I slip through and into the night.
Grover stands in the moonlight, wearing plaid pajama pants and a white T-shirt.
“How did you open the door?” I ask.
He holds up a gigantic ring with a zillion keys on it. “I brought my keys.”
“How did you get those?”
“I stole the master set last year and made copies after I got home. It has to be a fire hazard to lock us in every night. I know the camp ensures safety for all the campers, but I’m just not comfortable with that.”
That explains how he was able to sneak out. “Did you give Cassie the key to the Wellness Center?”
Grover nods. “She was in need.”
“I thought Madison had the only key.” I touch the ring.
“There’s never only one key that unlocks a door, Zander.” Grover puts his arm around me. “Come on. I want to show you something.”
As we walk over to the mess hall, Grover doesn’t let go of me. He pulls me into his side in the nook of his arm. He uses one of his keys, unlocks the door, and pulls me through the dark mess hall, keeping me close to him.
We stop at a closet door.
“We snuck out to hide in a broom closet?” I whisper and yawn.
The room is dark but I can see Grover smile. He pushes the door back. Light comes from an illuminated TV screen. On the floor are pillows set up like chairs, and a bowl of popcorn sits in between them.
“What is this?”
Grover pulls me into the room. “A date to see a movie.”
“A date.” I smile at Grover.
“I saw Kerry store the TV in here and I got to thinking . . . Unfortunately, the theater has a limited selection of movies. And there’s the added risk of getting arrested.”
I sit down on one of the pillows. “I’ll take the risk.”
Grover presses play on the DVD player and sits down next to me. I pick up the popcorn, resting my head on his shoulder.
“I know it just started, but I can already tell that this is going to be the best date I’ve ever been on,” I say.
“This is the only date I’ve ever been on,” Grover says.
“Seriously?”
Grover’s gaze moves to his hands. He pulls on the bottom of his shirt. “A schizophrenic dad prone to losing his pants isn’t really a chick magnet. The truth is that most people are afraid of my dad, Zander.”
I grab Grover’s hand and squeeze. “People were afraid of Molly, too. Sometimes reality is just too ugly to look at.”
Grover’s eyes finally come back to me. “There is no way what I am looking at right now could ever be considered ugly.”
His words make me want to burst into tears and laughter.
“So what’s playing at the movie theater tonight?” I ask.
“A true teen classic. The Breakfast Club.”
I toss a piece of popcorn into my mouth. “I’ve heard good things about this one.”
The movie’s music starts and we both settle back onto the pillows, but Grover doesn’t let go of my hand. He holds it tight and places it right on top of his heart.
When the movie ends, neither Grover nor I move. My head rests on his chest, my arm drapes across his torso, and my leg hooks over his lower half. I’m tangled up in Grover.
He plays with my braids as the credits roll over a frozen picture of John Bender shoving his fist high in the air on the football field.
“Do you think the prom queen and the criminal stay together when they go back to school on Monday?” I ask.
“I hope so,” Grover says.
“I hope so, too.” I fiddle with his shirt, twisting it between my fingers. “Are you really a virgin, Grover?” He sits up, which makes me do the same. I sit back on my knees, facing him, and shrug. “It was just such a big deal in the movie.”
“Yes.” Grover’s voice is even. “I’m a virgin.”
His words cause me to exhale.
“Did you and Cooper . . .” Grover trails off.
“No. He just liked my boobs.”
“I can see why.”
I know I’m blushing now, but I don’t let my eyes drift from Grover’s face. I steady my breath and gather the courage I need to confess something. Courage like Madison talked about. “I never really felt Cooper when we messed around. Not really. I just did it because it made my parents think everything was okay. If I was making out and going to school and getting good grades then I wasn’t drowning.”
“Selfishly, I’m glad you never really felt Cooper.”
I scoot my knees closer to him on the broom closet floor.
“So this is kind of like the first time I’ve ever done something like this with a boy.”
“This is kind of the first time I’ve done something like this with a girl,” Grover says.
When I hear his words, I know what I need to do next. I take a deep breath. Courage. I reach for the back pocket of his pants. Courage. I search for his notebook but I can’t find it.
“Where’s your notebook?” I ask.
Grover’s eyes don’t leave mine when he says, “I’m trying to survive without it.”
Courage.
No matter what the odds are of Grover and I being together past this moment in time, right now I am 100 percent positive this is where I’m meant to be. This is worth living for.
I grab the bottom of my shirt and close my eyes. I don’t want to be numb anymore. Anywhere. I want the courage to feel. Everything. I need it.
I pull my shirt over my head and set it on the ground next to us. I do the same with my bra. And then I’m bare. My chest flutters with every breath. The skin that covers my heart and my lungs and all the things that make me alive inside is exposed. I peel my eyes open slowly.
Grover takes me in for only a moment before he takes off his own shirt. I’ve seen his chest before—I even saw it today while we were swimming—but here, in this place, it’s different.
I take my hand, my fingers unsteady, and place it on his heart. He shakes as he touches me, doing the same. Grover presses his palm into my skin.
“Can you feel me?” he asks.
I nod. I feel every inch of his hand, down to the ridges and curves of his fingerprints, like they’re etched in me.
I pull his hand from my chest and set it on my shoulder. I start at the top of his arm and move slowly as I make my way down, drawing circles with my fumbling fingers over his skin. He feels so smooth and I’m not. I’m broken and shaking and scared, but I won’t back away. Because Grover is all of those things, too.
He closes his eyes and bites his bottom lip. When I get to his fingers, I bring his hand up to my mouth and kiss it. I kiss every fingertip and make a wish. I wish he never gets sick. I wish he remembers this for the rest of his life. I wish him a real life for the rest of his life, the ugly and all. Because reality might be ugly, but sometimes we can be broken and beautiful.
When I pull Grover toward me, he opens his eyes. His hand comes to the side of my face and travels to my braided hair. He tucks one braid behind my ear and it pops back out.
“You can’t be contained,” he says.
“Not tonight.”
“No, Zander. Not ever.”
I kiss him then, my lips pressing against his. My body rises to meet Grover’s, and we melt into one. His fingers press into my back as mine trail the length of his spine. My lips search his for every taste that might be there. For every inch of every word and sound that has ever crossed Grover’s lips.
We lie back on the pillows, warm skin against warm skin. I giggle when Grover nips at my neck.
This night will never end because for every moment of every day for the rest of my life, I will relive it. It will always sit on the surface, floating.