Chapter Thirty-Five
The office door clicks shut behind me. The last notes of diesel engines heading back to the city fade. And I sag into the chair. Unclip the roster of first-session campers. File it. Replace the last two weeks of my life with the names of kids I’ll be meeting in approximately four hours.
I pull my cell from the desk drawer and cue up a playlist without looking. It doesn’t matter if it’s my old workout mix or some couple’s must-have songs. I need the noise. Four hours of it. Over-energetic music spouts from the crappy speakers. It drowns out the silence, but isn’t loud enough to smother my thoughts. Nothing is.
My nails slide under the painter’s tape and I tear the camper’s name from the plastic storage bag with a rip. It’s satisfying, at first. Productive. With each rip, I sever the connection that bound these two things, forced together in this place. Rip after rip. Destroying and starting fresh. But the cry of glue coming loose fades and my thoughts take over.
I shouldn’t have come here when I could still hear the buses. Not here, where Paul confessed he’d chased mine. Where I’d crawled to him. Brushed my lips against his. Refused to admit I wanted more than the orgasm he teased me with on this very chair. I tear the tape off piece after piece. Form it into a ball. But it never grows large enough to fill the hollowness inside me.
The music changes to last summer’s top choice for first-dance song. All love and forever. I toss the ball into the garbage. Silence the music. Hover over the number I’ve called so many times over the years. That I called last week in desperation. That told me to call whenever it got too quiet.
“Leah, hi! Crap, I mean Amy. Unless, you know, you’re smashing them all together now or something? Because I could go for that, too.”
I lean on the windowsill. “I’ve never felt like an Amelia, as much as my mom wished I had.”
“But you’re still feeling like an Amy?”
I tried not to. I tried to pack it all away. To collect my stuffing and secure it back in my shell. But there was too much going on in me to contain in something as one-dimensional as who I’d tried to be. “Yeah,” I say. “I’m Amy.”
“And how is Amy feeling?” Jen asks.
The docks bob in the distance. Canoes and lifeguard chairs. Floating on a weightlessness I’ve lost. “Sad. But good. The second week of the session was better.”
“The staff are more on board?”
“Definitely. Not sleeping helps. I spent most the start of the week too exhausted to micromanage. Turns out I didn’t have to. So, we’re getting along okay.”
“You’re not sleeping?”
“It’s not a big house.” And I have heart-crushing, nerve-tugging déjà vu in every single room.
A door clicks shut on Jen’s side. “Can I ask you something?”
“I think talking me down from hyperventilation a few nights back earned you that right.”
She takes a deep breath. “Have you thought about calling him?”
Calling him. Emailing him. Sending him a damn carrier pigeon. “It doesn’t matter if I’ve thought about it.”
“Of course it matters.”
“It doesn’t.” My throat grows tight. I swallow over glass and tears blur my vision. “He loves me, Jen.”
“And you don’t love him?”
I wipe the back of my hand across my eyes. “No, I do. And I can’t. Nothing good happens when I’m in love.”
“That’s not true, hun. You get to be in love. You get to wear whatever you want and know he still wants you. You get to warm your feet on him in bed. You get to be happy even at your darkest because you’ll never be there alone.”
And maybe that’s the problem. That I’m not alone. That he’s here in every breath of air. In every blade of grass. In every bird I woke crying out his name from the safety of his arms. I sniff. Clear my throat. “I need more time. I need this to be mine before I could share it with him.”
“Just remember what you told me. Things are better with an assistant.”
My stomach flutters with possibility I can’t consider. “Speaking of which, how did your on-the-job trial go last week?”
“Um, well. I officially have an assistant.”
“But?”
She groans. “I thought he was gay. And now I’m not so sure.”
A laugh rips from me. “What are you talking about?”
“The guy has a certificate in flower arrangement. He actually went to school, with flowers! And he worked at The SmokeHouse. But last night...”
“What happened last night?”
“Um. So we were getting the honeymoon suite ready. And, uh...”
I drop my forehead into my hand. “Please tell me you didn’t have sex on the clean sheets.”
“Of course not!” She sighs. “It was over the back of the couch.”
“Jen!”
“What? He’s really fucking hot, Amy.”
“I’m sure he is.” I laugh until my cheeks hurt. “He also doesn’t sound too gay.”
“Not so much.” A muffled knock filters over the line. Static and low voices hit my ear. “And the day gets more exciting,” she says. “The groom has just arrived without his lunch.”
“Where did he leave it?”
“On the floor of the limo.”
“Uh-oh.”
“I’m going to have to let you go. Call me when you can?”
And I know it’s just an expression. But my friends let me go. My mom let me go. Paul let me go. All because of who I am when I’m in love. I swallow hard. “I will.”
* * *
Paperwork for the next camp firmly contained on my clipboard, I duck into Cabin 1. It’s spotless. I pull the door to Cabin 2 closed behind me. Make a note to figure out how to repair the spring that should close it automatically.
Cabin by cabin I check that they’re ready for the next set of campers. In. Out. Sweeping when needed. Clawing away at spider webs the kids wouldn’t touch. There’s calmness in the repetition. Fulfillment in the progress. Distraction in the work.
And it’s familiar. This feeling of losing myself in the job. Or it is, until I make my way to Cabin 7. Push through the door that had held me back so many years ago. Cross over the threshold I’d made it past before I tasted the acid of my anguish. Before I found myself empty.
And I know I can’t do it. I can’t lose myself in this job. Not like before. Because this isn’t just a job. It’s my past. My present. My future.
And it won’t matter how much time I have here. How long I spend here alone. He’ll always be here with me. Just like he’s always been.