Chapter Thirty-Seven
The dining hall is vibrating with so much excitement that I could almost believe these kids had never seen hamburgers before. But it has nothing to do with the meat. Or the buns. Or the largely ignored trays of lettuce, tomato, and onion. Camp food tastes different. Like adventure and freedom.
All the tables are in cabin groups tonight, with their counselor at each end. It was my idea to do the first dinner this way. Some bonding, we’d told the campers. But it’s for us, too. For the staff. So the counselors can see all their kids together. Pick out who’s feeling a bit lost. Forgotten. Or so full of themselves that they’re bound to make our upcoming weeks the bad kind of exciting if we don’t catch it fast.
But we have been catching it. The counselors. Cam and Britt. Me. Working together to bring the quiet kids forward and harness the loud ones into something productive. My eyes flit from table to table and the corners of my mouth turn upward. It’s so perfect that I can almost forget that only a few hours ago I was in Cabin 7. Curled onto an empty bunk. Making a mental list of all the reasons Paul’s ghost is the only form of him I can live here with.
A hand brushes against my shoulder and my arms fly up in response. The sickly sweet fruit punch I’d been holding drenches my lap. I snap my head up. “Dammit, Cam. You scared me.”
“I was afraid of that.” He fiddles with a piece of folded white paper. “I was saying your name, but, well.”
I blot my shorts with a stack of napkins. “Hey, at least I didn’t toss my drink at you this time.”
“That is something,” he says. But his usual light tone is missing.
“What’s up?” I pile the soaked napkins on my plate.
Cam grabs the seat across from me. Taps what looks like a letter on the table. “I need you to know that we like you. The staff.”
My eyebrows come together. “Okay?”
“And we like Paul.”
I straighten my back. Arrange unused cutlery next to my plate. “Is there a point to this love fest?”
He slides the letter toward me. “Paul and Chuck met the bus today. He asked me to give you that.”
The paper sits between us. My fingers weave and dig into each other. “How is he?” I stare at the letter. “Chuck, I mean. How’s Chuck.”
“He’s good. Seems to be taking to the city okay.”
I swallow hard and nod. “And...”
“And I wasn’t even sure if I was going to give that to you. It’s been in my pocket all day, and I almost kept it there to give back to Paul at the next changeover in two weeks. But he’s right. He can’t just call you. You don’t do surprise well.”
My joints loosen. The pad of my finger traces the edge of the paper. Paper Paul had touched. Folded. “Paul gave this to you.” My heart picks up speed. “Because he thinks I scare easily?”
“Well, you kind of do.” He pulls some napkins from the dispenser and mops up some juice I’d missed.
My fingers walk the letter closer to me. “Sometimes. I guess.”
“Always.”
But I didn’t. Not after a few days here with Paul. When I expected him. Looked for him. Felt him in my every move. I shake my head and grip the paper between my palms.
He swings his leg over the bench and stands. He hesitates. Scratches his beard. “So. I don’t know what’s in that, but let me know if you need Britt or me to handle campfire tonight. You know, in case—”
The paper wilts and shivers in my hands. “Thanks. But my personal life doesn’t get in the way of my work. Not anymore.”
Cam shrugs. “Not so sure those things are separate up here.”
The dining hall empties past me. I talk to counselors without thinking. Smile at campers without feeling. Because I’m not here. Not really. I’m in my kitchen. With Paul. Telling him that camp is my chance to work where I’m alive.
And I’ve come to life the last few weeks. But it’s a half-life. A haunted life. Because Cam’s right. This work is personal. This place is personal. And it’s my life.
My shoulders roll forward as I unfold the first crease in the paper. With a deep breath, I get the letter open. The lines face me from the center of the page. Handwritten. The first words traced over, but still lighter than the rest. Like the pen didn’t work and he’d had to find a new one. I squeeze my eyes closed before my brain can process the letters and patterns.
I take a deep breath in and let it out to the count of ten.
I lied.
My heart thumps in my chest. I press a fist against my sternum.
I can’t give you everything you want—I won’t. Because I’ll give you time, and space, and camp without me in it, but I won’t give up on you, with me, making the kind of love that’s so good it can hurt this bad.
My throat tightens until breathing is a luxury. And it hurts. God, it hurts. So bad.
Because he didn’t let me go. Hasn’t let me go. I’ve pushed him away. Hurt the person I love. Just like I’ve done before.
And the business side of me knows it’s for the best. That nothing survives loving me. That it would only hurt more later. But that side of me is buried beneath canoes. Moonlight. Campfire songs and laughter. Crushing the remnants of Leah with everything—everyone—that I love.
* * *
I lay my pen on the kitchen table. Fold the paper in half. Drag my nails along the crease like the pressure could hold it closed. Keep my confession confined. Stop Paul from seeing what I need to share, but don’t want him to know.
The happy shrieks of kids, taking advantage of every last minute of camp they have left, tugs at my lips. Another session is over. And I’m exhausted. But content. Relaxed in the chaos of kids and staff and unpredictable nature. In the knowledge that this letter will decide what happens next. Will determine if the person I was has relegated the person I am to this solitary life surrounded by people.
I fold the paper in half again. Tuck it in my pocket. Pull a jacket from where I’ve dropped it on the couch. Chuck’s fur clings to the fleece. I don’t brush it away.
Outside, a frazzled Justine has the clipboard in a death grip. Her head darts from side to side.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Oh thank God.” She pushes the clipboard toward me. “Cam told me to keep track of which kids had brought their stuff down, but they’ve all taken their name tags off and none of the nicknames I gave them are on this page, and you know how much I suck with names. It’s why I give them nicknames in the first place! So I’m all—”
She shuts her mouth when I place my hand on her shoulder. “Griff?” I call to the nearest counselor-in-training. He trots over. As on-the-ball and eager to help as he was all week. “Justine’s blanking on a few camper names. Think you can help her figure out who still needs to bring their stuff down?”
He breaks into an easy smile. “For sure!” Griffin takes the list of campers and immediately starts marking off kids who have made it to the lower field. Calls out to kids whose friends are missing. Sends them up to find them in the cabins. It’s a bit of déjà vu. This kid who’s so at home here that even paperwork is exciting. I mentally add him to the list of campers I’d like to work alongside in a couple years.
The corners of my mouth tug upward and I tilt my head back. The sun warms my skin from outside as I nourish the warmth within. The certainty that this is where I belong.
I turn to Justine. “Where is Cam, anyway?” She bites her lip. Tucks her hair behind her ear in a move that doesn’t cover where her eyes dart. “Why’s he in the rec hall?” I ask. “The buses will be here any minute.”
Justine looks at her feet. “Something about checking on Britt.”
“She still isn’t feeling well?” The first-aid attendant had gone down with a sore throat two days ago. Not such a huge deal since a rain storm rolled in right about the same time. No need for a secondary lifeguard when there was so much water falling from the sky that nobody wanted to even look at the lake. Bigger problem now that the weather has cleared and the next camp is about to start.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Justine says. “But Cam didn’t look so good, either.”
“Crap.” I jog to the upper camp and head for the staff quarters. The small rooms where I’d spent my first days up here. Where I’d tried to hide from Paul. But it wasn’t him I was hiding from. It was me. The me I had hidden away. Protected. Was too afraid to let out.
“Cam?” I call. “Britt? You guys okay?”
A groan answers me. Feet scuff across the floor. The door to Britt’s room opens. Cam leans against the door frame, his eyes blurry and face red. “Don’t make me get on that bus,” he croaks. “The world is spinning. Sounds are pain. I can only bed.”
I bite my cheek to keep from laughing. “With Britt. In a single bed.”
He waves his hand weakly. “Not now. We’re defenseless.”
“And totally incapable of working.”
“Yes.” He nods and wavers on his feet.
“So I’m down two lifeguards with a camp about to start.”
“We’re sorry,” Britt croaks from in the room. “We screwed up.”
I finger the note in my back pocket. The note I was going to give to my lifeguard. To give to the man I love. To the man so skilled in mouth-to-mouth that the thought of sharing his air gives me life even now, when I’m okay. In control. But treading water. “It’s okay, guys. Take all the time you need.”
Time. What I needed. What he gave me. But I don’t need time anymore.
I need a lifeguard. And I know exactly where to find one.
* * *
The bus ride is subdued. No songs. No excited whoops. A few kids even nap. I walk up the aisle, balancing myself on the backs of seats. Sitting still is hopeless. The quiet is oppressive. The hum in my body too optimistic. The noise in my brain too loud.
Do I give him the letter? Stand awkwardly while he reads? Judges? Or do I say the words out loud for the first time ever? Admitting them on paper was hard enough. Forming them with my own tongue could be nearly impossible. But I thought being in love was impossible, too. And here I am. Trying.
I collapse into the seat next to Griffin. He’s leaning with his back against the window. Ignoring the passing sights. Taking in the scene on the bus. “Is it always this quiet on the way home?” I ask.
He swallows hard. His voice is flat. “Yeah. Pretty much.”
I turn in my seat. “You okay?”
He shrugs and looks over my head. My stomach sinks. Cam and Britt spreading whatever they have between the two of them is one thing, but I have plans in mind. Hopeful plans that don’t include the phone calls and paperwork I’d have to do if an entire camp got sick. “Do you have a sore throat? Fever? General dizziness?”
Griffin looks at me in that teenaged way that makes it clear he thinks I’m an idiot. “No. I’m just a bit bummed to be leaving is all.”
“Because you won’t be back next year,” I say.
“Yeah.” He looks out the window. “It’ll be my zombie year.”
“Your zombie year?”
“Yeah. That year after high school graduation and before we can apply to work up here during college. The zombie year, where we spend the summer half-dead and wandering aimlessly without camp.”
The excitement starts in my stomach and spins into my limbs as it grows. Cam and Britt will only be sick for so long. But this. This could be something. Something long-term. “Would you guys want to come to camp that summer? I mean, if you could. If some program existed after your year as a counselor-in-training. Would you want it?”
His eyes widen. “That’s a rhetorical question, right?”
And in my heart, I know it is. That it doesn’t matter what he’d be doing. Griffin doesn’t care what the program would be or what it would ask of him. He just knows that it would happen where he wants to be. With the people he wants to be with. Everything else is just details. And details are where I excel.
As the bus slows to a stop in the parking lot, the ideas come together. What these no-longer-campers but not-quite-staff could do. How it would run.
Who would run it.
The doors have barely opened before I speed through them. New program building in my head. Letter burning in my pocket. Flames licking through my insides.
Then I see him. Sitting on a curb. Chuck at his feet. And I run. Oxygen pumping into my lungs. Feeding the fire inside me. Stoking the controlled burn I’d tried to contain into a blaze I can’t pretend to control.