The smirk on his lips as he walks out doesn’t bring me comfort.

Chapter 8t

THEN

2006, Camp Wawa, Week One

“Ready for your first full day in the best place in the world?” Darian shouts, her diminutive stature looking especially grandiose from atop the picnic table. The morning sunlight is creeping over the tree line behind her, causing squints and hand-shields as both counselors and campers look on, their cereal dishes empty and forgotten.

No! I want to yell back. I could kill for a caffeine hit right now.

Darian wasn’t lying when she said yesterday would be long. Kyle and I came back from the cliff just in time to hitch the trailer to the golf cart and speed back to the pavilion. No one but Eric and Ashley seemed to realize that we’d left in the first place, and Ashley promised me she wouldn’t say a word to anyone, right before she asked why my clothes were damp.

We were shoveling our hot dogs into our mouths when the first round of children started arriving, a full hour early. Kids as young as eight and as old as fifteen piled out of their parents’ cars, many searching for familiar faces and gleeful when they found them. There were also a few with scowls and glossy eyes, pleading to go home as their frazzled parents marched them up to the registration desks.

Since then, it’s been controlled mayhem. Greeting, smiling, identifying, collecting, and leading kids to their respective cabins like proverbial ducks, refereeing them as they fought over top versus bottom bunk, getting them to the various orientation and ice-breaker activities, coaxing them into eating their vegetables, ensuring they didn’t burn their little fingers on marshmallows, and reminding them to brush their teeth and use the bathroom before lights-out, otherwise it’d be a trek in the night to the facilities.

The tears began as soon as the lights went out at nine P.M. First it was Izzy—the pint-sized platinum blonde who in her eight years of life had never spent a night away from her mother. The whimpers grew to sobs, then all-out wails, as she cried about wanting to go home and about missing her dog, Otis, and her dead dog, Rose. It caused a chain reaction, and soon we had four girls crying for home and the other six crying from irritation, and Christa and me tag-teaming around the cabin for two hours, trying to get them all to settle. By the time the last whimper sounded, I thought I was going to start crying.

When Izzy woke us up at four this morning because she had wet her bed, a tear may have slipped out.

Whoever thought it’d be a good idea to give us ten eight-year-olds who are not only new to Camp Wawa, but also new to being at any sleepaway camp, deserves a punch in the head.

Or they could at least open the canteen now so I can grab myself a Coke, because I’m going to need it to get through this day. But how on earth am I going to get through this entire summer? Eight weeks, eight new sets of kids. Eighty little girls. What if they all cry themselves to sleep every night?

This must be why camp counselor looks so good on college applications—they know you’ve endured hell and lived to talk about it.

My gaze wanders one picnic table over, to where Kyle is tossing Cheerios at one of his kids’ heads. The curly-haired boy of maybe ten keeps turning to try to catch his counselor mid-toss, only to giggle at the mock-stern look and shush from Kyle, who points toward Darian as if to say “pay attention.”

Perhaps sensing my gaze, Kyle suddenly turns my way and our eyes catch. A crooked smile curls his lips and I feel a stupid, wide grin form, as I forget my exhaustion and instead focus on what his mouth felt like against mine yesterday.

I can still feel him there, still taste the mix of apple candy powder and, faintly, menthol.

Does he want it to happen again as much as I do?

Darian’s sharp claps and boisterous voice echo through the space, pulling my attention back. “And the most important thing of all, Wawa campers, is let’s have fun!”

“The yarn tubs are in the supply room. How many are there, Christa?”

“Three,” Christa chirps from one table over, as she lines paint-filled squirt bottles and trays in a tidy row.

“Great. Find them and head on out to the pavilion.” Darian’s brow furrows with concentration as she directs counselors in Wawa’s recreation center—a long, simple rectangular building of paneled walls and public school–grade linoleum, used mainly for rainy days and end-of-camp dances. “Ashley, Marie, you two know how to knit, right?”

Marie shrugs and then nods.

“Uh . . . hello.” Ashley gestures at the blue scarf loosely wrapped around her neck.

“The stockinette stitch master! How could I forget?”

Ashley giggles. “I learned the garter stitch over winter.”

“Ooooh.” Darian’s eyes widen with excitement. “I love a good Foxy Roxy scarf.”

“In a soft dove-gray wool?”

Darian hugs her clipboard to her chest and closes her eyes. “You’ve always been my favorite, Ashley!”

I cast a questioning glance at Marie, who shrugs again, capping it off with a small eye roll and smile. At least I’m not the only one who thinks they’re being weird.

“Okay, so you can show Piper the ropes, then?” Darian asks, switching back to leader mode.

“I’ll teach her,” comes a male voice from behind.

My heart skips as I turn to see Kyle saunter in, the sleeves of his camp T-shirt cut off to the seam, displaying the unfinished ink lines on his shoulder.

“Kyle, aren’t you supposed to be covering . . .” Darian frowns at her master sheet, searching for his name.

“Hiking. Yeah, I was, but Jessica swapped with me.”

“You know you’re not allowed to swap!” Christa bursts out with irritation.

Darian sighs. “Kyle, you know the rules. It’s camp policy, for child safety. I need to know which counselors are where at all times.”

Walking past Christa—not giving her so much as a sideways glance—Kyle holds his hands up in surrender as he edges in closer, until he’s towering over Darian’s diminutive frame. “I know, I told Jess that. But she begged me to switch and I figured, if I could get hold of you to tell you, it’d be okay.” He drops his voice in a mock whisper. “I think she has a thing for Mitch.”

Darian’s blue-gray eyes flicker toward me, a knowing look in them, as if I had something to do with this.

“They’ve already taken off down River Trail, but if you want me to run out and send Jess back, I can,” Kyle offers innocently. “She could make it back in like . . . fifteen minutes. Twenty, tops.”

Darian sighs. “No, I don’t want to disrupt the group. Just . . . no more switches. I’m serious, Kyle.”

I catch Christa’s exaggerated eye roll.

“Of course! No problem.” Kyle’s fingers toy with the spiky hair atop his head, hesitating a moment. “Except for kayaking, okay?”

Darian groans, but Kyle’s already talking again. “Because I kinda already got Mark to switch with me. I’m just not feeling confident in my swimming abilities.”

One blonde eyebrow arches severely. “You? Not confident in something?”

He shrugs. “It’s been a while since I’ve been swimming in a lake.”