by Sonia Hartl
“Camp Three SixTeen, straight ahead,” Michael said.
I leaned forward in my seat. A weatherworn wooden sign bearing the camp name hung between two posts on the dirt road. A thick tangle of woods surrounded the open property. Dirt trails wound around the open space dotted with dozens of log cabins on either side of the lake. Sun shimmered off the water, and a huge flotation device I assumed to be the Blob bounced lazily on the waves. A small church sat on top of a hill, and an enormous wooden building stood at the center of camp, with a cluster of smaller ones around it.
“That’s the big house,” Mandy said, pointing to the structure. “We eat meals there, and have dances and the talent show there too. Daily devotions are in the chapel, of course, and we have bonfires over there.” She pointed toward an open spot by the water with a huge fire pit at the center and plenty of fallen logs for seating.
“How many kids are there?” I asked.
“It depends on attendance. The campers run from rising freshmen to seniors, but the younger years have more kids. Like, thirty each in the freshman and sophomore years. There are eight of us rising seniors who are all in the leadership program.”
“Makes sense.” The older kids got, the more likely they were to question their upbringing. Paul was a prime example.
“Our cabin is up there.” Mandy pointed toward the back of the woods. “The boys’ cabins are on the other side of the lake.”
“Does that really keep everyone separate?” I asked.
“No.” Mandy giggled, and it sounded like a tinkling bell. Everything about her was charming. “But we behave ourselves for the most part.”
“That’s because anyone caught having sex gets thrown out and has to explain it to their parents,” Peter piped up. He’d been so quiet on the way, I’d almost forgotten about him. “It happened last year, and it was pretty embarrassing.”
“I can only imagine.” I sank lower in my seat. I wondered what the treatment of non-virgins would be in a place like this. Maybe Ethan didn’t count because he was born-again, or whatever. “Keep my panties on. Check. Anything else I should know?”
“No fighting or drinking or swearing.” Mandy ticked them off on her fingers. “It’s not like any of us engage in that sort of thing, but they have to lay down rules.”
“Understandable.” I turned around to Paul and smirked. “You going to be okay with the no swearing thing?”
“I’ll live,” he said, keeping his eyes out the window.
Michael pulled up to the big house and parked. “Everyone out.”
We stumbled over each other as we exited the van, our bags forming a small mountain around us. Paul nudged me. “Ready to go home yet?”
“No. I think I’m going to like it here.” The scent of clean air and pine trees filled my lungs. Everything about this place was beautiful. The setting, the lake, the people. No wonder these kids walked away feeling closer to God.
“The rest of the seniors should be here already. You’re the last group,” Michael said.
As I searched for Ethan, all my fresh insecurities surfaced. What would he say when he saw me? Would he be angry I’d invaded his little sanctuary? I’d played the happy scenario over so many times in my mind, it hadn’t occurred to me to think of an alternative. He had to be happy to see me though. Now that I was getting in with all the Jesus stuff, there wouldn’t be anything to stand between us. This would be okay. I’d be okay.
A high-pitched squeal from Mandy made me jump, and that was when I saw him. Ethan. His square frame, only a few inches taller than me, already golden from the sun, a sweep of light hair shading his confused eyes. I squeezed my fists together, practicing the speech I’d prepared for my sudden appearance, reminding myself for the billionth time that I wasn’t sad or desperate.
Mandy took a flying leap into his arms, planting a series of kisses over his cheeks and mouth. The mouth that had kissed mine only a month ago.
And with that, everything inside me shattered.
Chapter 4
My bottom lip trembled and my breath came in fast gasps, as if I could physically suck my building tears back in. I closed my eyes and opened them again, but Mandy and Ethan’s reunion didn’t go away. If anything, it got worse. The way he looked at her sent sharp pains through my chest. The awe and tenderness in his eyes used to be for me.
And I’d done everything to keep it.
Ethan turned his head, and I searched for myself in his gaze, the powerful, beautiful, in-control girl who’d helped him to his feet in the hall. But he couldn’t see me anymore. The girl I’d been before he broke my heart no longer existed.
Paul leaned down. “Now is probably not a good time to say I told you so, but …”
“Can you not right now?” Despite my best effort to feign nonchalance, the pressure in my lungs tightened. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Paul tucked me against him and led me away from the campers who belonged here. I hadn’t been this close to Ethan in weeks, and at the same time, I’d never been further away. He called my name as Paul steered me behind a small wooden building, but I couldn’t look back. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to hold the dam from breaking free.
Under the hum of a window air-conditioning unit, Paul sat me on a tree stump and rubbed my back while I held my head between my knees.
“I’m so stupid,” I said behind a gulp of air. “Of course he has another girlfriend. A nice Christian girl he can be proud to take home.”
Ethan’s mom was probably thrilled. She’d give Mandy one of her limp hugs, and they’d play hymns together on the family organ. Maybe every once in a while they’d make a joke about that one time Ethan sowed his wild oats with a girl who had a loud mouth and loose morals.
“I tried to warn you,” Paul said. “This idea was terrible from the start.”
“I know you get a buzz from being able to say you told me so, but can you put that away for a second and at least pretend to be my supportive best friend?”
Paul wrapped his arms around my shuddering frame. “Do you want to leave?”
“I can’t leave.” I looked at Paul in horror. “He’ll think I only came here for him.”
Paul scratched his head. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that cat is out of the bag.”
“I have to put it back in the bag.”
I couldn’t walk away. If I left, I’d be the person Ethan saw when he looked at me now. The sad and desperate girl. My plan had taken an unexpected detour, but I could still find my way back. I hadn’t Googled all those Jesus facts and convinced my parents I was headed down a path of good moral judgment just to roll over at the first obstacle.
“What’s going on in there?” Paul tapped my head. “You had the same look on your face the night we soaped Principal Higgins’s hot tub.”
I smiled at the memory. Paul and I had snuck into our principal’s backyard at two in the morning and dumped five containers of Tide into his hot tub. One for every day of suspension I’d received for the PETA protest. We turned on the bubbles and watched the foam overtake his patio from the safety of the woods behind his house. Still the best night of my life.
“I’m fine.” I wiped away the smudged mascara from my eyes. Seeing Ethan with Mandy hurt, but I had to get it together. I didn’t want to spend my senior year wondering what could’ve been if I’d tried. “How do I look?”
“Like you just had your heart broken.”
I rearranged my features. “How about now?”
“Like you’re going to make whoever did it pay.”
I needed to work on my facial expressions, but it was better than sad. “I’m going to talk to him, try to gauge his reaction when I tell him how much Christ-ing I’ve been doing.”
Paul tilted his head back and took a deep breath. “I don’t recommend leading with Christ as a verb.”
“You know what I mean.”
We headed back to rejoin the group of leadership campers, who hung out by the big house in a tight group. Sweat gathe
red under my palms. Back at home, Ethan had been the one out of place. The shy guy who got tripped in the halls. The one who had a sweet smile but owned a fine collection of the world’s ugliest clothes. Today was no exception. He wore a black T-shirt covered with bolts of lightning and a wolf on the front.
But as I watched him make jokes and laugh with the other campers, he became someone else. Someone confident and in his element. The first time he asked if he could kiss me, he stared at his feet. Here, he stood up straight, looked people in the eye. It unnerved me.
“Where did you two disappear to?” Mandy asked in a wink-wink, nudge-nudge tone.
Ethan glared at Paul for an instant before his face quickly melted back to polite interest. Maybe I’d imagined it. I gave Ethan a fingers-only wave, not fully trusting myself to speak yet. I just had to get through this initial awkwardness.
“Hey. Wow.” Ethan’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “It’s surprising to see you here. A good surprise, but yeah. Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Sure.” That sounded casual. Cool. I could do this. I followed him up a gravel path, past the big house and a row of cabins near the edge of the woods. “Funny seeing you. One hell—heck, one heck of a coincidence.
“What brought you to camp?” He was so close, I could count the gold flecks in his eyes, just like I’d done the first time we’d kissed. I looked for myself again, and found nothing.
“I’m fulfilling my community service, and spending three weeks in paradise getting closer to God. Isn’t that why you’re here?”
“If that’s why you came, I’m happy for you. This is a good place for those who seek. But if you’re here for me, I’m sorry, but—”
“I’m not.” I’d practiced this conversation in my head so many times. It was now or never. “You know Paul? I know you know Paul. Anyway, when you broke up with me, it opened my eyes to all I’d been missing in my life, which was great, because Paul had been trying to get me to go to church for ages. His mom introduced me to his youth group, and that’s when I found the Lord and all that good Christian living.”
Ethan looked up at me through lashes so long, his mother said they were made from angel’s wings. “I thought you said you and Paul were just friends.”
This scenario hadn’t even crossed my mind. “You’re jealous? Of Paul?”
I tried to keep my face from betraying this little light of mine. He still cared. Maybe not in the same way he used to, but it was something. I could work with something.
He kicked at the gravel under his feet. “No.”
His nostrils twitched like they did whenever he lied. Like that time he’d told me his mom still liked me after the family dinner where I stubbed my toe and dropped an f-bomb in front of his ten-year-old brother, or when he said I wasn’t that bad at bowling after I got five gutter balls in a row. Or when he dropped me off the night we had sex and said he’d call me in the morning. I should’ve known then that was the beginning of the end.
My eyebrows drew together as a new plan formed in my mind. One I prayed Paul would forgive me for. “You’re the one who broke up with me. I thought you’d be happy to see I’ve moved on with someone new.”
Using my best friend to make my ex jealous wouldn’t be my proudest moment, but I’d already followed this guy to Jesus camp. Pride had gone out the window a long time ago.
“I am happy.” Lies. “It doesn’t bother me.” More lies. “But since when is Paul the epitome of good Christian living, as you say?”
“His father happens to be a well-known pastor.” Who abandoned his family for a much younger woman, but that was neither here nor there. “Without Paul’s love and support, I never would’ve made it to this point in my life. He’s the one who helped me find Jesus. In between all our awesome make-out sessions, of course.”
“This is hard. Seeing you here. You know how much you tempt me.” Finally, some truth. I resisted the urge to give a victory shimmy. “I’m here to work on my relationship with Jesus, and I’m afraid you might be a distraction.”
“I’m not here to tempt or distract you.” He still wanted me. Even if I couldn’t see it in his eyes anymore, it was all the spark I needed. We could get back there. This was only a start. “I’m with Paul now, and it looks like you’re with Mandy, so …”
“Why Paul? You know he just uses girls and discards them when he’s done.” He shuffled his feet. “I don’t want you to end up as another notch on his bedpost.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m not your problem anymore.” My tone hardened enough to cut glass. Even if what he said was true, I drew the line with anyone who talked shit about Paul. “You don’t know him like I do, so maybe you should keep your mouth shut.”
“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.” He glanced back at the group. “Let’s get through this summer and we can talk about us some other time when you’re not all fired up.”
“I’m not fired up. I’m fine.” I turned around and blew him a kiss over my shoulder. “Nice seeing you, Ethan. I’m super-thrilled you’re here this summer.”
He wanted to talk about us. My plan was already working better than I’d hoped. Now I had to convince Paul to play along. I spread my arms and tiptoed across the figurative tightrope I’d created. One wrong move, and I’d go tumbling into the abyss.
As soon as I rejoined the group, Paul slung an arm around me and whispered in my ear. “How did that go? Did you gauge his reaction to all your Christ-ing?”
“Could’ve been worse,” I muttered. “I might’ve gotten you into something you won’t like, and I’m hoping you’ll remember our decade-long friendship and not disown me.”
“What did you do?”
I knotted my fingers together as I tried to work out how to present it to him.
“CeCe.” He grabbed my shoulders and leveled his gaze, making it impossible for me to look away. “What did you do?”
“I knew you two were a couple.” Mandy clapped her hands together as she approached. “Why didn’t you just say so in the van? There’re no rules against dating here.”
Paul started to object, and I put my hand over his mouth. “We wanted to be low-key. So we could hang out without feeling like we needed to be watched.”
The look he gave me could’ve wilted my mom’s garden, and that thing had been dead for years. He’d bring it back just to watch it die again. This might’ve been a bad idea.
“They monitor you whether you’re coupled up or not,” said a girl who had the coolest eye makeup I’d ever seen. She’d painted mermaids over the lids and turned her eyebrows into the tail. This couldn’t be the Precious Moments angel.
“Sarina, it’s not that bad,” Mandy said. Maybe this girl was the Precious Moments angel. Or I’d stumbled across a different Sarina Bean. “Maybe when we were regular campers, but we’re in the leadership program now. We’re practically counselors.”
“Counselors who don’t get paid,” said Astrid. I recognized her from all her group photos. I thought she’d been using a filter, but with her rosebud lips, thick lashes, and a mass of curls framing her face, she actually looked like a living doll.
“Astrid is our grumpy-pants,” Mandy said. “But she knows more Scripture by heart than anyone I know, and leads a youth group of two hundred back at home.”
My jaw dropped. “Two hundred? I think that’s the whole of our graduating class.”
“I don’t do it alone,” she said in a tone that suggested otherwise. “We’re a big church and really committed to bringing the word of God to the next generation.”
“That’s awesome. Isn’t it, bunny?” Paul pulled me against him and nuzzled my ear. “I’m not very happy with you right now,” he whispered.
“Just go with it. I’ll explain later.” I glanced at Ethan as he rejoined the circle. “Paul could’ve abandoned me before I became a believer, but he stood by me, helped me see the word of God as truth. So, he’s getting some of us excited. One person at a time.”
“That’s how
it’s done.” Astrid nodded. “All avalanches start with a single snowflake.”
“Looks like everyone has been introduced.” Ethan hauled his rucksack over his back. “We should probably go unpack before dinner call.”
“I got Astrid, Sarina, Mandy, and who are you?” I asked a boy with shortly cropped hair who had meaty arms and oddly skinny legs.
“Jerome.” He shook my hand in a super-formal way.
“Now you know everyone. Let’s go.” Ethan shoved Jerome to move him along.
“Where’s Peter?” I asked.
Jerome let out a short laugh. “He’s probably up at the cabin, trying to sneak porn, or he’s being catfished by whoever he chatted up on a gaming forum.”
I glanced at Paul, who had totally lied about the no Wi-Fi, so in my mind that made us even, but he had his eyes narrowed on Jerome. “He seemed like a cool dude on the ride up.”
“You think so, huh?” Jerome puffed up his chest, but the effect was ridiculous with his little legs hanging out of his shorts.
Mandy stared between the two of them with her pouty bottom lip sticking out. “Guys. It’s the first day. Do you think you could chill out a bit?”
Jerome jerked his thumb at Paul. “This guy shows up out of nowhere and thinks he can pass judgment on me? How do we even know he’s a real believer?”
“‘For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you,’” Paul said.
“Matthew 7:2,” Astrid whispered under her breath.
My jaw dropped. I hadn’t heard Paul quote the Bible in years, but it rolled off his tongue like water. Maybe Christianity was how other people described riding a bike. Not that I’d know. I’d never gotten the hang of bike riding.
“Come on.” Mandy lifted my pink-and-white suitcase, even though she already had her own rucksack to carry. “We’re in cabin eight. It’s the best.”
Paul nodded at me to go. As I followed Mandy along the dirt path, it became clear I hadn’t just taken a bus ride up north—I’d stepped into another world. One where I didn’t speak the language and I couldn’t have been more out of the loop.