They go on to do a ridiculous role-play where a seven-year-old Matthew tells Carolyn, who is playing his mother, that he doesn’t want to be in The Music Man and instead wants to try out for the football team.
When Matthew is safely back in his seat next to me, I whisper, “You okay?”
He places a hand on his chest, opens his eyes wide, and whispers back in a dramatic southern accent, “Why, I’m better than okay—I’m cured! Praise Jesus!”
I roll my eyes. Same old Matthew.
He grabs my hands. “Dear, sweet Lexi, will you marry me and have lots of sex and babies with me?”
I pull my hands away, laughing. “All right, all right, I get it.”
“But I like girls now, Lexi! And I like you most of all!”
He leans forward, like he’s going in for a big, sloppy kiss, and I bat him away in a fit of giggles.
It’s Mr. Martin’s resounding voice that brings us to our senses. “Matthew and Lexi, is there something you would like to share with the group?”
We both turn so we’re facing forward and sitting rail straight, all traces of humor gone. “Um, no. Sorry,” I say.
“Good. Now, I would appreciate it if you would give Olivia the same courtesy that everyone showed you both when you were up here.” His voice is soft, but his eyes are hard.
“Yes, Mr. Martin. Sorry, Olivia,” I say, my face flaming, and Olivia’s session resumes up on the stage.
The last camper to get called up for the day is Daniel. He’s the one member of my group who I don’t feel any real connection with yet—despite the fact that he was the one who played the role of my dying father—so in a weird way I’m actually sort of looking forward to his Father Wound session, if only to get to know him a little better.
Like the first day, he is very forthcoming with his story.
His father left him and his mother when Daniel was only a baby, and his mother never remarried. “She worries about me,” he says after Mr. Martin asks him to describe his relationship with his mother. “She likes me to stay inside.”
“Inside?” Mr. Martin asks.
“Yeah, like inside the house. Going outside with the other kids and playing sports and stuff like that is really dangerous.”
“Do you want to go play outside with the other kids, Daniel?” Mr. Martin asks gently.
“I did at first. But I stopped asking after a while. Mom needs me at home, where it’s safe.”
“How does that make you feel?”
He shrugs. “It’s okay. She just doesn’t want me to get hurt. I understand.”
It actually sounds to me like Daniel’s mother is less concerned about his well-being and more concerned about her own. Like she’s guilted him into being some sort of replacement companion for her or something.
“We hear versions of this story a lot here at New Horizons, Daniel,” Mr. Martin says. “Your experience is very common, and there’s actually a term for it. We call boys like you Kitchen Window Boys. Have you ever heard that term before?”
“No.”
“It refers to boys who sit in their mothers’ kitchen windows, watching all the other boys playing ball outside, wishing they could join them. But they can’t because of a sense of guilt or responsibility, or even embarrassment that they’re not physically developing into a man as quickly as the other boys.”
Daniel thinks about that and nods. “Yeah. That’s me.”
“I’m going to have you do two healing exercises, Daniel, if that’s okay with you?”
Hey, that’s not fair. Why does Daniel get to say whether it’s okay with him or not and none of the rest of us did?
He nods, though he looks a little unsure.
“The first exercise is a role-play.” Mr. Martin calls up me and Matthew. “Lexi is going to play your mother and Matthew is a neighborhood boy coming over to see if you want to go play outside.”
Mr. Martin hands me an apron, a pot, and a wooden spoon. I guess I’m supposed to be in a kitchen. I put the apron on and stir the inside of the empty pot, feeling utterly ridiculous. Daniel is sitting on the floor next to me, miming peeling potatoes. Matthew enters the scene and knocks on the wall since there’s no door.
“Hi, Daniel,” he says. “A bunch of us are gonna go play soccer down at the park and we wanted to see if you would come play with us.”
Daniel hesitates and then says, “Sure.”
I guess that’s my cue. I turn and say, “No, sweetie. Mommy needs you to stay here.” I try to ignore the pangs of guilt I feel as I say it, but I’m not very successful.
Daniel swallows and raises his head a notch. “No, Mom. I’m going to go play with my friends. I’ll be back in time for dinner.” He takes a few steps in the direction of the imaginary door and then turns back. “I love you, Mom,” he says quietly. And then he and Matthew leave the scene.
“Fantastic!” Mr. Martin commends, and dismisses me and Matthew. “Now, for part two, we need to address what your father did to you when he left. He left you without a male role model, which is one of the worst things a father can do to his son. You need to fight back, Daniel.”
And he drags out the punching bag.
It’s a very long, violent afternoon.
Chapter 12
“So, what do you guys feel like doing?” I ask.
It’s our first official leisure hour, and we’re in the rec cabin. A couple of the groups have settled down in front of The Lion King, and the other group has made its way over to the arts and crafts corner.
“I guess we could play a game?” Daniel suggests.
I look to Matthew and Carolyn.
“That works,” he says at the same time she says, “Sure.”
We set up the Monopoly board and Carolyn doles out the money. The colorful pieces of paper are soft and worn, and I think again about the other kids who have come through this camp, who have sat in this very seat and played this very game.
“Do you guys know anyone who’s been to a camp like this before?” I say.
Carolyn shakes her head, but Daniel says yes.
We all look at him. “Really?” I say. “Who?”
“This boy at my church named Peter. He came here three summers ago and went home completely changed. He’s engaged now.”
“To a boy or a girl?” Matthew says, sounding dubious.
“A girl, of course. He used to be really shy—kind of like me, you know? But now he’s so confident. He always says how he’ll never be able to thank Mr. Martin enough.”
“Wow,” I say. Kaylee, Mr. Martin, and now Peter—all living proof that it really can work. “What about you, Matthew? Have you met anyone who’s come to a place like this?”
“Nope,” he says, rolling the dice and moving the top hat nine spaces to Connecticut Avenue. “I’ll buy it!” He hands his money over to Carolyn and looks at me. “Why, have you?”
“No. I was just curious. There’s this lady in our church whose grandnephew came here once, but I’ve never met him.” I throw the dice and move the shoe to Reading Railroad.
“That’s two hundred dollars,” Carolyn says. “Want to buy it?”
I actually have a Monopoly strategy, and railroads aren’t part of it. My system is to concentrate my money in one place—buy up all the properties of one color and then start piling houses and hotels on them like nobody’s business so I can sit back and collect the rent—rather than spreading it thin around the board.
But Carolyn’s face is expectant, waiting for my answer, and before I know it, I’m saying, “Sure.” And then I immediately feel like an idiot, because this is just a game and it’s not like she cares if I buy a stupid railroad or not.
My fingers brush against hers as we exchange the money for the title deed. It’s the first time we’ve ever touched, and a tremor of excitement shoots through me. I can’t help it—I look
for a sign that she notices too. Her cheeks get a little pinker maybe, but that could be because it’s so damn hot in this cabin. Other than that, there’s nothing.
Of course. Because it was nothing. A half-second-long accidental touch. At a camp where we both came, voluntarily, to learn how to be straight. I really need to stop forgetting that—it’s kind of an important detail.
Daniel’s Scottie dog lands on St. Charles Place.
I clear my throat in an effort to clear my mind and focus on tidying my money piles. Then I notice Matthew watching me, an amused smile on his face.
“What?” I say. Oh God, he didn’t see me getting all stupid over Carolyn just now, did he?
The smile turns into a full-on grin and he shrugs innocently. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Crap. He saw.
***
An hour later, nearly every property Matthew owns is mortgaged, and Daniel keeps landing in jail, but Carolyn and I are at all-out war. I have hotels on all the green and yellow properties, and Carolyn has control of Boardwalk and Park Place. She also owns Kentucky Avenue—which I need so I can start building on the red properties.
When it gets to be my turn, I make her an offer. “I’ll give you four hundred dollars for Kentucky Avenue.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “No way.”
“But you don’t even need it! You own half the board already. And four hundred is a really good offer—it’s only worth two-twenty!”
“Not gonna happen,” she says, smirking.
“Okay, six hundred.”
“Nope.”
“Seven?”
She shakes her head, a twinkle in her eye.
Arrghh! “Seven-fifty plus Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues.”
“Those properties are crap.”
I study her, sitting there all smug, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest. “Fine. Name your price.”
She leans forward, her eyes level with mine. “I want all your railroads plus all your properties that have developments on them.”
“Are you crazy? There’s no way for me to win then.”
“Exactly.”
I pick up the dice. “Forget it. No deal.”
Carolyn shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
I roll the dice—and land on Boardwalk, which has four houses on it.
“That will be one thousand seven hundred dollars, please,” Carolyn says, holding out her hand.
I glower at her. “You don’t have to be so happy about it, you know.”
Carolyn laughs. “What’s the point of winning then?”
***
The next morning, I wake up early again. I lie in bed for a while, trying to make myself go back to sleep, but it’s no use. I sit up and scratch my neck where the lacy part of the nightgown rubbed against it in the night.
There’s nothing to do—I’m not allowed to leave the dorm, I don’t have my book anymore, and everyone (except for Carolyn, who is already out on her run) is asleep so there’s no one to talk to. I guess I could get up and take a shower, but the sooner I do that the sooner I have to change into the skorts.
I slide my journal off my vanity and flip to a clean sheet of paper. The first few pages are already filled with sketches, but this time, when I put the pen to the page, words come out. I’m usually not much of a writer. I’ve always expressed myself better with pictures and designs. But so much has happened over the past few days that I need a way to get it all out, and drawings aren’t enough right now. So I write.
I fill page after page with the stuff I’ve been keeping inside since I came to New Horizons: my resolve to be just like Kaylee, how glad I am to have made a friend in Matthew, the guilt I feel over promising to forget my father.
It feels good to get it all out. Like by taking the abstract, wooshy thoughts that have been floating around formless within me and transforming them into words on a page, they become more real. I know Brianna said that no one would ever read this journal, which is why I’m even writing any of it down in the first place, but the simple fact that it exists in the physical world now and that it theoretically could be read by someone other than me makes me feel like all these thoughts and feelings have actual substance and validity.
I hope Mom is all right,
I write.
I wish I could call her. They would tell me if something happened, wouldn’t they? If she had a zoning out episode and drove her car into the ocean or something?
Carolyn breezes into the room, fresh from her run. She gives me a little wave and then disappears into the bathroom.
My pen hovers over the journal in suspended animation. I can almost feel it: every feeling and thought I’ve ever had about her coursing from my mind, down my arm, through my lightning bolt, and into the pen. It’s charged with electricity.
The pen lands on the page again, and I let it all out.
Chapter 13
I’d hoped that once I got all my feelings about Carolyn written down, they would stay safely tucked away inside the journal and out of my head. But when I was done writing, I sat back and looked at the pages.
And that’s when I knew: I’m in trouble.
I had been spending so much time trying not to pay attention to the things I’ve been feeling about her that I hadn’t realized just how many feelings for her I actually have. Writing it all down just made it all so much clearer. And now whenever I look at her, everything I wrote comes flooding back to me and I can’t think about anything else.
The worst part is, I’ve been here before.
After I fell for Zoë, thoughts of her dictated my life. I made a point of sitting next to her at our lunch table every day. I would look forward to parties if I knew she was going to be there. I chose my outfits every day based on what I thought she would like.
And in a way, it worked. We became really good friends. We took the same classes and went shopping together after school and texted each other during our favorite TV shows. When my dad got sick, she was there, always ready to talk or listen or keep me supplied with fresh tissues.
And the whole time, I was in love with her.
There was never any way for that situation to end well.
I can’t let history repeat itself. So I do the only thing I can think to do—I ignore Carolyn.
If I don’t talk to her, I won’t find myself asking her questions just to hear her answers.
There’s this little fluttery thrill that goes through me whenever she laughs or smiles at something I say,
I wrote in the journal.
It feels amazing. I want it to happen more, so I keep trying to think of things to say to her, but I have to remember not to go too far and ask her something too personal, like whether she’s ever kissed anybody before. Even though I really want to know.
If I don’t look at her, I won’t think about how pretty she is. I won’t stare at her hands and wonder what it would be like to touch them again, for longer this time.
She’s the only girl in this whole damn camp who can make this absurd outfit look good. Actually, I bet she’s the only girl in the world who can.
If I don’t pay attention to her at all, I won’t fixate on the slightly unfamiliar way she forms her words, wondering if everyone from the Northeast speaks the way she does or if it’s just her.
I love how patiently she listens to Matthew’s rants about New Horizons and reparative therapy and how he thinks we’re all crazy for actually wanting it to work. And I love how she’s always doing nice things for people, like offering to go get Daniel a new fork when he drops his on the floor or discreetly whispering to Melissa that she has a lint ball on the back of her sweater.
If I just ignore her, maybe all of this will just…fade away.
I spend all of breakfast looking anywhere but at Carolyn and giving the barest, most minimal re
sponses when she talks to me. I’m sure she’s noticed the sudden shift in my behavior—I’m not being very subtle about it—but I don’t know what else to do. This crush cannot continue.
Complicating matters is that Matthew hasn’t forgotten what he saw yesterday. He hasn’t said anything about it directly, but it’s written all over his face. Every time I catch his eye, he’s ready with a knowing grin or a teasing eyebrow waggle in Carolyn’s direction. My inner torment is fun for him. I want to tell him to cut it out, but there’s never a moment where we’re alone, out of Carolyn and Daniel’s range of hearing—Mr. Martin’s rules have made sure of that. So I settle for throwing him the severest looks I can muster, but if he gets my meaning, he doesn’t show it.
Breakfast seems to last forever.
***
It’s the final day of the Father Wound exercise. Thank God.
But that means it’s Carolyn’s day to be subjected to the wrath of Mr. Martin. He calls her name, and I want to reach out and squeeze her hand and tell her it will be okay, like Matthew did for me. But touching her is definitely not part of Operation Crush the Crush.
She sits in the dreaded chair, and Mr. Martin begins rattling off the usual family and childhood questions. But she stops him.
“It was my cousin,” she whispers. I can feel the surprise in the room—up until now, no one has interrupted Mr. Martin’s interrogation process.
Mr. Martin blinks. “What was your cousin?”
If it’s possible for a person to look embarrassed but confident at the exact same time, that’s what Carolyn looks like right now. She knows exactly what she’s saying, but it’s hard for her to say it. “My Father Wound. He did it.”
Mr. Martin’s face takes on that condescending look that he’s so good at. “Carolyn, I appreciate your willingness to jump right into the exercise like this, but I really think we should discuss your immediate family firs—”
The blue of Carolyn’s eyes turns icy. “You said we were doing this exercise as one big group so we could maybe find parts of ourselves in other people’s stories, right? Well, I’ve been sitting here for the last three days doing that.”
The Summer I Wasn't Me Page 9