As I Am

by AnnaLisa Grant

  I’m already scrolling through and studying the pictures I just took when I sit and my butt hits the sand of the shore with a familiar thud. The designs on his arms are so intricate; it’s astonishing to think someone came up with it and then was able to translate it to a tattoo. I run my finger over the small screen of my SLR camera, tracing the pattern of one of Miller’s tattoos that’s dark and curves around like some tribal design.

  This is ridiculous. How am I so fascinated by this guy and his tattoos? It’s not like I’ve never seen tattoos before, but … I can’t take my eyes off of his.

  “You don’t have to stare. I told you that you could ask me about them,” Miller says in a tender tone, waking me from my tattoo-induced daze.

  “What?” I quickly push the button to scroll backward through the pictures. Gosh, I really did take a ton of pictures of him. It takes a dozen hits to get back to the pictures of Addy in the water. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Kinley, seriously, just ask. I don’t mind.” Miller smiles and my heart does that racing thing again.

  “I, um … I’m supposed to take pictures of everyone, so I was just getting some shots of you doing your thing.” I stand and stumble through my words and wonder why. I’m not interested in Miller. I’m with Cal, sort of … I guess. It wouldn’t matter anyway. Addy is into Miller and I’m going to continue to reiterate that to him. “Did you see Addison? She’s pretty excited you two are both working a lake activity. Guess that means you’ll get to hang out more … get to know each other?”

  “Yeah, I saw her. It’s hard not to when she’s wearing Band-Aids for a bikini and taking her hair down every five minutes just to flip it around and put it back up. I was actually hoping to see your name on the list for lake activities,” he says, quickly dismissing conversation about my sister.

  “Oh, well, Addy’s a confident girl,” I say with annoyance. It’s really the one thing that gets me about us. I can handle the differences in our looks, and I don’t ever truly wish I looked like her, but I do wish I had her confidence.

  “I wouldn’t say that,” he says.

  “What?” I counter.

  “In my experience, girls who are all showy like that know they don’t have anything else to offer. They’re not confident in who they really are, so they just flaunt their appearance. Girls like your sister are shallow and have nothing to offer but sex because all they know is how to work their bodies. They have no idea how to work their minds, how to cultivate their souls. They judge others based on the only thing they know they have going for themselves, which is their looks. Most guys don’t care. Most guys will take any chance they can to get into a girl like Addison’s pants. I don’t find it attractive at all. In fact, this might seem like a strong word but, I’m kind of repulsed by it.” Miller shoves his hands in his shorts pockets and waits for my reply. By now he’s got to know that, while I can agree that my sister is not the deepest girl out there, I’m not going to let someone speak poorly of her.

  “Hold on,” I say. “Are you saying that you’re so put off by Addison that you don’t even want to try and get to know her? That doesn’t seem very fair. Sounds like you’re the one being judgey.”

  Miller pauses, considering my words. “Maybe I am. But the difference between people like me and people like your sister is that I can be friends with someone without needing them to change to be who I think they should be.”

  “You just don’t know her,” I say defiantly. I step forward and lock my eyes with his, feeling my nose flare with anger. I’m about to lay into him for making judgments on the only person who has always been there for me when splashing and the giggling of my sister disrupts my trance.

  “Hey, you two! Are you over here bragging on me again, Kinley?” Addy says in her chipper voice, destroying the point I’m trying make about her. Neither of us responds and Addy shows her irritation. “Ahem?”

  “I have to go.” I turn and begin walking toward the pavilion. I can only imagine the look on my sister’s face as I completely ignore her. I don’t care though. I don’t turn around or even pause, steaming over Miller’s words about my sister. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. He just doesn’t know her and he’s not even interested in trying. If he would just spend some time with her he would see that … She would prove to him … He would know that … that Addison doesn’t spend enough time with anyone to let them really get to know her.

  Addison sets her sights on the flavor of the moment, draws him in making sure he feels like he won the hottie lottery, all while having her own needs of being the most desirable girl in the group met.

  Holy crap. Now I can’t decide if I hate Miller Conrad, or if he just became my new best friend.

  Chapter 5

  Avoiding Addy isn’t always easy, but after my conversation with Miller I really didn’t want to deal with another interrogation from her. I don’t think I know how to lie to Addy and if she asked me point blank what Miller said about her I would have to tell her the truth. So, I threw myself into editing pictures last night since Addy knows how I am when I’m working. I don’t like to be bothered and I’ve bitten her head off more than a few times when she’s interrupted me.

  This morning, on the other hand, even though I’m still editing pictures, I received an earful from her about how rude it was for me not only to walk away from her yesterday but not to tell Cal that I wasn’t going to be at breakfast this morning. In true Addison form, she scolded me for leaving it up to her to tell him. She has zero concept of how hypocritical she is. She makes me deliver messages to guys for her all the time. The fact that she would complain about doing that for me one time just shows how out of touch she is.

  I hate how right Miller is about her. It’s not that I don’t know these things about Addy. She’s my sister: I know more about her than I wish I did. I’m fully aware that she’s a self-absorbed princess. I usually just keep those facts to myself, though. I’m used to touting all of Addy’s great qualities. She has style and grace. She’s really great with the kids here at camp. She has always looked out for me. She encourages me to be bolder, and she makes sure that I’m dressed in a way that represents who I am and makes me look my best. Sure, some of the things she’s had me wear are things I would never have picked out myself, but that’s just part of Addy’s great style. She knows best. Even though it can get on my nerves, I know she’s just trying to be a good sister.

  I’m not used to other people seeing the self-centered Addy. Well, I’m not used to a guy seeing the self-centered Addy. Girls see it all the time, but we have built-in radar for that. Guys usually see Addison’s hot body and gorgeous features and don’t care about much else. Miller is some kind of weird anomaly.

  So, back to my dilemma: do I hate Miller Conrad, or is he my new best friend? I still haven’t decided. It’s the age old issue of “You can’t talk that way about my sister! Only I can do that!” If Addy didn’t like him so much … I’m sorry, that’s not accurate. If Addy’s wasn’t so hot for him, I don’t think this would be as much of a problem. It might even be nice to have someone to vent to a little bit about her. She’s my sister and I love her and trust her with my life, but we also have a very normal sibling relationship. Maybe even more so as twins. We get on each other’s nerves just as much as we’re there for each other.

  Our friends back home all started out as just Addy’s friends, so I’ve never felt that it would be right to say anything disparaging about her to them. I would vent with Amy or Bridget and Carrie, but I don’t think they’re all that fond of her to begin with, so I feel like it would just escalate to a girls’ bitching session … not that we don’t all need a bitching session once in a while. I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right talking about Addy behind her back with other girls.

  But Miller, he’s different. He’s not a girl so he doesn’t possess the cattiness my people inherit at birth. It’s only been forty-eight hours but, aside from his vocal observations about my sister, he�
�s easy to be around. He’s honest and forthcoming. He seems genuine and smart and … And this is really ridiculous. Why am I even contemplating this? I should be thinking about how to talk to Cal! We’re, well, I’m not totally sure what we’re doing, but we’re doing something. It’s wrong of me to be considering all the reasons I could share private thoughts and feelings with Miller when I’m building whatever it is with Cal.

  I take a deep breath and abandon this string of wild thoughts and finish editing the picture that’s been on my screen for the last ten minutes. It’s one of my favorites so far. It’s the one Cal helped me take. I got the perfect shot, capturing the way the moon was reflecting off the water. It was such a still night that at first look it’s hard to tell which way is up. The water was a perfectly flat mirror to the moon. And it was really fun having Cal help me.

  I go back to the page with all the thumbnails and pick one at random. Great. It’s the picture Miller helped me take. It turned out really beautiful, too. The way the sun colored the sky and filtered through the trees and leaves takes my breath away … kind of like the way I felt when Miller touched me to help steady my balance.

  I stare at the picture, not seeing the photo itself but envisioning the moments Miller and I had there. I remember the way he so easily held my hip and shoulder so I wouldn’t fall. It felt … nice.

  “Okay. I’ve got to get out of here,” I tell myself. I close out the picture and shut my computer down. I’ll upload what I have saved tonight. Maybe I’ll have a few pictures of the campers edited that I can upload, too. The kids will be filing off the buses soon and I definitely want to catch that. They will have already said goodbye to their parents at the guard house or the train station so most of them who cried will have stopped by now. There seemed to be a few from last year who took a bit longer to acclimate, but they were fine after a bit. Once they get into their cabins and start connecting with others the tears stop and they settle in for a summer of fun.

  I walk up to circle where the buses will drop off the kids, which is closer to the dining hall in the center of the camp. All the camp staff is already there waiting for the buses to pass through the last wooded area of the drive, revealing to the kids the glory and splendor that is the Camp at Lake Hollis.

  “Seriously, Amy! When are you going to let me pluck your eyebrows? I mean, they’re not bad, they could just use some cleaning up,” I hear Addison say as I approach from behind her. It’s pretty bold of her to say something like that to Amy. She’s a sweet girl and wonderful to be around, but it’s not a good idea to cross her. And I’ve never heard Addy be so bold like that to someone who wasn’t already part of her entourage.

  “You can do it tonight, right after I change something about you that I don’t like. I think I’ll start with your hair. It annoys the hell out of me the way you flip it around and tie it in that ridiculous knot on the top of your head. Once I chop it all off, it’ll be much easier for me to look at you. Deal?” Amy sticks her hand out to shake Addy’s with no expectation that Addy is going to reciprocate.

  “Geez. You don’t have to be so bitchy about it.” Addy folds her arms and turns toward Mia when she sees me. “There you are! Good grief! How long does it take to edit some stupid pictures?”

  I don’t have time to respond to Addy’s obnoxious comment with a comment of my own that is equally obnoxious but tremendously wittier because Miller appears out of nowhere and decides to add his own two cents. “I’m sure Kinley’s pictures are far from stupid, Addison. Haven’t you seen her work?” Miller smiles at me and I’m not sure what he’s wanting in my reply. I didn’t ask him to step in for me and I feel like he’s just trying to get to Addison since the only pictures of mine he’s seen are the ones he caught of him on my camera when he was looking over my shoulder.

  “I don’t need your help, Miller. I can handle my sister’s snide remarks on my own, thank you.” I don’t reply to Addison and leave her, once again, standing and waiting for me to turn around. She won’t follow me because Addy doesn’t follow; she leads. Miller, on the other hand, follows me to the other side of the crowd.

  “What is your problem?” he asks, annoyed.

  “You’re my problem. You don’t have to be rude to my sister just to prove a point,” I tell him without turning around.

  “That’s not what I was doing,” he protests. “Kinley!” He grabs my arm, turning me around, and that same fluttery feeling rushes through me again.

  “What?”

  “I don’t like the way we left things yesterday,” he says after a moment. His voice is soft and sincere.

  “It’s fine, Miller. It’s not like we’re lifelong friends or anything. We met two days ago.” I’m brushing it off, but it’s not fine. I don’t like how things left off either. How do I explain this immediate comfort I feel around him. A comfortable feeling I’ve never had around any guy that made my insides flutter. There’s always this lingering fear that I’m going to say the wrong thing, or that I didn’t put my outfit together the way Addy showed me, or that I’m going to rest my arm or sit down in such a way that accentuates the extra pounds I’m carrying. What is it about Miller Conrad that makes me forget all of that?

  “It’s not fine, Kinley. We may have just met two days ago but … I like you. You’re clearly not like your sister and I think we connect on an artistic level. You know as well as I do how hard it is to find that kind of connection. When you find it, you just know it … and you don’t want to let it go.” Miller hasn’t let go of my arm and by this point I’m not sure that I want him to. Why does he have to be so right all the time?

  “Everything okay here, Kinley?” Cal asks as he approaches us. Miller removes his hand from my arm and my heart sinks just a little. Cal is looking at Miller in an awkwardly intimidating way. “Everything’s fine, Cal. Kinley and I were just talking,” Miller answers.

  “I asked Kinley,” he says sternly.

  “I’m fine, Cal.”

  The sound of roaring bus engines and tires treading loudly over gravel takes over the silence between the three of us. We turn and see three tour buses pull into the circle. I give Miller one last look and walk toward the buses, leaving the two of them to deal with each other however they see fit.

  Mr. and Mrs. Fellows are jumping around with excitement like it’s their own children getting off the bus. It’s kind of great that they’re so happy like this. I’m sure for some of the kids it takes them off-guard, but for a lot of them it makes them feel better. Mrs. Fellows catches my eye and beams her excitement into mine. I grab my camera and set out to capture as many moments from the beginning to the end of this summer. Mr. Fellows is counting on me and I really want to make the most out of this opportunity.

  One by one the kids climb off the bus. Some of them are so small you can hardly believe that the youngest these kids are is eleven. Some of them are so huge that it’s hard to believe that the oldest they are is fourteen. There are a few boys that look almost as big as Cal and his buddies.

  I snap a few shots of random kids. Their expressions vary from excited, to sad, to bewildered. You can tell which kids have never been to camp before and which of them are old pros. The newbies are looking around, taking everything in, while the pros just want to get their stuff and find out where their cabins are this summer. There will be negotiations attempted with the lead counselors for friends to bunk together if the request they made on their application couldn’t be honored. I don’t know why they have that on the application anyway. The Fellows like to mix the kids up. “If we didn’t, all the same kids would bunk together and no one would make new friends!” Mrs. Fellows says.

  One of the last people off the bus in front of me is a girl with long dark, almost black hair. She has fair skin and freckles and glasses that are a little too big for her face. Despite her awkwardness, I think she’s cute, quite pretty, actually, like those girls you see on America’s Next Top Model who aren’t really pretty, but are because they’re “unconventionally beautiful.” />
  I’ve taken only a few pictures of her when she catches me. Our eyes meet and she drops her head instantly. I know this girl. I was her … am sometimes her. She’s quiet and unsure of herself. She’s alone, no one is with her, and she feels out of place. She walks past me to the cargo hold to get her bag and I smile softly at her.

  “Hey. I’m Kinley. What’s your name?” I ask her.

  “Margaret,” she answers just loud enough for me to hear above the diesel engines of the buses.

  “Geez! You’d think they’d turn off the engines. We’re all going to die from inhaling all these fumes!” I laugh.

  “Did you know that aerophobia is the fear of drafts, air swallowing, or airborne noxious substances? Although, I’m not sure if diesel fumes are technically airborne. They’re made by the engine and the emitted into the air though the exhaust.” Margaret looks at me with a serious face and I understand a little better why she’s alone. She’s either really smart, really weird, or both. Kids this age don’t know how to handle someone like her. This could be a rough summer for her. I’ll need to keep an eye out for some girls who I think might be able to take her under their wing a little.

  “I did not know that. Thanks for teaching me something new!” I tell her. “Well, Margaret, my little wordsmith, let’s find out where you’re staying, shall we?” Margaret gives me a little smile that I mirror to her. She grabs her huge duffle bag and we find a lead counselor to get her cabin assignment. “How old are you, Miss Margaret?”

  “I just turned twelve,” she tells me. “How old are you?”

  “I just turned twenty,” I answer.

  “That’s not too old.”

  “Nope. Not too old.”

  We’re silent the rest of the way to her cabin. She’s taking everything in and I don’t want to overwhelm her with too much conversation. The girls in her cabin seem fine and greet her happily. I hope they don’t get all weird on her when she gets weird on them. I’ll keep an eye out for her and make sure these girls treat her right.