The Last July: A New Adult Romance

by Breanna Mounce

  He nods and smiles. “I didn’t mean it like that,” he jokes. “I meant that you seem to actually know how to treat a person and like you’re going to enjoy what you’re doing this summer. Viv seems like someone jammed one of these logs up her ass. And I swear I won’t chase you with anything this summer.”

  “I totally get what you’re saying, kill them with kindness, right?”

  “Something like that,” he says. When we get back to Viv and the other counselors, he drops the wood and does an exaggerated curtsy. “Here are your logs, ma’am, as requested.” He snaps off another mock salute.

  I laugh and drop the kindling next to his pile and walk away before I can see the snotty look on Viv’s face. Note to self, that girl has no sense of humor.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Sampson asks as I get up to leave the bonfire.

  The older counselors started drinking shortly after the fire was started, and I’m sure most are already four or more beers deep. Kenny stuck around for a little bit, but left because he needed to run home and pick something up.

  It seemed obvious the bonfire exercise had less to do with learning fire safety than it had with getting the CITs to do free labor for the official counselors.

  “I’m not old enough to partake in the camp games currently going on,” I tell Sampson. He glances down at his beer bottle, and I notice him hold it behind his back like he’s suddenly embarrassed to be involved.

  “Oh yeah, but hey. What about that snack? Or I can walk you back to your cabin?” he asks.

  “Nah, I’m fine,” I reply. We both glance back to the fire where someone is yelling for Sampson to get back over there. “You go have fun. I don’t want to be the odd person out.”

  One of his friends comes over and without saying anything, grabs us both by the wrist and pulls us back over to the fire. I awkwardly take a seat on one log and look down at my tennis shoes.

  “Here, newbie,” his friend says as he twists off the cap of a beer bottle. “Drink! Join in the fun!”

  “Oh, no. I’m fine,” I say, but he hands me the beer anyway and walks away, handing out more beer to the others. I sit and stare at the cold drink, wondering why I’m so terrified of liquid in a bottle.

  “You don’t have to drink it,” Sampson says, coming up behind me and sitting down.

  “Or you could, you know, not be a total narc,” Viv says, glaring at me though the fire. A few people chuckle but go back to their own conversations quickly. I take a swig of the beer and immediately want to spit it out. How do people enjoy this? I stare at Viv as I take a second sip, and she shakes her head before going back to whatever she has pulled up on her phone. It’s almost too dark to see anyone, the fire casts odd shadows over everyone's faces.

  “You really don’t have to drink that,” Sampson says. Nudging my knee with his own. “I can get you a bottle of water or something.”

  “The taste grows on you I hear,” I tell him. I look at the label and it claims to be a hard apple cider. “This tastes nothing like apple cider though.”

  Sampson laughs, “Because it’s not.”

  “At least make sure I don’t pull any ‘placebo effect’ stuff. Like you guys actually didn’t give me alcohol, but I go about the night thinking I’m drunk. That would be highly embarrassing.” I can imagine the stories that would circulate among the counselors if I was tricked by such a ridiculous ploy.

  “I can’t make any of those promises. Usually the placebo dunks are the most entertaining,” he says with a laugh.

  “Gee, thanks,” I say, sipping more.

  “Let’s play a game!” shouts one of the other female counselors. “Truth or dare?”

  “Lame,” Shouts Viv, chugging down the rest of her beer. “Five-finger, Never Have I Ever.”

  “Yes!” slurs the drunk girl who recommended truth or dare, not fazed by the ‘lame’ comment from Viv. When I get a better look at the drunk girl, I realize it’s Miss Stickupmybum from earlier. Clearly, she found a way not to have such a sour attitude. Perhaps she should drink more often.

  Everyone gathers around the firepit, holding a beer in one hand and holding their other hand up, five fingers ready. I’ve never played Never Have I Ever with alcohol, but I assume you just put down a finger and drink if you’ve done whatever gets said.

  “Alright,” says Viv as she opens up another beer. “Never have I ever… had a crush on a camper.”

  Everyone looks at me, and I blush as I put a finger down and take a sip. “Never have I ever had sex on camp property.”

  Viv glares at me, but doesn’t take a sip of her drink, nor does she put a finger down. The guy I caught her with however, he takes a huge swig and smiles at her the whole time. To my surprise, half of the other counselors put their fingers down and take a sip. I don’t look over at Sampson, because I don’t want to know.

  Someone else keeps the game going. “Never have I ever thought about doing this job because I actually like it,” the boy says.

  My finger goes down, along with four others from other counselors.

  “Never have I ever been drunk…?” I say shyly. I knock six people out of the game. Only a few remain, most of whom have only one finger still up.

  “We’ll change that,” snickers a guy sitting near me, opening a bottle of beer with the opener on his keychain.

  The game goes on for only a few more turns, and finally it’s down to me and Sampson. He doesn’t look at me, just idly swishing the remnants of his beer around in his bottle.

  “End it already!” yells a girl who is having her neck sucked on by another guy. “Newbie goes first!”

  I sigh, knowing I can’t use something dumb like ‘never have I ever used the guys restroom’, so I go for it even though I know I’ll be teased a bit. “Never have I ever had sex.”

  Sampson finishes his beer and closes his hand around another bottle. “You win. New champion!” he announces.

  “Who was the original champion?” I ask as he gets up to give me another drink.

  “You’re looking at him,” Viv says, wrapping her arms around his waist and kissing him on the ear lobe. “My little goodie-goodie! He might have knocked you out of the game if this were three weeks earlier.”

  She gives me a sinister smile and pulls him back over to the log. She Kisses him deeply, and I know it’s all a show for me. Viv seems to be the type of girl that doesn’t feel comfortable with herself unless she’s getting everyone’s attention.

  I saw her half-naked with another guy just a few hours ago. Now she’s making out with Sampson in front of the same guy… He doesn’t even pay attention to the fact that her hands are sliding up Sampson’s shirt, or that their tongues have been entwined for nearly a full minute. Are they in some weird, open relationship? Why didn’t Sampson say something? Clearly, he’s into someone willing to give it up.

  Sex has never been on my radar. My friends don’t even talk about it. Well, Janine does, but she lost her virginity after junior prom. Which in high school years is eternity, according to her and some of my other friends back home. All my other friends are more boy crazy than anything. I grew up with parents who raised me not to discuss S-E-X in public, my dad gets upset when I even say the word, but here I am playing a game with people far more experienced than I am. I was taught to not be embarrassed of my body, but right now I want to melt into the earth because I’m so young and naive.

  The only thing left to do now is sit and drink and try not to make a bigger loser of myself. If Janine were here, we would laugh this whole thing off together. She’d tell me how cool and awesome I am by not going along with the crowd, and I would smile and tell her how bad of a liar she is but thank her anyway. She would also give Viv a run for her money in the business of being a mean girl.

  “She’s a bit hard to get along with, eh?” someone says sitting down next to me. “I’m Dora,” she adds.

  Dora holds her hand out to shake mine. She’s wearing Bermuda shorts and an orange shirt that says ‘Tennessee’ acro
ss the chest in white bulky letters. Her hair is cropped short, and a few piercings dot her ears.

  “Penelope,” I tell her. “And yes, I’m not sure how I will survive the summer with her as my mentor.”

  “Yikes, good luck with that,” she tells me, taking a sip from a silver can with a blue ribbon on it. “If it makes you feel any better, you won’t have to do all the activities with her.”

  I take a drink from my bottle and almost spit it out. “Geez, this is gross. Tastes like urine.”

  Dora chuckles and takes the bottle from me, handing it off to someone already too drunk to care about my germs on the rim. She brings me back a glass bottle with mostly clear liquid in it. “You’ll probably like this better, almost no alcohol in it,” she tells me, twisting off the cap with ease and handing it over.

  I take a hesitant sip, bracing myself for the flat taste, but then realize this girl knows how to recommend a drink. “Wow, this does taste good. What is it?”

  “Hard lemonade,” she explains. “Be careful though, for a new drinker like you, three or four of those and you’ll be sleeping out under the stars. Then you’ll wake up covered in bug bites.”

  “That will probably happen no matter what,” I say, drinking more.

  Before I know it, I finish that bottle and half of another while making new friends. They laugh at my corny jokes, and for the first time in the entire day, I finally feel like I’m starting to fit in as a CIT.

  “Rise and shine,” a familiar voice says.

  I can already see the bright sun through my eyelids. I drape my arm across my eyes and moan a weak protest.

  “Come on, I have Tylenol and water. You’re going to love me for this,” the voice says.

  “What happened last night?” I ask, squinting one eye open and seeing Sampson staring down at me. The light is painfully bright. “Where am I?”

  “You passed out in the middle of the field. I was walking back to my cabin last night and saw you frolicking around with other counselors. You guys were cackling like hyenas and staring up at the stars.”

  “Oh. God,” I say, and then feel my head throb. I sit up slowly and take the Tylenol and water bottle from Sampson without protest. My first hangover. Oh, joy. “Where did everyone else go?”

  “They left about thirty minutes ago,” Sampson says. “You were out cold.”

  “Did I do anything stupid last night?”

  Sampson says something, stops and then starts again. “Not at all,” he finally says with a devilish smile.

  “You’re a crappy liar, has anyone ever told you that?”

  He chuckles. “Don’t worry about it, everyone gets drunk and says dumb things. Let’s get you back to your cabin before the boss wakes up and sees that you were drinking. We’d all be screwed then.”

  Sampson walks me halfway back to my cabin, but he stops at the mess hall because he’s on breakfast set up duty today and I continue alone, bracing myself for Viv’s incoming ire. When I walk in, I find her in the bathroom, pulling her hair up into a messy top bun. She smiles wickedly at me, and I go to the second sink to splash water on my face.

  “Morning!” she says, friendlier than yesterday by far.

  “Morning,” I tell her in return, drying my face with my hand towel.

  “Last night was fun, right?” she asks.

  I smile and step into the bathroom stall, realizing I have to pee really badly. “Yeah, tons,” I tell her. “Who knew that’s how the counselors spend their free time?”

  “You haven’t seen anything yet,” she says. “We leave in fifteen minutes for breakfast. Hurry up and get yourself together. Try not to throw up on anything.”

  Did I throw up yesterday?

  And she’s back to her normal snarky, unpleasant self. That didn’t take long. Luckily, I’m good about getting ready in the morning. I brush my teeth quickly and toss on some gym shorts, a t-shirt, and tennis shoes. I grab my backpack just as Viv opens the door and says that it’s time to go. Judging by her expression, I think she’s disappointed that I won’t be late.

  Almost all the counselors are already in the mess hall when we get there, and as I’m walking into our meeting room, Viv pulls me to the side. “Do me a favor and don’t embarrass me. If you do, it’ll end up worse for you,” she says quietly.

  I stand there in awe, wondering why she would feel the need to say such a thing. She’s known me for one day. We’ve only spent about three hours together. If anyone should be embarrassed, it’s me.

  And once I walk through the door, I am humiliated.

  “There she is!” shouts one of the guys from last night. I vaguely remember him telling me his name was Keith or something. “You were hilarious last night, newbie.”

  I blush and find an empty seat next to Kenny, who doesn’t look up at me from his plate full of eggs and bacon. I reach out with a shaky hand for the plastic pitcher of orange juice and pour myself a glass. My arm protests, a good indication I must have slept on top of it last night.

  “How was your night?” I ask Kenny, trying to ignore all the snickering from everyone else.

  “Good, not as eventful as yours though,” he tells me, taking a bite of bacon. He seems upset with me, but I have no clue why. Why does he even have the right to be mad at me? I did nothing wrong.

  “Yeah, I probably should have gone back to my cabin last night…”

  He looks at me and lowers his voice. “You’re right. I just want you to watch your back. If the director knew you were out there drinking underage, you would be kicked out of here in an instant. I know you’ve always wanted to work here. Don’t let any of them take that from you,” he says.

  I look at him and then reach for some bacon, knowing that might be the only thing I can stomach this morning. “Um, thanks? I didn’t realize you cared.”

  “I’m just looking out for you. That’s what friends do.”

  “Thanks,” I say more sincerely, feeling like I’ve been scolded by a teacher or my mother.

  The camp director shows up a few minutes later and briefs us on what we’ll be doing for the day. I sneak a glance in Sampson’s direction and find he was looking my way too. A moment passes between us, but I don’t know how to judge it. Confused and embarrassed, I return to my bacon in silence.

  I’m paired up with Dora, one of the only people I remember talking to last night, along with two other counselors in training and two random counselors. Luckily, I didn’t get put in the group with Viv, though her group has more people I know and like, namely Kenny and Sampson.

  “Alright, here’s what we need to go over today: CPR, which I’m assuming everyone already has their certification for, a few camp songs that you need to know, and some basic rules to follow,” says Dora, taking charge since she’s the oldest in the group. “Where do we want to start first?”

  No one speaks up, so Dora looks at her clipboard and suggests we begin with the basic rules first. Everyone else groans.

  “Rule number one, be a mentor and friend to everyone you come in contact with here at Camp Arthur,” she begins.

  Clearly Viv needs work on this one.

  “Rule number two, no canoodling with the campers. This should be obvious, and remember dating or intimacy in front of the kids is frowned upon. This means you, Casanova,” Dora looks toward the guy I saw half naked in my cabin on day one. He has that smug expression that I’m thinking this is a permanent fixture on his face. I’m also going to assume his name isn’t actually Casanova, though it feels fitting.

  “Don’t hate,” he says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “What can I say? The ladies like me.”

  So, Casanova is kind of an over-confident prick. Perfect.

  “Rule number three, and I shouldn’t have to say this, but please do not create any unnecessary drama. Everyone should act and behave like an adult. This is your job. Be respectful of everyone, and we’ll all survive the summer. I know so-and-so might have looked at your boyfriend the wrong way or you hear
d that this person and that person were hooking up, but keep it to yourself. You’re not in high school anymore.” Her voice rings authority as she speaks.

  Dora drones on about the rest of the rules at camp which most everyone knows already: don’t buy sweets for the campers unless given approval in advance because of allergies, don’t let a camper go off on their own once camp officially begins, report any issues you come across, no boys in girl cabins and vice versa, and so on.

  “And last but not least, make sure everyone is accounted for when you arrive and leave somewhere. If a camper wonders off, say ‘Code Houdini’ over your walkie-talkie, and everyone will be on the look-out. Occasionally, we’ll have a kid whose parents are going through a divorce, and the parent who doesn’t have custody tries to see the child. That’s happened a few times,” she says.

  One girl who is also training raises her hand to ask a question. “What about a counselor in training? Can they date another co-worker?”

  There’s a few snickers from the people in the group and the girl pretends like this is a legit question she needs an answer to.

  “Are they both over eighteen?” asks Dora. I can hear annoyance in her voice, and I’m wondering how we got back to the dating rule.

  “No…?” the girls says hesitantly. I wish I were better at remembering names, but I suck. There are twelve of us! How do I not remember her name? How am I ever going to remember all of my campers’ names?

  “Then no. And a CIT cannot date a camper either. If you’re over eighteen, you can basically do whatever you like as long as you don’t let it get in the way of your job,” Dora says. “I get it, it’s going to be a long, hot summer, but rules are rules and laws are laws. The last thing we need is to get sued for sexual harassment on a minor. Treat this place like school. You wouldn’t hook up with your teacher would you? This is your job this summer, you’re not here to flirt and goof off. If you wanted that, you should have gone on a beach vacation instead.”

  The girl tries to hold back a smile but doesn’t answer the question.