Behind the Song

by K. M. Walton

  I felt my eyes go wide. Susannah wasn’t totally naïve. I’d had boyfriends, had dated, had read all of Ava’s romance novel collection, but sneaking into a guy’s bedroom naked was beyond me—even in Suzie-mode. “Did he invite her?”

  “Not at all! He was as shocked as his parents. She got sent home and he spent the rest of the summer hidden away on kitchen duty where it’s a hundred degrees.”

  “Oh.” And he’d never go inside if they didn’t make him—I wondered if Kat knew that, if he’d told other reluctant campers.

  “They threatened to send him to some crotchety relative’s if he was caught socializing again. He’s been no-fun, no-talk eye-candy since.”

  “He talks to me.”

  Kat’s expression was half dubious and half spill-it-now.

  “I mean, he checked me in.” And blushed. And talked to me after the campfire. And…I could recite everything he’d ever said to me, while he’d probably forgotten my name. Er, Suzie’s.

  “Oh.” She snorted. “Doing his job? In front of half the camp. That’s hardly salacious. Don’t turn into a slobbering groupie on me, okay? You’re too cool for that.”

  I straightened in my seat. I wanted to be “too cool” to worry about others’ opinions. But if that were the case, I wouldn’t be formulating my next lie. “Please, I’m not like Desperate, Naked Girl. Guys chase me, not the other way around.”

  She laughed and I turned to grab a magazine, because I didn’t want approval for sounding like a bitch. I cut out another picture for my collage, both amused and unnerved that my whole cabin seemed to love the fake girl it depicted.

  • • •

  The next day I won my game of “Where’s Mal” when I encountered him on the path from the archery range to the infirmary. He nodded and would’ve kept walking, but I stepped in front of him, propped a hand on my hip, and scrambled for a flirty pickup line.

  “So, Alistair, rumor is your parents own this place?” I cringed. Great job, Sherlock, you solved the mystery of matching last names.

  Mal put down the handles of his wheelbarrow and took off a worn pair of work gloves. I swallowed. There was something about the bones and joints of guys’ wrists that made my stomach butterflies giddy-up. Especially wrists like his. Toned. Tanned. Freckled. And, my personal Kryptonite: he was wearing a watch.

  Mal pointed around. “It’s true. I’m the prince of this pine kingdom.”

  “Do you live here year-round?”

  “Yeah. Dad has a plow service in the winter and it’s just me, my parents, and my little sisters. It’s quiet before you all descend for the summer.”

  “Oh, poor you, spending the summer surrounded by a horde of adoring girls.”

  He grinned. “It’s rough. Especially since you’re off-limits.”

  I blinked and chewed my lip, trying to decide if “you’re” was collective or personal. If it was collective, whoa, there cowboy, and maybe there was a reason that girl was in his room. If he meant me, then dammit, that still made me off-limits. “I’ll let you go.”

  “I should.” He looked over his shoulder at the empty path. “Where are you supposed to be?”

  “The nurse. Archery injury.”

  “You okay?” His intense head-to-toe scan felt like being dipped in fizzy soda.

  “I’m not hiding an arrow in my back or anything. It’s stupid.” I held out my hand. “Blisters. But one popped, so Sheila said I should get it cleaned and covered.”

  He exhaled—but I was holding my breath, because he’d reached for my palm and was cradling it. “Sometimes archery injuries are brutal. A girl last year ended up with the fletching embedded in her finger.”

  “Oh, cool.” He shot me a confused look and my brain stopped obsessing over the way his calloused hand made mine tingle. “I mean, ouch?”

  “Did I just—” He raised an eyebrow and his dimples emerged, “—leave you breathless?”

  “That depends.” I peered at him from beneath my eyelashes. A look I’d watched Ava perfect in selfies. “Did you want to?”

  “God, yeah. But—” His face fell and he looked away, stepped away. Tucking his hands in the back pockets of his jeans to create even more space between us. He opened his mouth with what had to be an exit line or retraction.

  So I cut him off. “Good to know—especially with all the other options hanging around.”

  “There are no options. Not unless I want to get sent to my great-uncle’s house in the city.” He pronounced “city” like it tasted bad and looked from me to the pine trees.

  WWSS?—What Would Suzie Say to redeem herself from going breathless and his gentle rejection? I flipped my hair. “Well then, nature boy, I should probably leave you alone.”

  There, much better than my opening pickup line about his parents. But much more difficult too—because he was pretty much saying he liked me. He liked me, but…

  “Probably.” He shrugged. “Except…I want to know more about you. More than just what I overheard at campfire and memorized off that glitter bomb collage hanging in the arts and crafts cabin.”

  “You memorized that?”

  “Slasher movies, palm trees, Skittles, boy bands, soccer, Red Sox, lots of makeup—though you don’t seem to wear much.” He leaned in and I ducked my chin, because he was right, I rarely wore any. “How am I doing so far?”

  “A+ for memorization.” My voice was tight, because none of that was me. “And that’s way more than I know about you, so…” I took a step backward. Then another. “Your move.”

  Turning, I scampered into the nurse’s cabin, joining a queue of kids with splinters and scraped knees. I wasn’t going to be another crush-crazed camper chasing him. Both Susannah and Suzie were too cool for that.

  That was the first night my pillowcase crinkled. I flipped it up to find a piece of torn construction paper from the arts and crafts cabin’s scrap pile.

  I don’t have time to make you a collage, so how about if I just tell you about me?

  The next night was the label from an industrial sized can of peaches.

  The strangest part of living here is the first few days after camp ends. It becomes a ghost town and my sisters move back from their cabins. Suddenly I’m not an only child/employee and they’re no longer campers and have chores.

  Day three was marker on the flap of a cardboard box.

  The lake freezes in winter. If you were here, I’d take you ice skating and snowshoeing. There’d still be marshmallows—in cocoa, not s’mores. I wonder where you live—and if you have harsh winters there. Maybe your palm trees mean you’re from Florida or California…

  Yesterday, it was a swim test checklist.

  You’ve probably heard the gossip, but last year there was a camper who didn’t get that I wasn’t interested and crossed a lot of boundaries. My dad still doesn’t believe I didn’t encourage her. His trust is still pretty shaky, which sucks, because until you…

  Tonight, an invoice for kitchen supplies.

  The camp gets calls all the time asking what “kind” of camp it is. Everyone wants it to have some sort of specialty—theater, sports, band, etc. It makes me mad. Why can’t we just be a camp-camp?

  It’s like at school—how by high school—it’s too late to try something new. Everyone’s so specialized in their sport, activity, or clubs that there’s no room for novices. Is your school like this too?

  CamperMal@me-mail.com

  I wasn’t sure how Mal got his notes under my pillow, but I loved them. Nothing was better than falling asleep with his words beneath my head and rolling through my mind. I hated not being able to reciprocate and smuggle notes back to him. I hated not being able to set the record straight about palm trees, school, and everything else. I hated the gut-twist of guilt when I realized he was betraying his dad’s trust for Suzie, and wondered if he would for plain old Susannah.


  On Saturday we were given our weekly hour of technology time. I sent a hasty “I’m still alive” email to my parents, then addressed a new message to the email scrawled on his last note.

  Mal,

  I’ve never experienced that aspect of school. See, I know there are lockers on my collage, but I’m actually homeschooled. I try new things all the time. Last year, Franklin—the younger brother I’ve denied having—got us all obsessed with Norse mythology. My sister and I tried Russian. She stuck with it; I went back to Spanish. And as a novice coder, I—

  [delete]

  Mal,

  I’m the worst at ice skating. I broke my nose the only time I tried, but Franklin is a whiz on the ice. My dad doesn’t have a snow plow to get us to school in bad weather (we have that down by Boston too), but since we don’t go to school, it’s not a problem. And Mom doesn’t pause our lessons when the local schools close for snow days—but she lets us take them when the weather is glorious.

  [delete]

  I chewed my lip and watched the clock chew through my time. When Sheila called out: “Five-minute warning!” I swallowed and gave him the only truths that fit within the boundaries of my lies—thoughts about camp.

  Mal,

  I’m glad Pine Haven isn’t specialized. Everything here is new to me. Okay, not everything. But my family isn’t into hiking. I’ve kayaked on vacation, but never canoed. And while archery, disappointingly, didn’t bring out my inner Katniss, I’m getting closer to actually hitting the target. I can see why you love it here. I’m so glad I’m at camp—and that I met you.

  My fingers hovered over the keys—teeming with truths and revelations, apologies for not being worthy of the risks he was taking—but Sheila started a countdown. Threatening to power off our devices as soon as she reached One. I took a deep breath, added a brave xox, Suzie, then clicked send on a filtered version of myself.

  • • •

  My flashlight thumped against my thigh as I walked to the bathroom, its glow small in the vastness of the night and towering pine trees. And stars. Like someone pierced holes in the velvet purple of the sky and was shining their own flashlight through them. I knew cities had light pollution, but I hadn’t expected there to be such a difference from my sleepy suburb. I hadn’t expected the air to smell like Christmas, or that I’d constantly be scrubbing sap off my skin because I couldn’t stop leaning against the trees and inhaling.

  I had an urge to linger and drink it in. The first week was over. In another week the first session ended. Two weeks after that I’d be leaving. Four weeks sounded impossibly long on the drive here, but as Suzie I’d thrived in the novelty and socialization. I could take or leave drama, canoeing, and archery. But I cherished my cabin mates, the hiking, the whispering after lights-out until Sheila’s warnings crossed from good-natured to try-me—I wanted to stay suspended in this Christmas-sap-and-stars-s’mores bubble indefinitely.

  I could hear the singing at the campfire, see the edges of its glow. It should’ve been cheesy. I should’ve been worried about the melted chocolate on my shorts, or the peeling sunburn on my shoulder. Mourning the sunglasses I’d lost in the lake when Kat and I flipped our canoe.

  But above the campfire voices, I heard something else. A strum of guitar, a male voice singing “Dancing Nancies.” There was only one person who it could be. And, yeah, he was part of the reason I wanted to stay too.

  I turned off the flashlight and crept around the back of his house. Mal was sitting on the porch, guitar in his arms, eyes on the lake, mouth forming lyrics in a rasp that made my stomach butterflies pirouette.

  “I’m impressed.” I said from the porch steps.

  He jumped and his fingers stumbled into a strum of sour notes, but there was nothing sour about the shape of his mouth or the surprise in his eyes. His touch-me dimples emerged, then faded. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

  “Want me to go?”

  He looked around, then up at the stars, clenching his jaw before answering, “God help me, no. Not yet.” He moved his guitar and I perched on the arm of his Adirondack chair.

  “That’s one of my favorite songs.” It felt good to tell him something honest. I leaned in and rested my arm against his, feeling his hours of working outside in his sun-warmed skin. This moment was real.

  “I know. I’ve been doing reconnaissance.”

  “How?”

  He dimpled. “Not all of us only get an hour of connectivity a week.”

  My back and neck beaded with sweat. What information was on my Facebook page? My other social media profiles? How much had I revealed to the internet that contradicted what I’d said here? I should have spent my technology hour checking that—that my online persona didn’t challenge Suzie’s. “I should—I should get back.”

  “Hey—does it bother you? I didn’t mean to cross boundaries.”

  That word again. “I’d rather you heard it from me,” I confessed.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice if we had time to do that?” His forehead was creased and I cursed myself for being flattered by his reconnaissance. He couldn’t have found much if he wasn’t using these precious seconds to confront me, right?

  I forced my spine to relax and lean against him. “I like your letters.”

  “I can’t wait until next Saturday and your next email.”

  I laughed, though my stomach tumbled at the thought of skating between lies and reality again. It was getting harder to keep this up. “Part of me can’t wait until I leave, then I can email you every day.”

  “Yeah,” he agreed. “But we won’t be able to do this—”

  I was hoping this was a kiss. It wasn’t. He threaded his fingers through mine and goose bumps raced up my arms. Still good. Still very, very good.

  “You’re shivering.” He unzipped his sweatshirt, but I shook my head.

  “I can’t—” and that thought was colder than the air. “I wish I could wear your sweatshirt, or hold your hand and stroll through camp.” I rubbed my arms. “Have time to talk…” So I could tell him who I really was.

  Mal squeezed my fingers. “Without all these consequences looming.”

  “I should go. Someone will miss me.” I stood up and began backing off the porch, sliding a flirty-Suzie smile back over Susannah’s somberness. “Besides, I bet you’re already waiting in my bed.”

  It took him a moment to connect the dots, but then the echo of his laughter kept me warm until I reached the campfire’s glow.

  • • •

  I can’t believe the first session is over. Any chance you can convince your parents to let you stay the whole summer? Probably not, but a guy can dream…

  Time passed in hikes and crafts, stolen moments and melt-me notes.

  I hope you like popcorn. At tomorrow’s movie-under-the-stars, I’m manning the popper. If you eat fast or “accidentally” spill yours—we can talk while I refill your cup.

  Camp was as postcard-perfect as the sunsets over the lake.

  Mal,

  Only one week left. I don’t want to go home…

  On Sunday morning, I bumped into Mal on my way back to the cabin for sunblock. We were alone, and I was delighted, but his dimples didn’t come out and play. His eyes stayed dark and guarded.

  “Hey,” I said cautiously. “Everything okay?”

  He shrugged. “Just some little sibling drama.”

  Relief hit like a cool breeze, because the line of his jaw and the intensity in his gaze had felt personal, but I could totally empathize with this. “I know that feeling. No one gets under my skin like Franklin.”

  His eyes blazed—skewering mine before his triumph faded to pain. I swallowed, my fingers flexing like I could claw the reckless truth out of the air. He knew. “I mean—”

  “So it’s true…or not true. Everything.”

  “I—I—How?”


  “Ava called last night. Did you forget we were family friends? She wanted to know how ‘Susannah’ was doing. Franklin was over playing with Benji yesterday, it made her miss—you?”

  Even as panic and regret made my cheeks and stomach burn, my heart clenched with how much I missed her too. I would’ve traded anything to be avoiding this and sitting on her bed watching YouTube videos.

  “Was anything true? I feel like I’ve been writing letters to a stranger.”

  “No!” I searched our conversations and grasped onto the first thing I could think of. “I do play soccer.”

  “So you were honest about your sport, but not even your siblings? And the rest? Your high school? All lies?”

  I winced. “Mostly.”

  He shook his head. “Why? Was this a game for you?”

  “No!” Except that’s exactly how it had felt in the beginning and maybe he read that on my face because he cringed.

  “What then? Some sort of camp hazing? Last year’s dare landed Lydia in my bedroom, half-dressed. This year, what was it? See if you could get me to fall for some act?” He looked down, grabbing the back his neck and growling his frustration. “Congratulations—you won. I hope the rest of the girls are impressed.”

  “No! Nothing like that! I haven’t said a thing—well, except to Kat.” Two days ago she’d heard my pillow crinkle and I’d confessed everything.

  He shut his eyes. “Do you know how much trouble I’ll be in? I put my neck out there for you.”

  “I know.”

  “I thought you were worth it.” He turned to go, eyes bright with betrayal and disgust.

  Everything in me recoiled from his emotions. I’d spent my whole time here avoiding that expression, seeking praise and affirmation—but this is where it ended anyway, with revulsion. “Let me explain.” I grabbed his hand and bit down on my lip. I would not cry. I wouldn’t.

  He pulled away. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Later. Please?” Maybe it would’ve been better to collect what was left of my dignity and leave, but being too proud to be honest had gotten me into this mess. “Mal, please.”