by Emma Lord
“I’m leaving tomorrow, is what I am.”
“How’d you find her? Did you stalk her here?” His eyes are alight, loving every minute of this. He’s on board with the weirdness that is my family so fast I’m struggling to keep up, and it’s my damn life. “Are you single white female–ing your own flesh and blood?”
That earns him a snort, only because I couldn’t want to be less like Savvy and her stupid rules if I tried.
Finn prattles on like he’s writing the next great book-turned-HBO-murder-mystery-miniseries. “You are. And she doesn’t even know you’re here, does she? She’s just minding her business, Instagramming her juices, and there you are lurking in the—”
“She asked me to come here.” I round on him so unexpectedly that he takes an exaggerated, comical step back, putting his hands up in surrender. “She’s my full-blooded sister, by the way, and she reached out to me. She’s the one who wants to figure out why our parents didn’t tell us about each other, and she’s the one who dragged me into this SAT soul-sucking, bubble-gum-banning bullshit in the first place.” I take a breath, firming the resolve that’s been working its way up in me since this endless dish duty began. “So yeah, I’m leaving. I have no interest in spending the summer feeling like an idiot.”
It’s almost satisfying to see the smug amusement get knocked right off Finn’s face. That is, until I hear the whoosh of the kitchen doors opening and turn to see Leo walking in. He has clearly heard everything. He stands there, his apron in one hand and something wrapped in aluminum foil in the other, and looks at me like I’ve grown an extra limb.
“Leo,” I bleat. He’s supposed to be done for the night. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey, man,” says Finn, talking over me. Well, not really. My voice is so small I can barely hear it. “How’s it—”
“What did you just…” He stops, seeing the look on my face, and recalibrates. Even in this moment, when he has full license to be mad, he’s thinking of my feelings instead of his own—but he can’t keep it out of his voice, a hurt so quiet and deep that it breaks my heart. “You came here because of Savvy.”
His eyes lock on mine, with an intensity that makes it feel like every living thing in the cafeteria has crushed to a halt. Even Finn’s mouth snaps shut, and he takes a step back like he’s trying to get out of the way of whatever is happening in the ten feet of space between us.
“And now you’re leaving?”
“I was going to come find you and explain,” I say in a rush.
I brace myself for Leo to ask for an explanation, but what happens instead is worse. He just kind of deflates, and his eyes wander away from mine, toward the back exit.
“Leo, wait.”
He doesn’t. Finn cocks his head toward the door, a silent Go.
I don’t hesitate, running through the kitchens even though I was explicitly told not to run through the kitchen, along with approximately one bajillion other rules that Victoria warned me about before dinner. But when I stumble out into the campground, a thick fog has rolled over the island, just barely broken up by the guiding lights between the cabins overhead. The back of the kitchens spits me right out into a main fork diverging in five different directions, and I don’t see the back of Leo in a single one.
I want to pick one and run down it, on the off chance that I’ll pick the right one and catch him, but that’s the thing. I can outrun him, maybe, but I can’t outrun whatever just happened back there. At this point I don’t even know if I can keep up with myself.
eight
“Uh, Abs, not that it isn’t great to hear from you … but it’s almost two o’clock in Italy, and according to math, that makes it the buttcrack of dawn in Seattle.”
I cringe, holding the phone closer to my ear and shifting to avoid the gaze of the camp employee who reluctantly let me into the main office after I stood outside it like a lost dog. “It’s five in the morning,” I tell Connie sheepishly.
“That’s just unholy. What have they done to you?”
The truth is, I was calling with every intention of asking her about Leo and dissecting the conversation she had with him all those months ago. But as soon as I hear her voice on the other end, the rest comes spilling out of me too fast for the question to catch up.
“Connie, you’re not gonna believe this. But Leo’s here. Apparently this is Camp Evergreen with some new name. I ran into him on the freaking ferry.”
“Wait, what?”
“He’s known Savvy his whole life—”
“Wait, what?”
“—except now he’s furious with me—”
“Uh, back up here—”
“Not that it even matters, because I’m busting out of here as soon as it’s late enough for me to call my parents. Eight in the morning is probably the sweet spot—”
“Abby. Abby. Hold on. I’m going to … take a very large bite of this sfogliatelle,” she says, in perfect Italian because it is, after all, Connie, who achieved near fluency for kicks over the past semester. “Then I am going to chew and process everything you just said.”
After several seconds of chewing, she clears her throat and says, “Okay, first of all, extreme jealousy that you guys get to spend the summer together without me aside, please explain why Leo is mad? I didn’t think he had a barometer for anger much higher than a puppy.”
I blow out a breath and watch it fog up the office window. “I … might have forgotten to tell him about Savvy.”
A moment passes. “You forgot?”
Which is to say, she’s not buying it, the same way Leo probably won’t either.
“I’m a jerk,” I say, so I won’t have to go into it.
“You’re not a jerk. A cautionary tale on conflict avoidance, maybe, but not a jerk.”
“No, I am.” I sink into one of the chairs and prop my head on the back of it. “Even Savvy hates me. I’ve pissed off one of my best friends and my secret sister, and I haven’t even been here a full day. I’m going home.”
“Wait a minute. So you’re telling me you hacked into every form of communication your parents own and came all the way out there, and now you’re just gonna give up?”
Oh boy. Here comes one of Connie’s famous pep talks. I brace myself, even though I expected one. I wouldn’t have called if I hadn’t.
“I mean … I wanted to know what happened with our parents. But not enough to torture myself for the next four weeks.”
“First of all, forget your parents,” says Connie, without missing a beat. “That girl is your damn sister. Do you know how much I’ve always wanted one of those?”
Connie spent most of our childhood asking her parents for a sibling, pleas that usually reached a fever pitch whenever another one of my brothers was born. Whenever someone mistook us for sisters it was the highlight of her week. As soon as we were allowed to roam the mall by ourselves Connie was always trying to play the sister card—Can I get a dressing room next to my sister? or My sister’s saving us seats over there. It was fun, both because it was a game and because Connie really is like a sister to me. But to Connie it was less of a game and more like wishful thinking.
“And the universe just gave you one on a silver platter. You’re telling me you don’t want to get to know her?”
“I don’t think she wants to get to know me,” I deflect.
“And are you really torturing yourself? Didn’t your bring your camera? Aren’t you making new friends?”
I want to say no, for the sake of justifying the leaving. But that’s the problem—or the three problems, I guess. Finn’s “Savanatics.”
I walked back to Phoenix Cabin last night feeling like scum on the bottom of someone’s shoe, but opened the door a decorated war hero—it turns out they were all waiting for me, and the instant I opened the door the cabin erupted in cheers. Once I realized the noise was for me and not because someone’s sleeping bag was on fire, they told me that all three of them had successfully signed up for recreational activities
during the SAT prep block tomorrow, and no one suspected a thing.
“You’re a lifesaver, Abby,” said Cameron, the one who had waved me over at the pit. She’d already changed into another pair of matching neon leggings and tank top since my arrival, her smile as bright as the fabric.
“An angel,” echoed Jemmy of Team Not Going To College, hopping on her bunk bed to grab the Goldfish she’d somehow snuck into the place and offering me some.
Izzy, aka 1560, swung a towel around my neck like a decorative sash and declared, “A liberator of SAT prep hostages everywhere.”
After, we spent a lot of time chatting, bonding over our mutual dread of penning college admissions essays, counting one another’s already alarmingly large number of mosquito bites in the dark, and breaking into the giant twelve-pack of gum I had stashed in my suitcase. I don’t remember ever stopping—we all just conked out midconversation. The next thing I knew it was nearing daylight, and I was sneaking out to talk to Connie.
“I … guess people are nice here.”
“See?”
“Trouble is, they all think Savvy is infinitely cooler than I am.”
“You know what, Abby? I think this scares you. This new place and new person you have to deal with. And that’s why this is good for you. I think you should find a way to ride this out.”
She’s not wrong. I am scared. I don’t even think I’ve let myself fully feel how deep it goes until I’m hearing her say it, and now it feels like some kind of well in me, something I’ve been trying to fill up long before Savvy or camp ever came into the picture.
“Besides, I’m infinitely cool and you’ve never had any trouble hanging out with me, right?”
My laugh gets stuck in my throat. “I wish you were here,” I say softly. My life might feel like chaos, but it’s never reached a level where one conversation with Connie couldn’t bring it back into focus.
Connie lets out a sad little hum. “I wish you were here.” Before I can answer, she asserts, “But hey, at least we’re getting back around the same time.”
Neither of us misses the very bold assumption that I will be staying at camp. But that’s Connie for you—when she wants to will something to happen, nine out of ten times she’ll get her way, and the tenth time she’ll double back when you least suspect it. Terrifying for our teachers, but extremely helpful in a best friend.
“Tell me about Italy.”
“Oh, it’s whatever. Only the best food I’ve ever tasted and breathtaking views and fascinating ancient history around every corner. I’ll put some of my stunning pictures in the Dropbox so you can see just how over it I am.”
I grin into the receiver. “You poor thing.”
“Hey,” says Connie. “When we get back, can we maybe … have some ‘us’ time? I know I saw you like every day at school, but it feels like I haven’t actually seen you in ages, you know?”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
“We can borrow my mom’s car. Have a picnic at Richmond Beach.”
Connie’s the realist between us, so I hate that I’m the one who will have to remind her what’s going to happen in August. I’m inevitably going to be in the second summer school session, and she’ll be nose-deep in the mountain of required reading for AP classes, and our window of time for seeing each other will shrink from there.
But we have to try. I’ll stick a foot in the window and jam it open, if I have to. Connie might be right about staying, but if she is, it’s only because she knows me better than I know myself—and there’s no better person to take advice from about my sister than the sister I already have.
“Assuming you haven’t been swept off your feet by a hot Italian and ridden a moped into the sunset by then? Sounds like a plan.”
We talk for another ten minutes or so, and only after I’ve ducked out of the way of the still wary camp employee and out into the eerie quiet of the empty camp do I realize I never asked her about Leo. I had plenty of time and still managed to swerve around it like it was oncoming traffic. I couldn’t think of a way to ask Connie without implying that she might have lied.
But the farther I get from the office, the more I think that maybe this is different than my usual “conflict avoidance.” This is plain old self-preservation. Connie wouldn’t lie, which means I already know Leo doesn’t like me—the same way I know it’s going to break my heart if I have to hear it again.
nine
Before I can decide whether to go rogue and call my parents anyway, I run smack into Cameron, who drags me to the mess hall to eat. I try to duck out by lying about going to the bathroom, but Jemmy braves the line for the giant vat of Nutella and presents us all with our own globs of it, beaming. After we devour them, Izzy just about pins me to a chair to do my hair up in a high ponytail to match theirs, with enough determination that I figured it was either be her personal Barbie or suffer her personal wrath.
I touch it when she’s done, knowing it’s the Savvy ponytail, or at least as close to it as my frizzy hair can get. Same as their Savvy stud earrings and their Savvy sneakers and their Savvy-inspired breakfast bowls—some mix of oatmeal, yogurt, sliced fruit, nuts, and drizzled almond butter they fashioned for themselves, straight out of one of Savvy’s Instagram stories from last week. It’s unnerving, but at least we’re also enjoying Leo and Mickey’s French toast and omelet bakes, even if they aren’t fit for the ’gram.
I ache at the thought of Leo. I haven’t seen him since he ducked out into the fog last night, but one bite of French toast is all I need to know he’s here. Nobody in my whole life has ever come close to getting the ratio of egginess and bread in French toast as well as Leo, and someone definitely snuck some cinnamon into the omelet bake, a Leo power move if there ever was one.
“Okay, one more of them together, and then we eat?” asks Jemmy, pushing all their bowls toward the center as Cameron hovers above it with her phone.
It really does make for a stunning photo, soothing and colorful. I wish my life could be as orderly as their oatmeal aesthetic, but it’s a hell of a lot more like whatever remains of the poor Nutella vat half the camp is abusing in the corner.
“Well, look who’s still here.”
The rest of Phoenix Cabin raise their eyebrows curiously at the newcomer, who props a leg up on the empty chair next to me but doesn’t sit. I don’t bother holding in my sigh, only half looking up to acknowledge Finn.
“I thought you’d be halfway to the mainland,” he says.
Isabelle’s mouth pops open. “Really, Abby? We only just got here!”
“I mean, I know that kinda sucked yesterday, but it was a misunderstanding,” says Jemmy, spooning more almond butter into her oatmeal.
“Besides, you’re probably feeling better about it today, right?” asks Cameron.
I glance around the table at their earnest faces, both embarrassed and pleased at the idea of them caring whether I stay.
“Don’t you worry, ladies,” says Finn, kicking his leg off the chair. “The committee for camp deserters is on the case.”
He offers me his elbow.
“We can’t leave,” I say flatly. “It’s against the rules.”
“Rules only count if you get caught.” He flashes a shit-eating grin. “And with me you won’t get caught.”
“Two hours of kitchen duty last night begs to differ.” I turn away from knockoff Han Solo and back to my plate. “And you still haven’t given me one compelling reason to abandon this French toast.”
“We’ll save it for you,” says Jemmy, nodding at Finn with conspiratorial eyes.
And yeah, it occurs to me that, objectively, Finn is not bad-looking. He’s even cute, in that scruffy, mischievous puppy way.
But he’s not Leo, and right now Leo is taking up about 90 percent of the real estate in my brain.
I glance toward the doors to the kitchen. The lengths he is going to to avoid me are getting absurd. It’s not like I wanted any of this to happen. And yes, ideally I would have told him o
n the ferry, but can I be blamed for dropping the ball when his I got over it dropped an iceberg?
“Listen, I’ve got a foolproof way to solve all your problems,” says Finn. His gaze has followed mine to the kitchen, making it clear he knows exactly which problem in particular I’m stuck on.
I narrow my eyes, but of all the people in this mess hall, he might actually be the most equipped to help. At least, the most-equipped person whose name I know. He’s clearly in with the kids who have been coming here their whole lives, Savvy and Leo included.
“It’ll take like five minutes,” he says, most definitely fibbing. “Ten tops.”
I look away from the kitchen doors, shoving another bite of omelet bake into my mouth. “Fine.”
ten
Finn’s whole follow me bit might be more charming if he didn’t proceed to lead me directly to the edge of the woods, so thick and muggy they’re basically begging to become the set of a true crime documentary. Which, to be fair, can be said for all the edges of the woods around the camp.
“Oh, great,” I deadpan. “Another rule I can get lectured for breaking.”
I’m not actually sure what the rule is re: sneaking off during breakfast into some murder woods, but Finn’s eye roll seems to confirm it.
“They’re gonna have to loosen up on those. Most of us have been around here since way before those stupid rules and we’re all in one piece, aren’t we? Give or take a few secret sisters popping out of the ether?”
I deflect, not entirely certain we’re out of earshot yet. “Sounds like you don’t really want to be here, either.”
For once in my short time of knowing him, Finn goes quiet.
“Well, Camp Not-So-Evergreen-After-All sucks, but it’s not like I had anywhere else to be,” he says after a pause, in a tone that’s a little too casual. “Besides, I was clearly meant to come here and unravel this nonsense for you.”
We’ve reached the end of the campgrounds. I turn back, but nobody’s watching us. I take the opportunity to pull a pack of gum out of my back pocket and shove a stick of it in my mouth.