by Emma Lord
Finn nods.
“My mom told me what happened. I’m sorry about—”
“Leo told me about your girlfriend,” Finn interrupts, loud enough that Rufus comes scampering out of the cabin, woofing expectantly. Mickey and Finn both seem a little too grateful for the interruption—that is, until Rufus starts sniffing at Finn’s fist, which must be oozing with prechewed gum.
“Oh, yeah, well—I broke up with her, so.”
“Really?” Finn asks. “But I thought—”
Mickey has the same “help me” eyes that Finn did a second ago, so I make myself useful and interrupt before they put each other through the paces of something neither wants me to overhear.
“We’re here to clean the cabins,” I say, gesturing at the cleaning supplies Finn pilfered from one of the rec room closets.
“Oh. Right. Part of our demerit punishments,” says Finn, remembering our not-so-carefully crafted lie.
Mickey’s nose wrinkles. “Yikes. Well. Have at it. I’m heading down to start dinner prep.” Before she heads off, she squeezes Finn’s arm, holding him there for a bit. “It’s really good to see you. We’ll talk.”
Something wobbles in Finn’s expression as she heads off, Rufus in tow, but before I can decide whether to ask him about it, he charges into the cabin, prying the gum from his hand like it’s precious cargo instead of the least-appetizing wet blob either of us has ever laid eyes on.
We scan the room and stop at the sight of the bed outfitted with a Himalayan salt lamp, a book titled Spring Cleaning for Your Brain, and an inordinate amount of Rufus-colored dog hair at the foot.
“Ah,” I deadpan, “but however will we know which bunk is Savvy’s?”
Finn doesn’t hesitate. “I’ll go first. You watch the door.”
“Well, if I didn’t feel like a criminal before, I sure do now.”
“Don’t go soft on me, Bubbles. Besides, all we’re doing is sticking some gum on the bottom of the bunk above hers. It’s not like we’re putting cyanide in her acai bowl.”
Finn begins separating his wad of gum into smaller pieces and squinting up at the space as he curates his gum masterpiece. I watch the door, letting the cool breeze of the afternoon lift my curls, settling into the first bout of quiet I’ve had all day and wishing Finn would fill it. From his silence, he’s pulled himself somewhere far away, too.
“Okay, your turn,” he says after a few minutes.
When I crouch into the space between Savvy’s bed and the bunk above it, I feel a legit twinge of guilt for desecrating the “sanctity of the sleeping space”—Savvy’s words from a recent Instagram story, not mine—but then I remember she sentenced me to peeling hardened nacho cheese off camp dinner plates with my fingernails for two weeks, and just like that, my head is back in the (admittedly disgusting) game.
Finn has fashioned his gum into a giant F, so I follow suit and leave an A in front of it. As in “disgusting AF,” I guess. Finn comes over to survey our germ-infested calling card when I’m done and clicks his tongue in satisfaction.
“Art in its highest form. We should open an Etsy shop and sell gummed-up goods.”
“We should get the heck out of here is what we should do,” I say, so nervous that—of all the ironies—I wish I had some gum to chew on.
Finn does a little skip on the way out the door. If nothing else, he’s a lot more chipper than he was this morning after Savvy blew him off. Even if Savvy wants to throw us off a dock and feed us to the rather entitled ducks that hang out on the fringes of the camp for this, I think that might make her happy, too.
“So,” he says, once we’re a safe distance away from the cabin. “I promised you good views, and I have a few in mind.”
I raise my eyebrows. “How many of them involve breaking a camp rule?”
“Only all of them.” He must assume whatever face I’m making is answer enough, because he starts heading for the docks with a merry “Let’s go.”
twelve
The end of the day sneaks up on me so fast that I have no choice but to corner Leo in his element by showing up to kitchen duty early. From the door I can hear his back-and-forth with Mickey as they prep for tomorrow’s breakfast in the middle of a lively debate about whether jackfruit is better in savory or sweet dishes.
“I’m just saying, there’s a reason all the chain restaurants here are suddenly using it as a meat substitute,” says Leo. “The texture really lends itself to—”
“Almost everything. Jackfruit is the party animal of the cooking world; this country was just slow on the uptake. Anyway, try my turon and you’ll never doubt its proper place in dessert again.”
“Nothing against your turon, but—”
Leo spots me first, pausing at the counter. I freeze, and we stare at each other the way dumbfounded deer do when they stumble on your path in the woods.
I clear my throat and say a silent prayer to whatever gods are in charge of puns to forgive me for my sins. “I know you probably don’t want to give me the time of Day right now…”
Leo groans, but it works—he’s got the beginnings of a smile and is only halfway trying to hide it. Mickey tweaks him on the arm and winks at me. “I’m gonna go meet up with Finn, since we’re wrapped up here. Your blasphemous jackfruit opinions aside.”
Then Mickey’s gone, and the kitchen is completely silent, save my awkward shuffling on the tiled floor and Leo fiddling with his apron ties.
“Wanna go outside?” he asks finally.
I nod, figuring the only person to bust me for not doing kitchen duty is probably Leo himself.
The air is unusually muggy, even for June. It puts a heaviness in our steps, in the space between us, making me more aware of him than the baseline of all-too-aware that I already am. The slight sheen of sweat where his shirt collar meets his chest. The faint scent of cinnamon, plus whatever spices were in tonight’s sweet potato bake. The warmth of him, so familiar to me that I don’t even need to be near him to feel it. I can conjure it all too easily, even when he’s nowhere near.
We sit on a bench that looks out at the water, to the stretch of the mainland and hints of mountaintops beyond. The sky is all deep purples and blues, moody and mystic. I’ve always wanted to take photographs of it like this but still haven’t quite mastered what it takes to get good images at night.
We settle in, neither of us looking at each other, staring at the lazy lap of the water on the pebbled shore. I’m so relieved to be near him that at first it’s too overwhelming to speak.
“I should probably explain,” I start.
Leo shakes his head. “Mickey filled me in earlier.”
“Oh.” I imagined most of this conversation would be me giving the recap to the soap opera of my life and figuring out a place to apologize on the way. Without that to guide me, all that comes out is a graceless, blurted “I’m sorry.”
“To be clear—that is why you’re here, right? For Savvy?”
There’s no graceful way to say it, so I don’t. “I’m glad you’re here, too.”
He’s not looking at me, staring straight ahead at the water even as I will him to turn his head, to see how much I mean it.
“I thought we told each other everything,” he says quietly.
I close my eyes for a moment. I’ve been looking at all this through the lens of my own embarrassment, without thinking of how he sees it—not as me trying to keep things normal after the BEI, but as a friend who compromised his trust.
“I mean … I told you why I was taking the test. And I told you what I found out.” He says the words slowly and deliberately, like they’ve been weighing on him all day. “And you—you must have found out about this in my living room, and you didn’t say a word.”
“I was in shock at first. And then—it all happened so fast, and…”
“Did you think I’d be upset or something? That you found family and I didn’t?”
I wince. The truth is, I have felt guilty about it. He took this test to find peop
le, and now I have this sister I’m not even sure I want. This thing Leo and Connie both want so badly in their own ways is something that threw a massive wrench into my world, and I’ve been too wrapped up in what it means for me to let myself fully acknowledge what it means for him.
“Well—yeah,” I admit. “I guess that was part of it.”
“And the rest?”
He’s looking at me now, with the same patience he always has. He gives me too much room sometimes. Enough to say whatever I need to say, even if it’s something I shouldn’t.
“When I saw you on the ferry, I was going to tell you. But we got distracted, and…”
Distracted may not be the right word. But I never know what the right word is when it comes to my feelings about Leo—it’s equal parts hopeful and disappointed, these mismatched moments where I’m so certain he might want me too that are punctured in an instant by the ones where I’m sure he doesn’t. I’ve gone over that conversation we had on the ferry at least a hundred times since it happened, picked it apart from every angle, either trying to find reasons to keep hoping or to shut it all down.
I let the sentence hang there, worried he’ll press the point. Worried, but also a little bit eager. Like it’ll open a door I’m too scared to open myself. Instead he takes my hand and squeezes it briefly, a quiet forgiveness, and lets it go.
“Not gonna lie,” says Leo. “This is a weird one to wrap my head around.”
I slouch into the bench, trying not to read anything into the way Leo leans over so I’m mostly slouching against him. “You’re telling me.”
Leo reaches forward, plucking one of the gloves hanging out of my apron’s front pocket. “So … do I even want to know how this happened?”
“Probably not,” I say, taking it back from him. “This place isn’t exactly what I expected.”
Leo snorts. “Me neither. At least everything’s the same in the kitchen. Dunno if I’d want to be a camper under—what’s Finn calling it?—the ‘Reynolds Regime.’”
“Eh, today wasn’t so bad, I guess. I even made some friends.”
I smile to myself. Once Finn and I wrapped up our DIY home decor project in Savvy’s bunk and he snuck me over to the neighboring camp to get a picture from their high dive, I spent the rest of the day with the girls from Phoenix Cabin—kayaking, hiking around the trails, even playing a game of capture the flag that got us so muddy we had to shower before dinner. We were so busy I kept missing chances to call my parents, and then it was late enough that I figured I’d better put it off until tomorrow, when it wouldn’t freak them out as much.
Leo catches the tail end of the smile with a hesitant one of his own. I nudge my shoulder with his. “How have you been?”
Leo shrugs. “We’re settling in. Catching up with everyone. So far it’s mostly just me and Mickey, showing off all the new cooking tricks in our arsenals.”
“Please tell me the macadamia fried grilled cheese balls are in the mix,” I say, thinking back to when Connie came back from Christmas break in Hawaii with so many tins of macadamia nuts that I’m surprised the plane could take off.
“I’ve got that one up my sleeve for later. I’ll need a ringer for later this week. She’s been hoarding leftover ingredients in a corner of the fridge and I’ve done just enough sleuthing to think a four-meat pochero is coming.”
“So basically this kitchen turns into the set of MasterChef after dark.”
“Except Mickey’s only made me cry, like, twice.” He shifts on the bench, his legs absurdly long when splayed out next to mine. Absurdly long and absurdly close—one of his nudges mine in a way that might be accidental, but when I don’t move, it stays there in a way that definitely isn’t. “But yeah, the head chef pretty much gives us free rein of the place after dinner as long as we clean up.”
I’m about to make some crack about showing up to the kitchen to be fed every night like the stray cat I am, but I pause. Leo’s lips are tight. He’s going to say something but isn’t quite sure how to say it yet.
“And I think … well, Mickey’s dad and her aunts run their own restaurant up by the UW and she’s—it’s always been a big part of her life, you know? So I thought maybe—since being here has kind of put the brakes on the whole looking-into-my-roots thing—well, I’m gonna ask Mickey to teach me more about the Filipino dishes she’s always making.”
“Yeah?”
Leo nods, his eyes tentative and not quite meeting mine. He clears his throat and adds, “I mean, only after our annual week of cooking battles is done and I’ve established myself the clear victor.”
“So crush her emotionally with your PB&J cinnamon rolls, and then ask her for a favor.”
“Exactly.”
The laughter tapers off, and both of our smiles soften with it. He’s staring at me like he’s waiting to hear what I think. Like maybe he’s been waiting to hear what I think all day. And even if I know it doesn’t really matter what I think, it feels nice that he wants to hear it.
“That’s a really cool idea.”
Leo falls into a satisfied quiet, then nudges me with his elbow. “And if you think that sneaky bid to get yourself some PB&J cinnamon rolls went unnoticed, you’re wrong.”
“They’re your secret weapon.”
“Weapon? With Mickey, those would be like showing up to a gunfight with a pool noodle.”
“You’re still cutting out. Hold on. Sometimes I get service down by the water.”
Leo and I turn toward the voice to see Savvy, pacing far enough away that she can’t see us, but close enough that we can hear nearly every word she’s saying.
“No, you said you’d come here after two weeks, and two weeks after that I’d visit you. I literally sent you a Gcal invite. I checked on it an hour ago when I was going through parent emails to the camp staff. ‘Jo visits Savvy.’ And two weeks after that, ‘Savvy visits Jo.’”
Right. Jo. The elusive girlfriend I’ve only ever seen in the edges of Instagram pictures or heard laughing in the background of an Instagram story. Last week we got as much as her full forearm and hand.
“I can’t switch. I have to be here the whole monthlong session, I only get the one window to leave before the second one starts. We did talk about this, at your graduation party, remember? Like, exhaustively. Hence the Gcal invites.”
I cringe. My own attempt at a love life may have spent the last few months circling the drain, but even I draw the line at romance via G Suite.
“That’s … wow. Okay. Maybe I don’t, but it’s important to me. Okay? Just because I’m not spending my whole summer rubbing elbows with people in power suits doesn’t mean—wait, what?” Savvy’s voice switches from annoyed to near livid. “Mickey literally has nothing to do with—shoot, I can’t hear you. Hold on, I’ll try the break room again…”
She wanders off without noticing us. We both shift awkwardly in her wake. I want to ask, and it feels like I should be able to, as if as her full-blooded whatever I am to her that I have some built-in right. But I don’t, really. And in all my years of firsthand experience of being Leo’s friend, I know he’d never talk about someone else’s business.
“You know what’s wild,” says Leo in a hushed voice—not like he’s worried Savvy’s going to come back, but like he doesn’t want to interrupt the stillness. We’ve migrated even closer to each other on the bench, his bare knee brushing mine, sending tingles up my skin. “I mean, aside from how your parents kept this massive secret from you. Somehow, even though I’ve known you both forever and you’re basically carbon copies of each other, it never once crossed my mind.”
“Uh, because we are of a different species?”
I’m prepared for Leo to say a lot of things, but not for him to defend Savvy. “The two of you just need to try to put yourself in each other’s shoes,” he says, all the confirmation I need that Mickey has filled him in on our running spat. “And maybe go easy on Savvy.”
“Whoa. Whose team are you on here?”
“I
’m not on a team,” says Leo. “You’re both way too important to me for that.”
I know it’s irrational, but that’s the last thing I want to hear. Especially when I’m out of my element, surrounded on all sides by Savvy’s friends and Savvy’s fan club, not just immersed but fully dunked into Savvy’s world.
“And you have more in common than you think.”
I snort. “I’ve never been less like anyone in my life. You said it yourself on the ferry, didn’t you?” I say, pointing out toward the water. It’s turned an eerie, unusual magenta in the time we’ve been talking, the sky thick with color and clouds. “She’s so high-strung. Obsessed with her rules and her schedules. She’s basically running around on anxiety fumes. We’re nothing alike.”
“Uh, Abby, you’re like, one of the most anxious people I know.”
I raise my eyebrows. A lot can been said about me, maybe, but certainly not that. If anything, looking at my grades, I’m sure you could argue I’m not anxious enough. Leo doesn’t back down, though, raising his eyebrow right back.
“I mean, you’re my—we’re best friends. I know Connie and I make jokes about you swerving away from dealing with stuff, but that’s its own kind of anxiety, you know? I think sometimes you get overwhelmed and … avoid things. Bury them.”
It stings, and he knows it. It’s why he’s saying it so gently, and why he’s giving me the space to tell him he’s wrong even though we both know he isn’t. The proof is in a lot of things, but more than anything, in the distance between us—not the physical distance, but the distance I made all on my own.
Not telling Leo about Savvy. Not telling Leo about my feelings when I had them. Not telling Leo about them in all the months they’ve only gotten worse since.
“Connie said it was being a Hufflepuff,” I remind him, trying to brush it off.
“Of course she did, she’s a Slytherin. Plus she lives to fight your battles for you.” Leo’s eyes are on mine, a challenge. “You know we’re always in your corner, right? But there are some things you gotta own up to yourself.”