ALSO BY REBEKAH CRANE
Aspen
Playing Nice
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2016 by Rebekah Crane
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Skyscape, New York
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ISBN-13: 9781503939820
ISBN-10: 1503939820
Cover design by Adil Dara
For Kyle—who knows all about my crazy and loves me for it.
CONTENTS
Start Reading
KNOWING YOURSELF
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
TEAMWORK
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
TRUST
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
COURAGE
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
PERSEVERANCE
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
HOPE
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dear Future Campers—
Camp Padua welcomes you to a summer of exploration, adventure, and above all self-discovery. We work toward the highest level of personal growth and healing. In order to best serve you, our campers, our highly trained counselors focus on six essential qualities all people must possess. Without them, we are lost.
We ask that over the next five weeks, you think about the person you are . . . and the person you need to become.
—The Staff
KNOWING YOURSELF
CHAPTER 1
Mom and Dad,
They told me I had to write this. Camp is fine. I’ll see you soon.
Z
PS—I’m fine, too . . . no matter what you think.
The doorknob locks with a single key from the inside of the cabin. My bag hangs over my shoulder as I stare at the silver knob like it might start talking. This can’t be legal.
“We only lock the doors at night for precautionary reasons. And I sleep in the cabin with you,” Madison says, tugging on the key dangling from her neck. She touches my arm. I glance down at her finely painted fingernails pressing into my skin. The magenta polish has a glossy layer of perfection.
“What is there to be cautious about?” I ask.
Madison doesn’t answer me right away. She gives me one of those half smiles and cocks her head to the side, like she’s thinking about what to say next. She picks up her long brown braided hair and inspects the end of it.
“It keeps the bears out.” She pulls a split end free.
“I didn’t think there were bears here.”
“The woods around here are filled with a lot of things people don’t want to admit exist. But don’t worry. That’s what I’m here for.” She touches my arm again.
Madison is dressed in a hunter-green T-shirt with the camp’s logo across the front and black cargo shorts. Her bright nail polish contrasts with her outdoorsy outfit. It doesn’t match.
“I remember my first time at camp. I was so nervous,” Madison says.
“Did you go here?”
“No . . .” Madison trails off. She fiddles with her shirt, smoothing down the front of it. “It was a horse camp in California.”
Madison looks like a girl who grew up wealthy enough to ride horses and wear pink polo shirts and white shorts with whales on them. It would match her nail polish perfectly.
“I’m not nervous,” I say.
“That’s good.” Madison smiles. “Well, get yourself situated and we’ll meet in the Circle of Hope in a half hour.”
“The Circle of Hope. Why there?” I ask.
“If we don’t have hope, Zander, we don’t have anything. It’s the best place to start.” She touches my arm and smiles one more time before walking away, her braid swishing across her back.
“That’s not an answer,” I mumble as a mosquito buzzes in my face. I swat it away, but it’s back within seconds. A door that locks and unlocks from the inside by a single key has to be a fire hazard. I’m right. This is totally illegal. Maybe I could report this place and get it shut down, but then I’d have to go home.
I drop my bag on the ground. It makes a dull thud on the cement floor. Other than the cold concrete beneath my feet, everything in the room is wood—the beds, the walls, the dressers. I sit down on the bare mattress of one of the beds and run my hands through my hair, pulling a little too hard. A few black strands pop loose. I can’t seem to break the habit though it makes my thin hair even thinner and more lightweight.
“Crap,” I murmur to myself.
The door flies open, smacking against the wood wall with a bang.
A girl dressed in the smallest white tank top and shortest red shorts I’ve ever seen stands in the doorway.
“Talking to yourself isn’t a good sign,” she says, circling her index finger next to her temple.
She flings her bag onto the bed. I stare at her. I can’t help it. She’s not wearing a bra. What girl doesn’t wear a bra under a thin white tank top? Her dark brown skin shows through the shirt. All her skin. Even her nipples.
“What?” she barks at me.
She’s skinny, too, like the kind of skinny that gets you hospitalized. Gaunt might be a better term. She is practically hollow.
She plops down on the bed, crossing her long legs.
“I’m Cassie,” she states but doesn’t hold out her hand. “I know. It’s a fat girl’s name.” Before I can get my name out, Cassie proceeds to dump the contents of her duffel bag out on the bed. I scan the pile of clothes looking for a bra of any kind, but all I see is a hot-pink bikini, short shorts, and tank tops in multiple colors. Cassie takes an armful of clothes and says, “I take it you met Madison.” She stuffs them into a drawer without folding or separating the items. She just shoves all the chaos into one space. “She’s a fucking moron.”
As she talks, Cassie grabs her empty bag and turns it upside down. A waterfall of pill containers splatters onto the bed.
“Like I said, these counselors are idiots. They don’t even check the pockets.” She pops the top on a bottle. “Don’t stare. It’s rude,” she says.
“Sorry.” I look down at my hands.
“I’m kidding. Everyone stares, especially here.” Cassie holds out a handful of pills to me, an offering. “Diet pills. You want some?”
I shake my head. “I hate pills.”
“Suit yourself, but I’d stay away from the macaroni in the mess hall.” Cassie puffs out her cheeks and points at me. I can’t help but look down at my body. No one would ever call me skinny, but I’m not fat. My mom would never allow that.
I tug at my yellow T-shirt so it’s not so tight. “Noted.”
She tosses the pills into her mouth and swallows them without water. “So why are you here?” she asks.
“What?”
“Is it because you’re deaf?” Cassie makes a fake frown face and enunciates every word, speaking louder. “Why are you here?”
“I’m not deaf.”
“No shit, moron. That’s a different kind of camp.”
I play with the front of my T-shirt, picking a mosquito off it. Why am I here? Looking at the girl in front of me, we’re nowhere near the same. I don’t belong lumped in a group with her. I squish the mosquito hard between my fingers and say, “I’m here because my parents signed me up.”
Cassie laughs so loud it echoes in the bare cabin. The noise rattles me. “So you’re one of those.”
“One of those?”
“A fucking moron and a liar.”
I sit up straighter. Did a girl who eats diet pills for breakfast and refuses to wear a bra just call me a liar?
“Uh-oh, did I make you mad?” Cassie mocks.
“No,” I say.
“Well, I can’t help it. I’m a manic-depressive-bipolar-anorexic disaster. Self-diagnosed. And some days I think I’m a boy living in a girl’s body.” She stands up. “But at least I’m honest about who I am. Just remember, people who are really crazy don’t know they’re crazy.”
She stuffs the pills back into the hidden pocket of her duffel bag and shoves the bag under the bed. Before she leaves, she glances down at my luggage to the name written on the outside. “Zander? That’s your name?” She shakes her head. “Yep. Definitely crazy. Have fun talking to yourself, Zander.”
Cassie disappears out the door. For a moment, I consider telling Madison about her pharmacy of pills hidden in her bag, but something tells me that getting on Cassie’s bad side for the next five weeks isn’t a good idea.
I take a breath of the heavy air and stare up at the wooden ceiling. One match would light this place on fire if it could get past the humidity. But burning down a cabin would send me home and prove that Cassie is right—that I am crazy.
And I can’t be crazy. It would make my parents too happy. And as far as going home, I don’t want to be in my house. Not with how it is now.
My parents didn’t even ask if I wanted to come here. We sat down to dinner a few months ago and it was announced. I swirled my spaghetti around my fork as my parents talked about me like I wasn’t even in the room. To be fair, I had a huge French test the next day, and I was conjugating verbs in the passé composé tense in my head.
J’ai mangé
Tu as mangé
Il a mangé
Nous avons mangé
Vous avez mangé
Ils ont mangé
“This is exactly why she needs to go,” my mom complained, still talking about me like I wasn’t in the room.
The conjugating is a habit now. My grade at the end of the year was practically an A+.
“When you get back, all of this will be a memory. You’ll be a different person,” my mom said the night before I left, as my boyfriend and I sat around a bowl of organic vegetables and dip. I’ve been dating Coop for two years. His real name is Cooper. I’ve never told him, but I think both options are pretty terrible. Coop sounds like a date-raping football player who crushes beers on his head. And calling him Cooper sounds like I’m hollering for a dog.
I snapped a carrot in my mouth and nodded at my mom. The crunching sound was so loud in my ears it blocked out what everyone was saying.
When I’d eaten the entire bowl, I pulled Coop up to my room and we made out. It was the high point of the evening. And Coop isn’t that great of a kisser. He’s kind of slobbery, like a dog named Cooper.
When I got bored, I conjugated verbs. Kissing and conjugating go well together. They’re both French.
No. Going home isn’t an option, so I pick a dresser to unload my clothes, separating them into shirts, pants, and underthings including the pile of bras my mom packed. She set my bag at the foot of my bed the day I left and said, “There. All done.”
In French, fini.
She should have used those words years ago, but my mom isn’t one for letting go of things.
I take the bottom bunk, thinking it will be easier to get out of this place if it lights on fire and if I can get past the locked door. When I pull the sheets and quilt my mom has packed for bedding from my bag, my whole body sags. The tiredness is back, like gravity just doubled and my knees want to give out, but I force myself to make the bed, sure to do hospital corners like my mom taught me.
When I’m done, I stare at my neat work. A mosquito buzzes in my ear and I smack my hands together trying to kill it, but I miss. It’s back within seconds.
“Damn it.” I shake my head clear. But my bed sits there staring back at me. It’s as if there are a pair of eyes and a body and lungs just under the sheets, trying so hard to breathe. Trying hard but failing. Because, in the end, we all fail. We all sink to the bottom, no matter how many times someone tries to pull us back to the surface.
When I can’t stand looking at my finely made bed any longer, I mess it all up. I tear out the hospital corners and stuff the thin pastel flower quilt back in my bag, not caring if it’s folded properly, just that it’s out of sight. I sit down on the bed, out of breath, my chest heaving hard.
I’d rather freeze every night than sleep with that stuff.
“Fini,” I say. Shit. Talking to myself again. I look around, making sure no one saw me. But I’m alone. My family is across the country in Arizona and I’m in the middle of Michigan. I try hard to be sad about that fact, but it’s as if I’m grabbing for something that isn’t there. All I get is a handful of nothing. I’m just empty.
I walk out of the cabin into the swamp-like hot day, unsure of what to do next. But one thing is clear. I’d better stop talking to myself or people here will get the wrong idea.
CHAPTER 2
Dear Mom and President Cleveland,
The odds of finding love are one in 285,000, but the probability of getting married is 80 percent. There seems to be a discrepancy here.
Your son,
Grover Cleveland
My parents told me a few months ago where exactly I would spend the summer. My dad put up his hand and pointed to the center of it.
“It’s right here, Zander. That’s where the camp is located,” he said. “Get it? Michigan is shaped like a glove.”
I didn’t respond so my mom added, “Arizona is miserable in the summer anyway. It’s a million degrees. You’ll like being away from here.” She looked at my dad with thin, tight lips. “Even if it is undesirable that you should be carted halfway across the world without your parents.”
“We agreed on this together, so don’t start with the hyperbole, Nina. The camp isn’t in India,” my dad said.
I watched a fly struggle in a spiderweb as my parents fought at the dinner table. I understood the fly well. No matter which way it turned, it was caught. What’s the use in fighting? You only end up more tangled.
“Camp Padua has seven distinct areas. The boys’ quarters, the girls’ quarters, the mess hall, the beach, the archery field, the stables, and most importantly—the Circle of Hope.” Madison gave me a tour when I’d arrived. She directed me across campus pointing this way and that. “Lots of options. It should be a lot of fun this summer, too. Not all . . .” She paused and looked at me. “Business. What are you into?”
I didn’t know what to say.
“You know, what’s your thing?” Madison asked again with a smile.
I didn’t respond and, after a while, Madison gave up on waiting for an answer. The truth is, I don’t have a thing. Life is better that way.
“Girls must stay in the girls’ quarters and boys in the boys’. The summer may not be all business, but we don’t want any funny business either,” Madison said, nudging my side.
“I have a boyfriend,” I
said.
Madison perked up. “You do? That’s great. I remember my high school boyfriend. First love is so exciting.”
“We don’t love each other,” I said. “He just likes my boobs.”
We moved on from the subject.
She pointed out the mess hall and the paths that lead back to the stables. We finally got to the archery field and the Circle of Hope, which, it turns out, would be called a fire pit at any other place. Then she took me down to the lake.
“This is Lake Kimball. We ask that all campers refrain from going into the lake until the swim test is administered. We don’t want any accidents.” Madison looked at me. “And wear sunscreen. You’re like me. It only takes about five minutes in the sun to cook us through.”
I nodded. My mom likes to think I take after her Native American side with my black hair and almond eyes, but my skin would prove otherwise. Madison is right. I turn bright red if exposed to the sun for too long, a trait from my dad. But she’s wrong about everything else. I am nothing like her.
Just the thought of cold water brings my body temperature down. The camp may not be in India, but you wouldn’t know that by the humidity. Presently my hair is stuck to my neck, and I can feel sweat running down my back.
I take a detour on my walk to the Circle of Hope and head toward the lake. Trees speckle the entire grounds of Camp Padua. My dad pointed out how green everything is when he dropped me off. We drove through the gates of Camp Padua and he said, “Everything is just so alive here.”
I nodded but didn’t respond. I was too focused on the tall wire fence that lines the camp property. Green branches and bushes pushed out through the holes in the chain links.
When I asked why fencing surrounded the camp, he said, “To make sure everyone stays safe.”
“Safe,” I said quietly. My dad and I both know that no matter how hard you try, it’s impossible to keep a person completely safe. Even when you ship them across the country to Michigan for the summer.
The staircase to the beach is just past the big wooden mess hall that separates the girls’ side from the boys’ side of camp. There’s not a single ripple on the lake. I wipe a bead of sweat from my cheek.
The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland Page 1