Camp Boyfriend

by Rock, J. K.

  Alex and Trinity followed as a group of junior campers streaked by on a scavenger hunt. A few of them wore floral crowns, a craft I used to love. One year, all of my cabin mates and I made matching wreaths out of maple leaves instead of flowers. We wore them for two weeks until they were nothing more than twigs and Gollum made us stop.

  “You’ve changed a lot for Matt.” Trinity breezed ahead of me as we reached the girls’ cabins. “We’re worried.” The screen door rattled shut behind her.

  I flopped on the porch’s wood-slatted rocker and fanned myself with a fly swatter. Alex leaned against the railing and crossed her arms.

  “I didn’t change for Matt.” My fingers drummed on the chair arms. “There’ve just been a lot of changes in my life. Period. Like my dad is never around, and when he is, it’s like he’s not really there.”

  “But I thought you two were tight.” Alex held up twined fingers, the friendship bracelet that matched mine sliding down her slim arm.

  My laugh ended in a watery hiccup. Was I really this close to losing it? What was it about good friends that made it impossible to lie…to them…or yourself?

  “Not anymore. The only people that notice me are my mom and Kellianne…and that’s if my outfits aren’t coordinated.” My feet pushed the rocker back and forth, the runners squeaking.

  “So no one really talks to you? Asks what you care about?” Alex lowered her sunglasses, her expression understanding.

  My eyes slid from hers. She could see too much.

  Alex gripped the rocker and stopped my momentum. “I know how you feel. All my parents care about is that I act like a lady at their promo events, dress like I’m eighty years old in their photo-ops, and attend our youth group meetings. They talk, but don’t listen. Ever.”

  My breath caught. I so got that. Our parents might have different expectations, but they were still the same. They molded us into the people they wanted to be instead of helping us become ourselves.

  “It sucks.” I unwound my hair from its too-tight bun.

  “Is that why you dated Matt? Because your mom liked him?”

  My fingers froze as I combed out my tangled locks. “Maybe. Though my mom married a scientist, not an athlete.”

  Alex’s shoulders shifted as she shrugged. “And I’m definitely not marrying a do-gooder who cares more about his Twitter followers than his family.”

  “I wanted to come back here and be with Seth… with all of you…and now nothing is the same.” My calf stung and I swatted it automatically, leaving a squashed mosquito and a splat of blood. Gross.

  Alex cocked her heart-shaped face and studied me. “So what are you going to do about Matt?”

  “I don’t know.” I leaned my head against the high-backed rocker and stared up at our cobwebbed ceiling.

  Alex flung her tiny self in my lap and wrapped her arms around me. “At least we’ve got each other.”

  “Ewwwww—get a room,” Jackie hooted from the window beside us.

  Alex put her hand over my mouth and gave it a passionate kiss before she leaped off of me and rushed inside. I smiled when I heard Jackie’s shrieks as Alex chased her around the cabin. This was exactly how my summer was supposed to be.

  Only it wasn’t.

  * * *

  After dinner, I plodded back to the cabins with my friends and debated what to do that night. The camp was operating on half-manpower while Gollum took turns interviewing the counselors about Seth’s departure. Apparently, he thought Seth’s disappearing act might hurt his record as camp director. Another time, I might have found Gollum’s freak-out funny. But right now, I still needed to speak to Matt privately. Apologize. Tell him I’d made a huge mistake by bringing him here, and that I loved Seth. Face the anger I deserved.

  In the meantime, he had Hannah to comfort him. She’d been at his table so much that her counselor, Victoria, had twice roused herself from her normal state of spaciness to drag Hannah back to her cabin. Victoria was popular with the Divas, probably because she usually let them get away with anything most of the time.

  I tripped in the dark, lagging behind my friends. There was no bonfire tonight, just extended twilight free time. Emily was still back at the lodge for the counselors’ meeting about Seth and the camp’s runaway protocol.

  “Are you coming?” Alex called, shining her flashlight in my face. With all the Seth drama, dinner had been served late.

  Now dusk had fallen and I was blinded by the bouncing ray of light from Alex’s Eveready.

  “Yeah. Sorry.” I jogged a few steps to catch up. Maybe I’d work on Kellianne’s list, write all of her bridal shower thank-you cards. All eighty-five of them. My hand cramped at the thought. Why was this my job again?

  At least that would give me something to do until I could sneak away and find Matt.

  “I can’t even believe we’ll have free time without Emily.” Alex squeezed my arm. “I’m totally going to find Vijay and convince him to make out with me.”

  She handed me her flashlight while she reapplied lip gloss. I hoped bears didn’t have a thing for strawberry bubble-gum flavor.

  “Sounds fun,” I said, wishing my FKOC could have been happy and uncomplicated.

  “No poaching.” She pointed a glow-in-the-dark press-on nail in my direction. “Vijay is all mine.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’ll try to restrain myself.”

  “Do more than try.” She slowed her step as we reached the cabin.

  Ahead of us, a light flickered inside the cabin. A candle? That was totally against the rules, but nothing we hadn’t done before. Still, it surprised me that our door was open.

  Piper and Jackie waited inside.

  “We wanted to talk to you about Matt.” This was from Siobhan, who had stepped outside with Trinity.

  “And Seth!” Jackie called.

  This looked planned—like they’d been waiting for me.

  What was going on? “What about them?” Had they seen him hanging out with Hannah and gotten the wrong idea? I was sure he wasn’t a cheater, not with how upset he’d been about his dad messing around on his mom.

  Matt would break up with me before he did anything like that. But of all people…Hannah? As for Seth, he’d made the decision to leave. I hadn’t asked him to go.

  Trinity waved me inside the cabin. “We’re going to ask the spirits about them.”

  I bit back a smile of relief as I spotted the Ouija board in the center of a lipstick-drawn circle. The peach color looked familiar…at least my cosmetics had come in handy. Good thing it was a shade Mom had chosen. It looked better on the floor than on me.

  Siobhan nudged me in the back. “Come in already. We’re having an intervention.”

  “Is that what we’re calling this now?” Asking the astral world to weigh in on deep philosophical questions, like the first letter of our future husband’s names, how many more times they’d serve green Jell-O for dessert, or if Rob the Hottie was into younger women, was a long-time Munchies’ Manor tradition. It wouldn’t have been camp without it.

  As we all piled into the cabin, Siobhan locked the door behind us. My closest friends since forever stared at me with a mix of expressions, from Trinity’s apologetic smile to Alex’s grin and wink.

  I looked from one to the other. “We’re just having fun, right?” An uneasy feeling rolled through my stomach.

  Trinity dabbed patchouli oil on her wrists. “This is serious, Lauren. One guy’s mad at you. Another’s disappeared. I’d say a little intervention is exactly what you need.”

  “It’s for your own good.” Piper sat inside the circle with Jackie.

  “We decided at lunch.” Alex wound around the suitcases and bunks to pull the shades on the cabin windows. “We knew Emily would be gone, so we thought now would be a good time to talk to you.”

  “I thought you were going to find Vijay tonight.” I wondered if she’d just said that to throw me off-track.

  She inhaled a popped bubble. “I can help you, then find V
ijay after. It shouldn’t take you all night to realize what is totally obvie to the rest of us.”

  The others nodded.

  Alex cleared her throat. “Do you think Matt could have tried to, you know, scare Seth off?”

  “Of course not. He didn’t even know about Seth until breakfast.”

  Dead. Silence.

  I could have counted down the seconds like on the last day of school. Now I knew how Piggy in Lord of the Flies felt. And look how it’d ended for him.

  “That’s why he was so upset afterward,” I explained in a rush. Okay, I should have been more forthright about the boyfriend drama. But I didn’t want to sound like Kellianne, gushing about two guys, poor me! Wasn’t that such a problem? Who doesn’t get annoyed by a girl like that? I’d hoped to figure it out on my own. Of course now that the spirit world was about to weigh in…I clapped a hand over my mouth to hold in a giggle that felt more desperate than funny.

  Perhaps to cover the awkward silence, Siobhan got up to lay a sleeping bag open in the circle and Trinity arranged the board on top.

  “Let’s see if we can get some answers.” Trinity sat on the sleeping bag and gestured us closer. “Though you may not like what you hear, Lauren.”

  Sighing, I settled beside Siobhan. Even writing ‘Thanks for the toaster’ eighty-five times would have been better than this. But as we squished together, the nostalgia of sitting in the dark, hand in hand, pulled at me. I wanted to connect with my real friends somehow. We joined fingertips all the way around Trinity as she rested her palms against the board and closed her eyes. “Spirits, we invoke your positive energy and seek your wisdom. If there is one among you with knowledge of Matt–”

  She cracked open an eye at me.

  “Butler,” I whispered, pushing down my lower lip to keep my smile at bay.

  “Butler.” Trinity nodded and closed both eyes again. As we waited for a sign, pounding rattled the windows.

  Everyone screamed.

  We broke hands and backed away from the Ouija board, freaked.

  “Oh God, oh God, oh God,” Alex chanted, crossing herself. “I’ll never touch that board again, I swear it.”

  Bang! Bang!

  This time, the sound came from the window near Jackie’s bunk on the back wall.

  “What the hell?” I stalked over to the shade and pulled it aside.

  Matt’s face appeared.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  The fact that I had to face him, say what needed to be said, was a whole lot more ominous than any banging spirits could have been. My gut clenched tight as a fist. My friends were going to kill me for leaving the intervention. An intervention that was supposed to help me with Matt and Seth. But I really, really needed to talk to him and I knew best where he was concerned.

  “I’m sorry,” I began, then stopped as I read the body language around the room.

  Piper’s back was turned. Siobhan’s arms were crossed. I thought I saw some steam coming out of Jackie’s ears.

  But no matter how I wished things could have been different at camp this year, I was still officially Matt’s girlfriend.

  So, picking up my flashlight, I went out into the night.

  Chapter Six

  The screen door thudded behind me as I slipped down the porch steps. Matt stood with one foot propped on the base of our crisscrossed birch balustrade, his face pale in my flashlight’s glare.

  A breeze lifted my hair while the silver maples rustled overhead. The oppressive air felt like rain and doom.

  I pointed over my shoulder at the cabin. “Do you want to go in and talk?”

  “Not with all of them listening.” He nodded to a window filled with my friends, their concerned faces pressed to the glass. My scowl made Trinity squeal and the rest stumble back, but at least they weren’t chasing after us.

  Privacy was definitely in short supply at camp. But now that Gollum was busy lecturing the counselors about protocols for dealing with kids who were having problems at camp, this was my best chance to catch some alone time with Matt.

  “I know a place.” I led him down a river path toward the top of a small waterfall called Highbrooke. As we approached, the sound of gurgling, tumbling water rose. It was a guarantee we wouldn’t be overheard. And what I had to say was for Matt’s ears only.

  I paused and looked back at Matt, waiting for the words to come. Whenever you’re ready, brain…

  He took off his flip-flops and sat on a riverbank log. Did that mean he was willing to listen? I kicked off my shoes and sat beside him. Before us, the moon briefly appeared behind a thick cloud and shimmered on the expanse of calm water before the falls. A startled turtle splashed off a boulder and into the depths. Mist rose from Highbrooke, droplets gathering like crystal beads on Matt’s dark hair.

  “Matt, I’m so sorry.” The words rushed out as fast as the water streaming down the mini-falls. He peered at the juniper-lined opposite shore while I gazed at his rugged profile. He was as perfect as a statue, and just as stony. “I should have told you about Seth. I never meant for you to hear about it from Hannah.”

  “Then why didn’t you? Do you have any idea what you put me through today? All day I’ve been imagining you and that guy.” His accusing eyes flew to mine, a twitch appearing under his left eye as the moon ducked for cover.

  Guilt pinched at the memory of being with Seth, alone for those stolen moments. Rain began to drizzle softly. Then, a moment later, the wind kicked up and the rain came down hard.

  I barely felt it since it didn’t compare to the storm inside my gut. How could I blame Matt for being mad? I’d been so focused on Seth, I’d ignored how Matt would feel when he found out about my old boyfriend. He’d been there for me while I coped with my mega-stressful year in Texas, taking me out for pizzas on the nights when my dad was working late. Giving me something to think about besides the stuff I used to share with my father. I owed Matt better than this, even if Seth held my heart.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated, wishing I could conjure the words I needed to say to end things in a way that wouldn’t hurt Matt. Maybe the Ouija board hadn’t been such a crazy idea.

  Matt stood, the rain plastering his T-shirt to his chest. “Sorry doesn’t cut it. It’s all I hear at home. Sorry, Matt, I’m leaving your mom. Sorry, Matt, I can’t forgive your father. Sorry, Matt, your life totally sucks now.”

  I caught his wrist as he turned to leave.

  “I should have told you sooner but I was—afraid.” My throat closed around the truth. “You were already so upset that I didn’t want to make things worse. You were so busy fitting in visits to the lawyers’ offices for the custody thing, and I kept thinking I needed a time that wasn’t so hectic but…” I ducked my head and felt a raindrop run down my nose and plop onto my chest. “Yeah. I guess I was mostly afraid of upsetting you.”

  Matt reached down and tucked my damp hair behind my ear, tipping my face up to his. The water-filled air turned his eyelashes into long wet spikes. “Afraid? After nine months, you should have trusted me. I would have understood.”

  I swallowed, thinking hard. Since my life had imploded and Dad had gone AWOL this year, I’d found it difficult to trust anyone. But Matt had been good to me. I might not have liked the way he acted around his friends sometimes, but he’d always been considerate with me. A gentleman.

  “You’ve gone through so much lately.”

  “But I needed to know.” Matt spelled it out simply. Clearly.

  It was such a clear-headed, wise thing to say. He’d hate me for thinking this, but at that moment he reminded me of Seth.

  “You’re right. I should have let you know about Seth—that we’d dated in the summer.” I shivered as the rain fell in heavy sheets, and geared up to tell him my true feelings. Only suddenly I wasn’t so sure. Seth was with his grandparents while Matt had stayed here with me, in the rain, trying to straighten this out.

  “You swear it was just a summer thing?” He towered over me.

&n
bsp; I nodded, knowing now that it was the truth even though I wanted so much more.

  “Be honest, Laur…do you still want to be with him?”

  My will wavered like a candle flame, then strengthened. I owed Matt the truth.

  When I nodded, Matt’s rigid shoulders lowered and his breath whooshed out. He sat down again, surveying my face with little flicks of his eyes in the slackening rain.

  “When were you going to tell me?”

  “The night at Turtle Creek.” I pushed back on the slippery log and felt Matt’s arm wrap around me, anchoring me in place.

  Water flew sideways when he shook his head. “And I told you I was crashing your summer camp instead. Surprise.” His short laugh didn’t sound funny at all.

  My heart pounded. God, oh God. This was worse than I imagined. Why wasn’t Seth here? This was devastating and I needed him, damn it.

  “I…I don’t want you to feel like you have to leave camp. Like you’re crashing my summer.”

  Matt’s eyebrow shot up and his jaw squared. It was the expression I’d seen him wear on the field when he was all that stood between his team winning or losing. “Oh, I’m not leaving.”

  Relief washed over me. It was going to be okay. He liked it here. Maybe even saw a few girls he could date. We’d still be friends and—

  “You’re my girlfriend. I’m not giving up on us that easily.”

  I blinked at him. “What?”

  His hands cupped my face, his green eyes earnest. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Lauren. Remember that time we skipped school and sang karaoke at my cousin’s honky-tonk bar?”

  I nodded, remembering that country dive and the mischievous day. Matt had a way of getting me to do things I’d never dare on my own. He’d also sounded amazing on those Keith Urban songs.

  “That was the first time I ever sang in public. Funny, three-hundred-pound linebackers don’t scare me, but I would never have taken that microphone if you hadn’t been there. You make me the person I want to be, Lauren. Give me these four weeks before I leave for football to convince you that good times like that aren’t a fluke. We’ll be as good here as we were in Texas, as right for each other. I know it.”