“Heis,” Imogen insists. “It’s just...”
“What?” Ava snaps. “Do you seriously think he’s worth it? Gonna be the love of your freaking life? Be real, he’s Tommy Eisenstat.”
“Hey,” I say. “Chill.” I reach for Ava’s arm, but she yanks it away.
“It’s nothing serious,” Imogen says quickly. “I’m having fun.”
Ava snorts. “Sure, Imo.” Her voice is hard this time.
After ten summers together, we all know what happens when one of us falls out of sync—the others get closer and the divide becomes greater. A random hookup here and there isfine, but sacrificing the eight languid, precious weeks to a full-blown crush, nightly sweaty makeout sessions, and some naked roll-arounds behind the rock wall can only mean disaster. It can only mean less time with each other.
We’re all quiet for the final leg of the walk and I can tell Imogen is trying to hold back tears. Ava has that power over her. Over me, too. I give her hand a squeeze.
We reach the end of the trail where the concrete stops at a knee-high wall, meant for campers and counselors to drape their towels over. Levin’s swim hut sits on one side of the man-made beach and the boat launch is over by the other. I gaze out at the water, expecting to find some sort of signal Heller was here—that his life endedhere, maybe only hours ago. Yellow caution tape. That dumb dinghy. A detective crouching in the sand.
But there’s nothing to indicate anything is out of the ordinary. Only tiny waves caught in the breeze. As if he was never here at all.
“Imo, you’re needed on sailing,” Aaron calls, his voice slicing through the air.
She tosses her towel on the wall and jogs over to him, leaving Ava and me alone.
When she’s out of earshot, I turn to Ava. “That was kinda harsh.”
“Oh, please,” she says, barely looking at me.
We’re both quiet, chatter buzzing around us. I decide to go for it.
“You heard about Heller McConnell?” I ask.
“So sad,” she says with little affect. She checks her nails.
“Last night,” I say. “Why’d you come in my cabin?”
Ava opens her mouth, as if she’s going to respond, but then Aaron calls out to her, motioning for her to scrub the far dock. Ava nods and steps out of her cotton shorts, setting down her coffee.
She doesn’t say anything, and instead I watch, incredulous, as Ava runs barefoot down to the lake and climbs into the water, swimming out to the docks, away from me and the questions she won’t let me ask.
---
By the time I get to lunch, the mood has shifted. The dining hall is full of laughter and song, and I catch bits and pieces of conversations about campers arriving tomorrow. It’s as if I’m the only person who remembers that the day started with a death.Heller’sdeath.
“The Millers’ trunks got here and I swear to god they each have four pairs of Gucci flip-flops.”
“There aren’t any New York bagels yet!”
“Mellie’s saying the camp musical will beHamilton!”
“One kid’s preference sheet is fifteen pages long!”
My chest tightens and my lungs are on fire. I desperately want quiet. A moment alone. But that’s the thing about camp—even when there aren’t any kids here. You’re never alone.
Most of the time that community, that camaraderie, that insistent togetherness—it’s magical. Addictive. The whole point ofbeing here. But in moments like these, of real confusion and terror and—fuck—grief, all I want is to shut the world out and be alone with my brain.
I’m good at being alone. I’ve had to be. I’ve learned to find friends in books and movies and all the adults who traipsed through our home with kind eyes and warm laughs. Mom always said I was good at bonding with their friends because I was an only child. But I liked their crew, a hodgepodge of community college professors and beekeepers, funky people of all ages, few of whom had children. They never babied me, never asked me to eat kid food, never dumbed their conversations down. They told me to pull up a chair and listen.
But camp was never about being with adults. Camp was about discarding the loneliness and leaning into the feeling of having your whole body, your whole personality up for grabs, and if you gave yourself over to camp completely, you would never be alone again. That was the promise of Alpine Lake. And it delivered.
But now, staring at the glossy sloppy joe on my plate, all I can think is that Heller is dead and I want to hide.
