“You’re so lucky your parents work here. I bet you didn’t have to doanythingto get in.”
That’s when I realized everyone saw me as a charity case—that I was only accepted because of the work, the sweat, my parents put into this place.
I kept quiet but Ava threw her arm around me. “I didn’t have to do anything either,” she said, smiling at me. “I guesssomeof us are special.” Ava wiggled her eyebrows at me, holding her chin high, and I was grateful she was fibbing for my benefit.
Later that night, after flashlight time, I crept into Ava’s bed and cuddled up close to her.
“You didn’t have to lie,” I said. “I know why I’m here.”
“It wasn’t a lie,” Ava said. “I didn’t have to do any of that stuff either. No test, no tapes.” Her face was serious as stone, as if she believed that some of uswerespecial enough to bypass an admissions process that no other summer camp has.
It was in that moment it became obvious to me that because of her parents’ enormous wealth, because of all the perks of having a Cantor kid at Alpine Lake, Ava had been allowed in without a second thought. Like me.
That was the first time I felt bad for Ava, that I realized even with all she had, she was still capable of believing in the things that made her feel better, even if they weren’t true.
CHAPTER 41
Now
Mark Cantor knows Heller died at camp.
The thought haunts me as we watch the kids say goodbye to their parents driving down the hill. All the moms and dads wave tearfully out their windows as some of our campers sob into Meg’s stomach, dampening her shirt.
I pat a few campers on the back as they pout and sniffle. I remind them that there’s a whole bunch of candy and treats waiting for them in the bunk. But I can’t get Ava’s dad out of my head.
As we head to the dining hall for dinner, I glance at Jordie and Bianca, huddled close together, talking excitedly about the books of crossword puzzles their mom left them. They don’t have answers. They’re nine.
Ava drops into her chair but she’s quiet and distracted, pushing a soggy piece of pineapple pizza around on her plate, ignoring requests from her adoring campers. She leaves the dining hall quickly without saying goodbye. Imogen looks over at me and shrugs before one of her girls tugs on her sleeve, asking for help with her high ponytail.
I head back to my cabin and hang with the girls, snacking on homemade cookies and Australian licorice, hugging the kids who need some extra love after an overwhelming day. Later, when allthe kids have crashed and the cabin’s full of the sounds of labored breathing and a few soft snores, I try to find my own sleep but it won’t come. I toss and turn for a while but it’s no use. My head is swimming with questions, all of them involving Heller, Ava, and Mark Cantor.
I reach up onto the shelf above my bed and grab my phone. Back in the winter, whenever I couldn’t sleep, I’d look at my camera roll to find old images of Imogen, Ava, and me at camp when we were kids. The stills became so familiar over the years. Us in matching Fourth of July outfits. Preparing for a DJ social. Even with everything going on, I wonder if they’ll bring me comfort now.
But when I tap over to my photos, I sit up in bed. The most recent pictures are from the clerk’s office. Files hidden in a folder in Heller’s desk, markedCamp Alpine Lake. After discovering those emails, I forgot about all these pieces of paper. I swipe through fast to find they’re all spreadsheets, full of numbers that have no obvious meaning attached. I lean back against my pillow and clench my core, full of frustration.
Goddammit, Heller.
None of this makes sense. If he wanted Cal to find this crap, he would have left some indication of what it meant. I flip over onto my side and kick my covers off, restless. How am I the person who ends up with a camera roll full of cryptic spreadsheets? The person desperate to find out what happened to Heller? After what he did, the fact that I’m still searching for answers—for him—makes me want to crawl out of my skin.
I grasp my phone tightly and swipe to exit the photos, but my thumb slips and the next image comes into frame. The composition makes me pause.
On the screen, there’s a piece of paper with a bunch of cards scanned onto it, like someone was photocopying them to have duplicates.
I look at it closely and make out that the top one is a debit card with no bank or name listed. And the second one looks like a prepaid phone card. Below it is a phone number typed in big black numbers, but it’s not a US one. Instead, it has a country code, +41.
But the cards aren’t what make me stop. It’s the fact that at the bottom of the piece of paper, there’s something written in pencil. It’s not in Heller’s handwriting, his loopy cursive that bubbles up and expands. It’s small and messy, barely legible at all. Almost like chicken scratch. It looks familiar, like I’ve seen those kinds of letters before, but I can’t remember where.
After I enlarge it as big as I can, I can finally make out the words.
Don’t screw this up.
---
Tuesday night, there’s a frantic energy as all the off-duty counselors head toward the buses for another night out. I try to fight the clawing feeling in my chest, the one that warns me about going to Truly’s, about stepping foot into town.
The past few times we’ve been here, the bar’s been quiet, with only a handful of familiar faces seated in booths. But tonight feels different. It’s been a month since Heller died, four whole weeks, and for whatever reason, that’s a marker—at least to me. It’s time for the fair-weather mourners to say goodbye to their tearstained faces, to reemerge into society, and for the truly devastated, the ones whose lives are irrevocably changed, to press on with deep-seated trauma they have no interest in dissecting.
Everyone at Alpine Lake may have forgotten Heller existed in the first place and that this summer started out with death. But in Roxwood, his passing is an open wound.
