I climbed the endless stairs with Callie without speaking. Once we reached the top, we headed silently up the road towards the nurse’s office.
“It’s not your period, is it?”
I sighed, shaking my head.
“What happened?” Callie asked gently.
“Do you know that kid Ryan Powell?”
“Is he the one who’s dating Lily?”
“Yeah.” I sniffled. “He’s anasshole.”
“What did he do?”
I explained what happened in the water.
“Wow. That sucks, honey.” Callie put her arm around me and gave me a side hug.
“And now I’m trapped here, with someone talking shit about me, a best friend who justkissedme and humiliated me, and no way to leave,” I complained.
“Take a deep breath,” Callie suggested. “It’ll be fine. Everyone will forget the whole thing by dinner. We’re not even seeing the boys again for two more days.”
“I see him every day at the farm,” I reminded her.
“Well, you have until tomorrow then. Just relax. Try to get it out of your mind. Why don’t you go take a shower?”
I took Callie’s advice, taking full advantage of the empty bank of showers and unlimited hot water. I stayed there for almost a half hour, scrubbing the memory of the afternoon off my body and out of my hair. Afterwards, I got dressed and laid down on my thin mattress. The peaceful sounds of birds chirping and pine trees swaying in the breeze lulled me to sleep beneath the warm rays of sun shining through the screen windows onto my bed. Later, when the rest of the girls returned, I got through the evening meal unscathed by keeping conversation mostly to a minimum and making a concerted effort to enjoy the fact that Dottie made everyone pizza for dinner.
The girls in my cabin gave me a wide berth. It was Cabin Night, an evening where there was no formal group activity but instead, each cabin made a plan to conduct their own activity. Our cabin had decided earlier in the week that all we wanted to do was watchDirty Dancingon the DVD player in the Lodge and eat popcorn, so that’s what we did—which, to my immense relief, meant nobody really had to talk. After the movie ended, I was in a decidedly better mood. No one mentioned the events on the beach, which may have been Callie’s doing, but I was grateful regardless.
I washed my face, brushed my teeth, changed into pajamas, and climbed into bed just as the bugle blew Taps, a camp-wide indicator that meant lights out for everyone. Settling into my sleeping bag, I closed my eyes, letting sleep wash over me for the second time that day.
Hours later, I awoke to someone pushing gently on my upper arm, rocking my body the tiniest bit. I sat up, startled.
“Shh!” Matt motioned to me with his finger over his lips. No sound came from his mouth, but his eyes pleaded for me not to wake anyoneup and get him in trouble. I looked around. He was alone, here, in my cabin, beside my bed. In the middle of the night.
Oh my God. This is so illegal,I realized. Callie rolled over in bed, snoring lightly. Everyone else seemed to be out cold. I shooed Matt away with my hand. He waved for me to follow him and hopped out the back door, an emergency exit. The cabin was built on a small hill, so the back of it was held up by cinderblocks several feet off the ground, requiring Matt to jump down into the dirt below. I climbed out of bed, cognizant of every tiny creak made by the springs of the flimsy metal bunk bed. I grabbed my flip flops and held them in my hand while tiptoeing out the front door, freezing in place every time the wood floor made a sound. Once outside, I immediately wished I’d brought a flashlight. It was pitch black.
He must have read my mind, because I saw a light flash a good distance behind my cabin, back in the woods. I started towards him, lamenting the choice of flip flops.Great. I’ll get caught, get kicked out of camp, and I’ll get Lyme disease to boot. Perfect.
I found Matt in a clearing under the darkness of a gigantic oak tree, enough of a distance behind the cabin area that someone would have to specifically be searching the woods to find us. Every step deeper into the woods was met with the crunching of leaves, coupled with the incessant fear that I was going to turn an ankle on a tree root or get poison ivy on my toes.
“What are youdoing?” I whispered.
“I came to check on you.”
“It’s the middle of the night!”
“I couldn’t sleep. I felt awful about before.”
“It’s not your fault, Matt. Ryan’s a jerk.”
“Yeah, but after what he said, I just wanted to strangle him!”
“This couldn’t wait until tomorrow?” I whisper-yelled. “We’re going to get caught!”
He waved off my comment. “I don’t care. I had to see you.”
