Friends ForNever (17 page)

Nic cleared her throat. “You're my best friend. Of course I want you to be happy.” Her voice sounded raspy, like somebody else's.

“Do you? Do you really? Because it sure seems like anytime things are going good for me, you get mad about it. There's something really twisted about a friend who only likes you when you're having problems.”

Nicole was absolutely still, absolutely quiet. “Twisted,” she said finally. It felt like a Ping-Pong ball that I'd slammed across the table at her, and now she was tapping it back to me, waiting to see what I would do with it.

I should take it back. Cup it in my hand and never let her see it again. Tell her I didn't mean it that way. But I did mean it. It was true. I remembered the look on her face when I told her Mom was pregnant. And the look she got every time I mentioned the baby or reached for my journal.

I should say something else. Explain the horrible, overtired feeling that the sleepless night had left me with. Tell her that I
did
want her to always be the one standing outside the door waiting if there was ever a frightening phone call. But there was something else I wanted to say to her.

Pretend you're happy for me! Even if you're so jealous of my life that you can't hide it.

“I'm sorry,” I finally said.

But it was too late. Nicole had already walked out the door.

“He looks fine. Way better than I was expecting,” I told Mom.

“What about the scar? How bad is that going to look?” she asked.

“Well, it looks pretty bad now—like Frankenstein. It's long. It's above his right eye. But if he lets his hair grow, it'll cover it.” The scar was maybe two inches long, not a foot, like Brandon had said. But it did look really big the way it cut across his forehead.

“Are you sure he's okay? Maybe we should come and get him—bring him home early.”

“Mom, honestly, I'd be the first to tell you if I thought you should do that. But you should see him. He looks like they pinned a medal on him or something. He's loving every minute of this.”

Blake grinned at me when he heard that.

“Mom wants to say good-bye to you,” I said, handing him the phone. He sat up in bed, taking the receiver from me.

“NO! Do not come and get me! I have a whole week left! I'd miss everything!” he screamed.

“Calm down. You'll bust a stitch,” I whispered to him, patting his legs through the blanket.

“Okay. Love you, too. Bye.” He hung up before I got a chance to talk to Mom about how she was feeling. He picked up the hand mirror lying beside him and looked into it for about the fortieth time since I'd walked in.

“It's so cool, isn't it? It looks like I was in a wicked fight,” he said, examining the neat row of stitches across his forehead. He had a black eye, too, but the nurse said that was normal with a head injury.

“Yeah, it really does. Are you sure your head doesn't hurt?”

“A little, but the nurse gave me some Motrin about an hour ago. I hope I don't have to spend the night here,” he said. When they'd released him from the hospital this morning, the counselors had brought him to the Camp Crockett infirmary. His concussion was a mild one, but they still wanted to make sure he got plenty of rest.

“And no more blurry vision? How many fingers am I holding up?” I held up two fingers on one hand and three on the other.

“Thirty-seven. When Rob drove me back from the hospital this morning, we stopped at Sonic, and I got a corn dog, a large order of onion rings, and a chocolate shake. He paid for it with his own money, too.”

“Oh, that explains your stinky breath! I'm glad they're taking good care of you.”

The nurse came in and smiled at Blake. “Do you think you're up for a few more visitors?” she asked.

“Yeah! Definitely!” said Blake. Five boys came pouring into the room, and they were all giving him high fives and oohing and aahing over his stitches.

“Sick! You look so cool!”

“Dude—you got a black eye and everything!”

“Brandon said your brain was oozing out. Did they shove it back in or what?”

I have never seen Blake happier than when he had all his friends crowded around him, admiring his wounds. A couple of them had cameras so they could take his picture. Then he told them the story of how his head had hit the board, slapping his hands together to make the sound effects and snapping his head back to show the impact. The nurse only let them stay about fifteen minutes before she made them leave.

“I should probably go too,” I told him. “Oh, by the way, Mom and Paul said they were going to GameStop for
something
, so you might ask them about that when they pick us up on Saturday.” Saturday—it was hard to believe camp would be over in a week.

“Cool. Thanks for coming to see me.” He let me hug him before I left. I was really glad I'd had the chance to see him with my own eyes, and to talk to Mom. I felt so much better now.

Libby was waiting outside on the infirmary porch, talking to the nurse. “How is he?” she asked.

“He's great. He's an instant celebrity now.”

The nurse assured me she'd keep a close eye on him for the rest of the week, and then Libby and I left. On the drive back to Pine Haven, Libby asked me all about Mom and kept the conversation focused on the new baby, maybe to take my mind off Blake's injury. But all I could think about was what I was going to say to Nicole when I got back to camp. I never should've said those things this morning.

“Okay. It's ten after five. I'm going to rush off to the staff meeting, but I'll see you later at dinner, all right?” said Libby as we pulled into camp.

“Sure. Thanks so much for going with me to talk to Eda. And for taking me over there. If I hadn't had a chance to see him, I would've worried about him all week,” I told Libby.

We said good-bye, and she went off to Senior Lodge to meet with the other counselors for the weekly staff meeting. Now was the perfect time to talk to Nicole; we had about an hour before dinner. Maybe we could go out on the hill so we'd have some privacy.

I knew exactly how I'd start the conversation off—by telling her that she was the best friend I'd ever had, that I never could've lived without her the past two years, and that I wanted to share everything with her—clothes, jewelry, good news . . . whatever. We only had a week of camp left, and I wanted it to be a good one.

As I got to the cabin, I could hear voices inside. Nic's voice. “I'm sick of this!
Oh, we're so worried about Darcy. I
hope her brother's okay. I hope her mom has twins.
Well, I've got news for you. This morning, when I was trying to cheer her up about her brother, she called me
twisted
. And I'm supposed to be her best friend.”

I stood paralyzed by the side of the cabin. Frozen. Not breathing. Not moving.

“Give her a break. She was upset.” That was Sarah.

“Oh, so if she's upset, she can say whatever she wants to me. Everyone thinks Darcy's this sweet little angel.” Nic's voice had that edge to it. I knew that tone. “If only you guys knew how screwed up her life really is.”

“You need to stop talking.” That was Sarah again.

“I agree. It's completely . . .” something I couldn't hear. Whitney's voice. So she was in there too.

“You want to talk about inappropriate? Her new stepfather, the one her mom's having the baby with—you want to know how they met? There were all these random guys that her mom picked up off the Internet. Darcy was so freaked out by it. Her mom would spend hours and hours online, chatting with these guys. That's why Darcy's dad divorced her.”

That wasn't even true! This was not happening. I was dreaming this.

There was a thump, like somebody threw something. Maybe a pillow.

“Don't throw things at me, Sarah!” yelled Nicole.

“Then shut up, Nicole! We don't want to hear this!”

“Everyone needs to calm down.” That sounded like Claudia.
Was the whole cabin listening to all this?

“You all have this image of who Darcy is, but you don't know her the way I do. Her family has all kinds of issues, even though she tries to hide it. Her father's an alcoholic, but she won't admit to it.”

Then I could move again. Instantly, I was inside the cabin somehow.

“She's lying.” I looked straight at Nicole. “That's a lie. Tell them you're lying.”

The strange thing was how calm I felt. Sarah, Whitney, Claudia, and Patty were all inside, all with the exact same expression on their faces when the door opened. Shock.

Nicole was the only one who didn't look that surprised to see me. A little at first when I walked in the door. But she got over it pretty fast. She tensed her jaw and looked right at me. Sarah closed her eyes and covered her face with her hands. She didn't want any part of this.

“She's lying. My father's not an alcoholic.”

Sarah shook her head. “Let's not even go there.”

“Good idea,” agreed Patty. It was the first time I'd heard her speak up.

Nicole's eyes bored into mine. She wasn't backing off at all. I knew she wouldn't.

“I heard it all. Or a lot of it.” Still so calm. I hadn't even raised my voice. I'd never been this calm in my life.

“So you were eavesdropping,” said Nic, nodding. Like she expected that, like it was no surprise that I'd stoop that low.

“No. Not at all. Step outside. You'd be surprised how well you can hear everything through those screens.”

“I have an idea. Let's all forget this ever happened,” Sarah suggested.

“You want me to forget this ever happened?” I asked Nicole. We were the only two people in the room now. Everyone else had faded away. I couldn't even see them or remember exactly who they were.

“It's not a lie, and you know it.” Nic challenged me to deny it.

Parts of it were true. Mom chatting with strange men—true. Daddy divorcing her because of it—not true. Daddy drinking too much at times—true. Alcoholic—not true. Partly the truth, but twisted to make things sound a little bit worse than they were.
Twisted.

“I know the truth, and you know the truth,” I said to her. “As long as we're telling the truth, why don't you tell everyone about
your
family and all
your
issues.” Now, for the first time, Nicole did look concerned. I'd struck gold.

“Why don't you tell them about how both your parents got restraining orders against each other during their divorce? And how many times the police were called to break up their fights and how you'd hide under your bed when that happened?”

Nicole swallowed once. Her eyes were locked on mine and she couldn't look away. Somebody said something, but I didn't hear it. I couldn't hear anything over the sound of my own voice.

“And your own father doesn't even remember your birthday. How last year you waited and waited for him to call you, but he never did, and then four days later when he finally did remember, he called and yelled at you. And he blamed you for not reminding him. And how your very own stepsister goes to this camp, but you pretend you don't even know her. Mary Claire Mitchell—that little Junior who's always hanging around. Your
sister
, not your neighbor. Your family's so screwed up, you act like they don't even exist.”

Sarah was standing in between us. “Both of you need to stop talking.” She held her hands up like she needed to hold us back from each other, in case things got physical.

But it wasn't like that at all. We just stared at each other, daring the other one to look away. Neither one of us would.

Whitney stepped in. “Okay, people say things when they're angry, but it doesn't . . . you should . . .” Things must be bad if even Whitney was at a loss for words.

Then Libby and Jamie walked in the door, and they both came to a dead stop when they saw the looks on everyone's faces.