The Summer I Wasn't Me (22 page)

At breakfast later that morning, I take Brianna aside and ask her if we can go visit Matthew again. She purses her lips, considering.

“Please,” I say. “We didn’t get to see him yesterday.”

She sighs. “All right. But Daniel has to come too. I’ll present it to Mr. Martin as a supportive group thing. He won’t be able to say no to that.”

“That’s fine. Thank you so much.” I resist the urge to hug her. That probably wouldn’t go over so well.

The day carries on, but the workbook exercises mean nothing to me. Every time I think about this morning in the woods, I feel a flash of heat and a flutter in my stomach. I’m probably blushing like crazy. The way Carolyn touched me, the things she showed me…I simply had not known that kind of bliss could exist.

Of course, that makes it even
harder
to act normal in front of the counselors and campers. How am I supposed to act normal with her sitting two feet away from me and
those
memories flashing through my mind?

Brianna comes over to our group at the end of the classroom session, and I snap out of my daydream. “Mr. Martin has given his permission for you to spend your rec hour this evening visiting Matthew in the infirmary if you’d like,” she says.

Guilt falls on top of me like a heap of bricks. How can I be so happy when Matthew’s in so much misery?

“Yes,” Daniel says. “Yes, of course we want to see him!”

So after dinner, we go to the infirmary.

Matthew looks a million times better than he did the other night. He’s alone in the cabin, sitting up in his cot, reading a book. His bruises have faded to a putrid yellowish color—it looks really gross, but it means they’re healing. His face lights up when we enter the room.

“Hi, guys!” he says.

Suddenly Daniel bursts out in tears and throws his arms around Matthew, forgetting the no-touching rule. “You’re really okay,” he says between sobs.

Matthew winces. “I’m okay,” he says, patting Daniel’s back gingerly. “You don’t have to worry.”

Daniel pulls back, sniffling. “I was praying for you.”

“Thanks, buddy.” Matthew smiles.

“You look so much better,” I say as Carolyn and I join them.

“I feel a lot better,” he says. “I’m starting to go a little stir-crazy in this room though. I’ve resorted to reading this fine selection from the New Horizons library to keep me occupied.” He gestures to the book in his lap.

I pick it up. “
The
Gift
,” I read aloud. “A story of faith, choices, and waiting for marriage.” I raise an eyebrow.

“It’s either that or stare at the ceiling all day,” Matthew says with a shrug. “So what have I been missing? Any good gossip?”

Carolyn and I automatically look at each other. She’s all smiley now that we’re away from the babysitters, which makes me all smiley too, and a fresh wave of memories from this morning rushes over me, and my cheeks get warm, which makes her smile even bigger.

“We had an alumni day yesterday,” Daniel says. “They were so inspiring. They’re all married and happy…” He goes on about what the guest speakers said yesterday, but Matthew isn’t paying attention. He’s looking at me and Carolyn, a massive grin on his face.

He waits until Daniel’s recounted all the details he could think of about the alumni day and then says, “Spill.”

“Huh?” Daniel says.

“You two.” Matthew points to me and Carolyn. “I want details. Don’t leave anything out.”

That, of course, makes me blush all over again. There are some details that Matthew is just not going to get.

Daniel is looking back and forth between the three of us. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” I say quickly. “Matthew’s still a little delirious.”

Matthew pouts like a three-year-old who was just told he can’t have any ice cream. “Fine,” he says. “Don’t tell me. I’ll just carry on my miserable existence in this tiny cabin with nothing to keep me entertained except a book about protecting your virtue.”

Way
to
make
me
feel
even
more
guilty. Thanks, Matthew
.

I look to Carolyn for backup. She’s much better at this playing-it-cool stuff than I am. But she grins and says, “I say tell them.”

My jaw drops. “Really?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“Okay,
what
are you guys talking about?” Daniel says.

“Please, Lexi?” Matthew pleads. “I would do it for you.”

His words pierce straight through me, putting a major hole in my will. Of course he would do it for me. He would do anything for me. He already has. He really does deserve to know that everything he went through wasn’t for nothing, and it seems like we’re never going to get another chance to talk without Daniel being present, so…

I throw up my hands in defeat. “All right.”

Matthew claps excitedly.

“But it doesn’t leave this room, okay?”

“Of course,” Matthew says.

“Daniel?” I ask. “Can you keep a secret?”

He nods. “Yes.”

“Carolyn and I are…” I realize I don’t know how to finish. What are we? Girlfriends? Dating?

“In love,” Carolyn says.

I catch my breath, and Carolyn’s gaze meets mine as if to say,
Aren’t we?
Her eyes are hopeful.

“In love,” I say, surprised at how comfortable the word feels on my tongue. After all the times I’ve thought it, it’s the first time I’ve actually said it out loud.

Daniel’s mouth falls open.

“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” Matthew squeals. “This is amazing! Tell me
everything
. Start at the beginning.”

We don’t tell them
everything
, but we tell them enough. By the time we’re done talking, Matthew’s eyes are shimmering with unshed tears.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing! I’m just so glad,” he says. “All of this”—he gestures to his bruises, and then out the window to the camp—“was actually worth something.”

Daniel looks at Carolyn’s and my hands, clasped together. “You both seem really happy,” he says. But I think he’s wondering whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“We are,” Carolyn and I say in unison.

Matthew heaves a giant sigh. “I miss Justin.”

***

Brianna’s on dorm duty the next morning. It’ll be infinitely riskier to sneak out with her on guard than it was with Deb and Barbara. But not going to meet Carolyn in the woods is just not an option. I need that time with her.

It’s not until I’ve slipped out of the dorm and am on my way to our meeting spot that I realize that Carolyn and I never actually made a plan to meet today. Maybe she assumed that Brianna days are a no-go. She’s probably off running somewhere, not expecting me to come looking for her.

But I keep walking anyway. If she’s not there, I’ll go back. But we only have less than two weeks left at New Horizons, and then she’ll go back to Connecticut and I’ll go back home to South Carolina, and I’ll regret every single moment I could have been with her but wasn’t. So on the off chance that she is there, I keep going.

And there she is, lying in the grass. I slide my body over hers and kiss her deeply.

“Good morning,” she murmurs.

“Morning.”

“I didn’t know if you were going to come.”

“I didn’t know if you were going to be waiting.”

She brings her mouth to mine again by way of an answer.

A while later, as we lie together in the tall grass, half-dressed and limbs tangled together, I tell her, “This was my wish.”

She strokes the hair out of my eyes. “What wish?”

“When you held out that speck of glitter on your fingertip and told me to make a wish. This was it.”

“Making out in the woods?” she says, laughing.

I playfully pinch her arm. “No. You and me. Together.”

She looks at me, all traces of joking vanished. “What’s going to happen after the summer?” she blurts out.

I swallow. “What do you mean?” I say slowly. But of course I know what she means. It’s the question that’s been gnawing at the back of my mind ever since our first morning here in the woods.

She sits up. “I’m just wondering where you’re at, like, with your mom and everything. Are you going to tell her about us?”

“Um…I don’t know. I haven’t really thought about it.” It’s kind of a lie. I
have
thought about it. I just didn’t let myself think about it long enough to come to a conclusion. There were too many other feelings, too much
goodness
going on.

“But you said in DC that you would tell your mom the truth…”

Yeah. I did say that. But that was when Carolyn and I were still a pipedream. Now it’s all so…real.

As I try to iron out my wrinkled thoughts, I’m distracted by the sight of Carolyn hastily standing up and readjusting her clothes. Her movements are clipped, tense. What happened?

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

I grab her hand. “Carolyn.”

She stops moving and looks at me.

“What’s going on?”

“You clearly don’t know what you want, Lexi.” She crosses her arms as if trying to protect herself from me.

I stare into the blue of her eyes. “Of course I do. I want to be with you.”

She stares back at me, searching, and after a long moment, her expression softens. “I want to be with you too.”

I breathe out, relieved. “Good.”

“But that means you’re going to have to tell your mom.” She sits down again. “If we’re going to do this, we have to do it for real. I can’t be with someone else who isn’t a hundred percent committed. I can’t do secrets anymore.”

I nod. “I know.”

She slides closer to me and slowly leans in, her eyes never leaving mine. My heart speeds up with anticipation. And then, just as our lips are about to touch, we hear it.

“Stop right there, ladies.”

It’s Mr. Martin.

Carolyn and I move apart so fast it’s like a grenade was set off between us.

I scramble around like a fumbling idiot, my heart leaping every which way around my ribcage. At least I still had my bra on.

I pull my shirt on as quickly as possible and avoid all eye contact. The longer I put off facing Mr. Martin, the longer I can extend the calm before the hurricane.

But when I hear Carolyn whisper, “Daniel,” I know the time for denial has passed.

I look at her and follow her gaze across the grass to the edge of the trees. Behind Mr. Martin stands Brianna, her expression wiped clean of any of the friendliness it may have formerly held…and Daniel. He looks distraught. He’s gripping Carolyn’s and my copy of
The
Great
Gatsby
tight against his chest.

The map. That’s how they found us.

“Daniel, how could you?” Carolyn says.

He just shakes his head slightly. His eyes are apologetic, but he doesn’t speak and he doesn’t move away from the counselors. He’s chosen his side.

“Daniel did exactly what he was supposed to do,” Mr. Martin answers for him. “Well, not
exactly
—he went to Brianna first instead of coming directly to me.” He shoots Daniel a disappointed look. “But he spoke with us last night and told us what was going on between the two of you. He was worried for your souls. And well he should be. It’s not just the reprehensible act itself, but the lying, the sneaking around, the act you put on for the camp. You are
sinners
.”

I stare him down, calmer than I thought I would be when this moment arrived. “Look who’s talking,” I say, each word clear and biting.

Mr. Martin blinks. “Excuse me?”

“You know
exactly
what I’m talking about. And so do you, Brianna.”

Brianna opens her mouth but seems to change her mind about speaking. Instead, she turns slowly away and walks back the way they came.

Mr. Martin’s confident façade falters for a fragment of a second. I don’t back down—I hold his stare, letting him know that I know everything. And then, still staring him down, I reach my hand out to my side. After a moment, I feel Carolyn’s soft hand slide into it and hold on tight.

We stand like that for a long time, us against them: the boy who’s beginning to realize he’s been kept in the dark about a lot more than just me and Carolyn, and the man who’s beginning to realize that his days of getting away with all this are coming to an end.

But there’s nothing Mr. Martin can do now except continue with the script. He says, “You are aware of the penalty for this type of transgression—”

“We know,” I cut him off. “Come on, Carolyn. Let’s go home.”

***

Carolyn goes into Mr. Martin’s office first. I wait outside with Deb, who’s watching over me like a stone gargoyle. Brianna’s nowhere to be seen. She’s probably off praying, trying to convince herself that everything is going to be fine.

But no amount of praying is going to save New Horizons now.

I listen through the door as Mr. Martin explains to Carolyn’s parents over the phone what happened and that they must come pick her up immediately. The conversation is short. “They’ll be here in six hours,” he tells Carolyn, hanging up the phone. He sounds disappointed that her parents weren’t more upset.

The door opens and Carolyn and I lock eyes as we switch places. “Good luck,” she whispers as the door closes and our connection is broken.

Thanks,
I think.
I’m going to need it
.

Mr. Martin dials my mom’s number. As he hits the last digit, I say, “Can I tell her?”

He looks at me, receiver to his ear. It’s probably already ringing.

“You can supervise,” I say. “I just want to be able to tell her myself. It’s all the same in the end, right?”

Mr. Martin thinks for a moment and, probably deciding that he’d better get on my good side while he still can
just
in
case
I actually really do know what I said I know, hands the phone over to me.

“Hello?” my mother’s distant, small voice comes through the earpiece.

I bring the phone to my ear and take a deep breath.

“Hello?” she says again.

“Mom?”

“Lexi! What a wonderful surprise!” She sounds just as cheerful and dynamic as she did during our last phone conversation. I don’t want to ruin it. Oh God, what if I tell her this and she down spirals? What if things get bad again?

But I have no choice. Mr. Martin is staring at me, waiting to get to the punch line, and Carolyn is somewhere in this cabin, depending on me to do the right thing.

“Mom, I have something to tell you.”

“Oh? Is everything all right?”

“Yes and no. I, um…” Mr. Martin is watching me closely. “I need you to come pick me up.”

“Yes, next Sunday, right?” Mom says. “I have it marked on the calendar.”

“No. Today. Now.”

There’s silence down the line.

“Mom?” I say, worry building up in my chest. “Are you there?”

“Yes, Lexi,” she says quietly after a moment. “I’m here. What happened? What did you do?”

I immediately feel defensive. Why does she assume it was something
I
did? Why does everything automatically have to be my fault?

I mean, okay, it
is
my fault. But she doesn’t know that yet.

“I tried, Mom,” I say. “I really, really tried. I just…It didn’t work. I’m so sorry.”

I hear some sort of clanging through the phone, like Mom’s angrily putting away pots and pans or something.

“Mom? Say something, please.”

The clanging cuts off. “I’m leaving in five minutes. See you in a few hours.” The line goes dead.

I hand the phone back to Mr. Martin, my mother’s voice repeating in my ears. “She’s on her way,” I say.