“You have?”
“Of course. We’ve gotten into it, all of us. Mohan and I didn’t speak for over a week during eighth-grade summer.”
Camp is surprisingly quiet. It’s after lights-out, but I thought maybe they’d be riled up from the festivities. Maybe they wore themselves out. Mohan’s sitting on the lodge steps, elbows on his knees. “Hey. She’s in the Bunker. She’s fine—just needed to have a little cry.”
Keely turns to me. “You’re up.”
“But . . . she’ll want one of you. Right? I mean . . . ?”
They exchange glances, debating whether my question is even worth responding to.
“Go on,” Mohan says. “Chop-chop.”
I hurry inside, and everything sounds loud—my breathing, my feet on the wood floors. What will I even say? I guess “I’m sorry,” which I am. I just wish I knew what I did wrong. All I know is that I’ve never had a friendship so immediate and natural as Anna’s and mine. The horror of messing it up rolls through me like nausea. At the Bunker, I stop short. Push the door open only a tiny bit. Anna’s stretched out on the old plaid couch, facing me.
“Hi,” she says in a small voice.
It’s enough to know I’m okay to enter. I curl up on the floor in front of her, leaning against the couch. Even after a confusing fight, it would feel weird not to sit right beside her. “I’m so sorry, Anna. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” she says, sniffling into a tissue. “I’m not mad at you. I shouldn’t have yelled.”
“Not important,” I say. “At all.”
“Like, it’s not that I’m upset that you said something. I’m upset that anyone would be that awful to me in the first place. It’s like, I don’t know. Sometimes I’m ready and okay to fight the good fight, and sometimes I’m so exhausted and beat up and sad.”
I reach up to the couch and thread my fingers with hers. “That makes so much sense, Anna.”
“And, I just hate that she got to me like this. I wanted to be tougher.”
“Well, letting yourself process hurt is pretty tough, I think.”
At this, Anna almost smiles—a twitch of her cheeks. “Spoken like a true Daybreaker. Listen to you.”
“Well, that just tells me that I’m right.” Internally, though, I can’t help but feel a flash of pride, warm through my chest.
“Yeah, I know. But, ugh, Greer using parts of who I am like they’re bad, like they’re weapons against me,” she whispers. “It makes me sick.”
“That girl is awful. She chose to be awful. And you know what?” I look around as if my parents will materialize out of thin air to yell at me, simply because I thought the word. “Fuck that.”
I try to say it with ferocity, but Anna laughs. “Oh my God. Is that the first time you’ve ever said that word?”
“No!” I scoff, offended. “Like, second or third. And she deserves it.”
“You know, she came to Daybreak the summer we were twelve, before I really started transitioning. We were good friends, but she had a crush on me. Which I didn’t reciprocate.” Anna’s face clouds over, moving from hurt to thoughtfulness. “She has a lot of problems. At home, I mean.”
I narrowly resist growling. “That’s not an excuse.”
“Yeah. I know.” She looks down at me. “Camp is generally, like, this bubble for me. Home is usually pretty okay these days. I just really hate this.”
“Do you want me to go back and mess her up?”
“Ha! Yeah, right. You’re totally a turn-the-other-cheek type. Or you’d, like, slap-fight her.”
“Hey! No way! Hair-puller. Ruthless.” I mime ripping at a big clump of my hair. “But which of us do you think would be the best in a fight?”
“Lucy Hansson, I’m surprised at you! We have a nonviolent philosophy here at Daybreak.”
I roll my eyes at her. “So, Mohan?”
“Oh, totally.” She squints, imagining it as she laughs. “He’s so quick and scrappy. He’d get it done.”
“Not Henry? He’s no joke with the punching bag, either. Or Keely?”
“Jones has too much honor.” She pronounces the word like she’s mocking it, even though I know she loves that about him too. “Mohan would fight dirty, which you’d need with Greer. And Keely’s the queen of shit-talking, but she’s not gonna throw a punch. Gentle, that one.”
“Oh my gosh. Wait. If we could send anyone from Daybreak to fight Greer, I totally know who I’d pick as tribute. She’d probably volunteer.”
“D’Souza!” We both say it at the same time and lean forward in laughter, almost knocking heads.
“Oh my gosh. I bet she’d be like a superhero, all choreography and business.”
“Wait, wait,” Anna says through her giggles. “I bet Rhea would be like Yoda. Like small and wrinkled but ready to defend everyone.”
I can’t get out words. I wave my hands in front of my eyes as if this will dry the laughter-tears that are forming. “ANNA. We’re not going to be able to look at her tomorrow.”
Anna can barely speak through laughing. “What if, at breakfast, she says to us: ‘Hungry, you are.’?”
“Stop,” I gasp out, wiping at my eyes with one hand.
“What if . . . oh my God. What if Bryan busted out, like, formal karate. Wearing one of his polo shirts.”
As the moon peeks through the windowpane, we imagine all of our co-counselors as opponents. My stomach muscles feel stretched out from laughter. My hand stays locked with Anna’s the whole time.
“Hey, Luce?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you say anything to Greer after I left?”
I tamp my lips together, hesitating. “I told her she’s mean. And wrong . . . and stupid.”
Anna busts up laughing again. “Wait. So you basically called Greer a meanie-head stupid-face? The third graders are rubbing off on you!”
My arm is propped up on the couch, and I lean my face into it, giggle fit taking me over again.
“You’re like a kitten trying out her tiny, little claws tonight.”
“Oh my gosh,” I howl, laughing at how ridiculous I am. We recover after a few seconds, but it feels so good to be okay. It’s tinged with relief, as we patch the first rift between us. Maybe we’ll even come out stronger.
“Hey, rock star.” Anna’s looking over my shoulder.
Henry leans against the door frame, straw hat gone and top buttons undone. We must look quite the scene—Anna flat across a couch with a fistful of tissues, me curled up on the floor beside her, our eyes glittering from laughing so hard.
“Hey.” In the Jones Encyclopedia of Smiles, this one is somewhere between “amused” and “relieved.” “You guys okay?”
“Yeah,” Anna says. “We’ll be fine.”
And you know what? We will.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The next week, Henry shows up for our rec room evening with his trumpet and a sheaf of papers in hand.
“I have a favor to ask,” he says.