He ducks down a little, trying to get onto my level. Trying to find me. Something connects, his eyes and mine—like he found what he was looking for. “Luce, two sleeping bags. I just meant that we don’t get a lot of time alone together. To hang out! I wasn’t—oh man. No, I really wasn’t trying to . . .”
My arms are crossed, blocking myself off from him. “I mean, you know I have religious beliefs.”
“Of course. And I do too.”
“I know, but. I mean, what would people think?!”
His eyes narrow. “Did Miss Suzette talk to you?”
My cheeks answer for me.
“Ah. I thought it was only me she cornered.”
“She talked to you too?”
“Yeah. And I told her it’s not like that. Though I appreciate her looking out.” He lifts one shoulder in a helpless shrug. “Look, there’s always been a rumor that a counselor got pregnant years and years ago.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. I once even heard someone speculate that Bryan got someone pregnant when he was a teen. I don’t know if it’s true, but that’s why they’re like that.”
“Bryan? Ew.” I mean, no offense. I guess he’s good-looking for his age, but no one wants to think about a middle-aged dad doing . . . that. “Really?”
“Nah. Just gossip. I think I’d know if it had actually happened.”
Okay. So it’s not that anyone made assumptions about me or about Jones and our relationship. They would have spoken to any of the counselors about this—probably campers too. “I didn’t realize. Geez. Okay. I’m sorry. This is . . . mortifying.”
“Hey. This?” He gestures between us. “Belongs to us. We make the rules. So how about Rule One is that you never apologize for telling me when you feel uncomfortable?”
“How about Rule Two is that I actually tell you instead of freaking out first?” I reach my arms around him and nuzzle into his neck, safe now.
He presses a kiss to my temple. “Just be honest with me. We’ll figure everything else out.”
Footsteps enter the rec room, and it’s just my luck that I hear Keely’s voice. “Ugh. Get a room. A different one.”
We don’t even look at her. I tilt my chin up to smile at him head-on, and I think this is what it means to be starry-eyed. I feel like I’ll never get sick of looking at him.
And we do go camping, or something like it. It’s pretty much a usual Friday night, only just the two of us. Mohan was very salty about it.
“So, is this just how it’s going to be now? You two going off on your own?” he snipped, looking back and forth between us. “I don’t support it.”
Henry clapped him on the back. “It’s one time, man.”
And for this one time, we sit beneath the stars, laughing over s’mores and swapping stories about our cabin kids.
“So, here’s a question,” he says. “Where are you planning on applying to college?”
“Not that question.” I groan.
“Okay, okay.” He puts his arms up in surrender. “I just felt weird that I didn’t know. But if you don’t either, I’m happy to not know with you.”
“I don’t know,” I confirm. “And I feel sick thinking about going home to senior year. I don’t want to leave.”
“Well,” he says, reasonably. “Some things aren’t camp only. You can take me with you—and those other crazies we call friends. In fact, you better.”
I grin at the thought of driving the fifteen minutes between his town and mine. Maybe homecoming together at both our schools. Maybe Anna and Mohan could come down for the weekend and crash!
I’m so giddy with ideas that I second-guess myself, smile dropping. “Is this stupid?”
“Is what stupid?”
“This. Us.”
“For me? No. For you?” He shrugs, unbothered. “I can’t make that call. You did just break up with someone.”
“But it’s not stupid for you? What if you’re a rebound?”
“I’m aware of the possibility. I’m just willing to risk it.”
“We don’t live in the same town. How will we even see each other? I mean, if you want to still see each other!”
“Okay, two things. Yes, I want to still see each other. And to answer your first question: cars. Automobiles? We have a few in Michigan.” He pretends to maneuver a steering wheel. I refuse to laugh.
“I’m serious, Henry! I’m really busy during the school year! It’ll probably be difficult to actually be together.”
“So what?” His smile is easy, unencumbered. “You scared of difficult things?”
“Yes!” I say, laughing. But maybe I’m not—not with him.
For some reason, this unwinds me. He’s not trying to deny that we’ll have challenges, but that doesn’t mean we’ll fall apart. It’s a nice perspective, I think.
So maybe I don’t know what’ll happen. But it’s nice to have someone to not know with you.
I could use this time to tell him my biggest unknown: about my mom and chemo and how that might be a really big, difficult part of my year. But he leans in to kiss me, and I just want this happiness for a little while longer—this happiness that feels safe and entirely mine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“You were offsides,” someone yells.
“No one knows what that means!” one of my Blue Team kids yells back.
D’Souza blows her whistle. “Bickering penalty!”
“That’s not a thing!” the kid howls.
“It is now! It means someone has to substitute in for you.”
Soccer against the Red Team is going great. It’s sweltering hot, which is messing with all of us. The humidity feels like something building in the air—a visible cloud packed around us.
As if the pressure has hit its peak, an ambulance siren shrieks, getting quickly louder. The campers stop everything— bickering, kicking, sulking—to cover their ears.
On pure instinct, I look around for any obvious distress. D’Souza mouths the numbers as she counts us off. The siren is nearing, and the counselors exchange worried glances.
“I’ll go check.” Tambe jogs toward the lodge and Miss Suzette’s cabin.
“Could it be Tara?” I whisper.
D’Souza grimaces, looking at the path Tambe took as if she might run after him to investigate too. “I hope not. She’s a few weeks away from full-term.”
When Tambe reappears, he’s walking. I exhale. If it were bad, he’d run.
“It wasn’t for us. Drove right past,” he said. “It’s probably for the church camp that’s another mile ’round the bend.”
Holyoke. Mom. My hand flies to my mouth. “Oh, Lord. No. No.”
“Luce? What’s wrong?” Tambe asks.
“My mom. Shit. Shit!” I take off in a sprint, sneakers slamming against soft ground. I’ve never run so fast in my entire life, the world distorting as I tear past the lodge, past every cabin, past every person who calls something out to me. I can’t hear any of them; I have to get to her. I plunge through the trees, and there’s no sound but the huff of my breath and the crunch of the leaves. A branch stretches into my path, and I can’t dodge it in time. It digs a line into the skin across my upper arm. I feel nothing.
My leg muscles move easily into a long stride, like my whole body knows that now is the time to perform. I could run for hours, for miles, for days.