“What do you do in these situations?” I asked Camden. But Camden stood frozen, watching. His mouth a flat line, his eyes dull and stony.
The crowd, which had now formed a circle around the area, parted to let a pair of paramedics through. A security guard trailed behind them.
“Clear the area, folks. Let them do their work.”
Max reappeared, out of breath, and took Eliza and me gently by the arms.
“Come on,” he said.
We took a few steps away and I turned to make sure Camden was following us. But he wasn’t there.
“Where’s . . . ?” I started to ask.
But they kept walking, so I kept following, not wanting to lose them in the crowd, too. I death-gripped my penguin and followed them past all the other food booths, into the tent with all the hot tubs on display, then finally a booth selling wooden chairs and porch swings.
Eliza sat down in a swing and took a deep breath, patted the spot next to her. I sat. She began to push us gently back and forth with her feet.
“That was a drug thing,” said Eliza.
It took me a few seconds to figure out what she was talking about. “Oh. The guy?”
“Yeah.” She looked up at Max now, and smiled. “Hey. You’re good in a crisis.”
“Thanks,” he said, and sat down in an Adirondack recliner across from us.
“You may have saved his life. The rest of us were all standing around like idiots.”
Max shrugged. “See. You may treat me like a child, but I don’t always act like one.”
Eliza’s expression shifted from smug to stung. Dressed as she was like Atticus Marr, it seemed even more out of place.
“If you have something to say, Max, say it. Passive-aggressive doesn’t work on me.”
They stared at each other. I stood up. “I’m . . . uh . . . going to see if I can find the others.”
Then I walked as fast as I could without actually running. I checked my phone and saw that two messages had come in.
Camden’s said, Meet me at that fence place.
Kendall wanted to know where we were. I told her to meet me behind the kiddie haunted house in ten minutes.
At the place which was now our place, Camden sat on the grass hugging his knees to his chest. His wig gone, his hair rumpled and misshapen. The first thing I wanted to do was put my hand in it and rumple it myself.
Instead, I kept my distance and asked, “Are you okay?”
He looked up at me. There were giant tears trailing down his cheeks.
“Camden? What’s going on?” I crouched down and put the penguin on the ground, but was still hesitant to reach out for him. “Did you know that guy?”
Camden wiped his nose with the sleeve of Azor’s uniform. “No. But I . . . I’ve seen that before.”
“Eliza said it was probably an OD situation.”
Camden closed his eyes tight and nodded.
I thought of the guy’s body convulsing, the woman too checked out to know what to do.
“Tell me,” I said.
“Here?” he asked, his eyes still shut.
“Why not?”
“Because I wanted to be Azor for you.”
“You were. You are.”
“Not now. Not this.”
“Then be Camden for me.”
Camden laughed and opened his eyes, his eyelashes glistening. In those eyes, I saw something I hadn’t yet glimpsed in him. Something wounded and secret and ashamed.
“I was twelve,” said Camden, taking a deep breath. “We were living in Florida with my mom’s boyfriend.”
I shifted my position so I was sitting cross-legged on the gravel. “Go on.”
“He and Mom had friends over; they were partying hard while I was trying to sleep. He came into my room thinking it was the bathroom, and then he just . . . he was on the floor . . .” Camden shook his head as he often did, like he was rattling something free. “I had the phone in my hand like this, on the line with 911.” He curled one hand into a tight claw that held an imaginary receiver. “But he died right in front of me.”
We were silent for a moment. I had no idea what to say.
“Is the guy okay?” asked Camden. “The one we saw?”
“I don’t know. Should we go find out?”
Camden shook his head. “That was mortifying over there, that I choked under pressure. I could have comforted the woman, at least. I have the training. I mean . . . the whole experience in Florida was one of the reasons why I wanted to volunteer at the hotline to begin with. I want to help people, not be a bystander my whole life.”
“You will,” I said.
“This is a goddamn upstate New York county fair! Not some crappy apartment in Gainesville! This kind of thing should not be happening at a wholesome family event.” He stood up and shouted at the sky. “We came here to get away from all that shit. I was supposed to be done with it. Done!”
I stood up, too. He turned to me.
“I have to go home. I have Max’s keys. The others can ride home with Kendall, right?”
“The others?”
He caught my arm and grasped it. “Will you come with me?”
I wasn’t sure what that meant. What would happen once we reached the Barn.
I didn’t care.
“Of course,” I said. “Let me call Kendall and let her know what’s happening.”