This isn’t a photo of two girls who barely know each other.
It’s a picture of friends.
“I should go,” I say as I quickly gather my phone and charger. “You won’t tell Franny about this, will you?”
Lottie shakes her head. “Some things Franny’s better off not knowing.”
She also starts to leave, skirting around the desk and giving me roughly two seconds to lift my phone and snap a picture of Vivian and Becca’s photo. I then hurry out of the room, exiting the Lodge the same the way I came. At the front door, I literally bump into Theo, Chet, and Mindy. I bounce between the brothers. First Theo, then Chet, who grabs my arm to steady me.
“Whoa there,” he says.
“Sorry,” I say, holding up my phone. “I needed a charge.”
I push past them into the heart of camp. The morning lessons have ended, and girls drift among their cabins, the mess hall, and the arts and crafts building. When I reach Dogwood, I find the girls inside, indulging in some reading time. A comic book for Krystal and an Agatha Christie paperback for Miranda. Sasha flips through a battered copy of National Geographic.
“Where did you go?” Krystal says. “You never came back.”
“Sorry. I got tied up with something.”
I kneel in front of my hickory trunk and run my hands over the lid, feeling the ridges of all the names that had been carved before mine.
“What are you doing?” Miranda asks.
“Looking for something.”
“What?” Sasha says.
I lean to my right, my fingers tripping down the side of the trunk. That’s where I find it. Five tiny letters scratched into the hickory, a mere inch from the floor.
becca
“A liar,” I say.
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
Campfire. Fourth of July.
There was a charge in the air that night. A combination of heat, freedom, and the holiday. The campfire seemed higher, hotter. The girls surrounding it were louder and, I noticed, happier. Even my group of girls.
Whatever had caused the earlier drama in Dogwood was resolved by dinner. Vivian, Natalie, and Allison laughed and joked through the entire meal. Vivian said nothing when Natalie had an extra helping. Allison, astonishingly, cleaned her plate. I simply felt relieved that Franny was right. The storm had passed. Now they surrounded me beside the fire, basking in the orange warmth of the leaping flames.
“We’re sorry about earlier,” Vivian told me. “It was nothing.”
“Nothing,” echoed Allison.
“Nothing at all,” added Natalie.
I nodded, not because I believed them but because I didn’t care. All that mattered was that they were with me now, at the end of my lonely day.
“You’re best friends,” I said. “I understand.”
The counselors handed out sparklers, which we lowered into the campfire until they ignited into starbursts. Sizzling. White-hot.
Allison climbed to her feet and sliced the sparkler through the air, forming letters, spelling her name. Vivian did the same, the letters massive, hovering there in streaks of sparks.
A distant boom drew our attention to the sky, where golden tendrils of fireworks trickled to nothingness. More replaced them, painting the night red then yellow then green. The fireworks promised in the nearby town, only we at Camp Nightingale could also see them. Allison stood on one of the benches to improve her view. I stayed on the ground, pleasantly surprised when Vivian embraced me from behind and whispered in my ear, “Awesome, right?”
Although it seemed as though she was talking about the fireworks, I knew she was actually referring to something else. Us. This place. This moment.
“I want you to always remember this,” she said as another bloom of color streaked through the sky. “Promise me you will.”
“Of course,” I said.
“You’ve got to promise, Em. Promise me you’ll never forget.”
“I promise.”
“That’s my little sister.”
She kissed the top of my head and let me go. I kept my eyes on the sky, enthralled by the colors, how they shimmered and blended before fading away. I tried counting the colors, losing track as explosion after explosion erupted in the distance. The big finish. All the colors commingling until the sky grew so bright I was forced to squint.
Then it was over. The colors vanished, replaced by black sky and pinpoint stars.
“So pretty,” I said, turning around to see if Vivian agreed.
But there was no one behind me. Just a campfire slowly reducing itself to glowing embers.
Vivian was gone.
25
I skip the campfire again, using tiredness as an excuse. It’s not entirely a lie. All this being watched and sneaking around have left me exhausted. So I slip into comfortable clothes—a T-shirt and a pair of plaid boxers worn as shorts—and sprawl out in my bottom bunk. I tell the girls to go have fun without me. When they leave Dogwood, I check my newly charged phone for an email from Marc regarding his research assignment. All I get is a text reading, Mr. Library is still adorbs! Why did I ever break up with him? xoxo
I text back, Stay focused.
A few minutes later, I’m back outside and heading to another cabin. Golden Oak. I wait by the door until a trio of campers scurry out, on their way to the campfire. Becca is the last to emerge. Her body goes rigid when she sees me. Already she knows something is amiss.
“Don’t wait up. I’m right behind you,” she tells her campers before turning to me and, in a far less friendly voice, says, “Need something, Emma?”
“The truth would be nice.” I hold up my phone, revealing a photo of a photo. Her and Vivian, their arms entangled, inseparable. “You feel like sharing this time?”
Becca nods, her lips pursed, and retreats back into the cabin. When a minute passes and she doesn’t emerge, I start to think that she simply intends to ignore me. But she comes out eventually with a leather satchel slung over her shoulder.
“Supplies,” she says. “I think we’re going to need them.”
We cut through the cabins and head to the lake. It’s the thick of twilight, the sky tilting ever closer from day to night. A few stars spark to life overhead, and the moon sits low in the sky on the other side of the lake, still on the rise.
Becca and I each take a seat on rocks near the water’s edge, so close our knees practically touch. She opens the satchel, removing a bottle of whiskey and a large folder. She opens the bottle and takes a deep gulp before passing it to me. I do the same, wincing at the whiskey’s sharp burn in the back of my throat. Becca takes the bottle from my hands and replaces it with the folder.