Page 34 of One Last Summer
“You’ve been up since…” I dug under my pillow for my glasses, smushing them lopsided onto my face, and willed my eyes to focus on my watch face. “Five-thirty? Did Trey’s snoring wake you up?”
She shook her head, her voice still quiet. “Trey didn’t make a sound. It’s just pregnancy insomnia. It’s a fucking bitch.”
“Shhh,” Trey whisper-hissed at us from above, his head lifted barely an inch off the pillow to shoot us a pissed-off look that was somehow savage despite his eyes being closed.
Sam held back a choked laugh through pressed lips. She pointed toward the door, and I nodded in agreement, sliding out of my sleeping bag and swinging my legs over the edge of the bed. Everything felt stiff, my body tight from the drive up from Boston, and my race against Mack last night.
Mack.
The thought of him took my molasses-slow morning vibe and instantly replaced it with jitters, amping things up to high alert. Now all I wanted to do was hyper-fixate on everything that had happened between us hours ago.
Across from me—and totally oblivious to my current spiral—Sam slipped some Birkenstocks on over her socked feet and shuffled quietly to the front door of the cabin. Anxious to catch up, I tugged my sweatshirt over my head and reached for my flip-flops underneath my bed. My eyes landed on my notebook on the floor next to them, last night’s insomnia-fueled list sitting neatly on top, like a present. I stuck the folded piece of paper into my pocket, so I’d have it at the ready.
“Damn, it already feels like fall,” I muttered once we were both on the porch, my voice low. The sky was a murky tie-dye of pink and orange, with just a hint of blue around the edges. In front of us, the world seemed to twinkle under the weight of morning dew; even the spiderweb that spread from the edge of the porch to the stair railing was glistening and wet. My eyes adjusted to the light, making out a thin layer of smoke-gray fog rising off the lake, which meant the water was warmer than the air outside, and suddenly my mind went back to what had happened on the dock last night.
“I know, I love it,” Sam agreed, still sipping from her massive water jug. “Seriously, my only plan for my maternity leave is to indoctrinate this kid into the cult of leaf-peeping the second they’re out of the womb.”
I laughed into my hands, blowing on my fingers to keep them warm. Ever since arriving last night, my interactions with Sam had felt downright wonderful, the jokes and silliness returning instantly. But lurking directly underneath was this unspoken strangeness, the tug toward heavier things that needed to be said but hadn’t found their way into actual words yet.
There was a pause in our conversation, an opening for me to say something, anything, about Sam’s surprise news and what it meant for her life in Vermont, the mess I was in at work, the way I’d been trying to hold my life together but had instead let it all slide through my fingertips.
Do something that scares you. Daily.
Talking to Sam about my feelings felt more terrifying than the high-dive tower.
“Should we go try to find some coffee?” I asked instead.
Coward.
“We could go figure out the ancient coffee maker in the dining hall,” Sam said, her free hand wrapped around the base of her belly. “Marla gave me a crash course yesterday in how to run it. My doctor said it was fine to have a cup a day and I’ve been enjoying every sip.”
“Perfect,” I agreed, and we took off slowly along the mulch-covered path that led down to the Village. This was the nickname for the trio of buildings that sat at the far east side of camp. The dining hall—with its screened-in, wraparound porch—was the center of everything, a nucleus of frenetic energy.
Just to its left was the infirmary—a place I frequented quite a lot in my time at camp (infected mosquito bites were a real bitch)—and Marla and Steve’s tiny year-round cottage. Some Tolkien-obsessed counselor had nicknamed it Bag End decades ago, after the cozy, moss-covered home in The Hobbit. Pine Lake’s Bag End was shrouded by birch trees and ferns, and I felt a strange sense of relief as we approached that the place looked almost exactly the same as I remembered.
I’d loved Steve and Marla’s house as a kid, simply because it looked like it should be made out of gingerbread: a perfectly square house, and a porch that was home to two rocking chairs. Like the cabins, it seemed to glow in its new coat of white paint, the shutters matching the leaves that fluttered above. All it was missing was a gumdrop roof and candy cane fence. It felt so perfectly them, and I wasn’t sure what was worse: a stranger moving in or tearing it down.
“Sam,” I said, tugging her back gently until we stopped just steps from the dining hall. “I just need to say that I am really, really sorry.”
Her hair was down today, and her waves framed her face like a shadow as she looked up, studying me with pitch-black eyes.
“Thanks, bud,” she said, never once losing eye contact. “I’m not going to lie, it was a real fucking bummer not to feel like I could tell you my big news. You’re my oldest friend.”
Her eyes crinkled as she spoke, as if it pained her to say it.
“I know.” I fidgeted nervously with the hair tie around my wrist, snapping it against my skin. “I should have been there for you. The last few months have been kinda, you know, hard,” I said, offering up what was beginning to feel like the understatement of the year. “But that’s no excuse for flaking on you.”
“I don’t ever want to be an obligation for you,” she said as she made her way up the stairs, past the creaky wooden rocking chairs that lined the porch. “Our friendship isn’t like a pile of laundry that needs to get washed.”
“Sam. You’re not dirty clothes,” I insisted, following behind her into the giant industrial kitchen. I’d meant it as a joke, but the image took hold in my mind and I couldn’t shake it: all my mess-ups and lapses hung out on a line to dry. “I promise, I would take our friendship to get dry-cleaned.”
Sam laughed at this, and the sound felt promising, like maybe, just maybe, I could fix things.
“Seriously, though.” I scooted onto the giant, metal island in the middle of the room, scrubbed within an inch of its life. “I want to know everything. I have a list.”
Jesus, I really did have a list for everything.
“All right.” Her face was open, inviting. “Ask me anything.”
