Page 67 of One Last Summer
On paper, this part of the relay should be easy: Fill a sponge with water, walk a little bit, and then squeeze it out into a bucket. Piece of cake, baby. But it was all a ruse, designed to hide an exquisite, unique kind of torture, the sponge leaking through your fingertips as you ran back and forth.
I crouched down in front of my red pail, right next to Mack, who was on his knees, frantically wringing his own sponge.
“I’ve liked you literally for forever, you know,” I said, the words spilling out faster than the water I squeezed from my sponge. “And I’ve thought about that kiss an abnormal amount over the last few years.”
“It was a good kiss,” he said as he leaped back up to his feet, heading down toward the water. “So good I was too terrified to even look in your direction after.”
“I’m glad you’re making up for lost time then,” I said as I jogged behind him.
Mack stood for a moment at the edge of the water, turning to look at me. “You know, for the last five years, I sat around, waiting for you to finally come back up here. And this year, after Marla and Steve told me they were selling this place, I just figured, fuck it. I’m going to call her, ask her to come. And then Sam texted me and said it was already happening. So maybe it’s fate that you’re here.”
We were in the middle of a race, but he didn’t move. Instead, he just held my gaze, hands cupped in front of him with that stupid sponge, as if he were holding my whole heart.
“Last night you said that fate was stuff not working out,” I said, completely taken aback. “You weren’t talking about us?”
“God, no,” he said, squinting as he shook his head at me. “Millen, if anything, this thing with us feels like the only thing in my life that’s working right now.”
“Mack—”
“Hold that thought,” he said, and took off sprinting. I didn’t need to see him to know he almost certainly had a shit-eating grin plastered across his face.
“Motherfucker!” I squealed, remembering where I was and who I was battling as I took off toward my bucket. “Oh, you’re asking for it now, Mack.”
“Honestly, Millen, I don’t know whether to be pissed off or turned on by that,” he said with a breathless laugh.
“Both, I hope,” I said as I clenched my brow, willing my hands to squeeze as hard as they could. And then there it was, my water just skimming the fill line at the top of the bucket. Done.
I stumbled over my legs, racing to where our two ropes hung between wooden stakes in the ground like tiny laundry lines. The rope burn was the pivotal moment of Color Week, days of competition culminating in this one dramatic feat.
My team had lost the rope burn in spectacular fashion that last year at camp, only seconds behind Mack’s team, resulting in our inevitable tie. I could still remember how crushed I’d felt, devastated by our team’s loss, compounded by the hollow ache I’d already carried that whole week, after my kiss with Mack.
Next to me, I could hear Mack’s heavy breath like the pull of the ocean. I turned to give him a quick peek, and the sight of him crouching on the ground, intensely staring at his small stack of kindling in front of him on the ground next to me did that thing to my heart that I now just expected every time I saw him.
“Mack,” I said, and when he didn’t respond, I said his name again louder. “Mack.”
His head bounced up, brows clenched, so incredibly focused. “What?”
“What is this, between us?” I kept my eyes on my work, trying to balance yet another stick against the pile. “Seriously. Are we a thing?”
I sounded like I was fifteen again—did anyone even use the phrase “a thing”?—but Mack’s reply cut through my spiraling thoughts.
“Millen,” he said confidently, “we’ve always been a thing.”
“Great. So now I’ve made it weird by asking,” I said, and he laughed.
“How many times do I have to tell you how much I like your weirdness?” he asked. “Please keep making things weird.”
“And now what?” I asked, my heart now pounding in my chest as my hands worked until every stick I’d scavenged was propped up against the others. “I’m going home in a few days. You’re moving back to California. Camp isn’t even going to exist anymore.”
“I don’t know,” he admitted finally. “Can’t we just enjoy the rest of this week together? Pretend it’s not really going to end?”
A bright light flicked in the corner of my eye, and sure enough, Mack’s fire was now sparked and quickly rising faster than mine. I kept my eyes on the flames in front of me, using my breath to push them higher.
“I think some people might call that living in denial,” I replied, unable to hide the sadness in my voice.
I shoved my kindling into the heart of the blaze with a steady poke of an extra stick I’d kept on the ground next to me, attempting to keep the embers fed and glowing. And then with what seemed like a flash, the flames hit the bottom of my rope.
This was the hardest part of the rope burn challenge: the moment when you were in control of absolutely nothing. From here on out, I had to just let the fire run its course.
