Page 66 of One Last Summer
“Uh, hell no.” Nick shook his head firmly, “You’re grown-ups now. You get the real stuff.”
He paced in front of us like a high school gym coach, fiddling with the whistle that hung around his neck. “All right!” he barked. “Dominant hand behind your back after you put your egg in the spoon. Make it to the other side without dropping it. If you do drop it, you come back and start again.”
I steadied my breath and closed my eyes for a beat, traveling back in time to the girl I was when I first walked into Pine Lake Camp. There she was, a little shy, taller than everyone else, and overwhelmed by the chaos of the first day of camp. But then, a shift in just eight short weeks, toward confidence, independence, and friendships that fulfilled me.
“Three,” Nick counted down. I exhaled.
Another memory, of that same first day. A kid with shaggy hair bounding out of the camp van, like he couldn’t contain the energy that lived inside of him.
“Two.”
That kid, five years later. My same height, he’d sprout more inches later. The look of wonder on his face—a flash of fear, desire, things I didn’t truly understand at the time. And then he kissed me.
Back in the present day, my fingers clenched the handle of the spoon, and I felt the weight of cotton and polyester sticking to my sweaty skin. My muscles already throbbed even though we hadn’t even started moving. I was ready to snap like a mouse trap at any second.
“One.”
I took off walking the second Nick’s whistle cut through the air, taking tiny, delicate steps so as not to throw the upper part of my body off balance. It already felt lopsided with one arm tense and outstretched, and the other tucked behind my back. Surely I looked ridiculous, like a giant trying to tiptoe through a fairy forest. It seemed impossible that half of my body could be so confused and off-kilter, but this, I realized, was the whole point, not just of this dumb egg walk, or Color Week, but of camp.
We may have just been kids, but we had always been encouraged to use the parts of ourselves that were so often left untapped. And sometimes that required pushing yourself into some discomfort, forcing you to really examine what you could actually do, discovering what was possible—or not.
“Slow and steady, Clara,” I murmured to myself, because aggressive was probably not the best move to make while walking with an egg nested in a spoon. “Slow and steady.”
“You talking to yourself back there, Millen?” Mack asked, just a few inches in front of me. “You sound nervous.”
“Just making fun of your technique,” I teased as we both picked up our pace, heading toward the two red sacks waiting for us on the ground.
I tossed my egg into the grass as Mack haphazardly tried to shove one long leg into the sack while hopping the other one in after it. It was the most awkward I’d seen him all week, and the sight of him struggling triggered every mushy feeling I’d been trying to suppress.
“Come on, champ,” I goaded, laying my sack on the ground, the opening facing up at me.
In one swift jump, I leaped both feet into the center of the bag, bending down to lift the sides up to my waist, forcefully yanking it over my body like pair of tight jeans. “You’ve got this.”
“Jesus, how did you do that?” Mack yelled, clearly frustrated. But I ignored him and took off hopping, gripping the sides of the sack with sweaty hands.
“I’m just naturally better than you!” A half-laugh, half-shriek escaped my lips as I imagined how ridiculous we must look. From the distance, I heard someone scream my name, and that was when I realized the rest of our friends were down by the boathouse, watching and cheering us on.
I stumbled as I tried to quicken my pace, my foot getting tangled in the bottom of the bag. That was enough time for Mack to hop by, his messy hair bouncing past me.
“Oh shit, looks like someone’s rusty!” Mack shouted as he literally stumbled into the lead.
“Goddamnit,” I snapped, and every competitive cell in my body cranked up to a ten. “Stop trying to distract me just so you can win!”
“Hey, Millen,” he yelled from a few feet ahead of me. “I have a good one then. This will distract you for sure.”
“I’m seriously going to kill you,” I huffed in between leaps, bringing up the rear.
“You were my number one camp crush.” He sounded out of breath but was still able to get the full sentence out—just as he raced down the hill, his feet pounding on the grass. He moved so quickly that it almost felt like I’d imagined his words, and I stood there for a moment, frozen, before I took off after him.
“No fair!” I shouted, kicking the sack off as I crossed the finish line. I had to catch up to him, to tell him the truth that had lingered behind every single one of my sarcastic quips, every feverish kiss.
“I liked you from the moment I saw you get off that van full of kids coming in from the airport!” I said loudly as I moved toward him at warp speed. “Before we even spoke. So beat that.”
It was all I could get out with my heart pounding the way it was.
He stopped, pivoting around to look at me for a split second, his face full of adoration. And then he took off again, ahead of me still.
Down at the beach, a brand-new yellow sponge was waiting at the edge of the water. I grabbed it and dunked it into the lake, cupping it gingerly in my hands so as not to lose any water.
