Page 56 of That Summer Feeling

Stevie followed me over to meet Bess, who was a study in shyness in comparison to Stevie’s mom. She did not get up to hug Stevie or shake her hand. Instead she waved and asked Stevie if she appreciated the surprise of seeing her parents. Aclassically thoughtful Bess question, making sure the surprise was good.

The twins, triumphant over the success of visitors’ day, announced that dinner would be served at the picnic tables, and we’d be having an outdoor party instead of the usual nightly mixer. They didn’t have guests of their own, I noticed, so I immediately called them over, folding them into our growing group of campers and visitors. All the while, Ethan remained a silent shadow, trailing me as I met the family and loved ones of all my camp friends. He endured hours of me introducing him only by name, never explaining who he was.

“Everything good?” Dara asked at one point, her eyes narrowing quickly, then returning to normal. Ethan was busy telling Tim and Tommy about his landscaping company.

“Everything’sinteresting,” I said back.

“Very interesting.” She nursed a drink. “I have to admit that I’m the one who told him to come to camp. You kept bringing him up, so I messaged him and—”

“I already know,” I said, cutting her off. “That’s not why he’s here, though. I listed him as a potential visitor on the camp application.”

“Oh god. I didn’t even realize that was a serious question. I put Bess because I didn’t know who else to write.”

“Further proof you’re smarter than me, and you always have been!”

Dara didn’t laugh. “That’s not true.” She glanced back at Ethan once more, making sure he wasn’t listening. “You have managed to make this monumentally weird situation intosomething that actually feels kind of normal. That takes a level of intelligence I do not have.”

“That’s because I haven’t told anyone who Ethan is. If anyone but you and Bess knew, the vibe would be significantly different.”

“Exactly,” Dara said. “You’re always looking out for everyone like that. Trying to make sure no one’s day is ruined except your own. Sometimes it backfires, but sometimes, like now, it works.”

“My day’s not ruined,” I told her. “It’s super uncomfortable, don’t get me wrong, but I think I needed Ethan to do this. It was the only way I’d ever know for certain how I felt about him.”

“And how do you feel about him?”

“I feel grateful to have this closure,” I said. “And excited for him to be on his way soon.”

We laughed. Dara always took me at my word, and that was why I loved her so much. I didn’t have to fall over myself explaining how it was possible that I could see Ethan and feel nothing after wishing for this exact moment for over a year. It had been just that, a wish. I’d made many in my life. And not all of them were meant to come true. Not all of them were the best solution to the problems I had.

Dinner was sloppy joes and mashed potatoes. Guests and campers smiled over their food, sharing stories of childhood and memories from the past. Ethan sat beside me, watching as he always did. An observer of life not unlike my sister. A lot of the time, I’d felt it was up to me to be the one who shimmered enough for both of us. And I didn’t want that anymore.

I wanted a teammate.

Stevie had coordinated a seating chart for all our friends and our guests, making sure we all could have an opportunity to chat with the people we already knew and also with their loved ones. It was thoughtful and generous. Exactly like Stevie herself. She was good at things that I wasn’t. She could see a crowd and think about all the ways we could be reconfigured. I liked that about her. I liked it so much. I felt like I could give her the things I couldn’t do, and she could do the same with me. We worked in harmony, not in contrast.

It wasn’t a study of extremes like Ethan and I had been. Stevie liked to talk to people maybe even more than I did, actually. But she was direct in ways I was effusive. We balanced each other out.

When the sky darkened, the string lights created a starscape below the real one. The firepit blazed as people roasted s’mores around it. Ethan and I moved to the outskirts of the party, passing by campers who waved and said hello to me.

“You’re really settled in here,” Ethan noticed.

“I guess I am,” I told him.

“You really don’t want another chance?” he asked, getting right to the point. He’d been waiting hours to pose the question again.

For an entire year of my life, I’d been living with Dara in North Carolina, fixated on the possibility that Ethan would come back to me. Now he’d done it. He’d told me he missed me. That the flaxseed granola didn’t taste the same without me there to purchase it for, and I finally knew my old hopehad been a curtain, hiding the truth from me. Now that I’d learned that truth, I could never go back.

“I always thought real love required complete acceptance,” I told him. “So the things I didn’t like or didn’t agree with, I just kept quiet about, because I thought it would turn into an ugly fight, and that was the last thing I wanted.”

His calm face betrayed no hint of emotion. If my words affected him, he looked determined not to show me.

“You know better than most people that all my parents ever did was nitpick each other,” I continued. “I’m sure they still do it. They’re forever at each other’s throats, the only two people in their house, bitter about the fact that they’ve chosen to be stuck together for life, acting like they don’t have a say in the matter. So I fought with you over none of it. I shared no observation that seemed less than kind. Which means you were right about what you said when you left me. You told me I romanticized everything. That was true, just not really in the way you explained it.”

For once, Ethan let a bit of surprise show. It was nothing more than an exaggerated blink. Something that could be attributed to dry contacts. But I knew better.

“I wanted to see the best in you because I didn’t want to be bad at marriage,” I said. “I didn’t want to admit that things ever felt wrong between us because I never wanted to fail in the same way my parents had. You were just as bad as me about it. Except you weren’t a romantic. You were lazy. You never wanted to do more than someone asked of you.”

He squinted his eyes again. Maybe the lights were too low.Or maybe he’d never really seen this in me. I hardly recognized it in myself. I could feel regret beneath my words, but the regret didn’t win over the need to speak my truth without censoring it to be more pleasing.