Page 64 of That Summer Feeling

Oh.

It was bad.

So bad.

The way I saw myself in her. How I realized that I changed her. How we moved together through the world, always on each other’s sides. I could see in my reflection in her eyes that I even looked at her with a soft fascination I gave no one else.

This wasn’t just a crush. Or a summer-camp thing. This was so much more.

“I’m just wondering who I’ll be to you when we leave,” she said.

The fact that she had questions about anything to do with me was a marvel in and of itself. She didn’t know me as the person I’d been before this week at camp, too transparent for my own good.

“I’m afraid whatever I say will sound too intense,” I told her honestly.

“I’m an intense person,” she said. “I can take it.”

I could spend a lifetime trying to tell her how much the last four days had changed me. How meetingherhad changed me. Brought me to life. Pulled me up to the surface. Shown me the realest parts of myself. To get it out right, I had to sit up straighter. Put my bikini top back on, so I didn’t have to think about all the ways I was physically exposed in addition to the emotional exposing I was about to do.

Stevie mistook my actions as apprehension. “If you want tokeep this thing casual after camp, I get it. We haven’t even known each other a week.”

“No, that’s not it at all,” I said urgently, my top pressed against my chest without being clasped in the back. I let it fall off, as if to say,Look at me. Remember all the places you’ve just touched.

“You just saw your ex-husband,” she continued. “Allison was here. Maybe casual is good for us.”

“I could never be casual about you.” I scrambled to fasten my bikini top. “I don’t believe in casual.”

“I couldn’t be casual about you either,” she said back.

I shimmied into my swim bottoms. Found the sweatshirt I’d worn over it all and pulled it over my head. There was that energy in the air. My least favorite kind. The crackle of uncertainty that our words didn’t seem to erase. We both agreed that neither of us was being casual. But whatwouldwe be when we left?

My gut curdled. This was what it always came down to. The kind of moment where I’d opt to leave my feelings unsaid for fear of making things worse. It would be so easy to do. We’d walk off toward our cabin and let the next day arrive, hoping that in sleep, the unease between us would dissipate.

Just then, a bird started singing, pitched as high as a whistling kettle, with the sweet musicality of a flute. Both Stevie and I cocked our heads, stunned by the sound cutting through the echoing silence of the empty event hall.

“Hermit thrush,” Stevie whispered. “They like to sing at night.”

What’s a sign, really, but something that’s always been there, you just forgot to notice it before? I’d never noticed the birds. Never thought to make note of their calls or learn how to differentiate them or think about when they made them.

Until Stevie.

She claimed she welcomed my intensity, and I believed her. But I didn’t have anything to offer her beyond myself. No home. No job. I didn’t know who we’d be to each other when we left camp. It was exactly why as kids, it seemed like everyone’s summer-camp romances didn’t last beyond the week. Logistics got in the way of passion. Stevie and I weren’t cabinmates in the world outside Camp Carl Cove. We were two women with totally different lives, and we needed to figure out how they might fit together.

“The bird sounds so pretty,” I said. We listened to its call in appreciative silence.

“Should we go back to our room?” Stevie asked, standing up. “Big day for us tomorrow. Last color game.” She was going to let the moment pass. She was offering me an escape route.

“You’re everything to me,” I blurted out. If I didn’t have a real answer, at least I had that truth to give.

She turned back to grin at me. There was a tinge of sadness behind her smile. A knowing that went both ways. She’d asked the question because she didn’t have an answer either.

How would we make this work beyond the week?

The answer would come. I believed that, because that’s who I was in my core—a person who believed in magic. Who found secrets tucked into the fabric of the universe. Who wished on shooting stars and took leaps of faith based onnothing but gut feelings. And my gut told me I’d find a way to take Stevie home with me.

Until that answer came, all I could do was appreciate the present. I stood up, pressed my lips atop hers, and savored the moment. Then we slipped into our shoes, and we walked each other home.

Day Five of Summer Camp