Page 69 of That Summer Feeling

Instead of backing away from me, she was going to sacrifice everything she cared about to help me through. That was how she cared for me.

“Attention, Blue Team,” I yelled. Tommy looked down for a split second before deciding that whatever I had to say, he could listen while he climbed. Aja, Sky, and Laurie stared down the wall at me while helpers clipped them into their harnesses.

I still had my hand atop Stevie’s. I let her go. She didn’t need to be held down by me to know what I meant was real. “This is going to sound absolutely wild, but it’s one hundred percent true. I am in love with Stevie Magnusson,” I announced.

Tommy, a good ten feet above us by that point, let out a quick whoop.

“She knows this,” I continued. “I can tell she does. But she doesn’ttrustit. Which is understandable considering the mess I’ve been all week. So I’m going to attempt to prove to her how serious I am. I am going to climb this terrifying fucking wall. And our team might not win. I don’t know how fast I’ll be,what with the whole fear of heights thing. But I am still going to try! Because I care about all of you, but I care about Stevie more than anyone else. And this is how I plan to show her.”

With that, I began climbing.

The first several feet came easy. So easy, in fact, that I actually went faster on account of how mad it made me that I could do it. What else had I missed? What else had I held myself back from?

Then I looked over to see if Aja and company had started their climb. I didn’t look down. I knew better than to look down. But to my right, about twenty-five feet up, I could see almost the entirety of the camp through the trees. The halls, the lake, the cabin—all of it was visible from where I was.

My body did its favorite little trick—lock up and freeze. I clung hard to the plastic rocks that dotted the wall. My knuckles turned white from the sheer force of my squeezing. Inside my head, I yelled,Go, Garland. Move!but a sleep paralysis demon’s worth of fear said,No, bitch, you’re stuck here.

Blue Team was going to lose again. And it would be my fault. For thesecondtime.

Stevie had tried to help me and I hadn’t let her, and now it was going to be my fault even if Stevie never put a foot on the rock wall. I’d stuck my neck out. Begged to be the one who competed instead of Julianne. Made all these speeches about how brave I could be. And there I was stuck on the rock wall with the last remnants of my past baggage in my metaphorical pockets—my fear that I could be so small in this life and still feel so big. When I saw how large the world really was, I felt like I didn’t matter.

“My favorite hangout spot. Thanks for reserving it for us. It’s really hard to get in here.” Stevie had climbed up to meet me. She wrapped her leg behind mine, pinning me tighter to the wall, creating a sense of security.

“I thought your wrist was hurt,” I whispered. I wanted to talk louder, but the noise of my own voice startled me. I needed complete stillness.

“And I thoughtyouwere afraid of heights.” She gripped me tighter. “We can go back down together. I’ll make sure you’re safe.”

I dared to turn my head and look into her eyes. I saw the green of her irises, and the countless freckles highwaying across the slope of her nose. I kissed her then, long and hard. The kind of kiss that should have knocked us off the wall, because it felt exactly like falling. Like the moment Stevie had tumbled atop me at our doorstep. She’d thrown herself into my life, and I’d never be free of the mark she’d left. I’d carry her with me everywhere.

Even if I had no control in any real way, I could do this one thing. I could climb.

For her.

So I did. Pull by pull, feeling my muscles surrender to the effort, I climbed. I tore through my own barriers until there was nowhere to go but toward the fear itself. I climbed inside it. The darkness. The void. The unknown. The loss of control. All of it belonged to me. When I brought myself to the top lip of the wall, Tommy stretched his hand out to help me over. Aja, Laurie, and Sky came up next.

“You did it!” Tommy said in disbelief.

Stevie spidered her way up behind me. “Celebrate afterward, fuckers. We need to hit the buzzer and lock in our time.”

The second Stevie’s feet stood steady on the top of the wall, I slammed my hand onto the buzzer.

The sound rang through the sky. Our own birdcall.

We had no idea if it would be enough to win. Somehow, that didn’t seem to matter to any of us. We hugged and screamed and cried like we’d done it anyway. We’d made it to the top of the mountain. We’d seen it through to the end. We celebrated the journey to get there. Not the destination.

“By the way, I love you,” Stevie said to me. “In case it isn’t obvious.”

“Oh, it is,” I told her. “Now let’s get the hell off this wall.”

32

Back on the ground, my limbs still working through the aftershocks of what I’d accomplished, we watched Red and Yellow teams compete. I kept the stopwatch on my phone running, monitoring our competitors. I didn’t know whatourtime had been, but I had a pretty good idea of everyone else’s. It was funny, me peeking at the phone in my pocket, breathless over milliseconds. Yellow was the last to go. When they punched in their time, I stopped my clock. I didn’t know enough to say for sure, but I suspected we had a real shot.

The referees did not announce the winners outside. Instead all the color teams had to gather in the event hall for the results. It was a full-scale awards ceremony, complete with trophies and medals and sashes, as well as a big fake check. The entire camp had come to hear the results, and all the tables that were normally pushed to the periphery of the floor were now centered around the stage. There were two confetti cannonspoised to explode, and a host of streamers tied up overhead. I saw all the machinations put in place to turn this into a celebration. And I wanted it for Blue Team. Badly.

Stevie held my hand as we took our seats at a table up front. It was a bright day, muggier than it had been all week. The stickiness glued me to her. I thought of her hands on me—her mouth on me—in that very room the night before. I didn’t dare imagine what kind of moments between us were yet to come. I wanted to experience them instead. Learn everything I could have with her in real time. Because there would be more. Therehadto be more.

The band hosted the award ceremony. They fist pumped and air guitared their way onto the stage to set the scene for all of us. “Welcome to the first annual adults of Camp Carl Cove award ceremony!” the lead singer said into the mic. “We’ve got lots of fun stuff to get through today. From announcing the color games winner to passing out some very special camp-wide awards, this is sure to be one hell of a rocking good time! Hee-haw!”