Mine (8 page)

So everyone was relieved when Joel took the GED one spring morning and was out the door by lunchtime with his high-school equivalency certificate in his hand. Two weeks later he took the SATs and scored a perfect 2400.

Joel didn’t have to apply to college. Universities came looking for him, all offering full scholarships and living expenses. He chose Stanford based on careful research, and then settled in for a final summer at home.

T
WENTY-TWO

Leah

I
N JULY BETWEEN
her freshman and sophomore years of high school, Leah returned to summer camp.

Not Camp Red Hawk, of course. It had never reopened. Her destination was Camp Cedar Woods.

When she had initially brought up the idea, her parents had refused to even consider it. But she wanted to go back, had to go back. She needed to put the summer camp demon behind her. So she applied for a job as a counselor and when she was accepted, she presented it to them with the argument that if they didn’t let her go, they’d be giving in to fear and allowing what had happened at Camp Red Hawk to control their lives. She was throwing back at her father a principle he had taught her when she was younger. The tactic worked, and with their reluctant consent, she returned to the mountains.

Camp counselors were brought up to Cedar Woods five days ahead of the first group of campers. Leah felt no sense of nervousness, until the bus carrying her and the other teen staff members came around a curve not far from their destination. As she looked out the front window, she could have sworn for a moment that she saw a girl and two boys walking along the shoulder. But when she blinked, they were gone.

“Are you all right?” Renee, the girl sitting next to her, asked.

Leah forced herself to nod. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Car sick?”

A pause. “Maybe a little.”

“Need a barf bag?” Renee started digging through her stuff.

“No. I’m okay. Really.”

Renee studied her for a moment. “Well, if you do, let me know. I’ve got plenty.”

“Thanks. I think I’ll just rest for a moment.”

Leah leaned back and closed her eyes. While that cut off any further conversation, she could once again see the image of the three kids walking.

She knew who the girl was—her, only smaller and younger, her weird transformations not yet begun.

And the boys, she knew them, too.

Her friends. The smart and kind one with the green eyes flecked with hazel that sparkled whenever she looked at them. She’d held hands with him, she suddenly remembered. She’d reached out and taken his palm into hers. She’d never done that before then.

To this day, it had been the only time she’d ever been that intimate with a boy.

And then there was the other one, the rule follower, nice but a bit scared of the world.

God, what were their names?

She frowned, but try as she might, she’d come up with nothing by the time the bus pulled into Camp Cedar Woods.

A middle-aged man and a guy who couldn’t have been much more than twenty stood in the dirt parking area, greeting the counselors as each exited the vehicle.

With a shake of a hand, the older man repeated over and over, “Hi, Blanton Melk. Camp director. Nice to meet you. And you are?”

Each time a counselor said his or her name, the younger man consulted a clipboard and announced a cabin number.

Leah stepped from the bus, and the older man held out his hand. “Hi, Blanton Melk. Camp director. Nice to meet you. And you are?”

As they shook, she said, “Leah Bautista.”

“Cabin eleven,” the assistant announced, and pointed to his left.

She adjusted her backpack and headed off, the hallucination of the kids on the road finally fading.

Her first few days at camp were spent participating in activities designed to help the counselors get to know one another better, and in meetings where they learned what was expected of them and the skills they would need to help the campers.

It was easy to pick out who the returning counselors were. They called one another by nicknames and seemed to have an endless supply of inside jokes.

On the third day, three additional counselors showed up—two brothers and a friend. By the way the veterans greeted them, it was clear this was also not their first time at the camp. Leah assumed their parents had dropped them off, but word soon circulated among the new counselors that Terry, the oldest brother, had driven them up himself.

The night before the first set of campers were to arrive, the counselors built a bonfire in the central fire pit and enjoyed a dinner of hamburgers and corn on the cob while the veterans told stories of their past at Cedar Woods.

Without exception, all the tales ended with laughter and smiles and a few calls of, “That’s not how it happened!”

After the last of these stories were told, Director Melk stood up. “I’d love to hear from those of you who have spent time at other camps. Any volunteers?”

The newbies glanced at each other nervously, all hoping someone else would speak up.

“No one?” the director said. “How about we start with a show of hands of those of you who
have
attended summer camp before?”

After a few seconds, a hand went up, and then one by one the others followed.

“Six of you,” the director said. He checked a sheet of paper that had been in his pocket. “I think someone’s holding out on me. Unless you lied on your application.” He looked directly at Leah, wearing a knowing grin.

“Oh,” she said, and laughed softly as if she’d forgotten. She lifted her hand to join the others.

Satisfied, the director pointed at one of the new boys. “Which camp were you at?”

“Um, Camp Lewiston.”

The director frowned. “Lewiston? I haven’t heard of that one.”

“It’s in Oregon.”

“Oregon?”

“My grandparents live there.”

The director teased a few more boring details out of him, and then moved on to the next person.

“Camp Bryer Creek,” the kid said.

And then the next. “Camp Owens.”

“Camp Morning Hill.”

“Camp Dakota.”

“Camp Riverside.”

The descriptions of the camps grew more detailed as each kid gained confidence from the one before. The director added comments here and there about the places he was familiar with, always finding a way of adding that they may have been good but not as good as Camp Cedar Woods.

The director turned to Leah, the only one who hadn’t spoken. “And you?”

She could feel everyone’s attention shift to her. She wanted to make up a name like she had in the past, but her mind was blank.

“You don’t remember?” some kid said. A few of the others snickered.

“Camp…Camp Red Hawk,” she finally said, not knowing what else to say.

A hush fell over the pit area. Director Melk looked mortified, obviously having just remembered the particulars of her resume, and realizing why she hadn’t initially raised her hand.

One of the veteran boys asked, “When were you there?”

She didn’t mean to say it, but the truth…it just came out. “Two summers ago.”

“Holy shit.”

Another counselor said, “Were you there when—”

“Okay,” the director said, “I think it’s time to see which one of you can make the best s’more.”

While a few lingered in their seats, glancing at Leah, most were happy to move on to something else and headed over to where the dessert fixings waited.

The director walked over to Leah and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I totally forgot.”

“It’s fine,” she said, giving him a reassuring smile. “Not a problem.”

He looked relieved. “Come on. Let’s melt some chocolate.”

The next day, as the summer staff prepared the camp for the kids who would arrive in a few hours, Leah couldn’t help but notice that the other counselors were treating her extra nice. Thankfully, the busier they got, the less they seemed to care about her connection to Camp Red Hawk. Whatever lingering discomfort some of them might have felt disappeared when the buses arrived and the reality of wrangling a bunch of preteens set in. From that point forward, they treated Leah like any other member of the team.

Each counselor was not only responsible for the six kids staying in his or her assigned cabin—which was different from the way things had run at Camp Red Hawk—but was also assigned to one of the daily activities the campers were shuttled through. Leah and three other counselors—Kelvin, Todd, and Maddie—ran the obstacle course. Their job was to familiarize the kids with the course and help them learn the skills they would need to complete it. This would culminate with a combination obstacle course/scavenger hunt pitting all the groups against one another at the end of the week.

Though fun, the job was physically exhausting, and by the end of each day, Leah and her fellow obstacle-course counselors were usually asleep moments after they closed their eyes.

Todd was the younger brother of Terry, the guy who’d driven his own vehicle up to camp. He was a teaser, quick with a joke, and always calling the campers by funny nicknames. Leah wasn’t sure about him at first, but he never crossed the line into being mean, and it wasn’t long before she was laughing with the others.

It helped that he was kind of cute. Though not as cute as…as…as the boy with the green eyes.

The one she’d held hands with.

The one she’d felt good standing beside.

Though she could picture his face, his name still escaped her, and she couldn’t remember a single thing they had said to each other.

Todd was a nice distraction from these fractured memories. On their third day working together, she began to catch him looking in her direction when he thought he was being sly.

“Geez, why don’t you two sneak into the woods for a while?” Maddie suggested to Leah one day between groups.

The comment caught Leah off guard. “What are you talking about?”

“The way you two stare at each other? Please.” Maddie laughed and walked over to straighten out the rope ladder.

It was then that Leah admitted to herself she had been staring at Todd as much as he’d been staring at her. She tried to play it off as boredom, but that only lasted until she caught herself peeking at him again when he was goofing around on the pull-up bar.

Maddie was right. Leah liked him.

Each group of campers bore the name of an animal. The next group on the course was the Gray Wolves, eight eleven-year-olds divided evenly between boys and girls.

Today was Maddie’s turn to be in charge of sending kids off at intervals that would hopefully keep them from piling on top of one another, while Leah, Todd, and Kelvin were scattered along the course to encourage and help out where needed.

Leah’s domain included the zigzag balance beams elevated a foot above the ground, and the rope swing over the mud pit. She followed the campers, and as they completed the sections, she clapped and yelled, “You can do it,” and “Way to go,” and “It’s okay, you’ll get it next time.”

They ran everyone through the course once, gave them a water break, and then started a second pass. When the fifth camper, a girl named Sidney, approached the zigzag beams, Leah said, “You got this, Sid. No problem.”

The girl had misstepped the last time and nearly twisted her ankle when she fell. It was obvious from her look of discomfort that outdoor activities were not her thing. Leah moved in closer than she usually did, but her caution was unnecessary as Sidney completed the zigzag with barely a wobble.

Leah clapped loudly. “Way to go! See? I told you.”

The girl looked surprised as she moved on to the rope swing. Since it was a simple matter of holding on, none of the kids—including Sidney—had had any problems with it. Sidney grabbed the rope, still glowing from her success on the beam, and launched herself over the mud.

Leah, positioned next to the pit, watched the rope arc down and up again as Sidney headed toward the other side. Before the girl reached the end of her swing, though, Leah both saw and heard the bracket holding the rope to the crossbar give way.

She leaped into the mud and threw out her arms as Sidney fell, back first, directly toward the dirt lip of the pit. Leah snagged the girl two feet above the ground and took the brunt of the falling bracket against her own back.

Sidney, hyperventilating, wrapped her arms around Leah’s neck.

“I got you,” Leah said. “You’re okay.”

“I…almost…fell,” Sidney said between breaths.

Not almost
, Leah thought as she stepped out of the pit and lowered the girl’s feet to the ground.

The other three counselors and the rest of the Gray Wolves rushed over in a stampede of pounding boots.

“Holy sh—” Todd caught himself and then said, “—crap! Are you two all right?”

“I almost fell,” Sidney repeated, with even more disbelief than before.

“I saw,” Todd said.

Kelvin looked up at the crossbar. “It snapped clean off.”

Leah and the others looked up, too. Part of the bracket was still attached to the four-by-four beam, but the section that connected to the rope had cracked along each edge and broken away.

“Leah, your back,” Maggie said.

Leah tried to look over her shoulder, and for the first time felt the sting of pain.

“Play some trust-me games,” Todd said to Kelvin and Maggie. “I’ll take her to the office.”

He put his hand on Leah’s elbow and guided her away from the course.

“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right, but we should get that blood cleaned up so you don’t scare all the kids.”

“Blood?”

He nodded. “You’re going to need a new shirt.”

She tried to take another look, but her unique changes didn’t include the ability to turn her head all the way around—yet—so she couldn’t see what he was talking about.

Noreen Dixon, a registered nurse and the assistant camp director, cleaned up Leah’s wound and said a few butterfly bandages were all that were needed. When she finished, Leah donned the new camp T-shirt Todd had retrieved from the storeroom. When she finally got a look at her old shirt, she was shocked by the size of the bloodstain. Sure it had hurt when the bracket had hit her, but it hadn’t hurt
that
bad, and now it wasn’t much more than a dull ache.