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With the blanket of trees far above my head and the gentle hushing rock of the lake beyond my feet, I lay down on the hardened dirt. I wanted to be alone. Truly alone. I couldn’t hurt anyone where no one could find me.
Why did I do this? I asked myself over and over.
Stevie had no response. My efforts looked like they were working, at least a little.
The twins hadn’t seen you. My brother, your soulmate, hadn’t seen you.” It was meant to be a dig, and that’s exactly how I received it. Could she not see how little her brother meant to me? How did she not know it was her? It had always been her.
“You’re so upset with me,” I said instead. “I’m not upset. I was worried. If something happened to you . . .” She let the sentence trail off, a thousand different endings playing through in my mind. “No need to worry. I’m here in one piece.”
“I’m the one who tipped the boat,” I reminded her. “There was nothing to thank me for.” “I tipped the boat,” she shot back. “I stood up first.”
Tell the camp ghosts to post it on the front page of their gazette. I do not care if my own brain conjured an entire world where I ended up with him. It is never going to happen.”
Oh yes. Wherever she asked me to go, I’d follow. And then you told me my fucking brother was your soulmate.”
I hated how little I could see of her through the darkness, because I wanted to drink in every detail of her face.
The idea that I wound her up, that I was the one she needed to be brave for, made me press harder. My tongue slipped into her mouth, and she met me with the same confidence she always did. I put my hands in her hair, tangling my fingers in her curls. Stevie Magnusson was not like any other person I’d ever known.
“I know that killed Allison. That’s not why I liked it, but it didn’t hurt. She told me by the water today that if I didn’t take her back by the end of the night, she was gonna leave tomorrow. Seeing as I’m here in bed with you, she should be gone by the time we wake up.”
No matter what my vision had shown me, I had always been on my way to her. And that was exactly where I wanted to be.
I hadn’t seen Dara once. I didn’t even know where she was.
Stevie changed in the room with me, not bothering to turn her back when she put on a new top. The flash of her skin was something I was allowed to see, and I felt in that moment all the times I’d filtered myself around other women—a laundry list of instances I’d made a point to look around and examine the floorboards with intense interest.
Now I knew there was more to it. Attraction. Desire.
Ethan. He’d shaved again. And he looked taller somehow.
In the mess hall, he held a bouquet of flowers to his chest, a pretty collection of dusty blue hydrangeas.
A please see me for the good of my heart expression. He’d never used it on me before—and I realized in that instant that it was because I’d always granted him forgiveness without conflict.
“You look beautiful,” Ethan told me.
How many times had I—somewhat jokingly, but mostly seriously—told Dara that I wanted Ethan to show up? How many times had she looked at me flatly, not entertaining that road of thought?
The last question had been If you could have anyone in your life come visit you at Camp Carl Cove, who would it be? I’d put down Ethan’s name because I wanted to finish the application, and writing him down seemed equivalent to saying I hoped Tom Hanks would find time to see me.
“It’s been a whole year and I still haven’t stopped buying that weird granola you like. I eat every bag because I tell myself that I have to finish it. When the twins emailed me that you wanted me to come, I realized it was a sign. That I was waiting for you to come back.”
“This is the first time I’ve been propositioned via flaxseed granola,” I told him. Ethan had to see it. How wrong all of this was, comical even in its absurdity.
“I came here because I want our life back,” he said.
Instead I said, “I don’t.” Ethan’s face scrunched up in confusion. “You don’t what?” “Want our old life back,”
They had not just the same hair but the same spirit. The Magnussons all did. “Garland! Come meet my mom and dad!” she yelled.
She had no idea who he was, and she clearly never expected him to come visit me at camp.
“She’s my favorite person here.” “The feeling is mutual,”
To me, Ethan was not my ex-husband. He was just Ethan, this absent presence I’d spent over a year waiting to return to. Not quite ready to reckon with how to redefine him, I said, “This is Ethan,”
Stevie followed me over to meet Bess, who was a study in shyness in comparison to Stevie’s mom.
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.
“You’re really settled in here,” Ethan noticed. “I guess I am,” I told him. “You really don’t want another chance?”
“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
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“Remember how we’d watch a show together, and I’d pause to talk to you about why that character had made a certain decision or something?” I asked. “You know what you’d do almost every time? You’d look at me and say, ‘Why do you care so much?’ ” The phrase echoed in my mind. Every time he made me feel small for having too many feelings about something that didn’t involve me. “That’s the thing, Ethan. I’m always gonna care too much,”
“You’re welcome,” he offered. “I’m sorry I made you feel that way.” “I’m sorry too. That I couldn’t be all of myself for you.”
“I’m glad you did this,” she told Dara and me as we hugged her goodbye. “I like what this place has done to you both. I keep picturing you as kids again.” She nearly cried. “It’s really sweet.” “Join us next year?” I asked, hugging her tightly. “Probably not,”
Then Stevie tapped on my shoulder and said, “What do you think you’re doing, trying to sleep? Get up! It’s lake night.”
“Sorry. I didn’t see it on the itinerary,” I said. “This is the Camp Carl Cove secret menu. If you have a visitors’ day, you have to have a lake night.” “Weird. That’s exactly what I ask for at Starbucks.”
I started this tradition because Mom told me during visitors’ day that I wasn’t being grateful enough.” “Mom said that?”
“How old were you?” I whispered to Stevie. “Eight.” “Four children on a raft in the middle of the night,”
“Nothing’s permanent, Gar.”
“Am I allowed to ask what you do there?” She grinned her sly little grin and took my hand. “You’ll see.”
‘Do you think Andrew likes me?’ right in the middle of his introductory speech about memories.” “Why the hell was she thinking of that then?”
“Stevie,” I panted out, agonized by the distance. “Not now.” She pinched my nipple between her fingers. “I’m busy.” “Stevie,” I panted again.
JAW DROPPED
“Finally, you use your manners.” She pulled the fabric down until every inch of me was bare. “Beautiful,” she said. “My Garland.”
When her mouth found its place between my legs, she licked and sucked with a tenderness that clenched every muscle inside me.
I cried her name into the hollow silence. Stevie.
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.
I felt the dread of the coming day. Tomorrow afternoon, camp would be over, and we’d go down the mountain and return to the lives we’d left behind.
Michelle smiled. And it was so simple, really, the beauty of it. I’d made real friends, just like I’d always wanted.
