But who would do that? Only one other person knows what happened the last time Kayla and I were here. A girl from town named Lillian Campbell. I remember her being a little bit…off. Kayla would use the word weird. But Lillian would want to keep what happened a secret just as much as we do. Unless…
No. I shake my head, clearing away the thoughts. I am just being paranoid. Being back here must be having a stronger effect on me than I had anticipated.
I put the pamphlet back in the drawer and head out the door.
The landscape takes my breath away for a second. Blue sky at first light, with lush pine trees surrounding us and a peaceful lake in the middle.
I’m not the only one up early. Rebekah is with Andy and a couple of other counselors who I haven’t had a chance to speak to yet. They’re standing by the lake, on the beach area. I quietly close the cabin door and take the steps down to the grass.
Last night I learned that Tia is scared her parents won’t accept she’s gay, Olly won’t be as successful as his cousins, and Jake won’t make it in football.
I told them I’m scared of disappointing my parents because of how seemingly perfect they are, always doing the right thing and advocating for 100 percent honesty. They totally lied about Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny, but whatever.
My confession wasn’t technically a lie. The thought of disappointing them does actually make me nauseous. They can never know what I did. No one can.
My personal favorite revelation was Kayla’s. She told everyone that her greatest fear is she’ll need Botox before the age of forty. Now, I have no doubt she is worried about that, but I’m pretty sure her greatest fear matches mine.
I slide my sunglasses down over my eyes and walk to the little group. “Morning,” I say.
“Mornin’, Esme. You’re up early.” Rebekah looks relieved to have someone else she knows up. She stands and takes my wrist. “Let’s go get coffee. Do you drink coffee?”
Another one of my fears is people who don’t drink caffeine. Like, how do you function?
I nod. “Absolutely. Too bad there’s no Starbucks here.”
“Did you sleep okay?” she asks as we walk.
“Okay. My neck is hurting, though.” I tilt my head from side to side.
“Mine, too. I’m on the bottom bunk and had to listen to Tia toss and turn above me. We’re on the lake today, right? I’m kind of nervous.”
“It’ll be fine. I think Andy will make us wear life jackets even though we could stand up in it.”
“The middle is deep. Be careful.” The middle of the lake is cordoned off. There were lots of wild rumors and ghost stories about it when Kayla and I were here. One was that some hybrid shark was down there. The other part of the hybrid was never mentioned.
“Have you been here before?” I ask.
Rebekah flattens her straight hair. “No. I did spend a lot of my childhood in summer camps, though.”
Maybe it’s because she seems so nervous that I decide to open up…a little. “I was a camper here with Kayla when we were younger. My parents couldn’t afford to send me every year, unfortunately.”
The truth is, I couldn’t come back.
Rebekah scoffs. “My parents are more than willing to pay to get me out of their hair for a summer.”
Wow, okay. Her parents don’t sound like fuzzy, loving people.
“Why did you decide to train to be a counselor here?”
“I wanted something different. As soon as I looked the camp up, I fell in love with the lake. It’s got such a traditional camp vibe, right? Like this place could be used as a set for a movie.”
Yeah, a movie where you either swap with your twin you didn’t know existed or you get murdered. Both are super farfetched, but, yeah, this place would totally make a great movie set.
“I heard you’re from Kansas,” I say.
“Yep. How about you?”
“Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. Kayla is too.”
“Have you been friends for long?”
“Yeah, we met in preschool, actually.”
Her smile doesn’t touch her sad eyes. “I wish I had a good friend.”
Didn’t she say she played the game of fears with her friends? “There’s no one back home?”
“Not really. I have a few friends, but we don’t confide in each other.”
Nope, I’m calling her out on this. “But I thought you said you did the secrets thing?”
We walk into the hall. A few people are milling around, eating cereal and fruit. Rebekah and I go straight for the coffee.
With a sigh, she admits the truth. “Okay, confession time. The game last night. It didn’t exactly come from my friends, it’s what my cousin does. Her and her friends are tight, and they tell each other their deepest, darkest fears. I tried it once with a group back home in the hopes that it would tie us together and we’d be close.”
“What happened?”
“They were the wrong people to try it with; we weren’t tight enough. We grew apart, but we all know each other’s secrets so we’re all fake nice to each other, talking about the weather and how lame school is. I don’t even think school is lame.”
I pour two mugs of coffee. “So why did you do it with us?”
She shrugs. “I just felt, like, I don’t know, that we clicked. Our little group of six. I’ve never had that. The only thing I had in common with my high school ‘friends’ was that we were all running from the same bully.”
“I’m sorry high school sucked.” I was never bullied, but I know it’s traumatic, never being able to get away from the people making your life a misery, not even at home thanks to social media. Feeling alone is awful; feeling alone and hated must be unbearable. “You have us now.” I hand her a coffee. “And soon you’ll be in college.”
“Thanks. I sure hope college is different.”
From what my mom has told me about her office environment, I don’t think anything is too different from high school. But I don’t tell her that.
Kayla and I weren’t part of the popular group. Well, she could have been, but she stuck with me. We were somewhere in the middle. It was the best place to be. We didn’t have to pretend the way the popular people did, and we didn’t have to fear anyone like the unpopular people did.
Rebekah and I grab some breakfast and sit down. I sip my coffee and dig my spoon into my cereal.