It was the last day of camp. The campers had gone home two days before, and the counselors had spent the last two days prepping the camp to close, packing away sports equipment and canoes, hauling the lifeguard chair back to the storage shed, cleaning out the kitchen, and stripping all the bunks.
The whole place would be a hive of activity again as the other counselors woke, but in this last rosy pink hour before the leave taking started, Sawyer and I would have the camp to ourselves, the only ones crazy enough to get up this early on the one morning we could sleep in a bit.
I watched as the sky lightened, wondering where he was. He was never late, but it was almost fifteen minutes past when he said we’d meet, and the stuffed French toast I’d gotten up in the dark to make him was getting cold.
Last night had changed everything. We’d sat on Moon Rock overlooking the lake, and I’d never felt a moment so perfect, the kind of right you feel in your bones and the roots of your hair, and even inside of your soul.
I’d looked over at him, and the words that had been simmering inside me since the middle of summer bubbled up. Words that made no sense when he went to school ten hours away. Words that my mother had warned me never to say until I’d graduated and begun my career. Words that set themselves free anyway.
“Sawyer? I love you.”
He’d glanced over at me, drawing a slightly ragged breath. His eyes had darkened, his head had dipped toward mine, and he gave me a kiss that whisperedI love you tooto the quietest parts of my soul.
This final day would be a turning point for us; instead of checking in casually over the next nine months, we’d leave in a relationship, find ways to spend our breaks together, and wait impatiently for next summer.
But when I heard the scuff of shoes on the dock, I turned to see Ben, not Sawyer. My stomach clenched. Something wasn’t right about the tight set of his shoulders, or the way he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“Ben? Did something happen?” I asked. “Where’s Sawyer? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Everything’s fine.” He stopped and swallowed. “Tab, Sawyer left. He got a ride an hour ago.”
“What? Why?” We’d both planned to take the final airport run on the Rust Bucket to squeeze every minute out of our last morning together.
“He said he needed to head back early.”
“Ben.” He still wasn’t meeting my eyes, and I got the first inkling that Sawyer had meant our kiss last night very differently than I’d taken it. “Talk to me. What did he tell you? Did he say if this is about last night?”
“No. Kind of.” He ran his hands through his hair, his eyes meeting mine but sliding away. “Yes. He’s worried he gave you the wrong idea. He totally loved hanging out with you, Tab—”
“Don’t.” My voice was flat.
Ben stopped talking. He couldn’t have looked more miserable if he was tied to an anthill with third degree sunburn.
“I can’t believe he sent you out here to do this.”
“I can’t either,” he said.
“What did I do wrong?” I asked, confused and suddenly tired. Tired like part of me sensed how badly this was going to hurt when it sank in.
“He said…” Ben waved his hand as if I could fill in the blank.
“Tell me.”
“I am going to kick his ass,” he mumbled. Then louder, “He said camp is camp, and real life is out there. And it’s time to go back to real life.”
Bruno Mars wouldn’t throw himself on a grenade if it hurt even one millionth as much as Sawyer’s words did. I absorbed them like invisible body blows, each one hitting a vulnerable organ. “I feel sick.”
“Tab, I’m so sorry.”
“I feel sick.” Then I spun and vomited into the lake, bringing up the bile that had begun churning when I realized Sawyer had already left.
“Oh, Tabby, no.” Ben hurried over to rub circles on my back until the heaving stopped. “What can I do?”
I took deep breaths, my hands braced on my knees. “Nothing.”
“I hate this. Tell me what to do.”
I calmed my breathing and straightened, feeling the acid in the back of my throat and a warning sting in my eyes and nose that meant tears were coming. “Just be a better guy than him, Ben.”
