Definitely not because those half smiles made my stomach do a tiny flip. Nope. Definitely not because of that.
Chapter 3
Present
Abirdswoopscloseto my end of the dock and chitters, startling me out of the memory of my first day as a counselor. Of meeting Sawyer, completely oblivious to how much he would matter to me by the time we were done.
It seems like when someone is going to be a big deal in your life, you should know the first time you see them. Like when you’re watching a show and an actor comes on in a minor part at first, but they’re so famous you know they’re going to end up being a major character.
Sawyer should have come with that kind of warning.
I’d had no idea when I walked him over to the boys’ cabins that he and Ben would be some of my best friends by September.
I’d had no idea we’d become the most legendary pranksters in Oak Crest history, or that my story with Ben and Natalie would burn for years with a bright steady glow while my story with Sawyer flamed out.
Like a shooting star?
No. Like a car explosion in a movie, where some poor idiot is about to get into his vehicle right before a hidden bomb sends it sky high in a fireball.
Exactly like that.
The sun had slid a bit farther below the mountains while I wandered down memory lane. I stand and brush the seat of my shorts. Time to put the memories aside and focus on the job Ben and Natalie hired me to do.
I make my way up to the office, noting the interior has gotten the same glow up as the rest of the camp.
“Hey.” Natalie smiles from behind the front desk. “Did you get a nap in?”
“No, but I don’t need one. Remember, I’m used to a kitchen pace. I’m good to go. I sat on the old dock and tried to honor my feelings.”
Natalie’s dimple flashes at me. That’s one of her phrases. “Honoring feelings” means acknowledging our emotions and letting them be instead of trying to make them go away. “Were they hard feelings?”
I shake my head. “Not really. Old memories. My first day as a counselor.”
“Meeting Sawyer?”
“Yeah.”
“Does he still feel like the Ghost of Summer Camp Past?”
“Kind of. But it’s fine. I’m sure I’ll be in a groove soon, and I won’t keep tripping over memories left and right.” I don’t want to talk about this anymore, about how Sawyer feels like a nearly tangible presence. I haven’t seen him in nine years. It shouldn’t be so easy to recall every angle of his face, every plane of his body.
I change the subject. “Where’s Juniper?”
“Helping Ben. By which I mean Ben is trying to get things done while keeping Juniper from eating dirt and rocks. But it’s his turn.” She gives me a shrug like,Them’s the breaks. “Want a tour of the rest of the place?”
“Of course. But I’m telling you, if the kid cabins have gotten the royal treatment, I might burn everything down.”
“Right. Because they should live in the same crappy conditions we did,” she says wryly.
“You get me.”
“We made some improvements, but I think you’ll be okay with them.”
She walks me over to the girls’ cabins first, and I poke my head in and turn to face her, my eyes wide. “Why is this so perfect?”
“I know, right?”
The old metal bunkbeds with squeaky springs have given way to sturdy pine berths built into the slanted walls of the A-frames. There are no windows, but each triangular hut has a big glass screen door, a vast improvement over the cheap hollow-core doors that had warped and sagged worse every year. The screen doors let in lots of light, and the floors have been refinished, years of scuff marks and camp grime sanded away. Two counselor beds flank the door.
