None of it mattered. The prospective basketball game had a choke hold on my nerves. My anxiety grew by the second.
“Um, earth to Alex,” Grant said, snapping his fingers in front of my face.
I blinked, fork in hand as two hazel eyes peered at me beneath the brim of a hat. “Yeah?” I said. “What? What did I miss?”
“You’re really freaking out, aren’t you?” he said, cocking his head.
I let out a long sigh, dropping my fork beside my uneaten food. “I’m totally freaking out,” I said. “There’re a lot of things I’m good at, but sports isn’t on the list. I literally embarrass myself every time I try.”
“You can’t be that bad.”
“When I started junior high, I wanted to be on the basketball team,” I said, looking at him. “At our school, it was kind of the thing to do. Everyone made the team so even if I was terrible, there was a guarantee I could at least travel with them and participate somehow.
“But when I was in eighth grade, the coach asked me to help her out by being a manager. She claimed it was because I was trustworthy, but in hindsight it was because I couldn’t shoot, couldn’t dribble, and didn’t understand how the plays we learned in practice were actually important to the game. I kind of just passed the ball to the first person I saw, which totally explains why I was always being yelled at from the sideline. When I wasn’t on the bench. I think it was more of a pity move on her part. Either that, or she did it because of who my dad is.”
And that was before the crash, when the right side of my body still operated on an equal playing field as my left.
“She asked you to be a manager?” Grant said, grinning.
“It’s not funny!”
“Okay, okay. Not funny.” He set his fork down, his voice dropping as he leaned in closer. “I can be sympathetic and serious for a moment. I feel bad for your eighth-grade self, and your lack of basketball skills.”
“It feels like you’re making fun of me.”
“Only in my head.”
“Grant!”
He laughed out loud, holding his hands up as I grabbed my fork. “As your co-counselor and someone who actually wants to win the game, I’ll help you out. All right?”
“By getting me out of it?”
“By showing you a few things before you’re thrown to the wolves,” he said.
This close, the warmth of his skin made my heart speed. I shifted my attention to my coffee, ignoring my rapid pulse in favor of caffeine.
“Look,” he said. “I’m taking Linc’s duty shift tomorrow night, in exchange for him taking one of mine later on in the session. Talk to Kira and see if she’ll trade you too. It will get us some time at the pavilion. I can give you an actual lesson on how to shoot.”
“I need lessons on more than that,” I said. “We’re talking basketball 101. I need the basics, including dribbling and ball handling.”
“No problem,” he said, shrugging. He picked up his fork again, still eyeing me. “Just make sure you wear comfortable clothes. Once we’re out there, it’s basketball until you’re as good as LeBron.”
“That will take more than a night,” I said, cringing.
“Then pack a snack.”
I ate the rest of my food, contemplating the situation as campers filed in and out of the mess hall’s doors. No matter how skilled Grant was or wasn’t at basketball, he really was fighting a losing battle. Poor guy didn’t know the disappointment ahead of him.
I pushed my way out of breakfast a little later, splitting off from him as he headed for a chore shift with his cabin. My girls would either be prepping for a mandatory hike to the lake, or slumming it up on the porch. I crossed the dirt path, spotting them on the porch as I neared.
“Definitely slumming it up,” I said, turning as a pair of footsteps crunched loudly on the path behind me.
“Alex!” a woman said, her voice completely unrecognizable.
I spun, even more confused as my attention landed on a casually dressed female in tennis shoes and a faded AC/DC T-shirt. Her curly hair was pulled into a tight ponytail at the crown of her head, her eyes hidden behind large retro-style sunglasses. She tugged them off as she neared, her smile widening.
“I’m so glad I caught you! Madeline Briggs. Resident camp therapist and your morning meeting.”
My face paled. Loraine wouldn’t dare.
“Your aunt thought this would be a better time slot than anything this afternoon,” Madeline said, drumming her fingers against a notebook. “Would you prefer to do the session outdoors or inside?”
“I’d prefer not to do it at all,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Unfortunately, that’s not an option for either of us,” she said, still smiling. “But if you don’t have a preference, I’d love to stay outside. It hasn’t gotten hot yet and I’ll be confined indoors for the rest of the afternoon. Does the gazebo work for you?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Life is a series of choices,” Madeline said, nodding for me to follow.
I glanced at my cabin again, shoulders slumped as I pivoted and trudged after Madeline. This was a waste of my time and would definitely be a waste of hers. She was better suited helping campers with their issues. They were the ones stuck in messy situations. I had a handle on mine. No problems here.
We reached the gazebo after a few minutes. The early morning breeze was cool as it wafted between the wooden pillars. Madeline took a seat first, clicking her pen with one hand while flipping through her notebook with the other.
“You might as well skip the note taking,” I said, sighing as I crossed my arms and leaned against the gazebo’s wooden backing. “I don’t plan on talking much.”
“You talk as much or as little as you want to,” she said, jotting my name at the top of a fresh page. “I’m just here to help you work through any repressed feelings. We’ll focus on analyzing the actions that led you here first. Then we’ll find a suitable route moving forward so you can successfully reach your goals. Which leads me to my first question: What are your goals for this summer?”
“To survive,” I said, forcing my tone to be as neutral as possible.
Madeline nodded, her pen working furiously against the paper. “And what would you define as surviving?”
“Putting up with my campers.”
She finished writing, and her attention lifted to me. “Okay. Tell me about your campers. I already know you’re the counselor for girls’ cabin two, but how have things been so far? Have you found it easy or difficult to relate to the girls?”
I sat upright, sighing as I stared at the naive woman in front of me. Enough therapy sessions with Dr. Heichman had taught me one thing: They aren’t interested in small talk. They want the hard-hitting issues.
“Look,” I said, drumming my fingers against the bench. “I’m sure you’re good at your job, and I have zero doubt that you’d like to sit here and help me with everything you just claimed to want to help me with. But I’m not a newbie when it comes to this sort of thing. You don’t have to treat me with kid gloves or act like you’re genuinely interested in how I’m getting along with my campers. You know what’s going on. You probably know why I’m here, and you just want me to be the one to tell you so you can have me emotionally work through the trauma of my past.
“But I’m not that kind of client and you’re not getting anything out of me my therapist back home didn’t get. You’re wasting your time, lady. Go find someone else to psychoanalyze.”
“Deflection of emotion,” Madeline said, jotting a note. “Have you always turned toward defensiveness, or was there an initiating event that caused you to reach for that reaction first?”
“You literally heard nothing I just said.”
“I heard it,” she said, shaking her head. “But you’re exactly the kind of client I’m used to working with. I’ve been with this camp for six years, been involved with troubled youth longer than that, and if I know one thing it’s that you’ll turn me
down on every single question except one.”
“And what is that?”
“Why is it easier for you to hide from your feelings than to sit here and have a conversation with me about them?”
I paused, her bluntness catching me completely off guard. Where Dr. Heichman was more reserved, less invasive with his questions, this woman had dived straight into picking me apart.
I swallowed thickly, too many answers filling my head.
“Because self-preservation is the easiest means of coping,” Madeline said.
“I’m not coping with anything.”
“You are,” she said, writing again. “And you can sit here for every session and try to convince yourself otherwise, but it’s a lie. I know it. You know it. Why pretend it’s true?”
I sank against the wood, my lips pursed as I stole a glance at the camp office. It would take all of two minutes to walk up there and curse Loraine up and down for sticking me with such a tactless person. She had to know what she was doing. This plan was premeditated.
“So, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to go back to my initial inventory,” Madeline said, pulling my attention away from the building. “Unless, of course, you want to continue with our current conversation.”
“Ask me the stupid questions,” I said, glaring at her. “But you better ask me all of them today. Next time, I’m going to tell you to f-off.”
“Great. At least I’ll be prepared.”
11
Try
Friday night, despite another stupid morning session with Madeline Briggs, I happily crossed cabin two’s threshold and entered the sticky night air. An evening rain shower had left the paths muddy, but my choice of track pants and tennis shoes had to be better than last time. Nothing could be that bad.
Outside the guys’ side of cabin two, voices drifted through an open screen door. I waited a few minutes for Grant to exit, straining to hear his voice among the crowd.
He never showed.
Beneath the iridescent lights, the boys seemed to be playing some card game. I cleared my throat, rapping quietly against the door.
They turned, their attention on me as I watched through the screen.
“Is he still in here?” I said.
“Left about ten minutes ago,” one of the boys answered.
I hung my head and did a one-eighty, heading for the steps. Madeline was obnoxious enough. Grant didn’t have to add to the irritation by leaving me at the cabin, after already agreeing to walk with me to the pavillion. This was his idea in the first place. It was the least he could do.
I stepped off the porch and onto the road, walking the path while mud soaked my shoes. At night, the mess hall was dark except for a solitary fluorescent motion light at the front. As I was already creeped out by the dark, the rumbling of my stomach was the only reason I even contemplated sneaking in. Grant hadn’t given me a solid timeline on how long we would be at the pavilion. If I was looking at one extended basketball practice, a good dose of chocolate-chip cookies seemed like a necessary risk.
I reached the back of the mess hall a few minutes later; that entrance was the most discreet.
I crammed the skeleton key into the lock, fighting with it for a moment before the door gave way.
Inside, the hum of the air conditioner sounded through the vents. Freshly cleaned, the kitchen smelled of lemons and Dawn dish soap.
I trekked past prep spaces, my flashlight’s beam ricocheting off large metal ovens, hanging racks of pots and pans, and too many cabinets. At the back, a large floor-to-ceiling pantry sat nestled in the dark. My hand wrapped around its metal handle and pulled, the hinges creaking loudly in the vacant kitchen.
Cereal. Pasta. Bread.
I scanned the shelf carefully, rising on my tiptoes in an attempt to spot the cookies. “Where are you?” I said, pushing a container of rice to the side.
“I’m here. Where are you?”
My heart flew to my throat as I spun, hurling the flashlight at the faceless figure behind me. Grant dodged my attack, his booming laugh almost earning him a knee in the groin.
“Damn it, Grant!” I said. “I almost peed myself.”
“That’s why you shouldn’t be sneaking into the mess hall at night,” he said, grabbing the flashlight off the ground.
I let out a staggered breath, adrenaline-spiked blood making it hard to breathe. Of course he would do something as stupid and reckless as sneaking up on me. Idiotic ideas seemed to be one of his best personality traits.
“Aren’t you supposed to be headed for the pavilion?” he said.
“You told me to grab a snack.”
He shone the light in my eyes, temporarily blinding me. “I was being sarcastic, but I’ll give it to you. Your instincts were pretty on point. Had I hesitated one second, I’d have a black eye.”
“You’re lucky I didn’t kick you in your balls,” I said, covering my eyes. “My dad’s a cop. That was the first move he taught me.”
“Then it’s a real good thing you went with the flashlight,” he said, lowering the beam. I blinked against multicolored dots, trying to refocus my vision in the dark.
Grant ducked his head into the pantry beside me and pointed to the second shelf. “Hand me that, would you?” he said, indicating a clear piece of Tupperware with a blue lid. “If you want a decent coaching job, I’m going to need some adequate nourishment.”
“If those are the cookies, you can have some after I get some for myself,” I said, wrapping my hand around the container.
Grant stepped backward and leaned against the wall while I shut the pantry door. When I turned, he snatched the container before I could even open the lid.
“Give it back,” I said, scowling.
“Take it back,” he said, holding it high above my head.
I glared at the container, then at him. “This is not a good way to form a functioning partnership with your co-counselor.”
“We’ve already formed a functioning relationship,” he said. “And you need me for my basketball talents, among other things.”
“Things like what?”
“Wit. Charm. Staggering good looks. Incomparable knowledge of camp life,” he said.
“Wow. Humble.”
He lowered the container and tugged open the lid. After dragging two cookies from the box, he handed it my way. “Here. I’ll even share with you,” he said. “You’re welcome.”
“I had them first,” I said, snatching the box.
He shrugged and turned to lead the way outside, his tennis shoes squeaking against the tiled floors. Beside the door, a basketball and a backpack sat idly. He bent and picked both up, slinging the backpack over his shoulder as I relocked the back door.
“Were you stalking me?” I said, biting into a cookie.
“Stalking in what context?” he said.
“What do you mean what context?” I said. “Stalking. As in the behavior where you follow someone without them knowing, with some unknown reason that is both creepy and terrifying.”
“Um, no. I was actually heading to the pavilion when I saw you headed this way. Thought I’d turn around and snag us a few Gatorades. Also thought I’d help you find the path to the pavilion, since it can be tricky at night. How was I supposed to know it would turn out to be the best scare of the summer? That was just an added bonus.”
“You think it’s funny now,” I said, shaking a cookie at him, “but I’m planning payback of epic proportions. You’ll get yours.”
“Can’t wait,” Grant said, fidgeting with the brim of his hat.
We walked the rest of the path, crossing thick patches of grass and ducking beneath low-slung branches. Ahead, the pavilion loomed against a wooded backdrop. The roof’s metal apex, partially covered by a canopy of leaves, cast shadows on the concrete. Once there, Grant crossed onto the concrete first. He set his backpack on one of the wooden swings near the corner, the breeze swaying it back and forth. I set the container of cookies beside it, swallowing a last bite
as Grant bounced the ball against the ground.
He dribbled, crossing the concrete in a swift move toward the hoop. The shot swooshed in the net, bouncing loud as it dropped.
“That’s called making a shot,” he said, grabbing the ball. “It’s the primary goal of today’s lesson, since goals mean points and the team with the most points wins.”
He bounced the ball from hand to hand while walking toward me. In the dark, his facial features were sharper, more shadowed. He looked good. Too good to ignore.
“Before we do anything, I need to see you dribble,” he said. “If you can’t move with the ball, what’s the point of showing you how to shoot?”
“There is no point,” I said, shrugging. “I’m a lost cause.”
“With me coaching you, you’ll get it,” he said, balancing the ball on a finger. He dropped the ball after a second, bouncing it as he closed the distance. “Pro tip number one: Remember to keep a firm grip on the ball. The closer you keep it to your body, the easier it is to control.”
He reached for my hand, positioning it against the rubber. My skin heated at his touch.
“When you dribble, you want to keep your palm slightly arched,” he said, curving my hand. “If you don’t, you’ll lose it.”
He shifted my feet so they were at an angle away from each other. “If you get in kind of a high squat, it’s easier to dribble with protection. Keep your other arm here.”
His fingers latched onto my other arm, causing goose bumps to shoot up my skin. “Think of this as your shield,” he said, moving it into a ninety-degree angle. “You can shuffle back and forth, but keep this arm here so if someone tries to swoop in and make a move you’ll have a way to defend the ball.”
“I don’t think it will matter,” I said, looking at him over my shoulder.
“We can hope for the best,” he said, grinning.
He let go of me, the sudden loss of warmth disappointing.
Last Chance Summer Page 12
