Last Chance Summer

by Shannon Klare

  “I didn’t know,” I said. “Promise it won’t happen again.”

  “Thanks.”

  She patted me on the shoulder as she passed, leaving an awkward tension in her wake. I wasn’t aware of the no PDA rule, but now that I knew about it I could make sure any kissing was done in private. Grant aside, I was still here for a reason. Intentionally breaking a rule wouldn’t help me any. The last thing I needed was Loraine reporting my PDA to my parents.

  Grant shifted uncomfortably, looking anywhere but at me.

  “It’s fine,” I said, speaking first. “She didn’t seem super mad.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know,” he said. He raked his hand through his hair again, stepping backward. “I’ve seen her mad and that wasn’t it. Still, I don’t want to give her a reason to put either of us on her radar. I’ve got some ties to camp. The last thing I need is one of them getting wound up that I’m out here breaking the rules.”

  “What ties?”

  “Nothing,” he said, shaking his head. “The point is, I don’t want to get on Loraine’s bad side. She’s yelled at me before. I didn’t know someone’s face could get that red. It’s a terrifying sight for a fourteen-year-old.”

  “Hold up,” I said, raising a hand. “When did you start coming here? Was that your first year or—”

  “I started when I was thirteen,” he said, grabbing another bottle of water from the bench. “Tapped out at the max age at fifteen. Started junior counseling at sixteen.” He motioned toward the path, twisting the lid as he walked.

  “And?” I said after a second, realizing he wasn’t continuing with the story.

  “And what?” he said, taking a long swig.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “Why were you out here? What were you getting yelled at about? Details.”

  “What kind of details are you looking for?” he said, glancing at me.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Anything. Everything. Say it all.”

  He glanced to his right. Our campers were already headed back toward camp, the area clearing by the second. “I’ll skip the details of why I was out here,” he said, looking at me again, “but she was yelling at me for skinny-dipping in the lake. It’s a long story involving a dare. Pretty boring in hindsight.”

  I laughed out loud. “Are you kidding me?!”

  “No. That little scheme got me sent home before I could even explain myself,” he said. “You should’ve seen my mom when I walked through the front door a month early. She flew me all the way back here and demanded I apologize. I guess Loraine realized how much shit I was in for if I stayed in Austin. She let me come back, under the agreement I’d settle down.”

  “Wow,” I said, shaking my head. “I never saw that coming, Grant.”

  “Oh, I have my stories. Just like I know you have yours,” he said, closing the bottle. “Don’t think I didn’t hear about that mishap you shared with your cabin. Stealing a cop car is nothing compared to skinny-dipping.”

  The blood seemed to drain from my body, depriving my brain of oxygen and fuel.

  “What did you say?” I said.

  “You. Cop car,” he said, still walking. “My guys told me all about it. Don’t worry. I squashed the conversation immediately. I’m just surprised I heard it from them first.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, freezing. “What are you talking about?”

  “The conversation you had with your cabin,” Grant said, stopping too. “I guess it happened the night y’all snuck out. One of the girls shared it with one of my guys. He shared it with another. It was a pretty popular conversation topic, until I figured out who they were talking about and ended it before anyone else got the details. I’m guessing that’s what you used to relate to them? Good idea.”

  My fists clenched at my sides and all the blood rushed to my face. What I told my girls, I told them in confidence. It was meant to give us common ground, not to be spread around camp like petty gossip.

  “I can’t believe them!” I said, the words spilling out an octave higher than normal. “That was private. They literally had no respect for my privacy, or me wanting to tell my story on my own time. What is that?!”

  “It’s not a big deal,” Grant said, his voice annoyingly passive. “Besides, if you didn’t want them talking about it, you shouldn’t have told them.”

  “If I’d known they planned on sharing it with everyone else, I wouldn’t have!” I let out a long breath, shaking my head. “So I guess you’re expecting the whole story now, since you’ve gotten the secondhand account and everything?”

  “Um, I never asked for the story,” he said, shaking his head. “As far as I’m concerned, you stole a cop car. You made a mistake. You’re human. No one out here is perfect. I’m damn sure not. Heck, I would even bet Loraine has screwed up a time or two.”

  “Loraine is perfect,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my words.

  “Okay, then she’s perfect,” Grant said. “Regardless, it’s in the past. You’ve done things you aren’t proud of. I’ve done things I’m not proud of. I guarantee you most of the campers out here have had brushes with the law. We do things. There are consequences. We learn. The end.”

  Guilt settled in my stomach. It wasn’t that simple. Not when some of the consequences lay in a gray area that could haunt you forever.

  “And I’m not out here to judge you for what you have and haven’t done right,” he said. “I like you for who you are now. That’s it.”

  “You’re giving me a free pass,” I said, frowning.

  “No, I’m not. You’re just choosing to stew on things you can’t change. Why? What does that get you other than frustration and more what ifs?”

  “Now you sound like Madeline,” I groaned.

  He paused, his brow raised. “You’re seeing Madeline?”

  “Loraine thought it was necessary to cram the same kind of therapy sessions down my throat that she does with the campers,” I said. “Not that it makes a difference. We’ve gone around and around every time we talk.”

  “Because you don’t answer her questions?” Grant said, grinning.

  “Because she’s nosy and I don’t feel like answering her questions.”

  He chuckled, shaking his head as he stared at me. “Sometimes you really remind me of myself. I had the exact same approach to my therapy sessions, except back in the day the camp therapist was a little more of a hard-ass than she is.”

  “And did you talk to them?” I said.

  “Not until I had to.” His attention shifted to the path. “It’s a complicated story, but I’ll make you a deal. You go out with me tomorrow night and I’ll explain it to you then.”

  “Tomorrow isn’t my night off.”

  “I’ll get it worked out,” he said. “Just agree to go so I don’t plan everything and then get rejected.”

  “I like you too much to reject you.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” He winked, then stepped away as he talked. “You. Me. Tomorrow. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I said. “And I expect the rest of that story.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  13

  Payback

  Later that night, long after the guys had hauled too many tackle boxes from their side, my girls carried a large duffel bag of goodies over their threshold. Despite being emotionally exhausted, trying to bow out of the prank wasn’t a possibility. If Loraine caught them on the guys’ side of the cabin, without me around, there would be no one to take the fall.

  Revenge was my idea. No way could I let them go down without me.

  I entered the guys’ side of cabin two, pulling my hoodie closer to my body to fend away the artic temperature inside. With some restraint, my temper had stayed calm enough to keep me from lashing out at my campers. Starting a fight would only make things worse. Another confrontation was the last thing I needed.

  “You take that end of the tarp,” Brie said, squatting in her all-black ensemble. She had even gone so far as to draw a pair of black l
ines beneath her eyes. Like the camouflage would really work. Her blond ponytail would give her away long before anything else would.

  Jess grabbed the opposite end, evenly spreading the tarp across the floor. Steff and Jules taped down the sides with duct tape. When they stood, Julie got a bottle of baby oil and started slathering it onto the tarp.

  “You want to help with the shower heads?” Jess said, pulling a tub of Kool-Aid from the bag.

  “I’m good,” I said, shaking my head.

  She shrugged and carried the tub into the bathroom, followed by Steff, who hauled an entire roll of Saran Wrap in after her.

  I took a seat on Grant’s bed, my mind more focused on the past than the present. Parts of camp had made me better, but nothing could fix what had happened with Nikki. At the end of the day, my ghosts were ghosts. They refused to leave and I couldn’t shake them.

  I rested my head against the pillow, letting out a long sigh as I took in Grant’s familiar scent. The smell on his blankets was fainter than on his clothes, but it was just as comforting as having him around. I took another embarrassingly long inhale, scanning his section of the room while my girls continued whatever elaborate prank they came up with.

  For the most part, his space was exactly the same as mine—same bed; same comforter set, except his was navy and white; same Camp Kenton flag hung over the bed; same kind of window letting in light above our beds. The only differences between his space and mine were that his window leaked condensation and that the plastic storage unit beside his bed was semi-organized.

  An alarm clock sat there. Ten thirty, four brilliant red numbers staring back at me. Beside the alarm clock, a framed portrait of five people lay flatly against the plastic storage unit. From this angle, Grant was the only recognizable one. I sat upright, reaching for it, as Brie sprinted across the room.

  “Spider!” she said, still running. “Large spider.”

  I scrambled upright, my perception of every corner and cobweb heightened. For the most part, Grant’s side was devoid of spiders. But the cobwebs in the corners held serious potential.

  “Burn it down!” Steff said, running out of the bathroom behind her. “That thing is a brown recluse. Burn it all!”

  She hit the baby-oiled tarp, sending the Saran Wrap straight into the air as she hit the floor with a sickening crack. Panicked, I maneuvered through the beds. She was already clutching her leg, biting down a scream.

  “It’s fine,” I said, spotting blood before I was close enough to see the damage. I squatted, the overwhelming scent of teenage boy growing stronger the closer I got to the floor.

  “Okay, so you might need stitches,” I said, swallowing as I peeled my eyes away from the five-inch gash running the length between Steff’s knee and ankle.

  Jess reached us, paper towels in hand. “I leave for one minute, one minute to handle a spider, and this happens? Geez. This is why we can’t have nice things,” she said, handing the towels to me.

  I used them to apply pressure to Steff’s leg, apologizing as she gasped. “We need to get her to Medicine and More, without drawing too much attention to ourselves.”

  We helped her up, drops of blood hitting the floor as we tried to get her outside. We made it as far as the porch before she stopped, shaking her head with a frown.

  “There’s no way I can walk there,” she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I have this fear of blood and I feel like I’m literally about to pass out. I’m trying but I can’t. I just can’t.”

  I looked at Jess and Jules. “Okay. Can y’all go get the nurse? Tell her one of our campers fell walking into the bathroom and we’re having a hard time getting her to the nurse’s station. There’s a golf cart she can use.”

  “I thought someone stole the golf cart?” Jess said.

  “They found it behind the mess hall,” Brie said, shaking her head. “Remember? It went missing from the office but someone found it at the mess hall. Loraine was talking about it the other day.”

  “Just get to the nurse’s office,” I said, looking at Jess again. “The quicker she gets here, the more time I have to get the guys’ side back in order. The last thing anyone needs is Grant or one of his campers breaking themselves.”

  “I mean, that was the goal,” Brie said.

  “For crying out loud!” I said, looking at her.

  Jess and Jules fled the porch while I kept a wary eye on Brie. Her lack of sympathy for anyone and anything was astounding, to say the least.

  “Do you think you can manage to stay out here until the nurse shows up?” I said in a breath. “I’m going to start working on that tarp.”

  “You’re really going to kill our prank?” Brie said, crossing her arms.

  “It’s better than hurting someone,” I said, standing.

  I didn’t wait for her response before racing across the porch. If the nurse rolled up quicker than I planned, it would be hard explaining why I was on the guys’ side. It would be even harder if being in there after dark was really as serious as Grant had made it seem.

  Inside the room, Steff’s blood left a trail from the door to the spot where she had landed on the floor. I avoided the blood and squatted beside the tarp, cringing as baby oil coated my fingers.

  “This was stupid,” I said, rolling the tarp as quickly as I could. “Why did I agree to this?”

  Shuffling to the left, I continued folding the tarp like a burrito. By the time I was comfortable with the baby-oiled blob, the crunching of gravel beneath a golf cart yanked me outside.

  Night air hit me as my feet touched the porch. Nurse Harriet was already hopping off her golf cart. Luckily, her interest was focused on Steff and far away from me.

  “Can you move it?” she said, her frizzy black curls blowing in the breeze.

  “Yeah, but it hurts,” Steff said, looking at her.

  I discreetly crossed the porch, avoiding the nurse’s line of sight. “I think it’s superficial,” she said, checking the leg. “But we need to get it cleaned and bandaged. Y’all help me get her on the cart.”

  I moved from my position close to Grant’s door, hooking Steff’s arm around my shoulder as the other girls helped her stand. Two minutes later, she was loaded on the cart, gagging over the sight of blood on her shoes.

  “But it’s her blood,” Brie said as they drove off. “If anyone should be gagging, it should be us.”

  “You’re heartless,” Jess said, shaking her head.

  “Am I wrong?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I interrupted, drawing their attention.

  I stood in the middle of the porch, filthy and too exhausted to function. An argument over the legitimacy of Steff’s blood phobia was the last thing I wanted to hear. My brain couldn’t take the conflict. I couldn’t take the conflict.

  “I think the three of you should head to bed,” I said, shifting my weight. “Grant’s guys will be back any minute. I’m going to finish the cleanup in his cabin before they get here. If they have any questions, I would rather be the one to answer them.”

  “You weren’t the only one who made the mess,” Jess said, stepping forward. “We can help.”

  “I got this,” I said, holding up a hand. “You three go to bed.”

  Her lips spread into a thin line, the look on her face shifting into something I hadn’t seen in a while. Maybe my tone was the reason, maybe something else, but Jess gave a huff and turned for our side of the cabin.

  “We didn’t mean for someone to actually get hurt,” Jules said, lingering outside as Brie and Jess exited through the door. “It was an accident. Please don’t be mad.”

  “I never said I was mad,” I said. “I’m just doing my duty as a counselor and ensuring no one else gets hurt. That means the three of you need to be in there while I handle the guy’s side. Easy.”

  “And that’s the only issue?” she said, crossing her arms.

  “That’s the only issue,” I said, turning my back on her.

  I walked into Grant’s side
of the cabin, letting out a long sigh. I had to get his side pulled together before I crashed completely. With the way the night was going, that task was getting harder by the minute.

  I grabbed the tarp, heaving it across the porch to our side of the cabin with a trail of baby oil dripping behind me. It was easier to rinse it in our shower. Then I could dry it quickly and store it in one of the closets before questions were asked.

  “Sure you don’t want us to help?” Jess said, changing clothes as I dropped the tarp in a shower.

  I shook my head and moved back toward the door, returning to Grant’s side a few seconds later. Except for the blood, the room looked almost normal. Good. At least I was on the right track.

  I hurried to the bathroom and grabbed a handful of paper towels and some cleaning supplies from beneath the sink. Short on time, non-watered-down Pine Sol would have to do the job.

  With my nerves on edge and my heart in my throat, I quickly scrubbed what blood spots I could find on the floor. After finishing, I carried the bottle back to the bathroom and tossed the paper towels in the trash. Buried beneath a mountain of clean ones, nobody would notice them there. Hopefully.

  Maneuvering through the guys’ side one last time, I switched off the light in the bathroom and returned to Grant’s bed, fixing the blankets I’d ruffled. My eyes briefly landed on the picture beside his bed. Three kids, two adults, and a dog looked back at me, all of them standing in front of the Camp Kenton sign still present today.

  With the youngest kid in the picture looking strikingly like Grant, there was no denying this was his family. I grabbed the picture carefully, scanning it with close attention.

  Dark hair ran in his family; all five boasted chestnut-colored locks. His mom had her hands on either side of his shoulders and was wearing a power suit instead of street clothes like everyone else. She looked important, the kind of woman who could walk into a room and demand attention. Just like Grant.

  I studied her a little longer, feeling a pang of familiarity. I hadn’t met her, but I recognized her from somewhere. Where?