Sunset

by Melissa J Morgan

“Little finger snacks are okay,” Tori said, sitting back down.

  “Like those tiny little quiches?”

  “Ooh! I like canapés. You can get some good frozen ones.”

  Suddenly everyone was talking. Their jabbering voices melded together into one big, incomprehensible sound. Tori, having made her point, came and sat down beside Cassie.

  “This seems to be going well,” she said.

  Cassie glanced hard at her, trying to decide if she was being sarcastic or not. But apparently she was sincere.

  “We’ve got to wrap this up,” Cassie said. “I have to . . . do stuff.” According to the clock, Micah would be back at camp in slightly less than two hours. That didn’t give her much time to dress and primp—and grow a backbone.

  She hoped to look her absolute best when he arrived. She wanted him to stare at her the same way he did when he was leaving—when they kinda-sorta-almost kissed. She wanted him to reassure her everything was the same.

  If she could make herself face him.

  “I’ll end it.” Charlie curled his hands around his mouth. “Okay, listen up! Who wants to be on the committee to plan and set up snacks?”

  Six hands shot into the air. Cassie, fairly sure of their names, wrote them down. At least now she had something on her pad.

  “Great. Thanks,” Charlie called out. “You guys get together and plan. Just be sure and give us the list before Simona goes on her grocery run tomorrow. The rest of you are free to go.”

  The room erupted into noise and activity as some people left and others gathered together to discuss food options.

  “Hey, Charlie!” Andi was making her way through the room toward them. Cassie watched as he sat up extra straight, his right hand absently smoothing his hair. “Here you go,” she said as she reached their table. She handed a piece of paper over to Charlie. “Here’s my list of twenty songs.”

  Charlie grasped the sheet and smiled at her. “Yes.”

  “Yes?” Andi repeated, looking confused.

  “I mean . . .” Charlie blinked rapidly and shook his head a little, as if snapping himself out of a trance. “I mean, yes, I have these.”

  Andi seemed even more baffled. “But you haven’t even looked at the list yet.”

  “Yeah, but . . . um . . . we have the same tastes so . . . I’m sure I have them. If I don’t, I’ll get them. Because . . . because we have the same tastes.”

  “Oo-kayyy.” Andi tilted her head, as if staring at Charlie from a new angle might make him more understandable. “Well . . . thanks.” She glanced at Tori and Cassie. “Sorry, I’ve got to run, guys. I told Simona I’d do a surprise inspection of the nene bunk. They’re such slobs, they have cockroaches moving in with them. Bye!”

  She twirled about and headed out the door at her trademark half-jog speed. As soon as her auburn curls bounced out of sight, Charlie let out a small moan and fell over sideways until he was slumped against the wall.

  “Are you okay?” Cassie asked.

  “I’m fine,” Charlie mumbled. “I’m a complete idiot. But otherwise, I’m fine. Thanks.”

  Tori gave him a gentle shove on the shoulder. “Why didn’t you ask her to the dance?”

  “Come on. You saw me. I could barely speak English. How was I supposed to ask her out?” he whined. “Besides, she would have said no. And maybe laughed at me.”

  “How do you know that if you don’t even try?” Tori demanded. “It’s, like, less than ten words. I think. Let’s see . . . will-you-go-with-me-to . . .” she mumbled, counting off on her fingers. “Oh well. Anyway, it’s not many.”

  “Look. I appreciate your little pep talk and all but . . . I’m beyond help. Just go. Save yourselves. Leave before my lameness rubs off on you.”

  “Tell him, Cassie.” Tori was now shoving her shoulder. “Tell him it’s so worth it to just go for it.”

  “Um . . .” Cassie wasn’t sure how to respond. She didn’t exactly “go for it” with Micah. In fact, she made so many mistakes, it was a miracle he didn’t give up on her completely. Of course, he might have already. The text message wasn’t the best of signs . . .

  Then again, she was pretty certain that Charlie and Andi could get things right.

  “Yeah,” she finally replied. “It’s so worth it.”

  “Thanks anyway, guys. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go bang my head against a palm tree.” Charlie slid off the table and shuffled out the door, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

  So much for helping him, Cassie grumbled inwardly. The guy looked even sadder than before. Even more evidence that love sucked.

  “Don’t worry. We’ll get them together,” Tori said as if reading her mind. “In the meantime, how about a quick surf lesson?”

  “Now?” Cassie glanced up at the clock.

  “Well, yeah. I mean, you’re done coaching the surfers and the meeting is over. What else is on your schedule?”

  “Nothing. But Micah . . .”

  “Micah won’t be back for a while. What are you going to do? Go get your hair done? If I know you, you’ll spend ten minutes primping, and an hour and a half pacing around.”

  She had a point. Cassie probably would drive herself crazy—make that crazier—that final hour. Micah would return to find her a quivering, stammering mess.

  Maybe she was better off taking out all her nervous energy on the surf. Plus, with Tori with her, she could work on overcoming her fears.

  “Please?” Tori begged.

  “Okay,” she relented. “But only a quick lesson.”

  “Here we are!” Zeke called out, motioning to the left. They could see Camp Ohana’s cluster of cabins in the distance.

  Micah’s stomach seemed to jump into his chest cavity. Finally! He couldn’t wait to see Cassie.

  He would tell her about his third-place win and she’d whoop loudly and say how proud she was of him.

  He would tell her he met Bo and she would roll her eyes and talk about what a jerk he was.

  He would give her the anklet and she would gasp in surprise. Then she would hug him. Then they would kiss . . .

  At least, that was what he hoped would happen.

  “Home sweet home!” Haydee sang out as Zeke drove past the front gates of the camp.

  Beside him, Danica grumbled something he couldn’t make out.

  Micah’s legs jiggled and he nervously patted his left pants pocket, where the anklet was stored. Wouldn’t be long now.

  He’d felt pretty sure of himself when he bought the anklet. Out of all that stuff in the catalog and on the souvenir shop shelves, it was the only thing that seemed like Cassie. But . . . what if she hated it? Or what if it freaked her out that he bought her a gift?

  He couldn’t afford a mistake. Now that he’d met Bo, he fully realized that Cassie was different from most girls. She’d seen the world and accomplished so much. The last thing he wanted was for her to think of him as beneath her.

  Bo.

  Just thinking about that guy made Micah sit forward and give the door handle a tight, white-knuckled squeeze. He was supposed to tell Cassie “hi” from the dude. But he didn’t want to. He didn’t want her to have an image of him and Bo in her mind at the same time—because he knew he’d be the less interesting, less talented, and possibly less worthy of the two visions.

  “And there’s our welcome wagon!” Zeke called out as he steered the van into a parking space.

  Micah could barely breathe. Glancing out the windshield, he could see campers running from all directions to greet them. Here goes . . .

  He opened the van’s side door and stepped out onto the gravel parking lot. People were rushing toward them, all of them silhouetted against the descending sun.

  “Hey! How’d it go?”

  “Welcome back! How was it?”

  “Hey, you guys! How’d you do?”

  Micah squinted at each of the talking shadow figures, but he didn’t recognize anyone. At last Ben stepped forward into his field of vision.

 
“Hey, dude!” He grasped Micah’s hand and gave it a firm shake, then pulled him close for a back slap. “Tell us about the contest, man! Simona wouldn’t give us the results. She said we had to wait for you guys to get back.”

  “Well . . .” Micah glanced around for Cassie. He’d wanted her to be the first person he told. Where was she? “I placed third,” he said eventually. No need to be all evasive. Ben would just hear about it from Zeke or Haydee anyway.

  “All right!” Ben high-fived him and socked him in the shoulder. “Way to go, man! And how about Danica?”

  “Um, she . . . She, um . . .” Micah really wasn’t sure how to explain it.

  “She did her best,” Haydee cut in as she climbed out of the van’s passenger seat.

  “What they’re trying to say,” Danica walked toward them, her chin held high, “is that I didn’t place. I lost.”

  “Oh. Well . . .” Ben seemed suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m sure you rocked it.”

  “No, I didn’t.” Danica flashed him a somewhat scary smile.

  “Hey, guys! You’re back!” Charlie suddenly flew into their little group. He gave Micah a friendly slap on the shoulder (which hurt much less than Ben’s). “How was it?”

  “Micah got a third-place finish,” Ben told him.

  Charlie looked at Micah and broke into a huge grin. “You did? That’s awesome, man!”

  “Thanks. Um, hey. Have you seen Cassie?”

  “Yeah. I just passed her. She’s out surfing with her cousin.”

  Micah’s stomach dropped back down into place. In fact, it seemed to plummet into his shoes. Cassie wasn’t there to greet him? What did that mean?

  “So what about you?” Charlie turned his big, clueless smile toward Danica. “How did you—?”

  “Hey, guys,” Haydee interrupted. She plopped one heavy hand on Charlie’s shoulder and the other on Ben’s and steered them toward the back of the van. “I need you two to help me unload all this luggage and gear . . .”

  As they walked off, Micah scanned the rest of the assembled onlookers. But Charlie was right. Cassie wasn’t there.

  “Surfing, huh?” Danica walked up beside him. “Ouch. And here I thought she was so into you.” She shot him a sympathetic look, made a little tsk-tsk sound, and trotted away, shaking her head.

  Micah took a deep breath. Don’t let it get to you, he told himself. Danica was just being Danica. She’d been competitive with Cassie since she got here and loved any opportunity to make her look bad. Besides, it was obvious she was still upset about her wipeout.

  Still, he had to wonder. Where exactly was he on Cassie’s list of priorities?

  “Tori, I think it’s getting late. The sun is really low. We should head back.”

  “Already?”

  “Yeah. Simona wanted us all to be near the entrance to greet those guys when they return.” Cassie couldn’t bring herself to say that she wanted to be there. She still wasn’t sure if she did or not.

  “I know, I know. But just one more run? Please?” Tori whined as she hugged her borrowed Camp Ohana surfboard and bobbed in the baby waves. “I’m really starting to nail it.”

  Cassie had to admit, Tori was right about that. She was getting really good really fast. Seemed like whenever a cute boy was a motivating factor, there was nothing her cousin couldn’t accomplish.

  It was kind of annoying, really. Here Cassie was, a so-called “pro” surfer, and she was the most freaked out about heading into deep water.

  Being out there with Tori had helped a little. She still wasn’t able to head out to the big beautiful waves, but at least she wasn’t stuck in the wash. Her stance was way too tense and her timing was off. If someone had been watching from the shore, they would have assumed she was an extremely good beginning surfer instead of an award-winning, corporate-sponsored pro competitor.

  But at least she was surfing. If she’d been able to push her worries about Micah aside, she might have actually had fun.

  The sky was darkening and the water was getting that metallic shimmer of early evening. Cassie glanced at the cabin roofs in the distance. Was Micah back yet? When she’d asked Simona permission to give Tori an off-hours lesson, the head counselor had made two things clear: 1) that it was Cassie’s responsibility to make sure Tori and all camp equipment made it back safely, and 2) that she expected them to greet their Ohana surf competitors when they returned.

  Thanks, Simona. Cassie had already been stressed about seeing Micah and Danica again. Now she was almost as stressed about the possibility of not seeing them.

  “Come on, Tor!” she shouted. Her left foot jiggled nervously, stirring up tiny eddies of sandy water.

  She watched as Tori grabbed another wave and whooped as it hurtled her toward shore. A beautiful, near-perfect ride. If this kept up, her cousin would be better than her at absolutely everything: boys, relationships, fashion, friends, and surfing.

  Right at that moment, Tori checked her balance, leaned too far to the right, and went tumbling into the water. The sight made Cassie feel a tiny bit better. Okay, so maybe Tori had a ways to go before she was better at the sport.

  Cassie saw Tori’s head come up and paddled toward her.

  “Okay. Good one. Now it’s really time to go back.”

  “You’re right,” she said, breathlessly. “Micah will probably be here any second. I know you can’t wait.” She flashed a meaningful smile.

  Micah. Just the sound of his name brought back the harsh clawing sensations in Cassie’s abdomen.

  She wanted to see him—and yet she didn’t. On the one hand, all this waiting and wondering had to stop. Once she saw him, she could look him straight in the eye and search for any signs of guilt or deception.

  But what if she didn’t like what she found?

  “Uh-oh . . . where’s my board?” Tori asked, twisting this way and that in the water.

  Cassie frowned. “What do you mean, ‘where’s my board?’ ”

  “It’s gone.”

  “What are you talking about? Did the leash break?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Or did you not strap it right?”

  “I don’t know,” Tori repeated. “It just . . . came off.”

  Cassie let out a frustrated grunt. “Great! Simona’s going to be so mad at us!”

  “She’ll understand.”

  “Not if we lose the board, she won’t. The only reason they let me borrow it outside of free surf hours is because I’m a C.I.T. If we lose it, I have to pay for it!” She slapped the water angrily and the spray hit her right in the face.

  Tori stared at her for a moment. “I’m sorry, Cass. I’m really, really sorry. Look, I know you want to go get spiffed up a little and meet Micah. You go on. I’ll find the board.”

  Cassie blew out her breath and stared at the sunset. “No, I’m sorry. Sorry I lost my cool.”

  “Seriously, Cass. You go. I’m the one who lost the board so I should look for it.”

  “No!” Cassie shook her head. “It’s getting dark and the water is rough. No one should be out here by themselves. Let me see if I can spot it.” She straddled her board and sat up, scanning the nearby waves.

  “Hey, Cass?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Is something bothering you? I mean . . . that wasn’t all about the board, was it?”

  Cassie stared openmouthed at Tori. In addition to her other skills, reading minds seemed to be something else the girl was good at.

  “What gave you that idea?”

  “I know you. Something’s up. Something’s been up for a while, hasn’t it? Does it have to do with Micah?”

  “No.” Even Cassie could hear the lie in her voice. Why was she in such denial, anyway? Maybe if she let out her worries, she could also let out that heavy, high-pressured feeling in her chest.

  Besides, Tori was good at analyzing relationships. It could very well be her strongest talent.

  “Okay, fine. There is something. But it’s probably stupid.”r />
  Cassie leaned forward on her board as Tori grabbed hold of the nose and floated along with her. Taking a deep breath, she made herself describe what happened in the bunkhouse while she was sick—about the text message and its weird wording.

  Once she’d finished pushing the words up out of her, Cassie had to admit the heaviness was also gone. But in its place was a crushed, worn-out feeling.

  Tori sighed. “Okay, yeah. It does sound kind of bad,” she said, nodding slightly. “But maybe there’s a completely good reason for the message.”

  Cassie raised her eyebrows. “Like what?”

  “Well . . . I don’t know . . . maybe he broke something and Danica covered for him and that’s why he was thanking her.”

  “But why was she in his room?”

  “Beats me.” Tori shrugged. “But I wouldn’t freak out until you know more. It could be no big deal.”

  “I don’t know, Tor. I just . . . don’t want to end up feeling like a total fool. I mean, you’re the one always talking about how it’s never really over between exes.”

  Tori’s forehead crumpled. “Oh god. Sorry. You shouldn’t listen to me.” She reached out and squeezed Cassie’s arm. “It’ll be okay. Really. You’ll see.” Her tone was all hushed and sweet—as if Cassie were a scared five-year-old. Hearing it, Cassie’s vision automatically blurred and her throat felt tight and bulgy.

  “Yeah, well . . .” Cassie swallowed hard and blinked back the wetness in her eyes. So stupid to be this frantic over a boy. A boy she barely knew. “But what if it isn’t okay?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

  Tori socked her shoulder gently. “Then you should totally get into someone new. Like me! I was all gloomy until I saw . . . Surf Guy.”

  “You still don’t know his name?”

  “I’m working on it. The point is that he made me forget Eddie. And there are tons of other cool guys around for you, too!”

  Cassie didn’t want to bring up the fact that there were far fewer C.I.T.s and counselors (guys her age) than there were campers (guys Tori’s age). Or that the thought of going after another member of the male species made her feel tired and extra stomachache-y. Tori might be ultra confident and skilled when it came to the opposite sex, but not Cassie. It was a miracle she got Micah’s attention as long as she did.