by J. K. Rock
I wobbled to my feet. “I need to think.”
My mother snagged my hand when I reached the door. “Honey, I’m not saying you can’t move with me to Italy. Your father and I just wanted you to know that you have choices.”
“And that we both want you,” my dad surprised me by adding. He stood and held my other hand, his large shape blotting out the sun streaming through the blinds.
“The problem is I don’t know if I want you,” I shocked myself by saying, the words bubbling up and out of my mouth before I could stop them.
I yanked open the door and bolted outside.
“We really need for you to think about this, Kayla,” Mom called behind me. “We’re going to check into our hotel and pick you up for dinner, but then we’re going to have to figure out a solution.”
Dinner? As in eight hours? I sprinted faster, wishing I could run from the impossible decision altogether.
I stumbled over my flip-flops and fell as I neared my cabin, my chin banging the ground hard enough for me to taste blood. Four hundred and eighty minutes to decide the rest of my life. Impossible.
I dusted the dirt off the scratches on my knees and glanced between my cabin and the Munchies’.
“Cause we are living in a material world, and I am a material girl,” sang a voice I recognized from the other cabin. Emily. And suddenly I knew where I needed to be.
“Hey, home girl. What up?” Emily peeked at me, then continued applying a layer of lime green toenail polish. After a last sweep to her pinky toe, she met my eyes, and a line appeared between her brows. She waved at her boyfriend, nicknamed Bam-Bam, who I’d caught leaving the cabin just as I arrived. “Do you need a tampon?”
A half-laugh/half-sob escaped me. I shook my head and glanced around the otherwise empty cabin.
“Here, sit down.” She steered me to her cot and caught me in a tight hug that released the emotional storm raging inside. My chest convulsed, and tears poured down my cheeks.
“Is it Nick?” She passed me a tissue, then the box. “Never trust those slick athletes. They’re only after one thing. An endorsement deal.”
I blew my nose and dabbed at my eyes. “It’s not him.” It amazed me that Nick had been my worst problem until this morning. Now my entire world had shifted on its axis and I felt like I was about to fall off.
Emily brushed back the damp strands from my temples. “Then tell me. The girls are at swim class, and I don’t need to pick them up for another twenty minutes, unless you want to go down and watch the new lifeguard. His abs are enough to make you forget everything else.”
Despite myself, I laughed. The lifeguard was hot, but not a blip on my radar today. “No. It’s my parents. They visited today.”
Emily’s smile flashed in brilliant shades of white enamel and pink gum. “That’s wonderful—” She stopped herself at my sniffle. “I mean horrible. How dare they? Showing up unannounced. Bringing you care packages that never have the right candy. Interrogating you nonstop about camp and friends. Offering you a lame meal in some townie restaurant.”
“It’s not like that. My mom got a job in Milan.” Damp flooded down my cheeks again. How could she have accepted a position without talking it over with me first? She always said we were a team. That it was us against the world. Only now it felt like it was just me.
“As in Italy?” Emily’s eyes glowed. “I once got chased for five blocks by a pack of rabid local men when I was there. If I hadn’t ducked behind a hanging salami, who knows what would have happened?” She shuddered, but her smile grew wistful. “The boys there are molto bello. Kind of like your Nick.”
“He’s not mine.” I shredded the tissue in my lap. “There’s no chance of that, even if I wanted it. If I move to Italy, I won’t be coming back to camp as a counselor. No more CIT program for me.”
Emily rubbed my arm. “We hire overseas counselors all the time, and besides, you’ll still be a U.S. citizen. And did I just hear you say ‘if’ you move to Italy? Is there another option?”
“Yes.” Tears welled again when I thought of option two. “My dad, who I’ve only seen about five times in my entire life, just offered to let me move in with his new wife and her five kids.”
The screen door banged open, and Alex burst in, her hair dripping, a towel wrapped around her hips.
“Emily. I need to get more sunscreen and—” She looked from me to her counselor. “Am I interrupting something?” she added, then plunked down on the bunk beside us.
I shook my head. I liked Alex, and I didn’t mind her being here.
“Long story short,” spoke up Emily, “Kayla can either move to Italy with her mom and be chased by gorgeous boys on her way to school every day or she could live with her dad’s new family and fight with her five stepsiblings for bathroom cabinet space.” She offered Alex and me some candy. “Tough choice.”
Alex snorted. “I’ll take option one please.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “It’s not like that. My mom is starting a big job, which means more trips away from home. I’ll be alone even more than I am now. Plus, I’ll be in a foreign city where I don’t even speak the language.”
“Hai bisogno di imparare a parlare italiano.”
Alex and I looked at each other, then Emily. “What the heck was that?” Alex popped a bubble and offered me a piece from her pack.
Emily huffed. “See, that’s exactly what I mean. I said that Kayla needs to learn Italian. Especially the swear words. Those will come in handy when she has to duck behind a salami.”
“Why do I feel like I’m missing something?” Alex laughed, and I joined in, feeling a bit calmer.
“Just a story about how irresistible I am to Italian men, but that really goes without saying.” Emily fluffed her tangle of blonde curls and batted her eyelashes. “It’s a curse and one of the reasons I cut up my passport.”
“One of the reasons?” Alex began, then shook her head. “Forget it. Let’s focus on Kayla.”
I smiled in gratitude. My invisibility cloak disappeared around these two.
“My dad doesn’t really want me. He’s barely remembered I was alive until now. Plus, he said his wife asked him to invite me to stay.” I scooted back on the bunk until my shoulders rested against the rough, pine-planked wall.
Alex’s twined her clammy fingers in mine. “He sounds like my dad. Totally self-centered.”
“Maybe he reformed,” Emily put in. “People change. Maybe he really does want to make it up to Kayla.”
I turned the idea over in my mind, imagining a life with a real dad, one who cared I existed. A part of me felt excited at the possibility, but thinking about it made my head spin, like stepping out of the shadows into bright light.
“Even if that was true,” I said, “what if his wife doesn’t really like me or her kids hate me? I’ll feel just as lonely there, or worse, than I would alone in some Italian apartment.”
“Why are you so sure people won’t like you, Kayla?” Emily asked out of the blue.
“Huh?” Her question felt like it needed translating.
“You’re kind, smart, fun to hang out with, and loyal.” Alex smiled and squeezed my hands. “I’ve never understood why you don’t see those things about yourself.”
“Because I’m not,” I blurted, the words coming from a dark place that could only be the truth. As I saw it anyway.
“But you are.” Emily bobbed her head hard—a rapid affirmative nod—that didn’t budge the bangs she’d sprayed into a vertical, ninety degree angle. “Anyone that doesn’t like you is the problem. Not you.”
I shook my head, disbelief overriding the hope their words gave me. “No one really knows me.”
“And whose fault is that?” Alex dropped my hand and pointed at me. “You hardly ever give your opinion or say anything around the Divas. How could they know the real you? I wish you’d been at Emily’s seminar yesterday. It was all about the importance of speaking up. We just don’t do enough of that.”
Emily snorted as she shoved her headband back into position.
“Well, maybe I am the exception,” Alex added with a laugh. “But she shared some great quotes.”
“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud,” Emily intoned, her chin raised. “That’s Coco Chanel, by the way, the woman who singlehandedly revolutionized the powdered chocolate industry.”
“If you change that to fashion, you might have it right,” I laughed. Coco was a fashion icon, and I’d read that quote before in her biography. Somehow, I’d never thought about it in terms of myself. But she was right. It was courageous to speak your mind out loud.
I needed to find a way to do this and soon. The whole world was moving forward without me. If I didn’t want to be left behind, I had to let people know what I wanted.
Soft candles flickered on cloth-covered tables later that night, their light reflecting off the scrolled silverware and crystal goblets in Angelico’s Steakhouse. I inhaled the sweet scent of the fresh flowers in the vase across from me and dropped my napkin in my lap. Coco’s words. I repeated them to myself before looking up and meeting my parents’ expectant eyes.
“So, Kayla.” My father cleared his throat, breaking the silence that had descended after the waitress took our orders. “Have you made your decision?”
I glanced from my mother’s shimmering eyes to my dad’s wary ones. In the gloom, it was hard to read what they were thinking. What they hoped I’d say. Expected me to do. But Coco would have advised me not to consider them. It was my life, and if I didn’t say what I thought, out loud, no one would know my feelings. Maybe not even me.
But I’d spent all day soul-searching and I had a plan.
“I appreciate you coming up here and I love you both.” I returned my mother’s watery smile and the knee nudge my father gave me under the table. “But—”
I paused when our waitress appeared with the bread. She backed away quickly, forgetting the butter, after a quick look at our tense expressions.
“I need more time. Like until the end of the summer. This is too much for me to figure out right away.”
My mother’s mouth dropped open in surprise, and my dad put back his bread roll.
“But Laini needs time to get room arrangements sorted out.”
“And I’m not sure what size apartment to get in Milan.”
My parents spoke over each other, but all I heard was them telling me what they needed. Typical.
I signaled the waitress for the butter dish, slathered some on a bun, and took a bite. The flaky, airy taste overpowered the sour disappointment I felt at their reactions. It was what I’d expected. But not what I’d hoped for.
My lungs inflated with oxygen and courage. “You may be used to me always going along with your plans, and maybe that’s more my fault than yours. But things need to change, starting now. I’m going to take the rest of the summer to decide where to live this fall, and I hope you can support that.”
“Of course, honey.” My mother blew out a long breath. “I would need a two-bedroom place anyway so that you can visit. It was wrong to pressure you like that. I guess I just didn’t want to have to wait.”
I blinked in shock, amazed that she’d accepted my objection so easily.
“Same here, Kayla.” Dad offered me another roll. “But the sooner you tell us, the better. Laini hates waiting.”
I split open the roll, emitting a puff of yeasty steam. “I’m sorry to hear that. But from now on, it’s not just about you. It’s also about me.”
I forced down the rising fear at my father’s disappointed expression. For the first time, I’d spoken up for myself and risked him disappearing from my life. Could I face being shut out so completely? Being on my own with only a part-time mother to care for me?
My knife trembled when I put it down. I might be alone, but I was beginning to see that there were worse things to fear. Like losing myself.
Chapter Eleven
“Are we all familiar with hand signals?” Rob, the Warriors’ Warden counselor, was in charge of demonstrating the basics of bike safety outside the bike rental shop the next morning. All the senior campers were taking a special day trip that would end with a sunset picnic on the Big Creek Trail.
“I learned hand signals last spring when I volunteered at a rest home,” Brittany offered, pushing her bike forward to stand in front of Rob. “One of the residents was deaf, so it really helped us communicate.”
Double-checking the contents of my backpack, I smiled while the rest of the campers groaned. I had to hand it to Brittany, though. She’d never let fear of being wrong hold her back from offering her opinion.
“That’s sign language,” Rob reminded her. “Today, we’re talking about hand signals for bike safety. Let’s run through them so we’re all on the same page. For a right turn, we extend the left upper arm…”
He demonstrated all the necessary signs for us while Brooke inched closer and closer to Nick with her bike. We were all assigned the same basic model street cruiser, but Brooke had fought her way to the front of the line that morning to snag one of the three purple ones. I was trying hard to steer clear of her ever since she’d promised that I’d be sorry for speaking out against her at the dance. Now I stood behind the rest of the Divas so I wouldn’t be too close to Nick.
“She’s totally moving in on Nick.” Nia turned around to point out Brooke’s theatrics. Nia seemed to have appointed herself my new bestie ever since the Divas had helped her escape the Brooke White Fan Servitude Club.
“She has been since the moment she arrived at camp,” I whispered back, trying not to care about that whole drama anymore as I followed Rob’s instructions for checking our bike’s brakes.
I still cared about Nick. A lot. But I wasn’t sure if the Nick that had meant so much to me was still a part of the Olympic athlete with the endorsement deals. I guess I’d know—if he started hanging out with Brooke all the time—exactly how much I’d meant to him. Until then, I had bigger problems to worry about with my mom’s new job.
“Yeah, but she was really upset yesterday when she found out Nick chose you for his commercial over her,” Nia blurted, not even pretending to test her brakes. “She trashes you behind your back all the time.”
I couldn’t decide if I was weirdly curious to hear more or hurt that Brooke was just that mean. Securing the strap on my helmet, I watched the way Nick greeted Brooke in an off-handed way, barely meeting her eyes. I wasn’t the only girl he didn’t trust, it seemed.
“I’m not sure she could do much worse behind my back than she does to my face.” I followed the command to secure our packs to the small rack behind the bike seat, using a short bungee cord to hold down the sack containing extra water and my food ration for the sunset picnic. “I guess that’s a good thing about Brooke. She’s definitely not a hypocrite.”
Sure, I planned to speak up more, but I wasn’t going to put others down to lift myself up. I knew a lot of girls like that, and I wouldn’t be that way. Part of my plan for the rest of the summer was to figure out what I wanted and who I was. How could I speak my mind until I understood those things? But this much about myself, I knew. I didn’t want to be the kind of person who made themselves feel better by bashing other people.
“Um…” Nia didn’t seem to know what to do with my determined optimism. “I guess that’s true.”
Smiling forcefully, I planned to wear my new attitude like a personal armor. Fake it ‘til you make it, my mom used to say about success. One day, I’d feel comfortable with the new me.
“We’ll be riding in teams of six,” Rob shouted, lifting his voice over the dull hum of conversations that had started among the campers since we knew all the bike safety stuff already. “Three boys and three girls to a team, so find your groups and let’s get going.”
The hum of conversation grew to an excited buzz as campers hurried to find a team. Emily gave Bam-Bam a quick smooch and then joined her girls. I thought about how tough it ha
d been for some of the Mermaids and Pirates to pair off that day we’d gone hiking, and I remembered the awkwardness of not having any close friends in those years before Nick reached out to me. Now, I had the Divas. Except the new wrinkle of three girls and three boys on a team made things a little uncomfortable again.
“Come on, Kayla.” Brittany waved me over to stand with her and Rachel. Cameron, Eli and Jake were already with their group.
It would be so easy to follow. Follow. Follow.
My bike was practically steering itself over there, except that I’d be leaving Nia out.
“I can’t,” I forced myself to say. “What about Nia?”
We’d just freed her from Brooke. We couldn’t abandon her already.
“We can go with Hannah,” Nia announced, waving me in the other direction.
Hannah and Julian wouldn’t be separated these days, so that meant Nia and I would be hanging out with Julian’s friends from the Wander Inn instead of the Warriors’ Warden guys.
“Um…” I didn’t mind Julian’s crew. Garrett and Danny were nice enough, but I’d always felt embarrassed around them since Nick and I had quit being friends. It was kind of like I’d broken up with them, too. “Okay.”
“I don’t bite.” Hannah winked at me as she flipped her long braid off to one side so she could get her helmet on. “Much.”
Nia chatted up Danny, a sweet kid who used to spend his whole summer being homesick. He’d loosened up a little and no longer smeared zinc on his nose every day, but he looked wide-eyed at Nia, as if he couldn’t identify what category of camp danger she might fall into.
Ready to ride, I peered behind us and saw that Brooke had somehow convinced Brittany and Rachel to let her join their group. Probably because Nick had stuck with Eli and Jake. It seemed weird that Cameron and Eli weren’t hanging out, and for a split second I wondered if Cam didn’t like Nick because of me.
No. Cam got along with everyone. Besides, I’d made it clear to Cam that we weren’t together anymore.
