by Lexa Hillyer
Recognizing one of the many dirt paths that wind through the forest, rutted at the center where years and years of bicycle wheels have passed through, Joy makes her way onto it, following its gradual curve to the left. It’s not the path that leads up to Red Cliffs; it’s another one. She’s pretty sure it’s the one that winds all the way back toward the volleyball area. She keeps following it, feeling dizzier as she goes. The air is thick, so thick it’s not easy to suck it into her lungs. The secret that has been lurking inside her chest starts to weigh on her, making her breathing labored.
The old Joy’s small, pathetic voice comes back to her now, sounding scared. Scared of everything. Always worried. But this is new Joy, and she refuses to be paranoid or insecure or anything that’s going to hold her back. Here she is at the heart of Camp Okahatchee’s best tradition, at the heart of the summer and everything she loves.
She stops walking to hide a baseball mitt in a pile of twigs, then looks up at the dark gray sky between the leaves and branches overhead. She can see the long shadow cast by the mountains in the distance. Only the shadows aren’t where they usually fall. She can’t tell if it’s an illusion or if she’s actually turned around, heading farther from the lake instead of closer to it.
She stops, listening. That gentle lapping sound . . . she can’t hear it.
Okay, time to turn around. She must be going the wrong way. The best idea is to follow the path back the way she came. It must funnel out onto the campgrounds; they all do.
She still has to bury the clipboard and stow Farber’s whistle somewhere, but her head feels hot and her ears are pounding. She really needs a damn Gatorade. She picks up her pace and starts to jog, tossing the whistle up into the branches of a nearby tree. Roots and leaves crunch beneath her sneakers as she traces her way back down the path, through the woods, feeling sweat prickle against her neck, but there’s not enough wind to cool her down. She squints through the mist as she runs. This better be the right way.
The path seems never-ending, and she leaps over a pile of horse dung, realizing she had it all wrong. This is one of the paths used for the riding school two miles down the road. Crap. She knew she was lost.
There’s nothing to do but head off-trail again, back through the bushes. Branches scrape at her arms. Her backpack bangs heavily against her back. One of its straps snags on a tree branch. She stops to disentangle it but is too annoyed. She lets it drop. There’s nothing really important in there. She needs, more than anything, to get back to Ryder, back to her friends, back to the safety of the campgrounds.
She runs faster now, thrashing, feeling that old friend—panic—taking over. Her body’s on empty. Empty. Empty. She slows down slightly and finally stops to lean against a tree, feeling the individual ridges of the bark against her hand like braille, telling an age-old story she doesn’t know the ending of. She looks up. She’s not going to pass out. Not here.
But the sky spins. Her head feels light, like a balloon. She blinks once. Twice. There are stars. Maybe one of the dippers, but distorted, floating across her vision. And then she’s sliding, and falling, and sinking into the black.
21
The rain—just a spray of mist—leaves the taste of salt and aluminum on Luce’s lips as she and Andrew trudge across the wet field and into the sodden sand. She marches with determination, Andrew following silently a few paces behind, to the far side of the lake, where the Okahatchee sailboats are docked at a wide, flat pier.
Since her attempt to test her mom failed—thanks to Tali—it’s time to take matters into her own hands. She hopes the sky, now tinged a deep purple, isn’t about to unleash its looming wrath.
Part of her thinks Andrew is right—she should just leave the whole thing alone. It’s her mom’s business. But it’s too late. It’s already in motion, and she can’t unlearn what she knows. As much as she’d like to, she can’t forget what she saw. She can’t eradicate the truth.
Eradicate, erratic . . . shit. She can’t remember the third word in the grouping. She shakes her head, trying to clear the fog within it, but still she feels numb and light.
It’s quiet on this side of the lake, eerie. Most of the other campers are tucked away inside bunks, or the crafts shed, or the dining hall. A layer of mist sits on the water like a powder puff, and the tied-back sails poke through it at their slanted angles, bobbing slightly, sometimes disappearing altogether into the thick white.
Andrew squeezes Luce’s shoulder while she’s paused in front of the low wooden door. She takes a deep breath and pushes it open.
They find Thom Wilkinson bent over a desk in his office. Past him, there’s a window facing the lake, the pre-storm fog so dense the view doesn’t look real, resembling instead the Rothko of deep plum paint fading into ivory that Luce recently took off her wall to pack for Princeton.
He looks up, hearing the door creak as she enters the room. Andrew hangs back in the shadows of the doorway.
“Luciana,” Mr. Wilkinson says, clearing his throat and sticking a pencil over his ear, tucked slightly under his wavy, some-salt-but-mostly-still-pepper hair. He does sort of look like George Clooney, like some of the girls always say, but squarer and squatter. His button-like nose seems too small for his face.
It strikes her that she must look dramatic, with her glossy black hair damp and clinging to her face, her gray J.Crew V-neck torn slightly, she realizes now, from her quick escape from the storage unit yesterday—after her shower this morning she’d been too tired to pick out anything new to wear.
Her body’s buzzing, like the time she touched an electric fence at a horse farm when she was seven. “I know what you’ve been doing,” she states, almost robotically. It’s what she’s rehearsed in her head the whole way over.
He cocks his head at her, like she’s grown a second set of ears.
“And it needs to stop,” she adds. “Leave my family alone.”
All the color goes out of Thom’s face. He puts one hand on the back of his chair to steady himself as he stands up. “Luciana—”
Luce hastily steps backward, away from him. “No. I don’t want to hear it. I don’t want to know anything. I just want it to be over. Whatever is going on between you and my mom. If you don’t promise to stop, I’m going to tell, and you’ll be forced to leave your job here.” She’s surprised how certain her voice sounds.
He gapes at her for a second, looking exactly like a caught trout.
Then he seems to gather his wits and his eyes become sharper, more focused. And she knows, in that moment, that everything she suspected is correct. He did have an affair with her mother. Is perhaps, in his mind, still having an affair with her. A rush of nerves and anger rise through her and she’s certain she’ll throw up.
“Listen, Luce,” he says, with a nervous look at Andrew, then back at her. “You really don’t have any idea what you’re talking about. I would suggest you head back to your cabin and cool down before—”
“Before . . . before what?” she says, her voice coming out like a squeal. “Before you admit the truth?”
This seems to get under his skin. She’s never seen Mr. W angry before. His cheeks flame. “I really don’t have time for this nonsense. Were you the one who sent that note? I knew it wasn’t— How did you even—”
“I saw you.” Luce’s voice freezes in the air between them, forming invisible icicles.
“Luciana, this is not . . .” He runs a hand through his hair, and then seems to soften, to give up a little, like a sail when there’s just not enough wind to hold the course. “Listen, what happened . . . between . . . between your mom and me . . . it has nothing to do with you. It isn’t your business at all.”
“Not my business? It could destroy my entire family, but you think it’s not my business?”
“Enough!” It’s like the lid popping off a boiling pot. Mr. Wilkinson sweeps his hand across his desk, sending a bunc
h of papers and pens and a stapler tumbling onto the floor. “It was a fucking mistake!”
Luce flinches—she’s never heard an authority figure curse like that. Somehow it shakes her deeply. “A mistake?” Her skin flashes hot as a burning sensation travels down her spine. “A mistake is a wrong answer on a test. Cheating with a married woman? With someone’s mom? That’s not a mistake; that’s low; it’s messed up; it’s . . . it’s disgusting.” She swallows hard.
He shakes his head. “It wasn’t planned, Luciana. You just . . .” He brushes his hand uncomfortably through his hair again, this time dislodging the pencil he clearly forgot was behind his ear. It clatters to the floor, but he doesn’t seem to care. He looks like he’s wilting. “You simply can’t plan for everything.”
“So that’s it? That’s all you have to say?” Luce demands, trying to keep her voice steady.
He looks down. “I’m sorry you got caught up in this, Luciana. I truly am sorry.” He shakes his head, looking at all the items that have scattered on his office floor. “About the whole thing.”
Andrew clears his throat from behind her. “Luce,” he says low, nearly a whisper. “We should just go. He apologized. It’s over.”
“It’s not over, Andrew. Are you kidding me?” she asks, swiveling to look between both the man and the boy, overcome with the sense that they’re conspiring against her, forming some sort of male pact of solidarity. “Sorry doesn’t just make it go away,” she informs them both. “I’m going to have to deal with this—my family is going to have to deal with this—for the rest of our lives.”
Andrew squirms. “Eventually you’ll have to let it go, Luce,” he says softly. “It’s like he said: You can’t plan for everything.”
She stares at him—at the face whose every contour she could draw from memory; that’s how long they’ve known each other. This boy she has loved for so long. “So you’re taking his side?” she says, her voice breaking. She doesn’t even care if she seems hysterical—if the normally sane, über-organized, clean-cut Luce has become a raging, uncontrollable beast. Maybe it’s about time people realize what it’s like when Luce pulls anchor.
“It’s not about sides, Luce. I’m just—”
“It is about sides.” Her pulse is pounding in her ears. “It’s about right and wrong. Don’t you get it?” She doesn’t even know who she’s talking to anymore, Wilkinson or Andrew. “Without sides, without rules, the whole world falls apart. Everything falls apart.”
“Luce—” Andrew tries to reach for her, but she pushes past him, no longer able to breathe in the stifling office.
Andrew calls out to her, but she swivels around. “Don’t follow me. I don’t want to talk to you.”
She marches away, sucking in a deep breath, trying not to cry. Her fingers tingle as though she’s actually disappearing into the fog. It disguises the campus landmarks—tall firs loom all around her, shadow figures from a childhood dream.
The peeling red paint on the old wooden sidings of the cabins seems to flicker, like the whole world is a still-wet canvas. Reality is dissolving around her, and she’s sure that if she reached out to touch anything—the damp, drooping volleyball nets or the striped bark of the skinny ash tree by the footbridge—her hand would float right through to the other side, or she’d find she had no hands, no body, no foothold. She’d find she was floating, like a ghost returning to a long-forgotten former life.
The world feels too silent, too eerie. Her pulse picks up, a panicky thrumming in her chest and wrists. Like she’s entered into the middle of a ticking time bomb—how can she possibly disable it? She needs a pen and pad. She needs a list, dammit.
Infidelity, she thinks. Then, Options:
Confession → divorce
Denial → forced to pick sides or live a lie
She swallows hard, blinking rapidly. Her thoughts come at her in fragments, in action steps.
Affected parties: Me, Amelia, the twins, Dad, Mr. W, Mr. W’s family (?)
Her breath comes short. Think. Think! Who else would be affected by her mother’s transgression? Was it possible her mother would retire early or be forced to quit? All of Camp Okahatchee, she adds to the mental list.
Luce heads straight to her mother’s office, pulled there by an invisible gravitational force. But her mother isn’t there. It’s possible she’s already setting up for carnival night, coordinating the arrival of the rides and the food vendors and the old photo booth—confirming and then triple-checking the tent setup on the Great Lawn and micromanaging everything, even down to the placement of the garbage bins. Marching around with that clipboard and that illusion of order, of rightness.
How is Luce going to return to the present, now that she knows it was all a lie?
Luce slides the key from under the entryway mat where her mother leaves it in case of emergencies—Bernadette Cruz is prepared for anything. Like mother, like daughter . . .
The thought rises to her head, makes her feel hot and dizzy with anger. Wrong. Everything’s wrong.
She pushes into the quiet office, her hands shaking as she floats through her mother’s sacred place, its stillness a cruel joke. It’s like her mother’s gaze is everywhere, stern, telling her that crying is a sign of weakness. Why is it so quiet? Why is it so still? Her body moves on its own, and she’s standing in front of the bookcase, where a picture of her with her brothers, her sister, and both parents sits prominently displayed. It’s in her hands. It’s flying. It’s shattering on the floor of the office.
Books follow it. A figurine. It makes a satisfying clunk on the wooden floor. More, she needs more. Nothing is right. It’s all a lie. Everything. Every bit of it. The neat stack of papers on the desk. Fuck the papers. Fuck the glass jar of pens. That breaks on the way down, too. She’s filled with heat, with purpose.
She grabs for the phone. “Call me sometime!” she screams irrationally, at no one, throwing the entire contraption at the wall, where it cracks the paint.
There are no tears. There’s no pause. She’s swiveling around, looking for her next victim. She’s not a person anymore—she’s not Luciana Cruz—she’s the Terminator, or some character from one of Zoe’s sci-fi novels, charging through the world, bent on inhuman destruction. She grabs the desk lamp, feels its weight in her hands as her arm muscles flex. This one will hurt.
In an instant, she launches it at the window.
“Whoa, whoa!” someone is shouting, grabbing her, but it’s too late. The window shatters. Everything’s broken. Everything’s shattered. Nothing is perfect.
It’s Tali, wrapping herself around Luce from behind.
“Stop it, Luce! What are you doing?” Tali demands.
“You don’t understand!” Luce screams back, struggling. But Tali is strong. “Let go of me!” She can’t be contained. She can’t be stopped.
“Luce. Come on. It’s okay,” Tali chants. “It’s okay, Lu. I promise. It’s okay.”
Her body is still vibrating, but suddenly she’s crumpling into Tali’s arms, and they’re both on the floor. Tali leans against the desk, her arms still around Luce, who feels herself shaking violently. It won’t stop. Luce still isn’t facing her. She can’t face her. Her breathing is ragged and harsh. She presses her cheek against the cool metal back of the desk, trying to take in air.
God. What has she done? Has she lost her mind?
Maybe.
It seems like an eternity passes.
Tali shifts. “I shouldn’t have said you were spying on me,” she says quietly.
Luce sighs, on the verge of laughing for some reason. She moves so both of their backs are against the desk, their knees folded up.
“It’s fine,” Luce says. “Really.”
“What were you doing there?” Tali asks gently. Not Why the hell were you just destroying your mother’s office? Or Since when have you gone batshit crazy?
&n
bsp; Luce sighs again, finding her voice. “I was waiting . . . for my mom.”
“Ah,” Tali nods, even though she can’t possibly get it. She looks around the room—the array of pens and paper and books. The picture frame with its crushed, mangled glass. “So I take it whatever happened, it’s, um, still unresolved.”
Now Luce does laugh. A shaky, deranged sound pouring out of her. “You could say that,” she says, wiping the corners of her eyes.
She turns to her old friend—her only anchor at the moment. If Tali hadn’t shown up, who knows what would have happened, what Luce would have done next? “Why did you come here?” she asks.
Tali bites her lower lip. “I had to talk to your mom about what happened with Shane . . .” Her lip starts twitching then, like it did the night Luce walked in on her arguing with her own mother on her cell phone in her kitchen . . . the night of the camp reunion. Exactly two years into the future from today. She looks up, her eyes the exact color of maple syrup. “Someone set me up. Shitty prank. Probably Rebecca. I think she hates me.” Then she adds, so quietly Luce almost doesn’t hear her: “I think a lot of people hate me.”
Luce sits bolt upright, filled with a new clarity. This is one problem she can fix, one mess she can clean up. “I wrote the note,” she says. “I’m the reason my mom came to Cabin 43.”
Shock and outrage flicker like lightning across Tali’s face, but before she has a chance to respond, Luce goes on: “But I didn’t mean for her to catch you. I had no idea you’d be there. How would I have known?”
Tali squints. “You signed the note with my initials.”
“They’re . . . someone else’s initials . . . too,” Luce admits. Her throat feels thick, and the words have a difficult time coming up and out.
“Whose?”
“Mr. Wilkinson’s.” Luce practically chokes on his name.
Tali’s brow crinkles. “I don’t get it.”
“Believe me, I don’t either,” Luce says. A relieved breath ratchets through her chest and she knows: she’s going to tell.
