As usual, I let all the other girls go ahead of me in the shower. I have had the luxury of not having any specific place to be immediately following breakfast all summer, so I’m usually the last one to arrive at the dining hall. Although, over the last week, Miller has insisted on waiting for me so we can walk together. He’s not waiting for me this morning so I assume he still needs some distance.
I go through the line and fill my plate with scrambled eggs, bacon, and fruit. Filling my cup with orange juice, I find my friends and take a seat between Carrie and Pete. Everyone is quiet while we eat, which is weird. As a group we are never this quiet. I’ve almost finished my breakfast and Miller still hasn’t shown up, so I break the silence and ask if anyone has seen him.
“I saw him early this morning,” Matthew finally says. Eyes are shifting all around the table, making me nervous.
“So … where is he?” I ask.
“Do you want to tell us what happened first?” Pete asks, resting his arm on the back of my chair and scooting a few inches closer.
“What do you mean? What’s going on?” My chest tightens as I narrow my eyes in confusion.
“Miller’s gone, Kinley,” Matthew says cautiously.
“What do you mean he’s gone?”
“I mean, I woke up to find him zipping his duffle bag closed and walking out the door. I stopped him and asked what he was doing, but he didn’t really have an answer. He just said to tell you he was sorry, and to give you this.” Matthew pulls a small envelope from his back pocket and slides it across the table to me. My name is drawn beautifully across the front. “Oddly enough, he gave me a letter to give to Cal, too.”
I stare at my name, scripted delicately on this plain, white envelope. There are loops and curls and long, drawn-out lines that form each letter. I’ve never seen my name written so beautifully. My head feels full as I lose myself in this interpretation of my name. My chest rises and falls, and my eyes blur everything in my periphery. I rest my mouth against my fist and allow myself a daydream to picture Miller’s hand, clad with a sharp pencil, moving across the envelope with the precision only he can expertly execute. I think about how long he had to say my name in his head while he drew.
And then I consider the moment I left his thoughts.
“Are you going to read it?” Pete asks.
“She’s not going to read it here,” Carrie answers defensively.
“Do you need us to give you some privacy?” Amy asks. “Let’s give her some room, guys.”
They all stand and begin to clear their dishes. “Did you give the letter to Cal yet?” I ask Matthew.
“Not yet,” he tells me.
“I’ll give it to him.” I finally break my gaze with the envelope and look at Matthew as I extend my hand to him.
“Are you sure about this?” he questions protectively.
“I’m sure.” Matthew takes the letter for Cal out of his other back pocket and places it in my hand. Cal’s name is written hastily across the front of the envelope in ink from a pen that was clearly on its way out. My mind runs wild with the possibilities of what each letter holds before fear settles in.
Kids are beginning to trickle into the dining hall for arts and crafts when I finally break myself away from boring a hole in the two envelopes in front of me. Amy and Tiffany have set up in the back of the room, allowing me my own little world. I reach for my dishes and realize that someone has already cleared them for me, an act I was completely oblivious to.
I grab the letters, shove them in my pocket, and make a slow bee-line back to The Lodge. With each step I contemplate whether I’ll just leave Cal’s letter for him on his bed, or give it to him in person. I decide that I can’t risk one of his a-hole roomies getting ahold of Miller’s words so it’s best to hand deliver the letter … but not before I read mine first.
With the letters still tucked into my pocket, I close my bedroom door behind me and tuck my leg under me as I sit on my bed. I take a few cleansing breaths before I remove the letters and lay them on the bed in front of me. For just a single moment I’m tempted to read Cal’s letter, too, but the feeling is fleeting. It would be such an invasion of his privacy, and I’m not totally sure I want to know what Miller had to say to Cal.
I tear open my letter slowly, staring at the open flap for a good thirty seconds before I reach in a pull the folded paper out. I prepare myself for whatever Miller had to say and unfold the letter. It’s not a long letter by any means, and my heart aches just a little at that. I suppose I was hoping for a long, detailed explanation of why he left without saying goodbye, and reassuring me of his feelings for me.
Kinley,
I know I’m a total ass for leaving like this, and I don’t expect you to forgive me. But after last night I just couldn’t stay. Between knowing what happened to Kara, knowing Cal was a part of it, being in the actual location where it happened, and my conflicting feelings about how you defended Cal, I just couldn’t stand to be in this place for another minute. Clearly I have a lot to sort through. Good thing I have a standing appointment with my therapist, huh? I don’t want to say goodbye because in my soul I know this is not the end of us. I just don’t know when our next hello will be. I’m going to miss you beyond words. Stay brave and strong like I know you are. Thank you for letting me be a part of your life. I will never be the same.
Always,
Miller
I take my shoes off and crawl under the blanket and curl my body. I can’t believe he left. Why did I have to open that stupid book? If I had just left it alone I would have met up with Miller last night and then he’d still be here right now. I close my eyes, not caring about anything else; not my job here, not my goal of traveling the world with Mom, not Addison. I close my eyes and all I want to do is forget about Miller Conrad because thinking about him is just going to break my heart.
I wake to the movement of someone sitting on my bed. When I open my eyes, Addy is staring at me with soft eyes. I really don’t need her pathetic sympathy right now. I can already hear her lame attempt at creating camaraderie with me by saying that Miller was no good and that he didn’t deserve either one of us. What she really wants to say is that if I had just left Miller alone like she told me to, none of this would have happened.
“Go away, Addy,” I tell her, pulling the blanket up and closing my eyes again.
“I just wanted to check on you. I heard about Miller leaving and … um … I know you’re probably upset,” she says quietly. I open my eyes and look at her. She’s fidgeting with her fingers, picking her nail polish off haphazardly, her habit when she’s uncomfortable.
“I’m fine. Go away.”
“I don’t want to go away, Kinley. I want … I want to be here for you. You’re hurting and that … It makes me sad, too,” she says.
I look at her through narrow eyes, unsure if I can believe anything that she’s saying. Addy has never offered to comfort me on my own terms. It’s always been about a quick fix so that I don’t interrupt her groove and make things inconvenient for her. I’m hesitant to say anything because I can’t trust that it’s not a scheme just to get me to bounce back and take my place a few steps behind her in her shadow.
“You want to be here for me,” I say suspiciously. I sit up and lean against the headboard, balling part of the blanket up close to me as some kind of strange force field.
“I do,” she replies quietly. “I know you, Kin, and I know this is hard right nowbut I think the best thing for you is‒‒”
“You don’t know what’s for best me.” I cut her off quickly. I have a newly implemented zero tolerance policy for her delusions.
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t. You still don’t get it. You think you know what’s best for me, but you don’t. And you talk out of both sides of your mouth. One minute you’re kicking me out of us rooming together so I can be on my own, and the next minute you’re telling me what I have to do for you and that I should stay away from Miller,” I say cal
mly. I’m not going to get worked up and yell at her, but I’m also not going to back down.
“Well, it turns out I was right about Miller,” she says in her pretentious tone.
“Oh, please! You’re only saying that because he chose me over you and you can’t stand it. You have spent our entire lives trying to change me. You look at me and you don’t see your beautiful reflection and that bothers you. It embarrasses you. You look at me and you see the inconvenience of having to explain my existence, make some kind of excuse for why I don’t look like you.” I push the blanket off of me and stand with purpose. I was furious and angry with Addy the night Cal told me about her plan, but this moment feels different. Clarity and determination take shape with every word. “Well try this on for size: YOU don’t look like ME! And while I may not be a size four and be able to pull anything off the rack and make it look good, I’m happy with who I am. I don’t spend my days longing for people to look at me and find my body desirable because I’m more than that. I’m more than you’ll ever know. Miller looked at me and saw me. He saw my heart and my soul. I wasn’t invisible to him like I am to you.”
Addison stands up and faces me from across the bed. “You’re not invisible to me, Kinley,” she says, shocked by my accusation. She blinks rapidly while her brow creases.
“Really? Then prove it.”
“I … uh … What do mean prove it? I just told you that you’re not.” There’s the Addison I know. Her tone is drenched with irritation that I would require her to step up and actually back up her words with action.
“That’s what I thought.” I shake my head in final acquiescence to the reality of the situation. “Until you can prove to me that you really see me and understand me … and accept me … I can’t be around you.” Like the calm after a storm, my voice is eerily quiet and low. “I’ll get a ride to the train station and go back to the city. By the time you get back to school I will have moved out.”
“Kinley,” she begins to plead.
“I’m done, Addy.
“Kinley? You in here? I just came to check on you,” Amy says as she comes down the hall and into our room. She sees Addy and me in what must look like a stand-off and begins to excuse herself. “Oh, crap … sorry …”
“It’s okay, Amy. I was just leaving,” Addy says sadly. I don’t reply or even move a muscle. Miller said I was brave and strong and that’s what I’m going to be. If I’m going to find and claim my identity apart from Addison, I can’t back down, not even for a moment.
Addison swallows hard and collects herself before moving to the hall.
“That was kind of intense,” Amy says as she sits on her bed next to mine. “You okay?”
I take a cleansing breath and plop onto my bed. “Yeah, I think I’m going to fine. I’m going to move out of the dorm I share with Addy. It’s time to separate myself from her … figure out who I am.”
“That’s awesome, Kinley. I’m really proud of you,” she says with a sweet smile. She twists her mouth to the side and then bites her lip.
“What is it?” I ask, seeing that’s she’s contemplating something.
“I want to ask about the letter from Miller, but I don’t want to be insensitive and nosey,” she answers sheepishly.
“It’s okay. He, um, he’s going through some stuff right now and just felt like he needed to go home,” I tell her. I can’t tell her about Miller’s sister or Cal’s connection to the terrible incident that summer. I also can’t tell her that I’m completely heartbroken about him leaving. He says that it’s not goodbye, but when you don’t know when, or really if, you’ll see someone again, it’s goodbye.
“Oh, well that doesn’t sound as awful as I was afraid it was. I’m sure you’ll talk to him soon, you know, once he figures out whatever he needs to figure out.” I give her a small smile and ambiguous nod. I don’t tell her that I’m sure I won’t be hearing from him anytime soon. He’ll have to track me down since we hadn’t exchanged information yet, and with as conflicted as his feelings are for me now, I doubt he’ll be searching for me. “Did you give Cal his letter yet? Any idea what’s in it? Weird that he would have a letter for Cal, too,” she muses.
“No. I don’t know. Could be anything, I guess.” I try to sound clueless, but the reality is that Miller’s letter to Cal can really only be one of two things: a strongly-worded, scathing report of how Miller is going to avenge his sister, or Miller’s poetic realization that Cal was just a child himself that awful night, and that he doesn’t hold Cal responsible for Kara’s demise. “I’m going to give it to him at lunch.”
“Uh … you slept through lunch,” Amy says with a small laugh.
“Holy crap! What time is it?” I sit up quickly and grab the alarm clock from the table that sits between my and Amy’s beds. “It’s one o’clock!”
“Chill out! I told Mr. Fellows you were holed up in here editing pictures. He told me to tell you he was turning the Wi-Fi on so you can upload at will!”
“You are a lifesaver! Okay, I better give Cal his letter and then get some actual editing done.” I stand up and grab Cal’s letter after I fold up my letter and shove it in my pocket. It’s a long walk to the rock climbing wall, giving me more time than I really want to think about Miller. I didn’t mean to betray him. I wish I had had more time in the moment to think about what I was saying. I was just trying to keep Miller from murdering Cal, but all I did was hit the kill switch on where things were going with Miller because Miller thinks I was siding with Cal.
I approach Cal silently and give him the letter from Miller. He doesn’t say anything either, which is for the best because as this point I don’t know that I won’t break down and cry hysterically from all the emotions swarming inside and overwhelming me.
The rest of the day is spent honestly holed up in my room, editing pictures and uploading sets of them as I go. It’s a good distraction from obsessing about Miller, but some of them are difficult to look at, the ones by the lake in particular because Miller and Addy are in a few. I do my best to avoid pictures with them, or Cal, but that’s not always possible. There really are some great shots of each of them working with the kids.
Professional. Stay professional, Kinley.
Despite their efforts to engage me in cheery conversation, I sit silently with my friends at dinner. I pick at my meatloaf and mashed potatoes, eating slowly, eventually giving up when I’ve eaten only about half. I’ve successfully edited all but seventy-five of the three hundred pictures worth editing. I took almost five hundred pictures, but not all of them are suitable for what Mr. Fellows wants them for. The kids are leaving tomorrow, and I decide that some parting shots of the kids would be a good idea. Who doesn’t want to see their kids crying because they’re going to miss their bunk mate from summer camp?
Honestly, at this point I’d take pictures of ants marching if it kept my mind off Miller.
Another evening of avoiding my sister and, well, everyone kind of, and I do my best to fall asleep with hope that I will wake one more step away from the day Miller left, and one more step closer to not feeling like crap about it.
As was the case last year, and I assume every year, the emotions are running high among the campers as they gather at the buses. Some of them are headed to the main gate of the camp to their waiting parents, while others will be taken to the train station and sent off in different directions with one of the lead counselors from that city escorting them.
I’m snapping pictures of hugs and tears when I see Margaret. She’s about to board the bus for the train station when she sees me. She smiles and steps away from the open door, walking toward me with her arms stretched open wide.
“Thank you for everything, Kinley,” she says, squeezing me tightly.
“I don’t know what I did, but you’re welcome,” I tell her.
“You stood up for my weirdness, which, strangely enough, made me not as weird,” Margaret tells me, pulling away from our embrace to look at me. “I never had the courage to do
that for myself because I never thought anyone would accept me. You helped me know that it’s okay to be weird because that’s who I am. I feel like maybe I can go back to school and decide that I’m okay because there are people who think who I am doesn’t suck.”
I smile at Margaret’s epiphany. “If by weird you mean smart and awesome, then yes, you’re totally weird. And I’m glad you’re embracing who you are. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you’re not awesome,” I tell her. “You’ve got an envelope with my address on it so use it. I’m changing dorms when I get back so it might take me longer to get it, but I will get it.”
“Definitely.” I wrap my arms around Margaret’s small frame and rest my head against hers. I’m really excited for her. If she can just hold on to the bravery, that knowledge of how great she is, then she’s going to be just fine.
The irony of crediting me for her newly discovered courage is not lost on me. Of all the ways I could have ever helped anyone, becoming courageous is the last thing I would have ever thought. But … now it’s Margaret’s turn to be my source of inspiration. If she can gain the courage she needs to be strong in who she is, then so can I. It goes beyond a strongly worded encounter with my sister. It’s about setting out to rediscover and redefine who I am.
I feel myself stand a tad taller and my resolve strengthen. I know now that it’s not just about me moving out of the dorm I share with Addison. It’s about creating a whole new life, being aware of myself and the people around me. I know there are interesting people back home and at school that I haven’t given the time to because I knew Addy wouldn’t approve, friends of my own I could have been making … a life I could have been building.
And, maybe, if I can take the time to reestablish myself I’ll have the courage to get over Miller.
I watch as the buses pull away, just now aware of the other counselors huddled around and waving goodbye. Mr. Fellows has his arm around his wife as she wipes her tears. It’s an emotional time for them. They love these kids and are passionate about the camp. It’s hard to watch the kids go, especially as there is a whole class of campers they won’t see again.
As I Am Page 20
