Kipper looked closely at Blake. “Are you drunk?”
Derek and Zoe shook their heads in unison. “She got heatstroke in the canoe, but the nurse already cleared her. She just needs to be inside and drink some water.”
Blake kept talking. “I mean, all of those ESFP hate forums… I get it, but I think they’re just filled with jealous INFPs. That used to be me, you know. No more, though. And to answer your question, Kipper, I never drink. It’s against the rules.”
Kipper looked skeptical, but she said, “Okay. Get her some water, though. She doesn’t seem right.” She looked directly at Blake again. “You didn’t hit your head, did you?”
Blake shook her head no.
Ben had never seen Blake like this. It was even worse than when she’d kicked him off the dock and stabbed him with a hot dog stick. He moved to the seat next to her and asked, “Are you okay?” She’d obviously been crying.
Zoe shook her head at him. “She’s fine. She had a few tugs of the swill from Derek’s flask and then roasted in the canoe for a couple of hours. Apparently, she’s never had alcohol before. Between the heat and the moonshine, she’s…well, you can see.”
Zoe put some ear buds on Blake and turned up the volume. Blake sang along to “Wrecking Ball” under her breath. Zoe smiled and said, “Don’t worry, everyone. She’ll be fine in a couple of hours.”
He turned back to his test. If he guessed right, Kipper just wanted to sit around and take quizzes, too. Every girl he knew liked this sort of BS. At the end of class, Kipper scored him. He came up as an INTJ, whatever that meant. Blake managed to hear this and stammered. “God, everyone got something better than me.” Then even more loudly, because of the headphones, she said, “You know who else is an INTJ?” When no one answered, she said, “Mr. Darcy.” For some reason that made her cry again.
George saw the look on Ben’s face and said, “You sure you want to date her?”
At the end of class, George refused to hand in his quiz results, as Kipper requested. He explained, “I’m concerned about sharing private information that could be misused or misinterpreted.”
After class, Ben didn’t even get a chance to talk to Blake. She and Zoe hurried off to get some rest and get out of the sun for a while. Since they got back from their run, she’d been all over the map, either acting like she barely knew him or half drunk in class. At afternoon break, he headed for the Chipmunk Bunk to see if she’d exorcised the demons. Whatever she had, it looked worse than normal heatstroke.
He knocked on the door of the Chipmunk Bunk. They should have called it the nunnery. What did Kipper think was going to happen if a guy set foot in the place? For all of Derek’s actual encouragement of rampant fornication and drunkenness, Ben was pretty sure nothing had happened besides a lot of gaming.
Blake emerged from the cabin looking cool and collected, like she’d just stepped off the set of a photo shoot. Her lips were painted the exact color of a cherry Popsicle. If possible, she looked blonder and tanner than she had half an hour ago.
“Wow, you cleaned up well,” he said.
For some reason that made her laugh. She smiled knowingly and said, “I know.”
Zoe had said that she’d bounce back after time in the shade and water. He hadn’t imagined it would work that fast, but Blake was clearly functioning at 110 percent.
“Fozzie reminded me that we’ve been shirking our trail cleanup duties.” With the inter-camp games, they’d forgotten about it, but technically, they should have gone up there this morning.
With a suggestive grin he said, “We could walk up the trail and clean up some more garbage. That picnic spot up on the hill is pretty trashed. To tell you the truth, I feel like I haven’t talk to you in days.” At least the Blake he thought he knew.
The look she gave him was pretty intense. Like it was the worst thing that she’d ever heard. “Garbage? Why?”
He shrugged. “We have a few hours before the dance. It’s just something to do. Plus, we’re still on cleanup duty.”
“You’re serious,” she said, as if it was just starting to sink in.
“Well, yeah.” She looked more like herself, but didn’t she love trail duty? It was their thing, although come to think of it, cleaning up trash wasn’t the most romantic thing ever.
“I need some time to get ready for the dance.”
She already looked ready for the dance to him. How long could it take to put on a dress?
“Just a short walk?”
She agreed.
On the way to the trail, they passed someone conked out in a hammock. The way the hammock wrapped around them, you could barely see the person. One hand hung over the side along with a few streamers of blonde hair. At the sound of their approach, the person let out a long low zombie moan.
Ben laughed. “That is how I thought I was going to find you after the way you were in class this morning.”
Blake looked toward the groaning zombie in the hammock and jumped. Her eyes widened. “Wow. That looks bad.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure it’s nothing, maybe one of Derek’s victims. I could check on them if you’d feel better.”
He started walking to the hammock to make sure the camper wasn’t actually dying. He must have misread Blake, though, because she stopped him. Actually, she ran the few feet between them and all but tackled him. After he caught his breath, he said, “Damn. You sack harder than some of the guys on the team.”
She smiled all girly-like. “I know.” In a firm voice, she said, “Let’s just leave them. I’m sure they’re fine.” She pulled his hand toward the trail. “What were we doing again…trash pickup?”
“And maybe a little stop in the South Paw,” he said with a grin. As they walked up the trail, he said, “It’s crazy how much has changed.”
“No kidding,” she agreed. A little frustration seemed to be peeking through the cracks of her perfectly polished exterior.
“It’s strange how we didn’t know each other at all before. You’re nothing like the girl I knew from school.” He shook his head emphatically. “Nothing.”
Blake took a step back and stared. She had the kind of look women get when they’re just waiting for you to say something stupid. “Is that right? What’s different?”
“Well, I used to think you were mean, but you’re about the nicest person I know. You’re also not superficial or stuck-up. Everything I thought about you was totally wrong.”
She narrowed her eyes and said, “So you like me a lot better now?”
The fact that he used to think she was stuck-up didn’t seem to be sitting well with her so he backtracked. “It’s not like you were ever stuck-up. I just didn’t know you before. I’m sure we would have liked each other, if we had stopped fighting.” He thought so at least. While they were laying it all out, he decided to ask, “Why were you so pissed at me during the school year? I mean, that was some epic level crazy.”
Her cherry Popsicle smile thinned into a grim line. “I don’t know. I was…very upset.”
With a laugh, he said, “Yeah, I got that.”
For a few seconds, she was quiet. She reached up and tied her hair into a big messy knot and kicked at the ground with her flip-flops. A fine layer of dust settled on her pedicure, cherry red to match her lips. “You know, the whole year, I thought you were having fun. Like it was a game. I thought being mad was an act.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “I was having fun. Now that I think about it, I guess you weren’t really playing along, though.” She looked up from under Bambi lashes and said, “Mallory is always telling me that I’m not very good at reading people. I guess she’s right. I mean, I know she is, but I get so caught up in my own drama sometimes…”
He would laugh her explanation off as crazy, but when he thought of it, that’s what he’d done at camp. He’d turned revenge into a crazy game without thinking about Blake, pretty much the same thing she did last year. Then, that’d turned into making out on the trail.
She was just ahead of him. Maybe.
“I think I get it,” he said.
After a few more minutes of awkward conversation, they decided not to go on a hike after all. Blake insisted she needed a rest before the dance so Ben walked her back to the Chipmunk Bunk. When they passed the half-dead zombie camper, Blake stared intently at the person, her forehead wrinkled. Was she worried?
“Meet at the dance?” he asked.
She nodded halfheartedly.
Something had just happened, but he wasn’t sure what. For the last day or so, she’d been so erratic. He was missing something.
Chapter Twenty-One
Come as You Are
Mallory
“Mal!”
Mallory heard Zoe’s voice and cracked an eyelid. Forgetting she was in a hammock, she sat up like normal and almost flipped the whole thing. “Hey, Zo.”
Sunburned and hungover was not a good feeling. After this morning’s experience, she was never, ever-to-infinity-squared, drinking again, at least none of Derek’s swill. She’d have an elegant cocktail when she was in her twenties. She could see the appeal of that. Or an umbrella drink. When she recalled class, all she could remember was crying because she didn’t want to be a Disney princess.
“Is that really what happened?” she asked Zoe. She was hoping she had some weird false memory induced by stress and alcohol.
Zoe twirled her arm bangles. “You were a total disaster. Ben’s probably gonna break up with your sister after class. You probably scared the shit out of him.”
Mallory cringed. “My head hurts and…ugh.” She looked at her clothes, stained and wrinkled. Her hair felt like the time she’d slept in a bridesmaid’s hairdo, ratted and smashed into a weird shape. She felt as bad as she probably looked. “I’m giving up on boys altogether. I’ve had enough.”
Zoe laughed.
“I’m just going go to be celibate and focus on my education.”
It was almost time for the dance. Ben was probably holding Blake’s hand and walking to the mess hall. She wanted to do something, but there were no good choices. If she chased after him, he’d know she lied and hate her anyway. Through her pain, she said, “Zoe. Go to the dance. I don’t want to make both of us miserable. Plus, who’s George gonna dance with?”
Just to wallow in her misery a little deeper, Mallory said, “What do you think she’s wearing?”
In answer to her question, Blake appeared. She was walking down the path toward the hammock dressed in a peach strapless sundress. How dare Blake come parade around in her cute dress when Mallory was miserable?
She should yell at Blake, but what was the point? Deep down, she knew something like this would happen. She knew the risks of pretending to be someone else. It wasn’t entirely Blake’s fault that she got burned.
Instead of rubbing Mallory’s face in all the fun she was about to have, Blake expelled a breath and said, “You really like him, don’t you?” She looked straight at Mallory and waited for a response that didn’t come.
For once, Blake looked stone cold sober, like she wasn’t high on her own bravado. “I didn’t realize that you really liked him. If I had, well, I don’t know what I would have done, but…” Blake looked at her knees and said, “I’m not very good at this.”
Mallory couldn’t be hearing this right. Her sister almost sounded like she was going to apologize.
“What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry.”
Mallory did a double take. “What?”
Looking as contrite and sincere as a person could, Blake repeated herself. “I’m sorry.”
If she’d just looked out the window and seen a monkey riding a unicorn through camp, Mallory would have been less surprised. Blake never apologized. “I don’t get it. Why would you do that to me? You had to know that he was trying to ask me out and not you.”
“I wasn’t thinking about you. I wasn’t trying to be mean. In my world, it was all about my feud with Ben.”
Okay, that sort of made sense. But still, she knew Mallory liked him.
“You always forget about other people.” A light breeze came up, rustling the leaves and blowing Mallory’s hair in her eyes. She pushed it out of her face, remembering how Ben had done that for her the other day.
“Yeah, my therapist says I’m really self-involved.”
Mallory scoffed. That was an understatement.
“I’m sorry, though. I wish I could take it back.”
“I get sick of always being the one in the background getting stuck with your leftovers. The one time, and I mean it, the one time I had something good happen with a guy, you jumped in and wrecked it.” Well, maybe it wasn’t perfect. He thought she was Blake, but it was almost close to perfect and a few weeks from disaster.
Blake frowned and bit her lip, the same way Mallory did. It was obvious that she was really frustrated. Mallory had to admit, it seemed like Blake hadn’t been mean for sport this time. “I’m trying to fix it. I was talking to Ben and it hit me how bad those pranks really were.” She still looked slightly surprised by that. “And I realized how much you two like each other. I don’t want to screw that up any more than I already have.” Mallory had never seen her sister more serious before. “We need to have each other’s backs. It’s not like Dad’s there for us.”
She gave Mallory a hug. “I’m sorry, Mal.” After a second’s pause, she said, “I’m not going to go to the dance. I’m not sure what you want to do, but I’m going to stay out of it.”
“Really?” A glimmer of hope ignited in Mallory’s heart. Just a glimmer.
“Yeah. I don’t know if you can fix it, but I think you should go to the dance.”
Mallory shook her head and said some mopey, defeatist things, but Zoe wasn’t having any of it. She squared her shoulders and said, “Enough is enough. You are going to get off your ass, put on a pretty dress, and go tell that boy you’re in love with him.”
Mallory shook her head. “No. He’s not in love with me. He’s into some weird combo of me and Blake. He doesn’t even know me.”
“For one, you’re wrong. He’s been hanging out with you. Blake just got here. For two, who cares? Get off your butt and show him who you are now. If you don’t, you’re going to regret it.”
“There’s no way. I can’t go. Look at me.” She gestured to the disaster that she turned into in the last twenty-four hours. “It’s not like I have a fairy godmother waiting to fix me up.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Zoe. “I can fix you up.”
“And I’ll help,” Blake said.
Mallory looked up at her friend and sister. Zoe was right. She had to step up and stake her claim. If she didn’t, no one was going to do it for her. Blake did that effortlessly. If Mallory really wanted to learn from her sister, she needed to stop using her name like a shield, stand up as Mallory, and go after what she wanted.
She didn’t have enough time to take a shower and her hair was a disaster, but Zoe and Blake assured her that wasn’t a problem. An up-do, it seemed, was much easier to accomplish with dirty, ratted hair. As for an outfit, Blake offered to trade. In what must have been the sacrifice of a lifetime, Blake put on Mallory’s grubby T-shirt and shorts. Mallory slipped on Blake’s peach princess dress.
All said and done, she felt like Cinderella, or maybe Lydia Farrow. It might not have been a Regency ball gown, but Blake’s little cocktail dress felt just as fancy.
Mallory felt the energy surge through her. She was going to do it. She needed to tell Ben who she was and how she felt. The rightness of the plan resonated with her. She couldn’t pretend to be Blake anymore. No matter the consequences, the charade was over.
“Will you guys walk me to the dance?” The butterflies in stomach were going crazy. She half wanted to stop, but she couldn’t turn back. Giving up would be even worse.
The inter-camp dance was a much bigger deal than the last dance. Last time, they’d just moved the tables to the side and turned on some music. Tonight, the mess h
all had been magically transformed into something resembling an actual dance hall. No more tables. No lingering cafeteria odor. The crowd, the smell of one hundred mixed perfumes, and the roar of music crowded Mallory’s senses. Nirvana’s “Come as You Are” was blasting through the speakers.
How appropriate, except for the rest of the lyrics.
Mal scanned the room for Ben.
As the crowd shifted, Ben came into view, framed by colorful dancers and a Camp Pine Ridge banner overhead. He was looking around, probably for her. When he caught sight of her a big smile broke out on his face, and he started striding toward her. She heard him start to say, “I was looking for you every—”
That’s when he saw Blake standing next to her. His expression darkened and he looked deliberately from one sister to the other. He shook his head in disbelief. “What the—?”
His reaction cleared one thing up—Ben was clearly not up to speed on the two Blakes situation. He stared at them for a few minutes, then zeroed in on Mallory. His eyes narrowed and he shook his head, but he had nothing to say. He stalked off the dance floor and straight out of the building. Zoe pushed Mallory toward the door. “That’s your cue, girl. Go get him! I’ll be here.”
Her legs moving of their own accord, Mallory ran. At the shore of the lake, she caught up to him. Softly, she touched his shoulder. “Ben,” she said softly.
He turned and gave her a dark look. “Which one are you?” he spat out.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He didn’t say anything, so she let the whole story tumble out. “I was so sick of being me, Mallory, of being the plain and boring sister no one noticed. I wanted to be someone else for the summer, so I let everyone think I was Blake. I just wanted to try being her. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t mean to fall for you.” Mallory didn’t mean to say that last part, but there it was. It hung in there, begging for a response, a response Ben was not going to give her. At least not any kind of response she wanted to hear.
Breaking the Rules of Revenge Page 16
