Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
VICTORIA
L ong after the dance is over, I’m still thinking about Noah dancing under the twinkling lights in his perfectly tailored suit, his hair wild and his eyes bright. I might never forget that crooked smile that spread across his face as he went all in, doing his enthusiastic version of the Carlton dance that will be ingrained in my memory forever.
And what he said to Roxy about me? I’ll never forget that, either.
I’ve nearly drifted off to sleep when there’s a knock on my door—an urgent tap-tap-tap-tap. It takes me a minute to understand that is not the tapping of Noah’s shoes on the linoleum as he does the cabbage patch, but knuckles pounding against my door. By the time I stumble out of bed, the knock has grown louder and a tiny voice is calling my name.
I open the door to find Layla standing in the hallway, her eyes wide. “It’s Priya,” she says. “She’s having an allergic reaction or something, and she needs help.”
We hurry down the hallway as a couple of doors open, the girls’ heads poking out.
Inside Layla’s room, Priya is slouched on her bed, her back against the wall and her feet straight out in front of her. She looks like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Her face is drawn, her lips tight. Becca from across the hall is sitting next to her, holding her hand. When I rush to her side, her eyes flutter open.
“Victoria,” she says. My name comes out like a gasp. She has tears in her eyes, and my heart is pounding like a jackhammer.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “What happened?”
There are three other girls in the room—two more than there should be—staring at us with wide eyes. One of them looks close to tears. Layla’s bed is pushed against Priya’s, piled with pillows. A laptop sits open to a movie and next to it there’s a scattering of candy wrappers and partially-eaten snacks.
“Becca,” I say, snapping back into action. “Go get Sophie and tell her to bring me the first-aid kit.” She nods and hurries out of the room.
When I turn back to Priya, her brows pinch together as she says, “I must have eaten something I wasn’t supposed to.” Her lips are swollen, and there are small red splotches on her neck and arms. I quickly catalog every snack we put out during the dance. We knew about Priya’s peanut allergy and have been very careful about food we brought onto the site. The kitchen staff knew about it, too.
“Do you have your EpiPen?” I remember from our student files that she brought two with her.
She squeezes her eyes shut like she’s in pain, and my heart bangs against my ribs. That first aid class I took before camp started covered how to use the pen, so I can do it if I have to.
“I’m not supposed to waste them,” she says. “It has to be an emergency.”
I don’t want to scare her, but I want her to understand this is serious. “Sweetie, this is a time when you need it,” I tell her.
Her lip trembles.
“It’s okay to be afraid,” I tell her. “But we’ve got this.”
“I don’t want to,” she says, shaking her head. Her breathing is a little labored, and the swelling and red blotches are concerning. She needs the injection. “I’ve never done it myself before,” she says. “This only happened once before, at home.”
I hold her hand. “I’ll help you, okay?”
She squeezes my fingers tight and says, “I hate needles.”
“Me too,” I tell her. “The good news is that this is a small one, and it only takes a second.”
“Here’s her EpiPen,” Layla says, rushing over.
I think through the steps I learned in the first-aid session, then pop the cap off the pen as Priya squeezes her eyes shut again.
“On three, okay?” I ask her. “Right here.” I touch a spot on her outer thigh, right below the hem of her sleep shorts, and she nods.
I count to three in a hurry and jam the pen against her skin, hearing the loud click of the autoinjector as Sophie bursts into the room with Becca.
“We were just watching a movie on my laptop,” Layla tells Sophie, “And then she started wheezing.”
Sophie looks at me and I give her a quick nod. She’s got the portable phone from the lounge in her hand. Her expression’s calm, but I can tell she’s blasting through her mental checklist.
“Priya,” I say. “How do you feel now? Is it still hard to breathe?”
She shakes her head. “Getting better now,” she wheezes.
“Any idea what you ate?” I ask her. “Or how much?”
She points toward the beds, where food wrappers lay scattered by the laptop. “We just pooled our snacks,” she said. “Thought they were all safe.”
“It’s okay,” Sophie tells her, giving me a weary look. “You just rest a minute.” She pulls me toward the door and lowers her voice. “I’ll go get Roxy. You stay here. We need to take her the hospital. The EpiPen is only a temporary fix.”
I nod, shoving my hands into my pockets so no one sees them shaking. “Okay.”
But this is very much not okay. When I take a closer look at the bed, I see a plate with two partially-eaten cookies that I ordered from the bakery and a knot forms in my chest. The most important part of this job was to keep these kids safe—and I failed.
Sophie helps Priya into the back seat of the rental car and then climbs into the driver’s seat. Roxy nudges my shoulder and says, “Good job in there. I’ll call the land line with any updates, but I expect we’ll be there overnight.”
I nod, still clutching the portable phone from the cabin. Roxy waves as Sophie eases out of the parking lot and onto the gravel road that winds down the mountain.
I don’t feel like I’ve done a good job here. I feel like I’ve barely been hanging on, and tonight was the last straw. I’m way out of my depth, and this is my fault. If those cookies caused Priya’s reaction, I’ll never forgive myself. I was so careful when I placed the order, so explicit with my instructions. I thought I’d figured out how to do this job, and I let myself get comfortable, let myself feel like I belonged here. I was distracted by Noah and this tidal wave of feelings, and now I’ve made this colossal mistake.
The perfectionist in me is raging, her argument simple: if I was good enough for this job, for these kids, I wouldn’t have made this error.
“Hey,” Noah says, giving my shoulder a nudge. “How about I make us some tea.” He’s changed into a white tee shirt and jeans, his hair wild from raking his hands through it.
“I need something way stronger than tea,” I mutter, knowing full well that option isn’t on the table.
“Well,” he says. “Under normal circumstances, I’d be able to help you with that. But since we’re at a kids’ camp, I can offer you tea, juice, and hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows.”
“Fair enough.” I follow him into the boys’ cabin, but go no further than the lounge area and kitchenette, which is the mirror image of the girls’ cabin. Everyone’s asleep again now, or at least in their rooms. We did a final check before Sophie rushed Priya to the hospital, because of course some of the kids had heard us and asked what was happening.
While Noah fills an electric kettle and searches for the cocoa, I collapse into one of the two wooden chairs at the dining table. When he sits across from me, his knee bumping against mine, I don’t have the strength to move away.
Or maybe I just need to feel that tiny connection.
“Listen,” he says. “This is not your fault.”
I blink at him, shaking my head.
“I know that’s what you’re thinking,” he says, “because you have that line between your eyebrows that’s deep enough to grow potatoes.”
“But it is my fault,” I counter. “Obviously.”
He cocks his head to the side in challenge.
“In her room. The girls were eating the cookies I got at the bakery. I saw them on the plate.” The words come out in a rush, a painful confession.
“But you told the baker about all the allergies we have here.”
“I sure did. They assured me no peanut products, no tree nut products.” I rest my face in my hands. “I shouldn’t have taken a chance.”
The kettle whistles and Noah fills our two mugs with hot water and cocoa powder. He pushes one toward me when he sits back down, then sprinkles a handful of marshmallows into each mug.
“Even if it was the cookies,” he says, “accidents happen. You took every precaution you could.” His eyes are steady on mine, daring me to disagree.
“But I brought the killer cookies here!” I shout.
He sighs, sitting back in the chair so that his long legs stretch to fill the space between us. “That’s the adrenaline talking,” he says. “And perhaps some anxiety. And also that stubborn little part of you that thinks she’s never allowed to be human and make mistakes.”
I open my mouth to argue and he holds his hand up. “Stop.”
What really stops me, though, is the way he has effortlessly summed up my life. Because that’s me in a nutshell: a people-pleasing perfectionist who would rather shrivel up and die than be told she’s done something wrong—and worse, hurt someone because of it.
“Is it possible,” he says, “that she ate something else that caused the reaction?”
“The half-eaten cookies were right there by the laptop, Noah. It doesn’t take Sherlock Holmes to?—”
“But,” he interrupts again. “You said there were other candy wrappers there, too. Every kid here showed up with a bag full of snacks from home. I can promise you that.” He stirs his cocoa, the clink-clink of his spoon driving the words home.
“Priya’s so careful about what she eats,” I argue. “She reads the labels.”
I’m infuriated that he won’t let me wallow in my shame. The punishing thoughts are racing through my brain like jagged bolts of lightning.
“Here’s a wild idea,” he says. “Why not focus on how great you were with her and how quickly you took charge. We’re very lucky you were here to help.”
When I give him another doubtful stare, he says, “Sophie told me all about how you saved the day.”
“Sophie exaggerates.”
He leans closer to me. So close that I can smell that clean cedar-like scent that’s entirely Noah. He stares at me hard, his warm hazel eyes both a comfort and a challenge. “Hear me when I say this. That was scary for Priya, and you made it so much easier for her.”
Tears well in my eyes, but I can’t look away from him when he’s staring at me like this, pinning me with words I desperately want to believe and daring me to push back.
“But that’s what you do, Vic,” he says, his voice a low rumble. “You put people at ease. Even in the toughest moments. You make them feel seen. And loved.”
I shake my head, fighting back tears. I do not want to fall apart in front of Noah. Not in this musty room, in a wobbly old chair, in my threadbare pajamas with my messy hair and racing thoughts. “I’ve been kidding myself with this,” I mutter. “I should just withdraw my application and take the stupid job in Florida.” Even as I say it, my gut clenches at the thought—because I’d finally let myself believe that this camp could be part of my new path.
And I let myself believe that Noah could be part of it, too.
But mostly, it’s because I want them both and I’m not convinced I can have them.
He scoots his chair closer, then slides his hand over mine. “Why do you look for reasons to beat yourself up?” he says, his voice more tender than I’ve ever heard it. “This is the one thing I’ve never understood about you.”
“The one thing?” I ask.
“Okay, fair,” he says, trying for levity. “Maybe it’s just the biggest. You’re this brilliant, gorgeous, compassionate juggernaut of a human who’s completely fearless when it matters. You help people feel comfortable in their own skin. You inspire people to be better, dream bigger. You’re the strongest, most resilient person I know, and no matter how difficult things get, you never let them harden you. There’s not a single person on this earth I’d rather spend my summer with, and I just wish there was some way I could give you a glimpse of what I see when I look at you. And yet the things you tell yourself—” he shakes his head, “if anyone else said such mean things to you, I’d haul them out into the woods and leave them there for the coyotes to chew on.”
I blink at him, feeling something coil in my chest that I can’t ignore anymore. “Then why wasn’t I enough for you?” I ask. “Back then.”
His brows pinch together. “Is that what you think? How could you ever, in a million years, believe that’s true?”
My throat feels like it’s closing up, but I force the words out anyway. “Because that night on the beach. You let me go. You didn’t choose me.”
“Victoria,” he says, and the sound of my full name on his tongue makes me shiver. The way he drags each syllable out, like he wants to taste them—it turns those butterflies in my chest into a frenzy. “It was never because of you—it was all me. I panicked. I had these complicated feelings and was so afraid of doing the wrong thing.” He shakes his head. “When you kissed me that night, I nearly lost my mind because I’d been wanting you to do that forever. But I didn’t want to be deceptive. I wanted to break things off with Samantha first, before you and I took it any further.” He lets out a heavy sigh. “I thought I owed it to her to go on that trip we’d planned, to keep my word and somehow let her down easy—but that was wrong. I was trying to do the right thing, but instead I wrecked it all.”
“What happens if I’m not enough for you now?”
He stares at me, and for the first time I can recall, Noah Valentine is speechless.
Or perhaps, he doesn’t have an answer.
“Vic, you’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Why are you so afraid to believe that?”
My heart squeezes in my chest. He’s the best thing that happened to me, too.
He cups my cheek with his hand, then slides his thumb along my cheek. “Sweetheart, you’re it for me. I don’t know how else to convince you.”
All those feelings and worries I’ve pushed down are swirling in my head like a hurricane. Do I want this camp job because I truly love it, or because it allows me to be close to Noah? And if things between us were to fall apart, would I still want this job?
The thoughts are just too overwhelming. I want to believe him, but my brain won’t let go of this fear that he’ll decide he’s wrong and I’m not enough after all. It feels like the walls in this cabin are closing in.
“I just want you,” he says, taking my hand in his. “That’s what I know for sure. The rest, we can figure out together. If you want to take that job in Florida, then I’ll move to Florida. I go where you go.”
“How can you say that?” I shake my head. “You’re making this decision too fast. You’re not thinking this through.”
He shrugs, sliding his thumb over my knuckles. “I know what’s most important to me. I don’t need to think about it.”
“I need some space to breathe,” I tell him. “Some time to think about this.”
He draws my hand to his lips and says, “Then take it. I’ll give you all the time you need.”
His tenderness cracks my heart in half. He deserves an answer and I hate that it feels so simple for him and so complicated for me. As much as I want this to work between us, I can’t shake the thought that I’m letting my feelings for him affect how I feel about my next career move.
I hate that my instinct is to run from him. I’m tired of running from people when things get hard—I don’t want to make that mistake again. Instead, I want to run toward my new future because I’m excited about it. Instead of fleeing something out of fear, I want to chase something out of love.
I kept my old job because of my fear of how my parents would be disappointed, fear that I wouldn’t find a better job. I stayed with Theo because I was afraid there wasn’t someone better out there, or that the life he offered was the best I could hope for.
Now I see how wrong that was, and I don’t want to make that mistake again.
My heart wants Noah to be part of that future, but my brain’s busy telling me all the reasons it won’t work. With all of these thoughts buzzing through my head, I’m certain I’ll say the wrong words and wreck us in a way that can’t be fixed.
So I need to step back. Slow down. Breathe.
“I can’t talk about this anymore right now,” I tell him, standing. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
He nods, following me to the door. “Let’s talk tomorrow night. When all the kids are gone and it’s just us.”
“I won’t have an answer by then.”
“That’s okay.” He gives me a tiny smile. “We can talk about anything. Or nothing. That part doesn’t matter.”
I nod, even though I’m not sure that’s true.