31
“GOOD MORNING, EVERYONE!”I chirped, marching into Sunrise, still damp from the lake.
Sam was on her hands and knees on a yoga mat at the foot of her bed, rounding and stretching her spine, as Nick and Trey sat across from each other on Nick’s bottom bunk, both staring at their phones with giant cups of Dunkin coffee in hand.
“Hello, sunshine,” Sam said as she curled her chin up toward the sky.
“Everyone okay in here?” I asked hesitantly, giving Nick a questioning look. He replied by shaking his head, which I knew meant I shouldn’t ask.
“We’re good,” he said with a tight smile, though the flat tone of his voice suggested otherwise.
“Good, because I’m about to make you eat your weight in ice cream,” I said, giving Nick’s shoulder an affectionate squeeze as I brushed past him toward my bed, yanking my duffel bag off the floor. I rummaged around for a change of clothes, pulling out a rumpled but clean white tank top and sliding it over my head before grabbing my notebook out of my bag, eager to glance at my now-filled checklist. “I’m going to head up to the dining hall to meet Marla, if anyone wants to join.”
“What’s your boyfriend up to?” Nick asked as he shuffled by on his way to the bathroom. I haphazardly shoved my letter and list half under my pillow and gave him the stink eye. His tone was purposefully nonchalant, like he was goading me into responding.
It worked.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said pointedly.
“What is he then, your lover?” Sam asked as she slowly pushed herself up off the floor. “We all saw that very Mack and Clara date that took place yesterday.”
“I mean, some of us were even on it,” Nick teased.
Sam’s choice of words caused my stomach to drop like an anvil. There was no way she could know what was in my letter, but hearing her say “lover” out loud was like a sudden shot of reality to my lust-clouded brain. My letter. It was sitting here in this very bunk, and I still hadn’t told anyone about it.
I pushed aside the guilt I felt over my intentional silence. What good would it do bringing it up now, just when we were about to leave?
“I’m going home on Saturday to Boston, he’s moving back to California,” I said matter-of-factly, and deliberately shifted all of my focus on neatly rolling my clothes up as tightly as possible to avoid her knowing stare.
“I didn’t ask for a geography lesson,” she pushed. “And besides, you’ve known each other practically your entire lives.”
I’d been foolish to think she’d drop it that quickly.
“It’s just a… thing,” I said, flustered, as I hopped off my bed, moving toward the door. “For the week.”
I had to find a way to end this conversation, and rushing out of there seemed as good a solution as any. The more I talked about Mack, the more I was forced to confront the unsettling truth: that even if I was leaving him soon, my feelings for him weren’t going anywhere.
“You know, being a thing,” Nick repeated back to me, though his eyes were wistfully directed toward his boyfriend, who was still tuning the whole world out, “could really mean anything.”
“Is that some sort of riddle?” I asked.
“I just mean that you guys get to decide what you are to each other,” he explained, sounding melancholy. “If you want to be together, that’s enough.”
“I appreciate the love advice,” I said as I headed toward the door.
“I’ll walk with you,” Sam said, following me out. “The doctor said that the more I moved, the sooner this baby will come out.”
When we were far enough along the path to be out of listening distance, I finally opened my mouth. “What the hell is going on with Nick and Trey?”
“Are you trying to avoid talking about Mack?” Sam asked with a small, knowing smile as she tucked her waves back into a claw clip.
“Yes,” I said, and she coughed out a laugh. “But seriously, what was that?”
Sam shrugged. “They were fine last night. Then something switched after we got coffee. I haven’t pushed it.”
“Instead you’re just grilling me about Mack.”
“Exactly!” she said, throwing her hands up in the air. “It’s way more fun.”
We meandered down toward the Village, just like we had on my first morning back here, only a few days ago. I’d never understood how quickly life could change in a matter of a few short days, until this week.
“Since you asked,” I said, glancing down toward the boathouse in the distance. “This is going to sound like I’m twelve, but I like him. Like a lot. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt this way about someone before. Is that crazy?”
Suddenly I was reminded of a specific flash of memory from my childhood, during summers spent off the coast of Rhode Island with my cousins and our parents. The adults would watch us from beach chairs as we dodged the waves in the water, shrieking any time one clipped us.
It had felt wildly exhilarating and euphoric, and even a little bit dangerous, with the threat of the undertow always looming, like it could suck you under at any second. These feelings swirling inside me for Mack felt exactly like those rapturous moments of terrifying joy I’d experienced at that beach.
“That’s not crazy, Clara, that’s called being in love,” she said, pausing to take a sip of water, rubbing circles at the base of her belly. “Have you told him?”
I narrowed my eyes intently as if I could somehow detect some sort of pregnancy problem just by studying her. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“The baby just has the hiccups.” Sam’s eyes could morph from jewels to daggers in an instant, and she leveled a look at me, part affectionate, part annoyed. “Here.”
She grabbed my wrist and tugged me toward her gently, placing my hand flat against the low part of her belly. “Can you feel that?”
For a moment everything was still, and then, there it was, a steady thump I could feel against my palm.
“Holy shit!” I looked up at her, mouth dropped open.
“Hiccups are weird,” she explained with a shrug.
“Oh my god, that is wild,” I sputtered, looking between her face and the spot where my hand rested against her belly. It was so implausible—this little person hiccupping inside my best friend’s body—that I almost couldn’t believe it.
“It is.” Sam laughed, and pulled my hand into her own, releasing it with a squeeze. “And now I need you to stop worrying about me. I’m fine. You know that, right?”
“Yes, I do,” I admitted, though I didn’t feel completely confident in my answer.
She toddled forward down the path, and I followed.
“Good. You’ll know when I really need your help, okay?” she said. “Back to you. Telling Mack you’re in love with him. Go.”
I will?I wanted to ask. There was still a part of me that felt like my friend radar was broken after all these years, and I didn’t entirely trust it to work like I wanted. But I could tell Sam was done with that part of our conversation.
“I told him I liked him,” I clarified, stopping at the circle of Adirondack chairs that sat together in front of the Village, facing the waterfront. “And I do. A lot. But I’m leaving. He’s moving. This thing between us literally can’t go anywhere.”
“Hmm.” Sam tapped her lip, eyes flitting in exaggerated thought. “Or you could just say, ‘Hey, Mack, I’m falling in love with you’ and not worry about all that other stuff?”
Somehow, though it was surely impossible, I felt the actual skin of my throat tighten. “I said like,” I corrected. “Not love.”
Sam shook her head at me as she marched past, heading toward the dining hall. “Oh, I know exactly what you said.”