Chapter 8 Don’t Underestimate the Power of Faking Confidence
Gigi asked us to do one simple thing: Pick a team name for the game of capture the flag we’re going to play tonight. There’s so little at stake here, and yet we’ve been brainstorming a name for five minutes now—without any success.
“Oh!” Sloane gasps, looking at our team, which consists of the same twelve people we have practice with every day. “What about Let’s Hit It? Or Here to Serve? Get it? Because we play volleyball?”
Maya thinks it over for a few seconds, pressing their lips together before shaking their head. “Hmm…no. That’s not quite the right vibe. It’s already much closer than We Ball, though,” they add, turning to look at Liam with their eyebrows raised.
Immediately he holds up his hands to defend himself. “Listen, it was a joke, okay? By now you should know not to take me too seriously.” Their mouth twitches as they attempt to hold back their smile, but some laughs still escape.
Maya tries to swat him, but he sees it coming and dodges. “You’re such a menace.” Maya sighs.
“And you love me.”
“I’m having a hard time remembering why, but I do, yes,” Maya shoots back, not letting a single beat pass.
Liam’s lips part again, and I honestly think that if we’d let them, he and Maya could banter like this forever. Luckily, Samuel, a person in our group I don’t interact with as much, puts an end to it by clearing his throat.
“Can’t we just pick something like that as our team name? The Menaces?” He shrugs as everyone looks at him. “I don’t know, it seems kind of fitting.”
One of his close friends, Renée, snorts at that, but Maya clearly doesn’t take it as an insult. “It’s perfect,” they breathe out in wonder.
“Finally,” Gigi exclaims as we confirm our group will be called the Menaces for tonight. “This was starting to get painful to watch. But now that that’s settled,” she quickly adds, “it’s time for you to make another decision. God help me.”
There’s a collective groan, which makes Gigi shake her head fondly.
“This one is actually necessary for playing capture the flag, though. I want you to hide this”—she takes a small green flag out of her pocket and waves it at us—“somewhere. It can’t be inside any of the cabins, and it should be on your half of the playing field, but other than that, you have free rein.
Just try to make sure your opponents won’t find it.
“The other team has a blue flag they’ll be hiding, too, and to win this game, you’ll have to find theirs before they find yours,” she further explains.
“When you’re on their side of the playing field, the opponents can tag you, which means you have to freeze wherever you’re standing.
You can be freed only if someone from your own team tags you again.
The same goes for when they’re in your playing field, of course, so you’ll have to both defend and attack.
I recommend dividing your team into those who will try to find the other flag and those who will protect your own flag.
” Gigi takes a deep breath. “Are those rules clear?” she asks, and once we’ve all nodded, she exhales again.
“Great! Then you can go hide your flag now. The game will start in ten minutes.”
Gigi hands the green flag to Noah, who is standing closest to her. She smiles as she tells us, “Good luck.”
And so we begin walking around, trying out several hiding spots. We put the flag down behind some of the many trees surrounding our cabins and even try to shove it underneath one of the small white cottages, but the spots all seem too obvious.
“I have an idea,” Samuel says, reaching out his hand to Noah. My brother puts the flag into his open palm, and without further explanation, Samuel starts to climb the tree we’re standing next to.
His second foot has only just left the ground when Liam breaks through the silence, yelling, “UM? THIS DOESN’T SEEM VERY SAFE?”
Veronica’s hands fly to her ears at the sharp sound, and she glares at Liam. “Your screaming isn’t exactly helping when it comes to his safety. Plus he seems to know what he’s doing,” she says, but of course Liam ignores her, just like Samuel ignores his comments.
“YOU COULD GET HURT!” Liam tries again.
“Veronica’s right. He clearly knows what he’s doing. As long as he doesn’t go too high, it should be fine,” Noah tells them.
This time, by some miracle, Liam actually lets it go, sighing. “Fine.” Still, they watch Samuel with anxious, wide eyes, swallowing hard.
“Sure. Why don’t you just ignore me. Again,” Veronica mumbles next to me, quiet enough so that I know Liam won’t have heard her.
My first instinct is to comfort her. To wrap my arm around her shoulders and say I’m sure it’s not personal, but the truth is that I still don’t know exactly what Liam’s deal with her is.
I’ve only heard Liam’s perspective—how Veronica goes to his school and doesn’t have the best reputation there—but other than that, I really don’t know anything.
Especially anything that could help her feel less shitty.
Besides, hugging Veronica seems even more risky than usual right now. Her jaw is set, and there might as well be flames in her green eyes. It’s as if she could snap at any moment.
Meanwhile, Samuel keeps climbing until he’s several feet above us, totally unbothered by all the chattering below him.
When he stops, it’s so he can tie our green flag tightly around one of the tree’s branches.
“There we go,” he says, and then he climbs down before jumping out of the tree and joining us on the ground again. He looks up at his work with a smile.
It would be hard to notice the flag if I didn’t know it was there, especially since the color is so close to the shade of the leaves that surround it. “This is genius,” Maya exclaims, something I can only agree with. “Like, damn, Samuel, you’re on fire today.”
He smiles at them. “Thanks.”
About five minutes later, when we’re back in the middle of the playing field with Gigi, our opponents arrive.
They’ve called themselves the Red Flags, even though their flag is blue, and they consist of twelve fit white guys around our age.
And, of course, standing in the middle is Daniel Solomon, wearing the biggest grin of them all.
One look at him and I can hear his voice in my head saying, She’s just another cute but boring girl over and over and over again until it gets hard for me to swallow.
Until it feels like something is pushing me into the ground and all the warmth in my body has left me.
It’s probably taken the color in my face away with it, too, because Sloane asks quietly, “Hey, are you feeling okay?”
I turn to her, blinking until she’s in focus. “Yeah, it’s fine,” I tell her, waving it away as if I don’t feel my stomach turning anxiously.
“Alright,” Gigi says after asking both teams if we’re ready. “That means the duel between the Red Flags and the Menaces starts in three…two…one…GO!”
She claps her hands as hard as she can, and immediately chaos ensues.
People begin to run around, some already chasing each other in hopes of making them freeze, while I sprint to the opponents’ side of the field.
There, I decide to hide behind a bush until things calm down a bit. Noah follows right behind me.
The two of us sit there in silence, not wanting to make a sound and risk revealing our location to the Red Flags. Eventually, though, we seem to be the only ones still close to the border, so we dare to walk around, trying to figure out where Daniel and his teammates hid the blue flag.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Sierra,” Noah observes out of nowhere.
“Oh. Yeah.” I swallow. “It’s actually been really nice,” I tell him simply, because I can’t reveal the actual reason for my hangouts with Sierra. Knowing him and his protectiveness over me, he’d immediately try to talk me out of wanting to get back together with Daniel.
Luckily, Noah nods, not questioning a single thing. Instead he shoots me a small smile. “Good. You deserve nice, accepting, decent people in your life. Ones who live nearby. And who don’t constantly make you feel bad about yourself or—”
I give him a look, making him stop. “She really isn’t that bad,” I say.
“Yet you know exactly who I’m talking about,” he counters.
I shake my head at that, trying to ignore the thousands of buried thoughts about Nina I’ve collected over the years.
Thoughts about how she speaks like she doesn’t realize people around her have feelings, too.
Thoughts about how she’s only actually nice to me when I fit into her expectations of me and how, once I don’t, she makes me feel small.
Like she did when I was texting her a few days ago about how I’m having fun at SMASH!
In moments like that, she makes me feel like I’m nothing but a burden to her. Sometimes I even find myself wondering if she likes me at all or if she’s still just trying to get Noah to notice her through my friendship.
But even with those flaws, Nina is still a good friend, right? She might not be perfect, but in the end, she’ll always have my back. I need to be more grateful for that.
“How are things between you and Sloane?” I ask, keeping my voice low so she doesn’t overhear.
Noah immediately drops the previous subject. “Why? Has she said anything about me?”
I stop searching for the flag to give Noah another look. “As far as I know, you two are the neurotypicals here, so I think it’s best if you just communicate with each other and not through the autistic girl.”
Noah blushes, turning back to me with a smile. “I guess you’re right.”
Our conversation is cut short when we hear voices in the near distance. I hide behind another bush, and, again, Noah follows, crouching right next to me.
“Are you sure it’s a good idea for us to stay this close together?” I whisper.
Noah raises an eyebrow at me. “Ellie, come on. I’ve played this game every single summer for years now. Trust me, I’m an expert.”