3. Rebecca
My stomach bottoms out as I blink, hoping I somehow misread the email the first time.
But when I focus on the words, they say the same thing: Overall score: 78. Final course grade: Fail.
No. No, no, no. This can’t be happening. The room spins around me, and I’m glad I’m sitting. My stomach twists with nausea. I take a deep breath and hold it, then breathe out and repeat.
It does nothing. My heart is still racing, my fingers tingling the way they do when I’m on the verge of a panic attack.
I stick my head between my legs, the way a high school guidance counselor taught me to do when I’m on the verge of passing out. It just makes the nausea worse, though, and the last thing I need is to throw up.
God, what am I going to do?
This has been a possibility for weeks now. It’s almost like I knew this was coming. So, the fact that I don’t have a backup plan already in place is just one more failure.
My hands start to tingle again, and I look around my small living room. Five things I can see. The coffee table, its shiny surface. The plain, off-white walls. A pile of textbooks against one wall. My favorite armchair with its worn fabric. A sweatshirt folded on the couch next to me. My shoes by the door.
I hold another breath as I move through the exercise. Four things I can touch. Three things I can hear.
With the sheer number of coping mechanisms I’ve learned in order to deal with my anxiety, you’d think I’d be better at handling it by now. But I make it all the way to one thing I can taste—the coffee from earlier today—and I don’t feel any better.
A text message flashes on the screen, and I tap on it, hiding the grade report for a minute. It’s already burned into my mind.
Study group
Anna: Scores are up! How’d you all do!
John: 82 *smile emoji*
Carrie: 77 but passed the class!
Anna: 85 *fire emoji*
Carrie: Wow, you go girl!
Andrew: 84. Solid work, crew.
How do I respond to this? Do I respond?
The four of them are all moving on to their third year. They’ll have a week or two off to take their boards and then I won’t see them frequently, if at all, once they start their clinical rotations in July.
Maybe I can just quiet-quit the group. It’s not like they need me for their studies at this point. Would they even miss me?
I wait for one of them to ask me directly how I did, or to message me outside the group chat, but nothing comes. Maybe they assume I’m away from my phone, at the bar or celebrating somewhere like most of our class.
But there’s a part of me that wonders if they actually ever liked me or if they just put up with me. Maybe they don’t really care at all. Either way, it doesn’t really matter. I’m on my own now.
The four of them are moving on, and no one in my new second year class will want to involve themselves in a study group with someone repeating the year. Maybe it’s not fair, but that’s how it is.
Med school is kill or be killed, and no one is going to hitch their rope to a sinking ship.
* * *
One glass of wine isn’t enough to make me forget the disaster that is my life right now. I eye the bottle beside me with pursed lips, considering a second glass, but I’ve never been much of a drinker. Two glasses would just give me a hangover.
I slouch back on the sofa with my phone in hand. There has to be something I can mindlessly scroll through to make me feel happier. Pictures of Golden Retrievers, maybe. Kittens?
When I open my phone, however, I find myself searching for Camp Winnie. The days I spent there as a camper and counselor were the happiest of my life. Just looking at the pictures can bring back some of those feelings, and I need that now, more than ever.
But as I scroll through the website, something comes over me, and before I know it, I’m dialing a phone number.
“Hello, Camp Winnie, Lois speaking,” a pleasant voice answers after a few rings.
And it’s a voice I recognize, one I’ve heard so many times over the years that I almost dissolve in tears right there.
Lois has been the front office person for years, if not decades. She’s the face of Camp Winnie in so many ways—the person you see when you check in, the voice on the other end of the line when you call.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Hi. Could I, um, speak with Brett?” I cross my fingers. I’m not even sure if Brett will even remember who I am.
“Oh, of course, love. May I tell him who’s calling?” A faint scratching noise in the background suggests that she’s working on paperwork while answering calls.
“It’s, um, Rebecca Patel. Becca.”
“Oh, Becca!” Lois chimes, immediately recognizing the name, the same way she remembers everyone. The scratching comes to a halt. “How are you, honey? It’s been too long since we’ve seen you here. How are things going for you?”
“Good,” I lie. Lois doesn’t need to know all the dirty details. “How are things up there?”
“Oh, you know. It’s always a cluster the few weeks before summer starts. I’ll get Brett for you. He’ll be just tickled pink to hear from you.” Lois puts me on hold.
I consider just hanging up. This was a stupid idea. I have no idea what possessed me to call in the first place. Camp Winnie is my happy place, the place I think about when I’m searching for comfort. Maybe I was trying to get closer by dialing the phone. But now I’m not sure what I’m going to say.
Plus, Lois knows it’s me, and there’s a good chance that if I hang up, she’ll find my number and call me back.
Before I have a chance to make up my mind, a deep voice comes through the phone. “This is Brett.”
“Hi, Brett. It’s Becca Patel.” Camp Winnie was the one place I ever went by a nickname. It was like it was my secret identity.
His voice conveys his ever-present smile. Brett is scary as shit when you’re a camper in trouble, but he’s a big teddy bear to those who know him. “Becca. It’s been too long. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m good. I, um…” How do I explain this? I’m not sure I even know why I’m calling. I fucked up at med school and now I need something to do over the summer to keep my mind off my shortcomings. Or, I need to go back to the place where I feel most like myself. Or even, I need to be somewhere I feel in control.
Brett, being Brett, seems to understand me without the need for words.
“Well, it’s great to hear from you. Any chance you’d be interested in coming up here for the summer? Even a few weeks, if you could. Even a week would help me out. We need a few more counselors.”
My heart leaps. There it is. My opening. But my body freezes, and I can’t respond.
How am I going to explain my summer plans to my parents? Or to anyone else, for that matter? I hadn’t even figured out how I was going to tell them I’d be starting my third year late, spending the first six-week rotation redoing my pharmacology class.
Now, I don’t even have that to occupy me this summer. I’ll just be biding my time until it’s time to start second year all over again.
But maybe this is my out. I can hide away at Camp Winnie for the summer and keep my failure to myself until I’m ready to deal with it.
Rebeccamay be in deep shit. But Becca can go have a rockin’ summer.
“Becca?” Brett says, jerking me back to reality.
“Sorry. Lost in my thoughts for a minute there. You were saying?” Smooth, Becca.
Brett chuckles. “I swear, with all the last-minute things I’m trying to get done, I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached. I was just trying to convince you to come help us out for a few weeks. I know it’s totally out of the blue, and I’m sure you have plans.”
“You know what?” I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, feeling better already, more in control. “I’d love to come up for the summer. I’ll do whatever you need.”
“Seriously?” Brett’s voice rises an octave in his excitement. “That’s honkin’ amazing, Becca. Seriously.”
I’d forgotten about the weird camp words. The ban on cursing while campers are around has led to the development of some creative adjectives over the years.
“Staff week starts in… a week? And then the campers will be here shortly after that. I can email you the contract and all that jazz. When can you start?”
I scroll through my calendar while I think. I can definitely be there in a week. Honestly, I’d kind of like to be there as soon as possible. “I can be there… maybe not tomorrow, but the next day, actually. Would that be okay? I’m happy to help out with preseason, setting things up, all that.”
“That would be awesome if you can swing it. Counselors are staying in the Ladybugs cabins for staff week. You can just claim your spot early. Send me a text when you know for sure. I can’t wait to see you! Any questions?”
I shake my head, then realize he can’t see me. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Cool. Now, I have another person who’s going to be coming up, too, I think. He’s new to camp. If you both decide to join us for the summer, would it be cool if I give him your number? It would be great if he could benefit from your years of experience here.”
“Yeah, sure. I’ll let you know soon, okay?”
“Awesome sauce. Talk soon, Becca.” With a beep, Brett ends the call.
I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Everything about school can sit on the back burner for a while and I can just relax.
At some point, I’m going to have to talk to my parents, let them know that I’m repeating my second year. But I just can’t bring myself to do it yet. We don’t talk often, so they wouldn’t find it strange that they haven’t heard from me in a few days, or even a few weeks, which will buy me some time to accept it myself.
I’ll deal with what I need to over the summer. I’m not going to stick my head completely in the sand. But I’ll relax, focus on something completely different from medicine for a while. And when I come back to start second year again, I’ll be ready to start fresh.
I nod to myself. This is a great idea.
Knowing that I’ll be in the Ladybugs cabins as soon as I get there adds to my excitement. That’s always been my favorite unit on camp. Not only is it where I spent three amazing summers as a counselor—Ladybug Cabin 2, all three years—but it’s close enough to the lake that you can see it from the window and hear the gentle waves of Lake Winnipesaukee along the shore.
Plus, the Ladybugs are near the swing. Everyone on camp knows the swing, and almost everyone who’s worked at camp has a memory involving it in some way.
It’s a bench swing suspended between two pine trees with a clear view of the lake. My first memory of the swing was taking a cabin photo there when I was… nine? Ten? Four of the girls squished together onto the swing itself, while the rest of us stood around it. I think I still have that photo somewhere.
Then as a counselor, sitting there in the dark while the campers were falling asleep. I even had my first kiss on that swing when I was fourteen. It was as romantic as you’d imagine two fourteen-year-olds can be, and we were interrupted by the counselors almost as soon as his lips touched mine.
As the memories rush back, I know what my decision is. I think I knew what I was going to do as soon as I called Brett, honestly. Excited, I type out a text.
Brett
I’m in for the summer! I can’t wait to get there.
*thumbs up emoji* *sunglasses emoji* Yes! Can’t wait to see you.
God, I can’t wait. I find the camper packing list on the camp website, because that’s always a good place to start, and head into my bedroom. In a flurry, I pull a large plastic bin out of the closet to use as luggage. It’ll hold tons of stuff, and it’ll double as an animal-safe storage bin to hold snacks after my clothes are put away.
I fold my t-shirts and shorts carefully as I stack them in the bin, then add some long pants, a couple sweatshirts, and a jacket. It’s summer, but it gets cold, especially toward the end of the season.
I peek at the packing list to make sure I’m not missing anything. Hiking boots, check. I set them next to the bin along with a few water bottles and a travel mug. Two pairs of flip flops, one for the shower and one for the beach. Swimsuits and towels, check, check.
I’ll need sunscreen and bug spray, but I can pick some up along the way.
By the time I load it up, the plastic bin is so heavy that it’s tough but not impossible to carry to my car. I shove it in the backseat of my Jetta and wrestle with it for a few minutes before it fits. I’ll need to pack up my toiletries in the morning and probably bring a laundry bag with some of my dirty clothes to wash up there, but we’re mostly finished packing.
I slam the trunk with satisfaction. Day after tomorrow. Camp Winnie, here I come.