Chapter Seventeen
Sadie
It’s all fun and games until somebody gets sent home.
To be fair, I gave them both multiple warnings. Reminders about the rule and the consequences of breaking it. But catching two of my youth staff making out at the archery range during lunch was not on my bingo card for the Fourth of July.
Unfortunately for them, this wasn’t their first infraction, so I told them to pack their bags while I called their parents to let them know they’d be coming home early.
Even confiscating a handful of firecrackers and lighter would have been better than sending staff members home because of a rule that I am also knowingly breaking.
I wanted to hide away in the office for the remainder of the day to avoid Oliver, but I had responsibilities around the camp. Including a new handful of things I had to take over until I could redelegate what those two campers had been in charge of. Those few extra tasks gave me an excuse to turn and walk the other way anytime I saw Oliver before dinner. Gave me a bit of extra alone time to stew in my tumultuous thoughts.
How can I keep going with Oliver when I just sent home two kids for breaking the same rule? The rule I was so adamant about at the beginning of the summer. The one I started to skirt around like it was merely a suggestion.
Is it because of the Sunny Girls and our text thread? Brooke has her fairytale in California. Meg has a Hawaiian hottie. Chloe, Ava, and Maggie are all on their way out of Singleville, too. All my friends are getting their happily ever afters and that makes me feel entitled to one, even though my job has a definitive line when it comes to relationships?
Or is it because Oliver’s attention blinded me to everything else? It felt so nice to have someone looking at me—wanting me—after so long of being the overlooked one, that I was willing to do anything, including bending and then breaking the rules, to keep it going.
That first day away from camp with Oliver made me bold. Too bold. I began bending the rules even further, allowing us to hold hands and kiss while we checked our phones at Cell Phone Rock. Blurred that line too far, and even though we went to the effort to hide our purpling, someone must have figured it out or seen us somewhere and thought, “If they can do it, so can we.” And look where that got us.
After ignoring Oliver’s hopeful eyes as I scanned for a place to sit at dinner, I hole up in the camp office, hoping to avoid any more conversations with him tonight. I need to get my head on straight and figure out what I’m going to say to him before I can talk to him.
When the noises of the after-dinner camp activity wind down and everyone heads back to their cabins for the night, I slip out of the office and make my way up to Cell Phone Rock on a more unused trail that snakes through the thicker underbrush away from the lake. Hopefully, Oliver will look for me in the office after curfew, leaving me with enough space to figure things out.
Tomorrow.
I’ll talk to him tomorrow.
But tonight I need to be alone to figure out…everything.
I don’t even turn my phone on when I sit down. Because what good are phone notifications today? I’ll undoubtedly get a handful from the Sunny Girls—all happy and bubbly because they all seem to be finding their special someones this summer—but I don’t have anything to say back to them. Yesterday, I might have. Yesterday, when Oliver and I were soaring on the path to maybe becoming something more than just a summer camp fling. Yesterday, when I hadn’t bothered to come up to Cell Phone Rock because everything was good and there was no reason for me to want to be connected to the world outside of Camp Brower. Everything I wanted was within these wire-fence boundaries.
I barely register the fireworks down below when they start lighting up the dark sky. Every firework I felt with Oliver over the last few weeks turned to lead weight the moment I sent those staff members home this morning. What good are more fireworks that ultimately meant nothing?
“Where have you been today? I need to talk to you.”
The summer heat around me fails to warm the ice that fills my veins at Oliver’s voice.
Tomorrow. This conversation was supposed to happen tomorrow.
I can hear the softness and the concern and the happiness in his voice. Everything that makes that lead in my stomach churn with anxiety. Oliver’s hand lands lightly on my shoulder, sliding across my back to grip my far shoulder. It sends a shiver of pleasure up my spine, but I shove it down and dodge the kiss he tries to press to the top of my head.
“Oliver, please.” I slip out from underneath his arm and stand, putting distance between us. “Don’t.”
The fireworks are a distant pop and crackle. Still facing away, I hear the ground crunch beneath his feet and the rasp of cloth on stone as Oliver sits on the rock I just vacated. I sense his confusion rising at my back, but I don’t turn around. I turn over the words I’m not ready to say in my mind.
“Sadie,” Oliver says. Calmly. Softly. Not at all like he thinks I’m crazy for dodging everything I’ve been desperate for whispers of over these last weeks. “Come here. What’s wrong?”
And it’s that question that makes the tears immediately jump to my eyes, like they hurdled every blockade I have in place. Because I don’t want to have this conversation with me blubbering like I’m heartbroken over the reality I find myself in.
I am. But putting up a different front would be nice.
I turn, putting us eye to eye. Because Oliver at least deserves that.
“We can’t do this anymore.”
“Can’t do what?”
“The touching. The kissing. The purpling. It has to stop.”
“Why? No one knows. No one’s seen us.”
And in an instant, my sad, weepy self—that part of me that is devastated that I have to give up one of the last things that has finally made me happy—gets booted out, replaced by a dry anger. “Why?”
Oliver nods.
“WHY?” I don’t mean to raise my voice, but the anger that replaces my sadness has a mind of its own. “Because I sent home two staff members today. Two youth staff who had been given warnings to stop purpling, and they continued to do it anyway. Staff members who looked up to me as an example, and who I let down by being a complete hypocrite.”
The fireworks behind me underscore my vehement words, sparking along with the anger crackling through my body.
“I have to run short-handed for the rest of the summer because they purpled. What do you think would happen to this camp if we were the ones who were sent home for breaking the rules? Because we have been, Oliver. We haven’t been bending them, we’ve been snapping them like twigs.”
“Sadie, we’ll be fine! My parents won’t care—”
“But I care!” An unexpected ball of emotion jumps into my throat, cutting off my rant. That half second of pause is enough for tears to spring to my eyes, and I swallow down that ache and continue. Because Oliver needs to know. Needs to understand.
“I don’t come back every summer because it’s fun. I come back for these kids. To give them a place to grow and develop and become better people! I come to set an example, and I’ve failed them!” I failed them.
My lips wobble, and I press them together to hold back the sob that’s clawing its way up my throat. My next words come out as a whisper so thin it’s nearly overpowered by the sound of the aspen leaves. “I can’t be the reason the kids don’t come back next year. I need Camp Brower to succeed. “ Because if it doesn’t, what were the last ten years of my life for?
The good-natured smile that’s always on Oliver’s face falls away, replaced by an expression I can’t read. Say something! I want to rage at him. I’d rather he yell back, give me some sort of reaction instead of this stone-faced silence. But if I open my mouth, I know nothing coherent will come out.
His hands flex where they’re resting on his thighs, but I keep my focus on his face. The expressive face that was so familiar barely a moment ago looks back at me with a stranger’s expression.
I tilt my face up to the stars and try to will the brimming tears back into my eyes. A deep breath steadies me enough for me to open my mouth.
“I’m sorry,” my voice breaks, “I’m sorry, but we can’t—I can’t.” I heave another shaky breath, feeling so close to coming apart completely.
But Oliver remains silent. Only the rippling crackle of distant fireworks breaks the quiet, steady rhythm of the forest around us.
“Say something,” I whisper, not daring to look down. If I did, would I find a new expression on that blank face that will be the killing blow to my fragile emotions?
“Then it doesn’t matter what I wanted to talk to you about.” The steadiness of Oliver’s voice surprises me, and I force my wobbling lips into a tight line and drop my chin to look at him. Oliver taps his phone on one of his hands, then his thigh, before tucking it into one of the pockets on his cargo shorts. His head dips in a small nod, and in a smooth motion, he stands, tucking his hands into his pockets.
He said something about needing to talk to me. A sentence that had gone in one ear and out the other because my mind was too full of its own problems.
I look up into Oliver’s face, hoping to see even a fraction of the heartbreak I’m feeling, but he’s either fine with this whole thing, or is better at masking it than I am. The only sign that it’s not just another day for him is his lack of smile and a tiny crease between his eyebrows. But is it disappointment in me? In the situation? Or is it another emotion altogether? I wish I had more time to learn all of his intricacies, but there’s no point in wishing for that now.
That blank mask cracks for the tiniest sliver of a second as he steps back, putting Cell Phone Rock between us. A glimmer of sadness flashes across his eyes, but it’s gone before I’m even really sure it was there.
“Bye, Sadie.”
I grapple with my overwhelming emotions as I watch Oliver turn and disappear back down the half-hidden path. Gripping my tears tightly in a mental fist, I give myself a shake. I hold my heartbreak tightly until the ache in my chest eases a little—enough for me to think clearly again and begin regretting the way I spoke to Oliver.
Tomorrow. I’ll talk to him tomorrow. I’ll clear everything up. When we’re both more settled in our emotions.
Tomorrow,I tell myself as I turn back toward the fading fireworks below.