Chapter Six
Then
Fifty Days Before the Fire
I’ve always believed that everything looks better in the summer.
Something about the heat gives the world a stillness and a calm that it doesn’t usually have.
As we walked to the mess hall that night, the four of us dressed to the nines in varying shades of pink, I was hopeful. Excited. Steph and Margo were here, and I was certain that everything was about to change. I felt it, pulsing beneath my skin—a deep sort of knowing that I couldn’t explain.
We called tonight’s party the Night Before, and it was a big event, as far as summer camp dinners went.
As the name suggests, it was always the last night before the campers arrived.
The staff would get all dressed up, and the cooks would make us an elaborate, three-course dinner.
Some of our alums and donors would come, too, and my mom pulled out all the stops.
It was as close to fancy as we ever got at the Cove.
Steph had let me borrow (practically forced over my head) a hot-pink dress that was gorgeous but entirely unlike me. She’d even sat me down on her bed and applied blush to the apples of my cheeks, promising that the colors matched perfectly.
Though she’d only arrived this afternoon, I was already learning that she was impossible to say no to.
The counselors, lifeguards, and other college-aged staff always sat together at a few long tables in the very back.
Wes preferred the one right by the kitchen doors so that he could pop back in at a moment’s notice.
Now that his parents—the longtime head chefs—had retired down to Destin, he was the longest tenured member of the kitchen staff, albeit the youngest. He basically ran the whole show back there.
Even still, my mom had been adamant that he get the Night Before off like the rest of us.
He was just a little bit obsessive about making sure things were going smoothly without him.
I took a seat, then felt a brief surge of dopamine when Steph dropped down next to me.
She immediately started asking for the names of everyone at the table, greeting them all with the gusto of a seasoned politician.
Within seconds, she was holding court, polling the rest of the college staff on their favorite camp desserts and the best places to connect to Wi-Fi.
“Well, look who it is,” someone drawled in my ear, and my attention snapped to Trevor, who was pulling out the chair beside me.
His dark brown hair was wet, sticking up in all directions, and he smelled like mint and salt water. “I was hoping I’d snag a seat next to you.”
I felt my internal temperature rise. Trevor had started coming to Dread’s Cove three years ago, the summer after my freshman year of college and the summer after his junior year.
He’d hung out with an older group back then, though he was the only one of them who’d returned this year.
I’d never stared at his abs, as Chelsea had claimed, but I did think he was one of the cutest guys I’d ever seen.
Not that I would have done anything about it, of course, because I’d always been dating Wes.
There’d been one moment, though, between us. At the end of last summer. The kids had gone home that morning, and the rest of the summer staff, including me, were preparing to head out the next day. Back to school, back to our off-season lives.
The day was brutally hot, and I’d snuck out to the lake for a post-lunch swim—slightly frowned upon, considering how much work had to be done that afternoon. I’d asked Wes if he wanted to join me, but he’d only shook his head, disappointed at the thought of shirking responsibility.
Trevor, on the other hand, had clearly had the same thought as me, and we’d both laughed when we saw each other on the dock. “Our little secret?” he’d said, and then he’d winked, and it was like I’d been electrocuted.
He’d smiled, grabbing my hand and pulling me with him. Then he’d jumped in, put his elbows on the edge of the dock, and said “I’m waiting” in a voice far too close to velvet. As hot as it was that afternoon, I’d shivered.
And even though Wes was still my boyfriend, I wasn’t thinking of him at all.
I was only thinking of the feeling of Trevor’s fingers interlaced with mine.
I blinked, stretched a smile across my face, hoping he couldn’t tell that I was playing that memory back now, as I had far more times than I would have liked to admit over the past year. “It’s good to see you.”
I didn’t miss the way his bright green eyes coasted over me, into the lower-than-usual dip in my dress.
“Well, I think congratulations are in order. How’s it feel to be a graduate?” he asked.
“Amazing. I’m glad to be back for the summer.”
“For the summer, or forever?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. The word forever had been on my lips, poised to agree with him, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it.
Maybe it was the way he was looking at me, with so much naked interest. Like he would be hanging on every word I said.
I wanted to give him something good to hang on to.
Something exciting, in the way that he was exciting.
So, I surprised us both: “For now.”
Trevor’s eyebrows shot up. “Whoa, really? Not trying to follow in your mom’s footsteps? I thought that had been the plan since, like, conception?”
I couldn’t see her, but I could sense Steph beside me, listening, even as she talked to Garrett. It made me feel bold, powerful. I wasn’t used to feeling that way. “Forever is a long time.”
“So, what are you going to do instead, little rebel?” he pressed, his mouth lifting in a smirk. I didn’t have a good answer to this, of course. The plans for my life had long been set in stone.
My business degree had been to take over the operations. My years of being a counselor with all age groups had given me the training I needed to handle every type of child. My love for this place, my mother, and my family had made it the easiest thing in the world to be excited about.
And yet, over the past year, I’d been second-guessing all of it. I hadn’t told anyone, and I hadn’t planned to. Until now, it seemed, with the heat of Trevor’s arm just barely pressed against my shoulders. I shrugged, going for coy. “You’ll have to wait and see. I’m still considering my options.”
It felt like the cool, unbothered thing to say, though I was neither of those things. I was a girl with a plan. It was written into my DNA. I tried not to think about what my mother, or Chelsea, or Wes would do if they’d heard me talking like this.
Trevor, however, seemed to like this answer, because he raised his water glass to clink with mine. “Here’s to not being tied down.” Then he winked at me, that same way he had once before, and my stomach dipped in a way that I knew would become a problem.
—
After dinner, I wandered outside. Wes and some of the other guys were nursing beers at the end of the dock, and I raised a hand to wave. He caught my eye and grinned.
An arm looped through mine. I turned, expecting Chelsea but instead seeing Steph. Her cheeks were flushed from the heat and the freely flowing wine.
“All right, spill it,” she said, nudging her head in Wes’s direction. “Is this the summer you win him back? Should we make a game plan? We could probably use the lifeguard to make him jealous. He seems to like you just fine.”
“Oh, God, no,” I said. “You have a lot of catching up to do.”
“All right, then, tell me everything,” she crooned. We sat down on the edge of the dock, dangling our toes in the water.
“We’ve been friends since we were kids,” I began. “We started dating when were fifteen, and it was just—simple, you know? Easy. But I don’t know. Not to sound like a cliché, but there was something missing.”
We’d always had a great time together. He’d take me out on the lake on his days off, and we’d sit around and plan our fantasy renovations for the Cove, when we both inevitably took over as coheads of camp—like my mom and Rig.
Only we’d be married, have a family of our own.
We’d bring a blanket and leftover desserts that he’d snuck from the kitchen, and he’d kiss me as the sun went down, telling me how lucky we were to get to spend our lives here.
It’s you and me, he’d say. Forever.
I’d rest my head on his shoulder and say it back.
In a lot of ways, the two of us made sense.
We both liked things that were simple, without nuance.
We were risk averse. Wes had been the one who’d helped me decide to go to University of North Georgia—it was close by.
I could come back on the weekends, whenever I wanted.
It was a big school, but not too big. The safest choice.
He always helped me make the safe choice, and I was grateful.
But as my senior year began, something shifted in me. I started avoiding his texts, putting off calling him back. I told myself that I was busy, that I needed to focus on school. The fall came and went, and I realized that I was dreading going home. I was dreading seeing him.
That’s when I knew I had to end it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t care about him. I just couldn’t shake the feeling of two green eyes resting on me on that final day of summer. How alive I had felt that afternoon with Trevor. I’d never once felt that way when Wes had looked at me.
When I came home for winter break, I’d asked him to talk down by the water. I told him it was over, and he’d been floored. I’d left out Trevor, of course, knowing there was nothing that would do but hurt him. Nothing had happened between us, but I’d wanted it to. That felt like reason enough.
Wes told me that he didn’t understand. He told me he loved me, that he’d been planning on proposing next summer. He hadn’t cried or yelled, but his whole body was trembling. And then he’d left me standing alone, with a sunken stomach and a guilty conscience.