“Do you think they intentionally crammed it in every corner?” Steff said, leaning against a broom handle.
I paused, standing in the middle of my mattress with a handful of two-ply. “Yes,” I said. “I think the whole thing was done to make our lives as difficult as possible. Don’t be surprised if they also crammed it in your shoes, shampoo bottles, or any other random place they could find.”
“Found snippets in my makeup kit this morning,” Brie said, nodding. “Ruined the only foundation I brought out here. My face is the real victim.”
“You stole that foundation from me, anyway,” Jess said, scrunching her nose. “Guess karma finally rolled around.”
“You never wore it,” Brie said.
“Maybe I never wore it because you took it before I could,” Jess said.
“Okay,” I said, flickering my attention between them. “You two are supposed to be thinking up revenge plans, not arguing over foundation. We’ve got breakfast in approximately ten minutes. Please tell me you’ve thought up something by now.”
“I have something in mind,” Jess said, grabbing toilet paper off the ground. “But it requires some baby oil, some duct tape, and a large tarp.”
“We aren’t trying to kill them,” Brie said, laughing.
“I’m not trying to kill them,” Jess said. “I just want to harm them a little.”
“With baby oil, duct tape, and a tarp?” I said, arching a brow.
“Slippery floors,” Jess said.
“And how exactly does the—” The bell rang outside, drawing my attention. “Never mind,” I said, setting a trash bag near the door. “Hold that thought and tell me later.”
“But it’s brilliant!” Jess said.
“I’m sure it is, but those boys will be heading for food and I don’t want any of our plan leaving this room.” I grabbed a handful of toilet paper, tossed it in a trash can beside the bed, and headed for the door. When I crossed the threshold outside, most of the cabin two guys stood on the road below.
Smiles graced their faces, amusement running rampant.
“Just wait,” I said, glaring at Grant. “Payback will be worse.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, watching me.
He held two travel mugs today, one his usual and the other an iridescent shade. He handed me the iridescent one. The bitter smell of coffee piqued my senses.
“Bribery will only get you so far,” I said, sipping.
“This isn’t a bribe, it’s a peace offering,” he said.
“Same thing.” I sipped the steaming liquid. The hazelnut undertones burned their way through my mind—Nikki’s favorite flavor.
“Either way, it isn’t working,” I said, shaking away the memory. “My girls are bitter. You could bring me Starbucks and it wouldn’t change a thing.”
“Good, because there isn’t a Starbucks in a forty-mile radius,” Grant said, nudging me.
I nudged him back, my eyes on the mess hall. “I was up past one, trying to get the room situated enough it was sleepable.”
“See this,” he said, rubbing his pointer finger and thumb together. “It’s the world’s smallest violin.”
I hit him in the arm and he laughed.
“I could report you for violence,” he said.
“Report me and you’ll only be making things worse for yourself,” I said.
“Ooh, I’m scared,” he said, grinning.
“You should be. You just started a war.”
He sipped his coffee again, eyeing me over the rim. “Right. Okay. Just remember to put your hostility aside long enough to be a decent team member in the counselor basketball game. We can’t bring that drama to the team.”
I choked on my coffee, warmth draining from my face. “Um, I don’t play basketball,” I said.
“If you’re a counselor, you play,” he said. “It’s mandatory.”
“Mandatory?!”
“Did you not read the welcome manual?”
I shot him a side-eye. “There was no welcome manual. This is some plan you’ve concocted in your head. Freak out Alex before nine o’clock and get a sticker. Not today, Satan.”
“Except it’s been on the schedule from day one,” he said.
“I didn’t read the schedule!”
“Personal problem,” he said, laughing.
I shifted my weight, dread swirling in my stomach. “There’s a spot for managers. Right? I’ll be responsible for all the water bottles or something.”
“You have to play,” he said. “All of the counselors play. It gives the kids an opportunity to root for their cabin. Creates cabin unity or whatever bonding term Loraine wants to call it.”
“My girls won’t want to bond with me when they realize they got the crappy end of the stick and ended up with a counselor who literally has zero athletic ability,” I said. I pinched the bridge of my nose. “They’re going to disown me.”
“If it helps, I’m playing too,” Grant said. “I can make a hoop or two and compensate for your lack of skills. It’ll be fine.”
“Yeah. You’ll get all the glory and I’ll be the disappointment,” I said.
“It’s all about the optimism, Alex.”
“No, this situation calls for a substantial dose of pessimism,” I said, walking again.
He opened the door to the mess hall. The smell of bacon and eggs clung to the air. We got through the line quickly and found a place at cabin two’s unusually crowded table. Our group of campers were scattered across the seats, the boys doing most of the talking while my girls threatened to prank them back.
None of it mattered. The prospective basketball game had a choke hold on my nerves. My anxiety grew by the second.
“Um, earth to Alex,” Grant said, snapping his fingers in front of my face.
I blinked, fork in hand as two hazel eyes peered at me beneath the brim of a hat. “Yeah?” I said. “What? What did I miss?”
“You’re really freaking out, aren’t you?” he said, cocking his head.
I let out a long sigh, dropping my fork beside my uneaten food. “I’m totally freaking out,” I said. “There’re a lot of things I’m good at, but sports isn’t on the list. I literally embarrass myself every time I try.”
“You can’t be that bad.”
“When I started junior high, I wanted to be on the basketball team,” I said, looking at him. “At our school, it was kind of the thing to do. Everyone made the team so even if I was terrible, there was a guarantee I could at least travel with them and participate somehow.
“But when I was in eighth grade, the coach asked me to help her out by being a manager. She claimed it was because I was trustworthy, but in hindsight it was because I couldn’t shoot, couldn’t dribble, and didn’t understand how the plays we learned in practice were actually important to the game. I kind of just passed the ball to the first person I saw, which totally explains why I was always being yelled at from the sideline. When I wasn’t on the bench. I think it was more of a pity move on her part. Either that, or she did it because of who my dad is.”
And that was before the crash, when the right side of my body still operated on an equal playing field as my left.
“She asked you to be a manager?” Grant said, grinning.
“It’s not funny!”
“Okay, okay. Not funny.” He set his fork down, his voice dropping as he leaned in closer. “I can be sympathetic and serious for a moment. I feel bad for your eighth-grade self, and your lack of basketball skills.”
“It feels like you’re making fun of me.”
“Only in my head.”
“Grant!”
He laughed out loud, holding his hands up as I grabbed my fork. “As your co-counselor and someone who actually wants to win the game, I’ll help you out. All right?”
“By getting me out of it?”
“By showing you a few things before you’re thrown to the wolves,” he said.
This close, the warmth of his skin made my heart speed. I shifted my attention to my coffee, ignoring my rapid pulse in favor of caffeine.
“Look,” he said. “I’m taking Linc’s duty shift tomorrow night, in exchange for him taking one of mine later on in the session. Talk to Kira and see if she’ll trade you too. It will get us some time at the pavilion. I can give you an actual lesson on how to shoot.”
“I need lessons on more than that,” I said. “We’re talking basketball 101. I need the basics, including dribbling and ball handling.”
“No problem,” he said, shrugging. He picked up his fork again, still eyeing me. “Just make sure you wear comfortable clothes. Once we’re out there, it’s basketball until you’re as good as LeBron.”
“That will take more than a night,” I said, cringing.
“Then pack a snack.”
I ate the rest of my food, contemplating the situation as campers filed in and out of the mess hall’s doors. No matter how skilled Grant was or wasn’t at basketball, he really was fighting a losing battle. Poor guy didn’t know the disappointment ahead of him.
I pushed my way out of breakfast a little later, splitting off from him as he headed for a chore shift with his cabin. My girls would either be prepping for a mandatory hike to the lake, or slumming it up on the porch. I crossed the dirt path, spotting them on the porch as I neared.
“Definitely slumming it up,” I said, turning as a pair of footsteps crunched loudly on the path behind me.
“Alex!” a woman said, her voice completely unrecognizable.
I spun, even more confused as my attention landed on a casually dressed female in tennis shoes and a faded AC/DC T-shirt. Her curly hair was pulled into a tight ponytail at the crown of her head, her eyes hidden behind large retro-style sunglasses. She tugged them off as she neared, her smile widening.
“I’m so glad I caught you! Madeline Briggs. Resident camp therapist and your morning meeting.”
My face paled. Loraine wouldn’t dare.
“Your aunt thought this would be a better time slot than anything this afternoon,” Madeline said, drumming her fingers against a notebook. “Would you prefer to do the session outdoors or inside?”
“I’d prefer not to do it at all,” I said, crossing my arms.
“Unfortunately, that’s not an option for either of us,” she said, still smiling. “But if you don’t have a preference, I’d love to stay outside. It hasn’t gotten hot yet and I’ll be confined indoors for the rest of the afternoon. Does the gazebo work for you?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Life is a series of choices,” Madeline said, nodding for me to follow.
I glanced at my cabin again, shoulders slumped as I pivoted and trudged after Madeline. This was a waste of my time and would definitely be a waste of hers. She was better suited helping campers with their issues. They were the ones stuck in messy situations. I had a handle on mine. No problems here.
We reached the gazebo after a few minutes. The early morning breeze was cool as it wafted between the wooden pillars. Madeline took a seat first, clicking her pen with one hand while flipping through her notebook with the other.
“You might as well skip the note taking,” I said, sighing as I crossed my arms and leaned against the gazebo’s wooden backing. “I don’t plan on talking much.”
“You talk as much or as little as you want to,” she said, jotting my name at the top of a fresh page. “I’m just here to help you work through any repressed feelings. We’ll focus on analyzing the actions that led you here first. Then we’ll find a suitable route moving forward so you can successfully reach your goals. Which leads me to my first question: What are your goals for this summer?”
“To survive,” I said, forcing my tone to be as neutral as possible.
Madeline nodded, her pen working furiously against the paper. “And what would you define as surviving?”
“Putting up with my campers.”
She finished writing, and her attention lifted to me. “Okay. Tell me about your campers. I already know you’re the counselor for girls’ cabin two, but how have things been so far? Have you found it easy or difficult to relate to the girls?”
I sat upright, sighing as I stared at the naive woman in front of me. Enough therapy sessions with Dr. Heichman had taught me one thing: They aren’t interested in small talk. They want the hard-hitting issues.
“Look,” I said, drumming my fingers against the bench. “I’m sure you’re good at your job, and I have zero doubt that you’d like to sit here and help me with everything you just claimed to want to help me with. But I’m not a newbie when it comes to this sort of thing. You don’t have to treat me with kid gloves or act like you’re genuinely interested in how I’m getting along with my campers. You know what’s going on. You probably know why I’m here, and you just want me to be the one to tell you so you can have me emotionally work through the trauma of my past.
“But I’m not that kind of client and you’re not getting anything out of me my therapist back home didn’t get. You’re wasting your time, lady. Go find someone else to psychoanalyze.”
“Deflection of emotion,” Madeline said, jotting a note. “Have you always turned toward defensiveness, or was there an initiating event that caused you to reach for that reaction first?”
“You literally heard nothing I just said.”
“I heard it,” she said, shaking her head. “But you’re exactly the kind of client I’m used to working with. I’ve been with this camp for six years, been involved with troubled youth longer than that, and if I know one thing it’s that you’ll turn me down on every single question except one.”
“And what is that?”
“Why is it easier for you to hide from your feelings than to sit here and have a conversation with me about them?”
I paused, her bluntness catching me completely off guard. Where Dr. Heichman was more reserved, less invasive with his questions, this woman had dived straight into picking me apart.
I swallowed thickly, too many answers filling my head.
“Because self-preservation is the easiest means of coping,” Madeline said.
“I’m not coping with anything.”
“You are,” she said, writing again. “And you can sit here for every session and try to convince yourself otherwise, but it’s a lie. I know it. You know it. Why pretend it’s true?”
I sank against the wood, my lips pursed as I stole a glance at the camp office. It would take all of two minutes to walk up there and curse Loraine up and down for sticking me with such a tactless person. She had to know what she was doing. This plan was premeditated.
“So, if you’re okay with it, I’d like to go back to my initial inventory,” Madeline said, pulling my attention away from the building. “Unless, of course, you want to continue with our current conversation.”
“Ask me the stupid questions,” I said, glaring at her. “But you better ask me all of them today. Next time, I’m going to tell you to f-off.”
“Great. At least I’ll be prepared.”