I dig my fists into my stinging eyes and rub.
Man, seven- to ten-year-olds have a crapload of energy.
I’m drained. The incident with Lillian in the woods has me on edge. I woke about every hour, panicked that she was searching for me again. Everyone looks on edge.
But the kids are as excited and loud and bouncy as ever. I feel like I’m hungover, although the only thing I’ve had to drink since I arrived is water and coffee.
I don’t know how the campers haven’t realized that every one of our smiles is forced. I’m positive I look like I’m grimacing.
I care about them all, but I’m finding it really hard to bounce off the walls over a new fastest win of tennis.
Lillian is out there, somewhere close I’m sure, watching the morning after her night of insanity.
She’s loving it, I’m sure. I bet she’s drinking in every second that we look around for her.
It could come back to bite me and Kayla in the ass eventually, if Lillian decides that she wants to make herself known. Which, let’s face it, she will. I just hope the others aren’t around to hear it when she confronts us.
We’re standing by the tennis court in the shade of the trees. Kayla’s arms are wrapped around herself like she has to physically hold all of our secrets in.
“How are you doing?” I ask, still looking at the girls and smiling. My jaw aches. I don’t know how models do it.
“All right,” she mutters. She was awake in bed when I got back, chewing her nails to the quick. Mine are about the same.
“You can tell me the truth, Kayla.”
“Can I?”
I fight the urge to push her. “Really, dude? We’ve known each other since we were obsessed with High School Musical. Hell, we have a blood oath!”
“Oh, now it’s a blood oath.”
Before we decided to become CITs, we hadn’t talked about the accident for years. I hate that we spent so long ignoring what we’d done. I hate that we ran.
Dipping my head, I wince against the sting of regret.
“Kayla,” I prompt.
“What do you want me to say, Esme?” She looks across the court as her girls cheer for another point and purses her lips. “I’m scared. We both know Lillian is going to do something bad. We burned her!” Her voice is low, a whisper, but I feel it in my bones.
“We don’t know that.” I don’t say it with much conviction. I’m shocked to hear those words come out of Kayla’s mouth. She’s always been a total pro at denial.
“Yes we do! If we hadn’t been out there that night, then none of this would be happening now. She wants revenge. I still don’t think we’re to blame, but we didn’t get hurt.”
“We never meant for anything bad to happen.”
“Esme, can we not talk about this anymore, please? I’m totally over it.”
We never talk about what we did anymore and it’s slowly driving me crazy. You’re supposed to talk, everyone says so.
Kayla storms off, leaving me with a burn in my chest that makes me resent my best friend just a little. I need her support right now.
I’ve spent so much time and effort making sure things aren’t too much for her. I never get that in return.
Fine. Whatever.
After games outside, we go in for dinner and then to the beach for a campfire.
We finish up the day with s’mores. It’s a pretty standard end; there haven’t been many evenings that don’t include marshmallows.
“Esme,” Mary says behind her massive bangs, “can you pop into my cabin and see if Phoebe is there? She went to get her hoodie and hasn’t come back out and I need to help Ava.”
“Sure,” I reply.
Kayla walks past me to join our girls by the campfire. They’re mostly split up tonight, though, mixed heavily with the boys.
Jogging up the cabin steps, I twist the doorknob and let myself in. “Phoebe?”
My eyes bulge. Through a crack in the door to Tia and Rebekah’s tiny room, I catch a glimpse of Rebekah pulling her T-shirt down over her head. Her side and most of her stomach is burned.
“Esme?”
My pulse skitters as Phoebe walks up to me. She smiles.
I jump away from Rebekah and Tia’s room. “Are you okay?” I ask her.
“I was getting a sweater.”
Burns!
“You ready to join us?” I ask.
Rebekah has burns!
She nods. “Yeah.”
What does this mean? I dash out of the cabin with Phoebe right behind me. I don’t think that Rebekah saw me. She didn’t turn around.
I walk with Phoebe until she sits down with her group. As soon as the other girls embrace her, I dart around the campfire and scan the crowd for Kayla. We need to have a conversation right this second. Whether she wants to or not.
“Kayla, can we walk?” I say when I find her.
Olly and Jake, who are sitting next to her, look up too.
Her shoulders slump like I’m the last person she wants to see. I’ll try not to take that personally. “Er, sure, Esme….”
She stands up and puts on a fake toothy smile that almost makes me roll my eyes. Doing the bitchy smile to me, really? Is she doing the popular thing now?
I grin back and grab Kayla’s arm. “This will only take a minute.”
The guys watch us suspiciously. Come on, we could be talking about anything. I’ll tell the boys it’s something menstruation related, that’ll shut it down real fast.
Someone who knows the routine of camp and has access to cabins is doing this….
“Jesus, Esme, what’s going on?” Kayla asks, stumbling behind me as I tug her by the hand. She pulls out of my grip and glares.
“I know who Lillian is,” I say.
“You what?”
“Rebekah.”