“So, what do you guys feel like doing?” I ask.
It’s our first official leisure hour, and we’re in the rec cabin. A couple of the groups have settled down in front of The Lion King, and the other group has made its way over to the arts and crafts corner.
“I guess we could play a game?” Daniel suggests.
I look to Matthew and Carolyn.
“That works,” he says at the same time she says, “Sure.”
We set up the Monopoly board and Carolyn doles out the money. The colorful pieces of paper are soft and worn, and I think again about the other kids who have come through this camp, who have sat in this very seat and played this very game.
“Do you guys know anyone who’s been to a camp like this before?” I say.
Carolyn shakes her head, but Daniel says yes.
We all look at him. “Really?” I say. “Who?”
“This boy at my church named Peter. He came here three summers ago and went home completely changed. He’s engaged now.”
“To a boy or a girl?” Matthew says, sounding dubious.
“A girl, of course. He used to be really shy—kind of like me, you know? But now he’s so confident. He always says how he’ll never be able to thank Mr. Martin enough.”
“Wow,” I say. Kaylee, Mr. Martin, and now Peter—all living proof that it really can work. “What about you, Matthew? Have you met anyone who’s come to a place like this?”
“Nope,” he says, rolling the dice and moving the top hat nine spaces to Connecticut Avenue. “I’ll buy it!” He hands his money over to Carolyn and looks at me. “Why, have you?”
“No. I was just curious. There’s this lady in our church whose grandnephew came here once, but I’ve never met him.” I throw the dice and move the shoe to Reading Railroad.
“That’s two hundred dollars,” Carolyn says. “Want to buy it?”
I actually have a Monopoly strategy, and railroads aren’t part of it. My system is to concentrate my money in one place—buy up all the properties of one color and then start piling houses and hotels on them like nobody’s business so I can sit back and collect the rent—rather than spreading it thin around the board.
But Carolyn’s face is expectant, waiting for my answer, and before I know it, I’m saying, “Sure.” And then I immediately feel like an idiot, because this is just a game and it’s not like she cares if I buy a stupid railroad or not.
My fingers brush against hers as we exchange the money for the title deed. It’s the first time we’ve ever touched, and a tremor of excitement shoots through me. I can’t help it—I look for a sign that she notices too. Her cheeks get a little pinker maybe, but that could be because it’s so damn hot in this cabin. Other than that, there’s nothing.
Of course. Because it was nothing. A half-second-long accidental touch. At a camp where we both came, voluntarily, to learn how to be straight. I really need to stop forgetting that—it’s kind of an important detail.
Daniel’s Scottie dog lands on St. Charles Place.
I clear my throat in an effort to clear my mind and focus on tidying my money piles. Then I notice Matthew watching me, an amused smile on his face.
“What?” I say. Oh God, he didn’t see me getting all stupid over Carolyn just now, did he?
The smile turns into a full-on grin and he shrugs innocently. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
Crap. He saw.
***
An hour later, nearly every property Matthew owns is mortgaged, and Daniel keeps landing in jail, but Carolyn and I are at all-out war. I have hotels on all the green and yellow properties, and Carolyn has control of Boardwalk and Park Place. She also owns Kentucky Avenue—which I need so I can start building on the red properties.
When it gets to be my turn, I make her an offer. “I’ll give you four hundred dollars for Kentucky Avenue.”
She laughs and shakes her head. “No way.”
“But you don’t even need it! You own half the board already. And four hundred is a really good offer—it’s only worth two-twenty!”
“Not gonna happen,” she says, smirking.
“Okay, six hundred.”
“Nope.”
“Seven?”
She shakes her head, a twinkle in her eye.
Arrghh! “Seven-fifty plus Baltic and Mediterranean Avenues.”
“Those properties are crap.”
I study her, sitting there all smug, leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed over her chest. “Fine. Name your price.”
She leans forward, her eyes level with mine. “I want all your railroads plus all your properties that have developments on them.”
“Are you crazy? There’s no way for me to win then.”
“Exactly.”
I pick up the dice. “Forget it. No deal.”
Carolyn shrugs. “Suit yourself.”
I roll the dice—and land on Boardwalk, which has four houses on it.
“That will be one thousand seven hundred dollars, please,” Carolyn says, holding out her hand.
I glower at her. “You don’t have to be so happy about it, you know.”
Carolyn laughs. “What’s the point of winning then?”
***
The next morning, I wake up early again. I lie in bed for a while, trying to make myself go back to sleep, but it’s no use. I sit up and scratch my neck where the lacy part of the nightgown rubbed against it in the night.
There’s nothing to do—I’m not allowed to leave the dorm, I don’t have my book anymore, and everyone (except for Carolyn, who is already out on her run) is asleep so there’s no one to talk to. I guess I could get up and take a shower, but the sooner I do that the sooner I have to change into the skorts.
I slide my journal off my vanity and flip to a clean sheet of paper. The first few pages are already filled with sketches, but this time, when I put the pen to the page, words come out. I’m usually not much of a writer. I’ve always expressed myself better with pictures and designs. But so much has happened over the past few days that I need a way to get it all out, and drawings aren’t enough right now. So I write.
I fill page after page with the stuff I’ve been keeping inside since I came to New Horizons: my resolve to be just like Kaylee, how glad I am to have made a friend in Matthew, the guilt I feel over promising to forget my father.
It feels good to get it all out. Like by taking the abstract, wooshy thoughts that have been floating around formless within me and transforming them into words on a page, they become more real. I know Brianna said that no one would ever read this journal, which is why I’m even writing any of it down in the first place, but the simple fact that it exists in the physical world now and that it theoretically could be read by someone other than me makes me feel like all these thoughts and feelings have actual substance and validity.
I hope Mom is all right,
I write.
I wish I could call her. They would tell me if something happened, wouldn’t they? If she had a zoning out episode and drove her car into the ocean or something?
Carolyn breezes into the room, fresh from her run. She gives me a little wave and then disappears into the bathroom.
My pen hovers over the journal in suspended animation. I can almost feel it: every feeling and thought I’ve ever had about her coursing from my mind, down my arm, through my lightning bolt, and into the pen. It’s charged with electricity.
The pen lands on the page again, and I let it all out.