Camp Boyfriend (6 page)

He drew a deep breath. “I’m leaving.”

“What?” I must have misheard him.

“I can’t stay here until I figure out how to deal with…us not being together.”

I blinked my way through the words that didn’t make any sense. “So you’re
leaving
? How long? Why?” I jabbed my finger into his chest. What. The. Hell. I was going through a major crisis and what…he was running away? This wasn’t like him. But then a niggling memory came back. When he was ten, he’d rehabilitated a wounded bird until Gollum made him return it to the wild. He’d taken off back then too—heading to his grandparents’ house. Since they owned Camp Juniper Point, they lived just a few miles down the river.

Was our relationship the wounded bird? The one he’d tried and failed to fix?

He caught my hand and pressed it to his lips, his topaz eyes reflecting the fingers of sunlight feeling their way across the lake.

“You wouldn’t have brought Matt here if you didn’t have feelings for him.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, but nothing came out. He had me there. I did care about Matt. Just not the way I felt about Seth.

Seth cupped my chin. “You need time and so do I.”

“What if I asked you to stay?” I jerked my chin away and clenched my teeth.

“Don’t ask me to do that.” He looked down, his face tense. “I’m giving you space so that when you choose me, if you choose me, there won’t be any doubts.”

I jumped off the stone and put my hands on my hips. With the wind tossing my uncombed hair, I must have looked crazy. But I was beyond caring.

“I don’t need you to give me my freedom. And you don’t need to disappear to help me figure out what’s right for me.”

“Like that Matt guy?”

“I didn’t ask Matt to come with me, okay? Don’t you think I’d rather be with you?”

“I heard he plays quarterback for a 4A state champion, right?” Seth ran a hand through his short curls. “He’s everything my father wished I’d be.”

Seth’s father was the head of the wrestling program at Indiana University and had always pressured his distance runner, hiker, and kayaker son to wrestle, or to take up a sport that would land him a high-profile athletic career. But Seth’s dad wasn’t here now. I was.

“Don’t you get it?” I blew my long bangs out of my eyes. “It doesn’t matter how rich, or successful, or famous you are. When it comes to you, I’m—I’m always going to be the girl who memorized the genus and species of every wildflower in these mountains to impress you. You were the first boy who made me feel beautiful and loved, even when I was covered in poison oak, with a full mouth of metal and thick glasses. You are my first love, and I want—more than anything—for you to be my last. But that can’t happen if you leave.”

Seth shut his eyes and shook his head, a crease appearing between his brows. “You’re my first love too. The only girl I’ve ever wanted.” He cleared his throat and lifted his lids. His golden eyes blazed at me like the morning sun spilling over the horizon. “But I can’t ignore the fact that you have a boyfriend at camp any more than you can. You’ve got to figure out your feelings for him before we can be together again. And that won’t be easy with me around.” He swept me up in a tight embrace and whispered in my ear, “Tell me you understand.”

My anger deflated like a popped balloon. It was selfish to ask him to help me get through the mess I’d made, especially when I hadn’t given him the warning he’d deserved. I needed to handle this on my own. “How long will you be gone?”

His warm breath rushed across my temple. “A few days, maybe. First I’m going to hike something—big. Then I’m going to my grandparents. On Friday, at the dance, we’ll see how things stand then. Okay?”

I gulped over the daggers lining my throat. Speaking my thoughts would slice me to ribbons.

After a wordless nod, he pressed a kiss to my forehead, gave me a final hug, then hoisted his backpack and tramped into the woods. I watched his shadow move among the trees until he disappeared from view. It felt like he’d vanished from my life as well.

“Lauren!” I looked up and caught my friends Alex and Siobhan jogging down the beach. Alex doubled over when they reached the rock while our yoga expert, Siobhan, looked completely unfazed.

“We’ve been searching all over for you,” Alex gasped. Her dark hair had grown so long it swept the sand before she straightened.

“I told you she’d be watching the sky,” the ever-logical Siobhan put in. The strengthening sun glinted off of her obsidian bob. The new length accentuated the high cheekbones she’d inherited from her Cherokee father and the large hazel eyes from her Irish mother. Her face, awash in fresh light, was splattered with freckles.

“Are you okay?” Alex asked. Both girls crowded beside me on the rock, their thin arms wrapping around me. “Were you thinking about Seth?”

The breakfast bell sounded in the distance, and we all groaned.

“Let’s get back to the cabin before Emily notices.” Siobhan stood and pulled me to my feet. “No matter what, Lauren. We’ve got your back, okay?”

“Okay.” My heart swelled. I might be here with the wrong guy, and might have lost the right one, but at least I had my friends.

* * *

Dewy grass tickled my sandaled feet as my cabin mates and I trudged toward breakfast thirty minutes later. Shards of light stabbed through the towering pines, making us squint and draw our hoodie strings tighter. Only Alex had thought to wear sunglasses, perched crookedly on the bridge of her nose. Our collective misery was palpable after our late night. Even the singing birds quieted as we passed beneath them.

“So where’s your medal, Miss National Scholastic Decathlon Winner?” Alex nudged Siobhan.

Siobhan kicked an apple core at Alex’s foot. “If I’d brought it, you’d probably take it to Arts and Crafts and make it a head piece.”

“Or a belt buckle.” Jackie dragged a twig behind her in the dirt, her tall, willowy grace obvious even in warm-up shorts and an oversized tee. “Remember when she went through that cowboy phase after watching
True Country
?”

“Who could forget the summer of a thousand ten-gallon hats?” groaned Siobhan. “She wouldn’t even take them off during swim.”

A couple of us snickered, and Alex swatted Siobhan. “Hello. I had serious hathead and Rob was the lifeguard that day.”

We all sighed, imagining one very crush-worthy counselor.

Piper picked up the discarded fruit. “I got my school to recycle leftovers in a compost pile. I should talk to Gollum. See if we can start a camp community project.”

“Gross. Put that thing down.” Alex wrinkled her nose, making her glasses rise.

Piper dropped it in the paper sack she always carried for litter and shrugged. “One man’s trash is—”

“Piper’s treasure,” we chorused with gusto, making Piper laugh and a couple of blue jays fly squawking from a nearby tree.

Jackie leapt in front of us with cat-like grace. “Want me to take care of the litterer?”

“Oh, so now that you won your volleyball division, you can take on anyone?” Alex shoved Jackie in the shoulder. “Besides, you’re too smart to start dumb fights. We all know you took four AP classes and aced your PSATs, so don’t even start.”

Wow. My friends really had accomplished a lot in a year. I studied the leftover polish that colored my toenails a delicate pink as I shuffled along in flip-flops. For the first time, compared to the rest of the group, I felt like a failure. What would dating the most popular guy in school and making the cheer squad mean to them?

“I started an art club and we painted a mural on the auditorium wall.” Trinity twirled a dandelion before blowing its white seed pods. She turned my way. “Lauren, you’d love it. We did a night scene complete with the constellations and an aurora borealis. When the lights are out, the stars twinkle.”

“That’s so cool.” I put an arm around her and gave her a squeeze. Finally. Friends who knew what the aurora borealis was.

“So have you applied to that NASA thing yet? It was all you talked about last summer!” Siobhan stopped and waited for Trinity and me to catch up. “I’m sure you’ll get in.”

“You mean the
‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’
she wouldn’t shut up about?” Alex laughed, her smile taking the sting out of her words. They were proud of my accomplishments.

I shrugged, feeling uneasy. “I finished the application, but I still need my letters of reference. My dad’s getting one from our congressman.” At least I hoped so, I silently added.

“Cool.” Jackie grabbed a branch and swung from it before landing ahead of us.

The mess hall’s roof appeared through a gap in the trees and unease squeezed my stomach. I imagined what would happen when Seth didn’t show for breakfast. I had to get to Matt before the rumors got to him.

Immune to the chilly air and ungodly hour, Emily pranced ahead.

“Come on, girls! Last one in is a rotten egg.” Her high-pitched laugh ended in a snort that sent a descending squirrel scurrying back up a white oak tree, or as Seth had taught me,
Quercus alba
.

An exuberant cartwheel revealed Emily’s hot-pink bike shorts beneath her oversized Camp Juniper Point sweatshirt. “Mornings rule!” she shouted, thrusting pine needle-coated hands upward. Her side ponytail bobbed in agreement. At least that made one of us. I already wished I could skip the day, crawl back into bed, and pull my sleeping bag over my head. If my life had an eject button, I’d hit it now.

“Is she for real?” mumbled Siobhan as she trailed beside me in flip-flops and frog-printed pajama bottoms.

“Someone needs to take the batteries out of the Energizer Bunny.” I swiped at a mosquito trying to land on my nose.

Trinity turned around, her round face pale. “Her aura’s like a kaleidoscope on speed. My eyes are aching.”

Alex passed Trinity her sunglasses as boys jogged across our path. Like bird dogs, we froze, Alex’s mouth dropping at the sight of the boys’ counselor, Rob. We’d all drooled over him since we’d hit puberty; right now, he was showing off exceptional six-pack abs, his camp shirt tucked into the back of his running shorts.

I looked for Matt, worried that his bunkmates had filled him in on my Seth history. Matt smiled at me as he came around the bend, white T-shirt plastered to his steaming body. His friendly expression relieved some of my anxiety, but it was just a matter of time before everything exploded in my face.

Emily completed a round-off, knocking out Rob. They landed in a pile of last autumn’s brown leaves, Emily on top. The boys stopped short while we gaped at the spectacle and tried not to laugh.

“Oh my God. I am, like, so sorry. Seriously. Are you hurt? Because I know someone who knows first aid,” Emily babbled, her hands running up and down his hardcore body. Was she checking for injuries or feeling him up? Either way, she was scoring some major points in my book.

“Go Emily,” Alex whispered next to me, obviously thinking along the same lines. “I should try that move on Vijay.”

I shot her a look as I envisioned the boy from Seth’s cabin. “Didn’t your parents forbid you to date until you were married? And since when do you like Vijay?”

“Since he got ten times hotter than last year. A lot of the boys are way cuter this summer—didn’t you notice?”

It was a running joke that should have made me laugh. We said the same thing every year. But I thought of Seth’s newly cut body and averted my eyes.

“Not really.”

“And you know I don’t do my parents’ ‘Wholesome Home’ thing here. That’s their blog, not my life. At least not at camp, where I can have
fun
for two months of the year.” She pointed to the tangle of limbs still on the ground, oblivious to my dark mood. “How gorgeous is Rob?”

Piper leaned over and sighed. “Do you have to ask?”

My gaze went back to Rob whose blue eyes twinkled up at Emily, the left-sided dimple we adored appearing in his cheek.

“I’m fine, Emily. Are you okay? Maybe I should check you out?” But before his hands made contact, Emily sprang back, practically knocking over Matt, who hadn’t taken his green eyes off me.

Alex shot me a wide-eyed look. Had Emily actually dismissed resident hottie Rob? Any girl would give her weekly fudge pop to be with him. Even ten-year-old campers twirled their hair and pushed out their training bras when the twenty-something camp god came around.

Rob’s muscular thighs flexed as he got to his feet, eliciting a sigh from Piper.

He flashed Emily a white smile and rejoined his group.

“Let’s go, ladies! Ten minutes to clean up, then breakfast,” Rob shouted to the boys and sprinted away. All but Matt scrambled after him. He jogged in place for a second, gave me a quick wave, and dashed off after the rest of his cabin.

“Ladies?!” Emily stomped ahead of us. “Is that supposed to be a putdown? Male chauvinist.”

We lingered behind.

“Was that ‘the other man?’” Jackie turned to me, an undercurrent of tension in her tone. “He’s not as tall as Seth.”

“That’s definitely him—you should have seen his pink aura when he spotted Lauren.” Trinity grinned.

Because she was happy for me? Or because of the crush I knew she’d had on Seth all these years? She’d never shared it, but one time Alex told me she caught her writing about it in her journal. Luckily, Girl Code meant she’d never act on it. Thank God. No way could I handle that on top of everything else.

“How did he end up in Warriors’ Warden? Sucks for him.” Piper picked up an empty water bottle and tucked it in her bag.

“He’s hot.” Alex surveyed me. “But not what I pictured. He looks like a jock head.”

Okay, there was no disguising it. That sounded judgmental. Why did they assume all athletes were bad? Jackie was a jock, after all. But, of course, she was a girl. My friends had all had issues with popular male jocks at one time or another.

Taking a deep breath, I blurted, “He’s a varsity quarterback.”

For his sake, I hoped that missing a week of strength training this summer wouldn’t jeopardize his spot on the squad. If I’d broken up with him in Texas, he wouldn’t be at risk. And maybe that would have been the right thing to do. But I’d acted on instinct, not wanting to hurt him more than he already had been. No matter how noble I thought I was, however, I’d committed a major no-no in the dating world—leading a guy on. I needed to fix this before more damage was done.