Page 29 of Camp Help Falling

I wanted to hide away in the office for the remainder of the day to avoid Oliver, but I had responsibilities around the camp. Including a new handful of things I had to take over until I could redelegate what those two campers had been in charge of. Those few extra tasks gave me an excuse to turn and walk the other way anytime I saw Oliver before dinner. Gave me a bit of extra alone time to stew in my tumultuous thoughts.

How can I keep going with Oliver when I just sent home two kids for breaking the same rule? The rule I was so adamant about at the beginning of the summer. The one I started to skirt around like it was merely a suggestion.

Is it because of the Sunny Girls and our text thread? Brooke has her fairytale in California. Meg has a Hawaiian hottie. Chloe, Ava, and Maggie are all on their way out of Singleville, too. All my friends are getting their happily ever afters and that makes me feel entitled to one, even though my job has a definitive line when it comes to relationships?

Or is it because Oliver’s attention blinded me to everything else? It felt so nice to have someone looking at me—wanting me—after so long of being the overlooked one, that I was willing to do anything, including bending and then breaking the rules, to keep it going.

That first day away from camp with Oliver made me bold. Too bold. I began bending the rules even further, allowing us to hold hands and kiss while we checked our phones at Cell Phone Rock. Blurred that line too far, and even though we went to the effort to hide our purpling, someone must have figured it out or seen us somewhere and thought, “If they can do it, so can we.” And look where that got us.

After ignoring Oliver’s hopeful eyes as I scanned for a place to sit at dinner, I hole up in the camp office, hoping to avoid any more conversations with him tonight. I need to get my head on straight and figure out what I’m going to say to him before I can talk to him.

When the noises of the after-dinner camp activity wind down and everyone heads back to their cabins for the night, I slip out of the office and make my way up to Cell Phone Rock on a more unused trail that snakes through the thicker underbrush away from the lake. Hopefully, Oliver will look for me in the office after curfew, leaving me with enough space to figure things out.

Tomorrow.

I’ll talk to him tomorrow.

But tonight I need to be alone to figure out…everything.

I don’t even turn my phone on when I sit down. Because what good are phone notifications today? I’ll undoubtedly get a handful from the Sunny Girls—all happy and bubbly because they all seem to be finding their special someones this summer—but I don’t have anything to say back to them. Yesterday, I might have. Yesterday, when Oliver and I were soaring on the path to maybe becoming something more than just a summer camp fling. Yesterday, when I hadn’t bothered to come up to Cell Phone Rock because everything was good and there was no reason for me to want to be connected to the world outside of Camp Brower. Everything I wanted was within these wire-fence boundaries.

I barely register the fireworks down below when they start lighting up the dark sky. Every firework I felt with Oliver over the last few weeks turned to lead weight the moment I sent those staff members home this morning. What good are more fireworks that ultimately meant nothing?

“Where have you been today? I need to talk to you.”

The summer heat around me fails to warm the ice that fills my veins at Oliver’s voice.

Tomorrow. This conversation was supposed to happen tomorrow.

I can hear the softness and the concern and the happiness in his voice. Everything that makes that lead in my stomach churn with anxiety. Oliver’s hand lands lightly on my shoulder, sliding across my back to grip my far shoulder. It sends a shiver of pleasure up my spine, but I shove it down and dodge the kiss he tries to press to the top of my head.

“Oliver, please.” I slip out from underneath his arm and stand, putting distance between us. “Don’t.”

The fireworks are a distant pop and crackle. Still facing away, I hear the ground crunch beneath his feet and the rasp of cloth on stone as Oliver sits on the rock I just vacated. I sense his confusion rising at my back, but I don’t turn around. I turn over the words I’m not ready to say in my mind.

“Sadie,” Oliver says. Calmly. Softly. Not at all like he thinks I’m crazy for dodging everything I’ve been desperate for whispers of over these last weeks. “Come here. What’s wrong?”

And it’s that question that makes the tears immediately jump to my eyes, like they hurdled every blockade I have in place. Because I don’t want to have this conversation with me blubbering like I’m heartbroken over the reality I find myself in.

I am. But putting up a different front would be nice.

I turn, putting us eye to eye. Because Oliver at least deserves that.

“We can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do what?”

“The touching. The kissing. The purpling. It has to stop.”

“Why? No one knows. No one’s seen us.”

And in an instant, my sad, weepy self—that part of me that is devastated that I have to give up one of the last things that has finally made me happy—gets booted out, replaced by a dry anger. “Why?”

Oliver nods.

“WHY?” I don’t mean to raise my voice, but the anger that replaces my sadness has a mind of its own. “Because I sent home two staff members today. Two youth staff who had been given warnings to stop purpling, and they continued to do it anyway. Staff members who looked up to me as an example, and who I let down by being a complete hypocrite.”

The fireworks behind me underscore my vehement words, sparking along with the anger crackling through my body.

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