Page 13 of My Star-Crossed Summer

That’s how it was with us, though. She always kept me grounded.

She flips on the radio and scrolls until the static clears. Otis Redding’s crooning about his empty arms, and there’s a tug deep in my chest that only makes me grip the steering wheel harder. Vic always had a soft spot for old soul. When I got a turntable sophomore year, she bought me a stack of old records for my birthday. I still have them all—even the Sam Cooke that skipped.

We drive without speaking the rest of the way down the mountain. Her fingers tap in time to the music, her gaze fixedsomewhere in the distance with the evergreens. I want to ask her what she’s thinking, but it seems too intrusive. She’s finally starting to relax around me, and I don’t want to push my luck.

The last time I laid eyes on Victoria, I was twenty-one—a junior at the College of Charleston. She was twenty, and we’d become fast friends. She was hilarious and brilliant and shared my love of campy old horror movies and punk-ska bands. We saw each other every day back then, even though we rarely had classes together. After a few months, I started falling for her—hard—but kept telling myself she was off-limits because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. College was difficult because I felt weird around most people. Everyone called me a loner, but really I was just slow to open up to people I barely knew. I was more comfortable out hiking in the woods than making small talk with people who seemed to only hang out with me until someone more interesting came along. But Victoria didn’t shrug me off like most others did. She made me feel seen right from the get-go. She never indicated she had romantic feelings for me at all—until that one night that blew everything apart. I’ve had a lot of regrets in my life, but that night might be the biggest. If I had a time machine and could only use it once, I’d send myself right back to that spring break at the beach house, drag my sorry younger self into the surf, and talk some sense into him.

“How long have you been doing this?” she asks. We’re headed through town now, where most of the businesses have closed for the night. For a second, I think she means how long have I been wishing I could turn back time, but she’s talking about the summer camp, of course.

It’s misting rain as I pull into the parking lot of the store. It does that a lot here—in summer, the storms can come out of nowhere and soak you to the bone. “Off and on after college,” I say, and when I wince at that last word, I steal a glance at her. She’s biting her lip like she’s been yanked back in time, too.

Is she thinking about that same night, on the beach under the stars? Is she wishing things had gone differently, or that it had never happened at all? Maybe she hasn’t thought about us for one second since that night. Maybe that’s why she seems so uncomfortable now.

Or maybe she remembers how good we were together, too.

“Not this site in particular,” I say, hoping to skim right overcollegebecause we don’t need to touch that memory with a ten-foot pole. At least not here, like this, crammed into a giant boat of an SUV that’s about to hold a bunch of kids we’re charged with helping to see the wonders of western North Carolina and all the stars that hang above it. The adult thing to do is address the giant elephant that’s squeezed into the car with us, but right now, that thought is nauseating.

I don’t want to make the next three weeks awkward for Victoria. So I’ll keep my mouth shut and follow her lead. If she doesn’t bring up what happened all those years ago, then I won’t either.

“I was a teaching assistant first, at the home campus in Charleston,” I explain. “And then I did an admin job like Sophie for a couple of years, and they offered me this position. I did biology camps down in Beaufort and the Outer Banks and have been at this site twice. It’s a good one.” I tack on that last part because she still looks uneasy, like she’s considering taking the keys and driving this vehicle at the speed of light until this mountain is a tiny dot in her rearview mirror.

She nods as we get out of the car and head into the store. “Lots of experience, then.” Her tiny frown tells me that detail is more troublesome to her than reassuring.

I shrug. “It’s a pretty easy gig. Make sure everyone has fun, respects each other and the site, and make sure they all come home with ten fingers and toes each night after all the hiking and rafting and whatnot.”

She falls into step next to me, her brows pinched together as if she’s thinking hard.

“Why are you here?” I ask her. “You hate nature.”

“I don’t hate nature,” she says. “Maybe I wanted to challenge myself. To do something new. Different. Is that so strange?”

As we step inside the store and under the bright fluorescent lights, I see her cheeks are flushed. I want to snatch my words out of the air and shove them into my pocket because obviously I don’t know her that well anymore. And I really don’t need to talk about our past. If I’m going to make it through this session, then she needs to be Victoria, a charming stranger and colleague—not the woman who stole my heart before she strode out of my life and slammed the door behind her.

Her jaw clenches as she grabs a shopping cart and heads down the first aisle. “That’s not who I am anymore,” she says, her tone clipped. “I needed a change.”

“A change from what?”

“Everything.” Her tone is matter-of-fact, and the deep furrow in her brow suggests she doesn’t like this line of questioning one bit. There’s a wound there that I shouldn’t poke, even though I’m curious what brought her here, doing a job that’s usually done by college students like Sophie.

And six years ago, she wouldn’t go in the woods with me unless she lost a bet.

She steers the cart toward the center aisle and says, “What’s first on the list?”

“First-aid kits,” I say, wishing there was one big enough to patch us back together. The next few weeks are going to be brutal if we can’t figure out a way to be around each other without feeling like we’re two live wires trying not to cross.

Vic pulls two kinds of first-aid kits from the shelf and holds them up for me to examine. When I nod, she plops them into the cart and continues down the aisle, and I try hard to focus on thelist instead of the mesmerizing sway of her hips and the tension that seems to have settled in her shoulders again—likely because of me.

Before long, the cart’s nearly full. After we get through the checkout line and pile everything into the back of the car, she starts to get in the passenger side.

“One more thing,” I tell her.

She freezes, her hand on the door handle, and gives me a wary look.

“Hiking boots,” I say. “For you.”

Her brow lifts in that way that means she thinks she doesn’t need any help.

“Come on. The outfitters over there will have what you need.”

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