Page 26 of My Star-Crossed Summer

Really.

“I’m around if you want to talk about it later,” Sophie says and heads back to the games.

I keep repeating my words like a mantra until free time is over and it’s lights out in the cabins. And then I stand in front of the tiny mirror in my room and tell myself again:Everything is fine. You’ve got this.

But the words still feel like a lie.

And when I smile to reassure myself, it’s another Bateman smile.

I am so screwed.

Chapter Eight

VICTORIA

I’m fine,” I tell Gwen. “Really.” My sister’s so quiet on the other end of the line that I have to check to make sure she’s still there.

“I’m here,” she says. “I just don’t believe you.”

“Okay. I’llbefine.” I keep my voice low because it’s after 11 p.m., lights out for the kids. I’m using the landline in the lounge, curled up by the window in one of the dorm-style chairs that’s just as uncomfortable as it looks. I’m pretty sure there’s solid rock under this cheap, scratchy upholstery, but it fits the whole woodsy-cabin-meets-doomsday-bunker vibe they have going here.

“But you’re there withNoahNoah?” Gwen says. “As in the first guy you were hopelessly in love with?”

“Hopelessly is a stretch.”

“Agree to disagree,” she says. “And then he broke your heart.”

“I can’t argue with that. But I think he didn’t mean to.”

“You were devastated,” she says. “In pieces. He doesn’t get a pass for that.”

“We talked it over, and I see now that there was some miscommunication on both sides. He thought I never wanted to see him again.” I breathe out a heavy sigh. “I don’t know where he got that idea, but now I wish I’d tried reaching out again.”

There’s another long pause—the kind that means my sister’s thinking hard. Or hiding something.

“What is it?” I say.

“Nothing.” There’s a clatter of dishes in the background. “How did you not know he’d be there on staff?”

“Roxy didn’t send me anyone’s names. Some of the staff work together every year, but a lot of new people show up, too. I think unless you already know someone you’re working with, you don’t meet your staff until you get to camp. Plus, I never told her about Noah.”

“I’ve got to say, if it were me, I’d have jumped back in my car and floored it down the mountain. I couldn’t work with any of my exes.”

“I thought about it,” I mutter. “But I didn’t want to run this time. In the last year, I’ve fled my fiancé, my job, and all of Jasmine Falls.”

And years ago, I ran from Noah after kissing him hard enough to make me see stars.

“Technically, you ditched an arrogant, manipulative jerk, and just in time,” she says. Unlike our mother, Gwen has never made me feel guilty about making that decision.

“Sometimes I’m afraid Mom might be right,” I tell her. “That I always run when things get hard.”

“Ugh,” she groans. “Things Mom is right about include which shade of green we can wear with our skin tone, when to send a thank-you note, and how to mix a proper martini. They don’t include your decisions about when to stop doing something that no longer aligns with what you want from life.”

“Wow, that’s?—”

“Super accurate?” she interrupts. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that for a while. I’ve also learned that walking away and giving up are not the same thing.”

“Sometimes that annoying little voice in my head still likes to tell me that theyarethe same, and I’m a big fat chicken.”

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