Page 73 of The Last Time I Lied

“Why do you put up with it?” I said.

Allison shrugged. “Why do you?”

“Because I like her.”

But it was more than that. She was the older girl who took me under her wing and shared her secrets. Plus, she was cool. And tough. And smarter than I thought she let on. To me, that was something worth clinging to.

“We like her, too,” Natalie said. “And Viv’s been through a lot, you know.”

“But she’s sometimes so mean to the two of you.”

“That’s just her way. We’re used to it. We’ve known her for years.”

“All our lives,” Natalie chimed in. “We knew who she was and what she was like even before we became friends. You know, same school, same neighborhood.”

Allison nodded. “We know how to handle her.”

“What she means,” Natalie said, “is that when Vivian gets in a mood, it’s best to stay out of her way until it passes.”

—

I spent the rest of the morning separated from the others in Dogwood, thanks to another advanced archery lesson. I was relegated to the arts and crafts building, where the camp’s other thirteen-year-olds and I used leather presses to decorate rawhide bracelets. I would have preferred to shoot arrows.

After that it was lunch. That time, Natalie and Allison also didn’t bother to show. Rather than eat alone, I declined the ham-and-Swiss sandwich on the menu and headed to Dogwood to look for them. To my surprise, I found them before I even reached the cabin. The roar of voices inside told me all three of them were there.

“Don’t lecture us about secrets!” I heard Natalie yell. “Especially when you refuse to tell us where you were this morning.”

“It doesn’t matter where I went!” Vivian shouted back. “What matters is that you lied.”

“We’resorry,” Allison said with all the drama she could muster. “We told you a hundred times.”

“That’s not fucking good enough!”

I opened the door to see Natalie sitting shoulder to shoulder with Allison on the edge of her bunk. Vivian stood before them, her face flushed, hair stringy and unwashed. Natalie had her chest thrust forward, as if in the process of blocking a field hockey rival. Allison shrank into herself, her hair over her face, trying to hide what looked like tears. All three of them swiveled my way when I entered. The cabin plunged into silence.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Allison replied.

“Just bullshitting,” Natalie said.

Only Vivian admitted the obvious truth. “Emma, we’re in themiddle of something. Shit needs to be sorted out. Come back later, okay?”

I backed out of the cabin, closing the door behind me and shutting out the raging storm taking place inside. Vivian was apparently having one of those moods Natalie and Allison had warned me about.

This time, they couldn’t stay out of its path.

Not sure where else to go, I turned to head back to the center of camp. There was Lottie, standing right behind me. She wore a plaid shirt over a white tee. Her long hair was pulled back in a braid that ran down her back. Like me, she was close enough to hear the commotion coming from Dogwood, and her expression was one of curious surprise.

“Locked out?” she said.

“Sort of.”

“They’ll let you back in soon enough.” Her gaze flicked from me to the cabin door and back again. “First time living with a group of girls?”

I nodded.

“It takes some getting used to. I was an only child, too, so coming here was a rude awakening.”

---