Chapter Eighteen

eighteen

Jessie

I wake in the dark to a knock on my door. It's been so long since this happened that it takes a moment to orient myself. Maybe I dreamed the knock? Maybe I'm nostalgic for the old days, when people needed me in the night. When I knew my role.

On my nightstand sits a copy of Luke's first novel—I found it in the camp library. It's a YA dystopian, with all the elements we both loved as teenagers: adventure, political intrigue, a love triangle. I'm six chapters in and would have read more, but I was so exhausted and sad after the canoe parade that I passed out.

I'm drifting off again when the knock repeats, then a voice: "Jessie?"

Shaking myself, I step out of bed and stumble to the door. The night is so dark and I'm so tired, it takes a moment for everything to sink in.

First, I notice something strung across my porch, through the trees, and around my cabin: white streamers, fluttering in the breeze. Toilet paper. Someone pranked me.

My heart sinks—I'm too tired for this shit.

Then I see two people in the darkness, five feet from my door.

"Hillary?" I say, shocked. "Cooper? What are you…"

I look at the toilet paper, and it clicks. All the emotions I've been struggling to contain come bubbling up, all at once. "Why would you do this to me? It's not enough to blame me for losing my favorite place in the world? You have to pull a stupid prank on me, too?"

I move to close the door, but Hillary takes a step forward, looking alarmed.

"Jessie, wait—we didn't TP you. This was already here."

I pause. "You didn't?"

"Of course not," Cooper says. He's holding his cap in his hands, like he's beseeching me.

"What do you want, then?" My heart aches; just yesterday, she implied that I've run this place into the ground.

"We have a new idea," she says. "An idea to save the camp."

I squint at her. "You…what?"

"Can I come in? I'll explain everything."

I'm not sure I can trust her. But curiosity wins out, and I open the door. "Fine."

—

In the little sitting room off my bedroom, I turn on a lamp. Cooper leaves, saying he wants to give us a chance to talk, and I wish he'd stayed as a buffer. The hurt from Hillary's words feels like a raw, tangled coil in my stomach. She has on a tie-dyed Camp Chickawah shirt, and the immature, petty side of me wants to tell her to take it off. That she doesn't deserve to wear it anymore.

"I'm so sorry about what I said," Hillary says. Her face is pale and earnest. "That's the first thing I want—"

"It's fine," I cut in, not because it's true, but because I don't want to hear apologies from her. There's no point anymore.

"It's not," she says. "I was overwhelmed and sad, and I was venting to Cooper, but I went overboard and said some things I didn't mean."

I appreciate the apology, but my frustration bubbles over. "You made it sound like it's my fault this camp is failing! I've done my best, Hill. Jack Valentine has held the purse strings ever since Nathaniel and Lola passed away—it's not like I had the freedom to make any big changes."

"I know," she says. "I'm sorry, and I know how much this place means to you—"

"You said I was too emotionally invested ," I say, my throat tightening.

Her eyes fill with regret. "Only because I've spent the last twelve years trying to never get emotionally invested in anything—my dad raised me to believe that's a weakness." She shakes her head. "But honestly? I envy you."

"Me?"

"You've always known exactly what you want to do, who you want to be, and you made it happen. Meanwhile, I've always done what was expected of me." She runs a hand through her hair, then glances up at me. "Like when I bailed on our plan to be counselors together."

The old feelings—resentment, confusion, despair—are pummeling me, and I automatically try to stuff them down. But then I remember my conversation with Luke.

She's leaving anyway. How can it hurt to be honest with her?

"That broke my heart, Hill." My voice sounds tiny, mournful. "It wasn't the same without you."

Her face softens. "I know. I spent the whole summer wishing I was here."

"Then why did you take that internship?"

"My dad said it was time to stop ‘playing' and start focusing on my future. I couldn't handle disappointing him." She winces. "Only, I ended up disappointing you. And myself, too."

The tightness in my stomach eases, just a fraction. "It felt like you never cared about me as much as I cared about you."

"I cared about you so much. I've never had a friend like you, Jessie. Not before and not since."

"So why didn't you reach out?" My voice is rough; this part is the hardest to say. Remembering how I kept expecting her to email or call—maybe even show up one day in person to explain. But she never did. As if I didn't matter to her. As if all our memories, our entire friendship since we were eight years old, meant nothing. I'd never felt so abandoned.

"I—" She shrugs helplessly. "I thought about calling you, but the summer started, and you were at camp, so I thought about writing you a letter, but then I got busy with the internship, and time kept passing…" She looks down at her lap, shakes her head. "I was ashamed of myself, Jessie. I didn't think you'd forgive me."

"I would have," I say immediately. "Even if we weren't counselors together, we didn't have to stop being friends . But you vanished from my life, Hilly! I didn't know how to handle that."

She looks up, her cheeks flushed with those familiar red patches. "I messed up. I know I did. But all you said in your reply was ‘It's fine.' What was I supposed to do with that? I didn't know if you even wanted to hear from me again." Eyes fixed on mine, she says, "You could have reached out, too."

The words hit me in the stomach, hard.

All these years, I've blamed her—and yes, she was the one who backed out on our plans—but she's right. Luke's called me out on my habit of saying "It's fine" instead of communicating.

"I wish I had," I say. "I'm sorry."

She nods, like she appreciates that, and silence descends between us.

Then I remember her earlier words. "Wait—you have an idea to save the camp?"

She nods eagerly. "Yes!"

"That's not possible—Jack's set on selling it."

"So we buy the camp ourselves."

I tilt my head. No way I heard that correctly. "What are you talking about?"

"What if I help you clean up the toilet paper outside while I explain?"

I'm still confused, and definitely not optimistic, but I'm not ready for Hillary to leave yet, either. We have more to talk about—and not just this idea Hillary has. We owe it to ourselves, to our history, to work through our past together.

"Sure. That would be great."

We head out, but Hillary stops before she leaves the room. "You still have this?"

She's pointing at the hooks I've stuck in the wall to hang my necklaces: the one my mom gave me when I graduated high school; the one I inherited from my grandmother when she passed away.

And the half of the friendship heart that Hillary gave me when we were twelve. One of those "Best Friends Forever" necklaces every teenage girl seems to have. I've thought about throwing it out so many times, but something stopped me.

Maybe because deep down, I hoped I'd have another chance.

"Yes, I kept it," I say, feeling awkward. "Isn't that what forever means?"

Hillary smiles, tentatively. "Forever and ever and ever."

We head outside, each with a garbage bag. The sky is cloudy—no moon, no stars—and my cabin is surrounded by tall trees and dense underbrush; the only light is the golden glow from my porch. Streamers of toilet paper, caught in the branches, flutter in the breeze. Little white flags of surrender.

As we start cleaning, I glance over at Hillary. Her hair is up in a messy bun, her eyes lit with a familiar fire. She always looked like this when she was excited to start a new craft project. Like her brain was overflowing with ideas.

"Okay," I say, "tell me about this plan you came up with."

She grins. "Have you ever heard of a co-op?"