Twenty-Nine

twenty-nine

The dumbest thing I can do is try to hide my wrist, both because it’s clear that my mom has already seen it, and also because it hurts like a bitch. But that is exactly what I do, and the pained squeak that comes out of my mouth only makes it worse.

“What happened?” ask my mom and Leo in unison.

I look over at my mom and see that she has my duffel bag in her hands. Somehow, in the last ten minutes, she has taken the liberty of inviting herself into my cabin, shoving all my stuff into it, and carting it out. She means business.

“I fell.”

She opens her mouth, clearly not accepting that as an adequate answer, but she’s entered fight-or-flight mode and she is decidedly in flight.

“We’ll stop and get it looked at on the way,” she says. “Let’s go, your dad’s waiting in the car.”

“Wait—I can’t—I have to say—”

“Please don’t make this difficult.”

There is this resignation in her voice I’m not used to hearing. Something about it blisters in my ears, reminding me of the truth I’ve been trying to come to terms with not only in the last few months, but all my life—I’m a problem.

Well, serves them right. They had me to solve one. Figures I’d create a dozen more.

My voice is hard, matching hers. “Let me say goodbye to Savvy. You at least owe me that.”

She falters for a split second, and I seize on it, backing away from her. “I’ll be right back,” I tell her. I turn to acknowledge Leo, but he’s gone. I quickly scour the area for him, but he must have gone back into the kitchen.

“Crap.”

I take off, but before I find Savvy I nearly run headfirst into Mickey, who’s coming back from a run with Rufus. She pulls her headphones out of her ears, squinting at the hobble I’ve adopted in an attempt not to mess up my wrist.

“Have you seen Savvy?”

She glances at my arm, drops her mouth in horror, and looks back at my face. “Uh—”

“Seriously, my parents are here, I’ve gotta find her.”

The horror slides off Mickey’s face into a deeper, disquieting kind of fear. “She’s not with you?”

“No. Why?”

“Because she didn’t come back to the cabin after she talked to Jo last night,” says Mickey, the words coming out too fast. She was breathing hard before, but now she’s on the verge of hyperventilating. “I just figured with everything going on that she was with you. She’s not with you anymore?”

The chill that goes through me is more immediate than the one from Polar Bear Swim, more ancient than anything I can shake off. “She hasn’t been with me at all.”

There’s a beat, and then Mickey starts whisper-screaming, “Shit. Shit. Shit, shit, shit—”

“When did you last see her?”

“She was outside the cabin, taking the call, and I was—I didn’t want to hear it, I…” Her face has gone ashen. “She was trying to get better service and walked out toward the main office, and that’s it. That’s the last time I saw her.”

Only then do I remember the flash of her phone number lighting up my screen, right before I fell from the tree. I pull out my phone and call her back, Mickey’s eyes glued to me for the few long seconds it takes.

“Voicemail,” I mutter.

Mickey looks like she’s about to bawl. “Rufus wanted to go with her, but I was feeling sorry for myself, and I made him stay and cuddle with me. Oh my god. Oh my god—”

“It’s okay,” I hear myself saying. The girl with angry parents in the car, and a wrist ballooning more by the second, and a brain that’s basically in free fall, is telling someone it’ll be okay. “We’ll find her. Is there some kind of camp protocol? Anyone we’re supposed to call?”

Mickey sucks in a breath, drawing herself up and blinking until her eyes are clear. “Yeah. I’ll go tell Victoria.”

“I’ll…”

Mickey is full-on sprinting away already, leaving me in the dust. I stand there, glancing back to see if my mom has followed me. But it’s only Rufus, staring at me fully alert, sans slobber or stolen camp paraphernalia in his mouth, like he’s waiting for a command.

My parents are gonna kill me.

“Let’s go.”