SATURDAY

I wake up to Hope tapping me on the shoulder. Taylor starts to speak and is shushed by everyone else. I almost forgot about first word. We’re not allowed to speak until one of the counselors does first word. They read the bible passage of the day, do a quick prayer and then we are allowed to go to breakfast and talk. So we spend ten minutes changing and getting ready for the day in silence.

I pull on rain boots again and head over to the dining hall where we have first word.

“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never is thirsty. I am the bread of life.”

“Dear God, thank you for bringing us all here at Wapo and Ox for this week. Pray that you be with us as we do ropes course, high and low, and with us later this week as we meet our cabins. Thank you. You are the God of life. Amen.”

We hurry to the front of the dining hall, the immense chatter already building in decibels. I see Mel shove one girl so she can get to the front of the line.

“Bagels and Pop Tarts today ladies,” one of the counselors yells. Krista moans.

“Ew.”

“I miss Wapo food,” Maria says. We all nod our heads in agreement. It only takes us a few minutes to scarf our food before heading out back to wash our dishes. They make us wash our own dishes, you read right. The bleach water is boiling hot, it’s hard to even stick my hand in there to pick up my bowl.

Then we rush back to our cabin to finish packing and grab our stuff. Because today is a team bonding day, the campers don’t arrive until Sunday, we’re doing ropes courses. I will do low ropes, but I refuse to do high. They’re thirty feet in the air, and I’m deathly afraid of heights.

My J Brand jeans are dark and straight legged, matching perfectly with my short-sleeved salmon colored tee shirt and gold and white headband.

“Why do you look cute?” Ama asked, pulling a pair of sweatpants over her shorts. “It’s frickin camp.”

“Eva always dresses cute,” Tay muttered, jamming a pair of spare socks into her bag very unceremoniously.

“Shut up you guys,” I say, pressing a dark magenta chapstick to my lower lip. “Sorry that I hate regular man clothes.”

Maria laughs and pulls on a green Wapo shirt from last year. Her thin and pale arms are such a contrast to everyone else’s toned, tanned arms. Sometimes I wonder what she thinks of us, because I know what we think of her.

We reluctantly leave our cabin and are, of course, the cabooses of the entire parade of girls heading to high ropes. A huge mud puddle sits at the base of the path and we have to navigate around it, stepping in a slightly less muddy area along the perimeter that is infested with spiky tress.

“OUCH!”

“What the?”

“Does anybody have a tweezers?” Krista asks. When we make it around the giant mud puddle, the other girls are a good one hundred feet ahead. Just when I believe that it can’t get any worse, it starts to sprinkle. Saturday at Ox is the day we do ropes course. Everything we do is outside. Even eating lunch and dinner.

“Oh, lord, it’s raining,” Maria says. We’re walking on the side of the road so that the leaves of the trees protect us from the rain. But a drizzle turns into a smattering, which turns into an outright downpour. Then I realize something.

“We didn’t bring extra clothes, did we?”

The girls think for a moment.

“S***,” Taylor says, low enough so no counselors hear. Our bags have only a flashlight, extra socks, cameras, bibles and water bottles. Above us, lightning cracks the sky with a flurry of purple. Even though the sun rose before we ate breakfast, the sky is a dark navy color.

“Hurry up, girls,” Hope says from behind us. “We’re going to first village instead of ropes.”

Ama sighs. First village is a good ten-minute walk from the ropes course. This hike takes forever, a good two miles of up and down and gravel.

When we finally make it to village one, we can see everybody else packed into the dining hall. Krista starts to do a small run, but is so caught up that she doesn’t see the twin of our giant mud puddle at village three. Her hands fly out in front of her, but not before she is half submerged in the mud.

“Krista!” I hear Maria yell before I hear the laughter from dining hall. I scoot around the mud pile and pull Krista free from the mud. She starts to shake and I tell her to stop because it’s hitting me.

“This is so embarrassing,” she whispers, her face a scarlet red.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll be right back.” Then I storm up the hill and into the dining hall, pulling Kevin aside.

“Kev, I need to borrow a shirt and a pair of sweatpants.”

“Why?”

“Duh,” I answer, placing one hand on my soaked hip. My dark jeans are now black with water and my top is sticking to my abdomen, exposing a faint line of where my bra is. I’m thankful that I wore a tan one, instead of the lacy pink I had thought about. “For Krista.”

“Oh,” he says, pushing open the door and into the rain.

“Hey, Eva.”

I turn around and see Parker and Taylor, lounging in a few chairs at a table. They are equally tan and gorgeous, but I think back to the short conversation I had with Parker yesterday.

“Hey guys,” I say, pulling out a chair myself. I see out the screens Kevin handing his dry and clean clothes to a thankful Krista. She and Maria make their way to the bathroom for her to change.

“Thanks Kevin,” I say when he enters the dining hall again. He nods in acknowledgement.

“So whose your counselor?” Tay asks Parker.

“Cody. He’s boss.” I follow his eyes and see Cody at the front of the dining hall, his hair covered by a pink hat turned backwards. Normally, I’d find that such a douche thing to do but on him, it looks adorable. His arms are exposed in an orange tee shirt that brightens up his complexion. He notices me staring and smiles.

“He so just smiled at you,” Parker says. I’m about to open my mouth when Taylor giggles and fake punches him in the arm. Was Cody looking at Taylor? I turn back to look at him, but he’s gone.

“Hey Krista, nice wipeout,” someone sneers. Krista pulls self-consciously on the baggy white tee shirt and grey sweatpants Kevin loaned her.

I whisper in her ear, “Ignore them. You’re fine.” She starts to breathe normally again and I stare aggressively into the crowd of people. All the guys are dry and warm, all the girls are cold and shivering and there is a lot of flirting going on.

I grab my backpack, rummaging for my camera, before I realize what is taking up so much space. I notice Cody back by the bathrooms washing his hands and I brave the rain, running quickly to where he’s standing.

“Hey,” he says before I even get under the shelter of the building.

“Hi,” I say, pushing a hand through my sopping hair. I probably look like a mess. “I, um, still have your sweatshirt.” I hold it out to him. “Thanks for letting me borrow it.” Cody takes it from my hand, our palms brushing lightly.

“No problem,” he says. “But you don’t want to wear it now? I’m sure you’re cold.”

I shake my head. “I don’t want to get it wet.”

Cody laughs lightly and unfurls the sweatshirt with his hands, opening the bottom so I can slip it on. I push my arms through the sleeves and my head through the opening. My eyes catch his and for a moment, we don’t say anything. Then, to my utter surprise, he touches where the sweatshirt meets the band of my jeans.

“Don’t worry about that,” he whispers, so close that I can smell his cinnamon gum. “I trust you.”

“Yeah,” I whisper back, lost in his gaze. We don’t move for several moments, then a pan drops in dining hall and we both jump. “I should probably go back.”

“Yes,” Cody says, running his hand over his hat. I return to the dining hall and everyone is sitting in a circle. I sit down, fast, next to Maria.

“Where were you?” she asks. I look back at the bathrooms and Cody is climbing into a dark green Chevy Trail Blazer.

“No where,” I answer, sitting straight ahead and not looking into her knowing gaze.

Krista and Kevin are sitting together, not speaking, but sitting considerably close. Taylor and Parker are batting their eyelashes at each other, no doubt flirting it up. Charles is sitting in the corner, creeping on some innocent little freshman named Nicole and Ryan and Ama are talking in hushed voices.

Outside, Cody has started his truck and is driving away. I see almost all of the girls staring, hopeful and desperate at the same time, in his direction. Unfortunately, I find myself one of them. The rain starts to let up and soon is only a drizzle.

Maria leans over. “What do you think they’re going to do if it starts raining again?”

“I’m not sure,” I say, lifting my sleeve to wipe underneath my eyes for smeared mascara. Cody’s sweatshirt still smells like him; that heavenly combination of lemonade, cedar wood and vanilla.

“I thought you gave that back,” Maria asks, pointing at the sweatshirt.

“Oh,” I say. “I tried to but he said that I could wear it because it’s raining.”

“Maybe he likes you,” Maria sighs. “He’s so hot.”

“Maybe,” I say. We look around the room. It’s one big flirting circle. I see a cluster of freshman girls walk over to Ryan and ask if they can take a photo with him. He says yes and stands up, slinging an arm around them like he’s Hugh Hefner and they’re his wet tee shirt girls. Ama watches from the ground, her face shows she’s pissed.

“Can you believe him?” Ama says, scooting over by us. Her gray tee shirt has dried around the corners and her blond hair is messy in its pony but she’s still beautiful. Only I know that she puts concealer on her lips to make them paler to match her skin tone.

“That’s just Ryan,” I say. I look over and he’s doing a muscle pose with the giggling freshmen.

“Yeah. That’s why we broke up. Because that’s how he acts.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Why did you break up with Alex?” she asks me.

“We’re on a break,” I bite out. “It’s temporary.”

“You know when you say break, it means you broke up?”

“No, it means we’re taking a break.”

“I don’t think----,”

“Shut up,” I interrupt her. Jason starts to speak at the front of the room. No one is listening.

“If you can hear me…”

No one replies. There is too much chatter to hear even you.

“IF you can HEAR me…”

I look at Jason and give him a sad, sympathetic smile. Everyone around me continues to talk, oblivious. I expect him to try again before I hear…

“QUIET!”

Everyone is silent.

“WE’RE DOING LOW ROPES. FORM SIX GROUPS. SILENTLY.” I look up and see Cody, his shirt damp from the rain. He was the one yelling next to a sad looking Jason.

“OH AND CHOOSE A COUNSELOR.”

My friends immediately rush to where Cody is standing. I follow them, not at all reluctant. Of course, we’re with all of the guys we know and several that I don’t.

“Alright,” Cody says, stepping back in front of our group. “We’re all setting off for various low ropes courses. Everyone ready?”

We nod and he takes that as a yes, leading us down the trail to our first destination. My friends begin to whisper about his hotness when he’s twenty feet ahead.

“God, look at his shoulders.”

“I love that he takes command.”


“He’s just sexy,” Taylor breathes.

“I agree,” I whispered. They all look at me funny. “What?”

“He gave you his sweatshirt,” Ama said. “Don’t you think that means something?”

I laugh. “This isn’t the fifties. One: he didn’t give me his letter jacket to wear home to his family. Two: he was just being kind. He said I could use it because the rain is cold.”

Maria looked up. “The rain stopped.”

“I’m not just going to whip it off and throw it at him like a piece of trash.”

“We’re here,” Mel trilled. We’re standing before what is essentially, a tree swing made of rope.

“Okay,” Cody says. He steps into a small boxed off area around the rope and grabs it. I can see his veins bulging in his muscular forearm. “I am standing in a pile of lava. I have special lava shoes that the rest of you do not. This rope is the only thing that you can use to get across. All of you must make it across and you must get the rope from here.” He lets it go and hangs it straight down in the middle of the box that is about seven feet by seven feet. Kevin tries to reach and grab it, but it’s too far.

“If you fall into the lava, I choose what sense you are going to lose when you try to make it again. I recommend some guys go first so that they can catch whoever else comes.”

Then he stepped off to the side and let us discuss.

“I’ll run and jump and get it,” Kevin says. We nod our heads in agreement because Kevin would do it even if we protested. I hold my breath as he takes a running start and jumps for the rope…and makes it! He swings easily across to the other side and we cheer.

“Okay, who’s next?”

“Mel!” someone shouts. It’s a small boy with blond hair and an Abercrombie shirt. Mel blushes and walks up to the front of the square. Kevin swings the rope, hard, at her and she catches it.

“Now grab it as high as you can and jump, we’ll push you,” Parker says. Mel nods and grabs the rope high, her tiny arms straining to hold on. Parker and the random blond guy take her by the waist and count.

“Three…Two…One…” They swing her fast and she lands, with a grunt, in Kevin’s arms. We cheer again and more girls step up to swing across. It’s after all my friends have gone that I realize I’m the last girl to go. My fear of heights is immense, ever since I scaled a tree when I was four, fell down and got a concussion.

“Eva, you’re next,” Kirk said. I turned to him.

“Eh, no I’m not.” He laughed.

“Yeah, you’re the last girl.”

“Can we pretend I’m a boy?” I looked over and saw Cody looking at me, concerned. Kevin was antsy on the other side, bouncing from one giant foot to the other.

“You’ll be fine,” Kirk whispered, pushing me slowly to the rope. I took it from one of the guys and placed my hands as far as they could go on the rope. “Okay, I’m going to kneel down and you’re going to stand on my leg. Then John is going to give you a push when I say three okay?” I nod and when Kirk says three, I jump and squeeze my eyes tight. I hear a small screech and I pull my knees up to my chest.

And then I land in Cody’s arms. Literally. When I open my eyes, he has me bride style in his arms on the other side of the square.

“Hi?” I breathe, still scared but now exhilarated. Cody puts me down and gives Kevin a sheepish look.

“I thought you might be tired,” he murmured, his gaze locked in mine.

“Um, not really,” Kevin says. “But that’s fine.”

Cody walks back over to neutral ground between the two groups on either side of the rope. My friends rush over to me.

“He caught you in his arms!” Mel screeched. I shushed her.

“Shh! He’ll hear you.”

“What was that about?” Ama asked.

“He so likes you!” Krista said, wrapping a chunk of hair around her index finger.

“He was just giving Kevin a break,” I murmur, brushing my fingers lightly over my torso. I can still feel his fingers and arms where he held me, his light touch at my waist where he helped me put on the sweatshirt.

We turn and cheer for the other guys to make it across. One falls and loses his sight. But he falls again and loses his hearing. The remaining guys on that side work well together to get him across. I’m very impressed by our unity as a team.

“Next!” Cody yells and we trample after him, scooting as close as possible to his walk. He brings us to a long log that is lying on the ground.

“Alright,” he says, walking up to the log and putting on foot on it. “At this station you must all get on the log. Now.” We scurry to get on the log next to our friends. I’m smack dab in the middle.

“Now you must organize yourselves in chronological birthday dates starting with January here,” he points to my right. “And December here.” He points to my far left.

“And you must do it without speaking.” We look at him, dumbfounded. How the crap are we suppose to do this without speaking? There are at least thirty of us.

“Oh, and I forgot to mention that if you fall off the log, you have to return to where you started originally. Even one foot off counts.”

I immediately start climbing my way to January. I have the guys bend down and hug the log, and then I crawl over them with the help of whoever is next to them. My friends and I do a small dance where we squish ourselves together and use our footing to turn us around.

I hold up one finger at Parker to show him that I’m month one and I crawl over his back, incredibly ungracefully. Taylor catches me on the other side of him. I start to laugh, I almost fell over, and Tay slaps a hand over my mouth. I twirl around with her so that she’s on the other side and moving down to August. Then, it’s only me at the front of the log and I’m in my right place.

Cody comes up to where I’m standing on the tree. “What’s your birthday?” he whispers.

“January eleventh.”

“January thirteenth,” he replies.

I look at him, a mixture of surprise and happiness. “Thirteen is my lucky number.”

“How can that be a lucky number?” he chuckles. His smile is infectious and covers his entire face, showing off his strange and mystical features. Cody has dark hair and eyes, but a medium complexion with freckles and sparkling white teeth. I’m mesmerized for a moment by his looks before I answer his question.

“It’s my lucky number. What’s yours?”

He gives me a small grin. “Eleven.”

“Hey, we can talk?” Kevin shouts from across the log. Cody gives him a death stare.

“NO, Kevin.”

I shoot a look of confusion towards Cody but he’s already moved to the other end of the log, asking birthdays. It seems that whenever he and I have a small conversation, it ends with an interruption and him walking away. We haven’t even formally introduced ourselves. I know his name because I totally creeped on him last year. But does he know mine?

Down at the end of the log, there is some commotion. I bend as far over as I can and peer down the length. Parker is lying on the log, as flat as possible as Mel crawls over his back. Taylor is at the other side of him, seething. The two of them still have a little vendetta, but it’s mostly cleared up. Yesterday, when the cabin assignments said that those two were in the horse cabin and not with us, Tay flipped.

After Taylor climbs over Parker’s back, we all stand up. Cody walks over to the front of the tree, where I am.

“Date?” he asks.

“January eleventh.” He begins to move down the line and we list off our birthdates in perfect chronological order.

“Great,” Cody says, a smile breaking over his face. “We’re on to the next one.”

We all hop off the log and grab our stuff; the sun begins to peek over the dark clouds in the sky.

“I hope we do something that involves walking back to village three and changing my bra,” Mel whines. I laugh and pat her on the back. “It’s soaked,” she continues. The path winds around a corner and I recognize we’re back at the ropes course.

“This one is boring,” Krista remembers, pushing a lock of hair behind her ears. I find her beautiful in all the different ways. Her eyes are wide and different colors, her skin browns easily and her laugh is joyous and clear. Sure, she’s heavier than the rest of us. But she’s beautiful nonetheless.

“I remember this one,” Ama says, right before Cody steps on one of the three platforms we’ve walked up to.

“This one is called lily pads. There are three of these lily pads and two boards of different lengths. You must use the boards to help you get across the rushing water below. The boards can only drop three times into the river before they’re gone forever. And no one can get off the third lily pad until the last person is on the first.”

We start to rush to the first lily pad, lining up when we can no longer fit on it.

“Oh,” Cody continues. “And only ONE person can talk. This person is allowed to be off of the lily pads and doesn’t have to cross over. But they have all the responsibility in making the choices of who goes and when and how. Choose that person now.”

“NOT Kevin!” I shout. I couldn’t help it. He would take this “authority” way too far and piss the rest of us off. Kevin gives me an evil glare. “Sorry,” I shrug. I hear a stifled laugh and see Cody chuckling over in the corner.

“Well if you don’t choose me, who do you choose Eva?” His tone is bitter.

“Don’t be a baby,” I roll my eyes. “Honestly, I’d choose Maria.”

Maria looks at me, dumbfounded. She isn’t picked often for parts that require loud speaking and authority.

“Are you okay with that, Maria?” Cody asks. She blushes when he says her name.

“Yes,” she squeaks out. I’m afraid that she won’t be able to control all of us. But I’m pleasantly surprised when she walks out to the grass and commands that someone grab the boards.

The exercise takes us an hour. By the end, we’re all sweating buckets from being so closely packed and from the beating sun. I’ve peeled off Cody’s sweatshirt and tired my hair back into a loose French braid that flaps on my back when I turn.

“LUNCH!” We scramble for the picnic table that is laid out with sandwich parts. Mel and I look at each other, silently speaking. Both of us are strict vegetarians. Mel because she doesn’t like the taste of meats. Me because I hate the way they treat animals. They’re raised from birth to be meat and I can’t stand it. Once Mel and I are up to the table, we see a spread of meats and cheese and bread.

I grab two slices of wheat and spread some hummus then add spinach and pepper jack cheese and sprouts. Just as I’m about to close my sandwich, I feel someone bending over me and see a hand grabbing at the cheese.

“No meat?”

I turn around awkwardly so that only my torso has turned. Parker has a huge pile of ham and cheese on his roll.

“I’m a vegetarian,” I murmur, moving down the line and grabbing my granola bar and some carrots. Ox food isn’t nearly as good as Wapo, but their sandwich spread is better.

“What’s the point of that?” Parker asked, his mouth half full of meat sandwich. Maybe it was because my jeans were still wet from the morning rain. Or maybe because I had just finished my period but I got pissed at Parker for not a very good reason at all.

“Do you know what they do to those animals? Do you know how those animals live, their entire lives? They live to be food! They are tortured until the very last second of their lives! How do you feel, knowing that you’re eating what was once an animal who never lived to be happy?”

I stormed away. Everyone else had gone silent and all I could hear were my angry footsteps as I stomped over to the nearest picnic table and threw down my food. I could hear quick footsteps behind me and there was a tiny hand on my shoulder.

“Are you okay?” Krista asked, her face soothing and serene. I glanced down to the sandwich in her hands, turkey, and grimaced.

“Yeah,” I bite out, the words sour before I even said them. “But the turkey you’re eating isn’t.”

Krista looked hurt for a moment before she backed away, a few cheese-flavored chips falling from her hands as she rushed over to everyone else. I was alone at the picnic table with my measly sandwich when I realized I didn’t want to be like this. I didn’t want to be the b**** that uses her vegetarianism to make everyone who eats meat feel bad. But I’m a Capricorn, and true to my sign, I’m ridiculously stubborn. So I don’t make a move to apologize to Krista and join my friends over by the sandwich table. I pretend that I’m perfectly content to eat my sandwich alone.

“Can I join you?” I look up to see Cody standing above me, his giant hands clasping, what else? a meat sandwich.

I smile. “Of course.” He takes a seat across from me and lays his food down on the table. He’s silent for a few moments before speaking again.

“So you’re a vegetarian?” He nods his head at my sandwich.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “That freak out at Parker, that’s not me.”

Cody sighs. “Who are you?”

“A vegetarian, but not one who tries to make other people vegetarians.”

Cody looks at me long and hard and then covers my hand with his large one. “Actually, I just wanted to formally introduce myself. But that’s a good description too. I was looking for your name though.”

I blush, hard, and focus my eyes down on the rough wood table.

“Eva.”

Cody lift up his hand and closes it around mine, shaking the two. “Hi. I’m Cody.”

I laugh. “I know who you are.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” he says. “Because I’ve known who you are since last year.”

“Really?” I ask, my eyes trained on his.

“Yeah,” he says and bows his head sheepishly. “I remember the picture.”

“What picture?” I blurt, even though I know exactly what he’s talking about.

Cody looks at me, confused. “You asked to take a picture with me last year at Banquet.”

“I remember,” I murmur, picking the sandwich up and biting into it. Oozing mustard seeps into my mouth and I almost gag.

“You okay?”

“Yep,” I choke out, wiping at my mouth with my napkin. “Spicy.”

“I love spicy,” Cody says. “Let me try it.”

I give him a strange look then pass over my nasty sandwich. He takes a bite and his eyes go wide.

“What is in here?”

“Um, like three slices of pepper jack cheese and mustard and bean sprouts.”

I look at him and then we both burst into laughter.

“This is the most disgusting sandwich I’ve ever tasted,” he laughs and puts it down on the table. “And it’s not even spicy.”

“What?” I exclaim, picking off the top layer of bread. “Look at that spiciness! It’s crazy!”

“What’s crazy is eating an entire jar of olive oil packed jalapeno peppers.”

“You did that?”

He nods. “Yeah. Some of my friends thought it would be a great way to end our freshman year, by eating everything in my mom’s pantry.”

I laugh. “That’s the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard.”

“I’ve got the stupidest idea but you’ve got the worst sandwich. I think sandwich tops idea.”

I shake my head and smile. Cody leans back and runs a hand over his hat, pulling it father down and exposing his hairline.

“Why are you a counselor?” I ask.


“I went to Wapo as a kid and I loved it. I went as a TIM Teamer and I loved it. Something about being here, it’s a feeling that you don’t ever want to lose.”

“I know, right!” I exclaimed, pulling my hair back and rebraiding it. “Like there’s that special ‘Wapo Feeling’ and once you leave, no matter what you do or who you’re with, you can’t feel it again. It has to be here.”

Cody nodded, a smile breaking out over his entire face. “I call it, “WAF.”

I let out a snort and then blushed. “WAF?”

“Yeah. It stands for Wapo Amazing Feeling.”

“Okay,” I say, grabbing my napkin and nasty sandwich. “We’ll, I should probably go apologize to Parker.”

Cody grins. “Sure,” he says. Then, surprising me, he takes my garbage from me. “A lady shouldn’t have to throw away garbage.”

“I’m not a lady.”

“You are to me,” he says and walks away, leaving me giddy and dumbfounded.


*****************************************************************************

High Ropes are pretty much my hell. I hate heights and I hate heat and I hate every aspect of high ropes. Being suspended thirty feet above ground by a few ropes and having everyone see your flaws, well that’s just not my cup of tea.

But my friends all love it. They eagerly climb into their harnesses and line up at the different stations like Jacob’s ladder and Leap of Faith. The Leap of Faith is essentially a really, really tall pole. You climb all the way to the top and somehow, I have no idea how; pull yourself so that you’re standing onto of the pole. But this pole is only about two and a half feet in diameter. Once you repeat your safety callings, you jump as high and hard and outwards as you can to try and touch a dangling carrot. Then, you drop a good ten feet.

It is suppose to be the most exhilarating, mind blowing feeling. But I could never bring myself to do something so crazy and so dangerous.

As my friends rush into their ropes course activities, I choose a space on a picnic table, partially in shade, and lie down. When the sun moves over, I lift the hem of my tee shirt to tan my stomach. My backpack is around somewhere and I sit up, rummaging around for my sunglasses.

“Hey.” I open my eyes and see Charles coming towards me, what has to be his third sandwich in his hands. I sigh and lie back down on the table.

“Hey,” I reply. I undo my braid and let my hair fan over the edge of the picnic table. “No ropes for you?”

“Later,” Charles replies. I push my sunglasses past my hairline and roll onto my side so that I’m facing him.

“What’s going on?” I ask and pull down my tee shirt where it had ridden up earlier.

“Not much,” Charles says, his mouth full of sandwich. He has shaggy blond hair and light blue eyes, but something about Charles is always, and will always be, sketchy. He could be attractive. But he’s always lurking, doing random creepy things and touching me. And he has a tendency to wear plain white tee shirts, which attract stains throughout the day, making it look as if the shirt hasn’t been cleaned in a year. “How about you?”

“I hate ropes,” I reply, pulling my glasses off, shaking my hair, and replacing them over my eyes. “I’m deathly afraid of heights.”

“For some reason, I can see that.”

I smack his bicep lightly and realize that Charles is pretty toned. “Shut up, Chuck. I’m not that much of a sissy.” Chuck is our pet name for Charles. It pisses him off.

“Don’t call me Chuck,” he grinds his teeth. I just laugh but then Charles is dumping his cup of water on my shoulder in retaliation.

“Ah!” I shriek and he starts to run away. I leap off the table and chase after him. Charles is slow and I ran sprints for track last year. When I catch up to him, I pounce and we both fall to the ground. I pin his arms down.

“Say uncle,” I laugh. Charles grins.

“Uncle.” I let him go and we both stand up. The only person around is, of course, Cody. Either he really didn’t hear that commotion, or he pretends he didn’t because he doesn’t even look our way.

“Sorry,” Charles says sheepishly. “You called me Chuck, I had to.”

I laugh again. “Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re a feisty one,” he says, a smile on his face that I can’t place. It’s a mix of creepy and sweet and it’s completely Charles. I realize that he probably thinks I’m flirting with him. And maybe I am.

“How did I catch you?” I ask. “Don’t you run cross country?”

Charles shrugged. “Yeah, but that’s long distance. This was like two feet and you’re faster than crap.”

I laugh, making my way back to the picnic table but it’s now overrun by other people. I sigh and move to a patch of shady grass even though I hate grass. It’s always prickly and filled with bugs that crawl on you when you don’t know it. I lie down and close my eyes, imagining four hours from now when it’ll be dinner and campfire and fun. Ropes are fun if you enjoy doing the ropes courses. But I just sit out every year, alone because I’m the only one who dislikes them.

“Hi.”
I sigh and roll over, ignoring Charles. Then he starts to tap my shoulder and I push myself off the ground, whipping off my sunglasses and giving him an evil glare.

I find myself face to face with Parker. He backs up and raises his hands in the air, surrender style.

“I didn’t do anything!”

I laugh and stand up, patting him on the shoulder. “Sorry, I thought you were Charles.”

“Wow, what a compliment,” he says. I look at Parker and I see a lot of things. I see a guy who is confident and sweet and funny and amazing. And then I see the guy that no one else does. The one who hooks up with random girls, the Parker who smokes cigarettes and chews tobacco and talks crap about people behind their backs? The Parker that I choose to see at Wapo is the one who is sweet and funny.

“Want to take a walk?” I ask out of the blue. Parker and I never really have time to talk. I think I would be a good idea.

“Sure,” he says, dropping his backpack next to mine. I grab my water bottle and we start walking towards the horses and village one.

“Where are you going?” Cody asks. He’s busy loading our leftover lunch things into his truck.

Before Parker can answer, I pipe up. “Water. I’m super thirsty. And Parker has to go to the bathroom.”

Cody blushes a little and waves us off. His face shows no emotion. I was kind of hoping that he likes me. After borrowing me his sweatshirt and catching me in low ropes, not to mention our lunch conversation, I had kind of gotten a feeling he was flirting with me. But maybe not.

As soon as we’re out of earshot, Parker starts to talk. “What’s going on with you and Cody?”

“What do you mean?” I ask. A fiery red bush is to me left and I grab one of the leaves, smoothing it over with my fingers. “He’s your counselor. Not mine.”

“But he acts weird around you. Different.”

I try to laugh it off. “He’s a guy. Guys are weird.” Parker looks at me and I grin. “Of course, not you Park.”

“Okay,” he says. “But I’m going to watch and prove it to you.”

“Prove what?”

“That Cody’s different around you.”

“Alright,” I sigh and drop the ruby red leaf in the mud. It’s immediately sunken in and an ugly brown color. Everything can go from beautiful to ugly in a matter of seconds, whether it is whom you see as beautiful or what you see. “Have fun with that.”

We walk to the horses in silence. I calculate my step so that it’s even with Parker’s. He walks like he owns the world and I walk like I’m his pauper


“How are you?” I ask quietly, tugging on the end of my drooping braid.

Parker turns to me as we sit on the edge of the horse cabin. “I’m good. How are you?”

I sigh happily. “Perfect. Everything is perfect at Wapo.” I tip my head back to the sky and close my eyes, feeling the warm sunrays on my face and neck.

“How are you able to look past everything?”

“What do you mean?”

“Look past what Mel and I did last year. Look past how much of a b**** Taylor can be and how everyone makes fun of Krista. You’re either the most forgiving and strong person I know, or the most oblivious.”

I let out a small laugh. “I’m not the most oblivious, I’ll tell you that. I think that you just have to move on. Life moves on, no matter what, so we have to also. I don’t care what you and Mel did, because it’s over with. Yeah, you hurt Taylor. And you hurt God because you did what you did before marriage. But you’ve asked for forgiveness and he’s given it to you. So who am I to not forgive you when God already has? His choice is the only one that matters.”

Parker lies down on the wooden planks of the porch. “You’re a lot more than what meets the eye, Eva.”

“I know.” We sit in silence, taking in what we had just said. Something about being at camp makes me feeling like it’s okay to delve into deep feelings and have sporadic talks about emotions and feelings. Even the most random people will come up to you and ask you a personal question.

“Do you feel bad?” I ask.

“Yeah, I regret it. Because Taylor is a great person and I screwed up a chance to be with a girl that I could have loved.”

“Who says you can’t still try?” I say even though I’m thinking of Taylor’s boyfriend Morgan. He’s besotted with her and it would kill him if they broke up. But Parker looks so sad and forlorn that I have to give him this one-ounce of happiness.

Parker turns towards me, his eyes glittering with hope. “You think?”

“Yeah,” I whisper, reaching out my hand. Strangely, I touch his cheek with my fingertips. “I do.”

He leans closer and without thinking, I kiss him. It wasn’t expected or something I ever thought I would do, but at the time it seemed right. Parker kissed me back and sort of half rolled on top of me. It felt good to be wanted and it felt good to kiss him, because he was a very good kisser. But then I thought of Taylor.

“Oh God,” I whispered, pulling away. “What are we doing?”

Parker looked at me, confused too. “I have no idea.” We pull apart and I sit up, fixing my shirt and hair and sunglasses, trying to distract myself from Parker. What am I doing? Alex and I are still on a break, not a break up. I have a sort of boyfriend and he wants a relationship with Taylor. How did we go from relationship advice to kissing?

“Let’s not tell Taylor,” I say, standing up. He grabs my hand and I pull him up with me. “Or anyone.”

“Agreed,” he says. We stand together in quiet.

“Park,” I say.

“Yeah,” he replies softly. I move in and hug him, winding my arms around his neck, pulling him close. After a few moments we let go.

“We should probably go back.” He nods and we start back towards High Ropes.

********************************************************************

After dinner, which was a ridiculously small portion of spaghetti and salad, we all gathered for field games. It was another hike from first village to second where there is a large field. The field, at night, is my favorite part of our walk. It’s an open expanse that looks out over rolling hills and is littered with light from twinkling stars.

But Saturday night, it’s hotter than crap and we’re stuck playing field games. They’re led by a man whose adorable Dutch accent makes up for the fact that he looks like a scruffier version of Maria’s ex-boyfriend. Only I know why when she first saw Simon that her breath intake was sharp. I’m the only one who understood why she hid when he raised his arms, demonstrating the way to play the game. But of course, Maria doesn’t know that I know everything about Colin. But I do.

“This is call the enagy game,” he said in his sweet, child-like accent. It was hard to understand. “Each side ha enagy strang and you run at each other. Do not lose much enagy.”

The game made no sense, but we walked to our separate sides after he tapped our heads with numbers. Maria shirked under Simon’s hand and I wanted to soothe her, but knew it would only do more bad than good. I had only Ama and Maria on my side. Taylor, Mel and Krista were on the other side, looking super bored. Taylor was sitting on the ground, a half made bracelet wound around her water bottle as she finished it.

“Ready?” Ama asked, pulling off her tennis shoes and throwing them to the side. She was always intense when it came to field games or any games really.

“This ‘energy game’ doesn’t sound like my kind of thing,” I said, sitting down and tipping my head back. The beating sun was slowly retreating and being covered by a thick layer of shade and fog. “Maybe in a few minutes.”

“Come on, Eva!” she said, pulling me up without my direction. I flailed in her arms for a moment before catching my balance. “It’s a game. It’s camp! Play!”

“Fine,” I grumbled, pulling off my tennis shoes also. My toes were painted an exotic OPI pink called “Madagascar flamingo”. Not my regular choice, French, but cute all the same. “But if I get hurt, you’re carrying me to third village.” Ama only laughed and when Simon shouted start, she pulled my hand, hard, and thrust me into the game.

No one knew what they were doing and so all we did was run around and tag people, bringing them back to our jail. It was a stranger version of Trench, something I had loved to play when I was little in gym class.

I laugh as Ama tugs me along to where Tay is sitting. Her purple dance studio shirt is the perfect contrast to her thick blond hair. She’s ridiculously beautiful and I can see why Parker is so interested in her. But it would kill her if I said that I had kissed him, so I vowed never to tell.

“Shh,” Ama whispers, sneaking up behind Tay who is too focused on her bracelet to notice. Ama pounces on her, getting a shrill scream from Taylor.

“What the heck?” Taylor asks when she’s pinned beneath Ama.

“I have to bring you to jail,” Ama sings, tugging Tay up and pulling her towards our side’s jail hand in hand. Then I’m left alone on the opposite side.

“Get Cody,” Krista whispers in my ear. I jump at her soft words in my ear.

“You scared me,” I say.

“Get him,” she says back, pushing me towards him. Cody’s standing alone, his back to me, near the end of the energy string. I creep up then jump on his back, scaring him.

“What the?” he screams, as I’m holding onto his shoulders in a piggyback style.

“I tagged you,” I murmur and jump off his back.

Cody smiles at me and holds out his hand. “Aren’t you going to bring me to jail?”

I smile back and take his hand. He folds his large one around mine. “You’re the girl. Your hand is supposed to be on the bottom.” He rearranges them and grins again. I can’t help but be dazzled by his looks and charm. He knows how to hold a hand, he takes away my trash, and he can make a conversation light and fun.

We move across the field to my jail a lot slower than I think is required. Cody seems content to hold my hand and I’m extremely content to hold his.

“Do you like the enagy game?”

I laugh out loud; tipping my head backwards and feeling my hair spill down my back. “His accent is adorable.”

“Ya think so?”

“That was so Minnesotan.”

“Fer sure,” Cody says, making me laugh again. We’re almost to my side’s jail when he pulls me over, past the side boundaries of the field and onto the path we take at night to village three. There are rows and rows of bushes and a patch of huge dandelions. They’re at the white stage, the kind that you blow into the air.

Cody picks the biggest one of the bunch; it’s at least four inches in diameter. He holds it up to my lips. “Make a wish.”

I blow on the dandelion and wish. I wish for Cody to want me just as badly as I want him. I squeeze my eyes shut and blow several times.

Even before I open my eyes I see Cody’s laugh, his mouth spread wide and his eyes dancing. “You didn’t get it all.”

“Help me,” I whisper and we both lean close, blowing on the dandelion until all of the seeds are gone. Cody drops the stem onto the ground and we stand there for a minute, not looking at each other and not saying anything.

“I should probably take you to Jail,” I whisper, grabbing his hand once again. Cody nods.

“Don’t forget,” he says before we walk back to the field. I turn to look at him.

“Forget what?”

“What you wished for.”
**************************************************************************************

We return to village one for campfire. It’s gotten colder and the boys, lucky them, go into their cabins for sweatshirts. We huddle up on the benches close to the fire. I’m squished again Mel and Ama and French braiding Taylor’s hair at the crown. I’m the only one out of the six of us who knows how to french braid and because we can’t shower at Ox, braiding is essential to hide greasy and unwashed hair. Luckily tomorrow, Sunday, we meet our campers and are able to shower quickly before they arrive in their cabins. I hope that I get girls in Crossfire, the nicest, largest and most air-conditioned off all the cabins at Wapo.

The speakers are always counselors, except the first night at Wapo campfire where Lauren speaks. Tonight, we have one of the female counselors, named Katie, speak. She tells us about when she went to an all black school and was tortured and ridiculed and bullied for being the only white girl.

But I find it hard to focus. Cody moves around the campfire, lurking in the back. I try to follow him with my eyes without being obvious, but it’s hard. He’s wearing a red winder breaker zip up and even in the dark of the night I can see him. I try to focus my eyes on the fire, raising my voice high and sweet along with everyone else’s.

But I keep looking around for Cody.

“I’m cold,” Mel whispers. She cuddles closer to my side.

“Why don’t you sit on the ground?” I suggest. She laughs quietly and sarcastically.

“I’d rather not.”

“It’s warmer,” Tay whispers from her spot on the ground. Mel shrugs and slips off the seat, coming to rest in the dirt next to Taylor. I feel the cold wind against my empty left side.

“Hey.” I look to my left and see Cody settling into the spot that Mel just vacated.

“HI,” I whisper, turning to look at him. In the gaze of the fire, Cody’s hair is shining and his eyes are bright like fiery coals.

We all sit quietly and listen to Katie speak. Her voice is high pitched and nasal-y; something that Taylor finds incredibly annoying and I can hear her sighing about it from her place at my feet.

“Were you ever bullied?” Cody suddenly whispers in my ear. I shake my head.

“No. Were you?”

“When I was really little. My neighbors were evil little kids.” He laughs but I can see in his face that it is still haunting. I slip my hand into his without even thinking and he squeezes it. Our hands stay intertwined between our bodies so that no one but us can see. “I bet you’re the opposite of a bully. I’m sure everyone loves you.”

“You’re wrong,” I murmur. “I can be a b****.” Oops. I just said the B word. Cody looks startled and for a moment, I think he’s going to call me out on it. But then he laughs.

“Aren’t we all,” he whispers. I giggle.

“I’m sure you were very popular in high school,” I say. His hands are warm and dry, not sweaty but not flaky.

Cody shrugs. “I wasn’t prom king or anything. But high school was good to me.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Don’t you like high school?”

I smile. “It’s fine. I mean, there are times when it’s great. I was voted Snow Queen. But there are times when it’s so stressful and you feel like the whole world is turned against you.”

Cody looks at me, his eyes glittering. “Snow Queen?”

I blush. “Sophomore year. It wasn’t a big deal.”

“She’s lying,” Mel whispered from my feet. I realize that she and Taylor can probably hear everything Cody and I have said.

“Eva was gorgeous. That black strapless Marchesa was to die for. And the hair. God, the Taylor Swift hair.”

Cody turns to me. “Taylor Swift hair?”

“I had my friend do my hair like T.Swift’s in ‘Love Story’,” I mumble. Then I hit Mel’s head lightly with my knee. “Shut up.” She laughs and turns around again to the fire, her blond hair shimmering in its braid.

“I’m sure that you were beautiful,” Cody whispers low in my ear so that only I can hear. I blush again; it’s my immediate reaction to anything that he says in a compliment form.

I feel his hand close tighter around mine and his shoulder shift so that we’re sitting much closer than is required. I can feel his body heat radiating and it’s comforting. We close in prayer and begin to sing another song. I can hear Cody’s voice: it’s sweet and low and beautiful. I have an urge to touch his lips with my fingertips. To kiss him and suddenly be able to sing like that.

I’m conscious the entire time that Cody is sitting right next to me. That our hands are intertwined and that our sides are squished together. After the ending prayer, we stay seated a little longer than everybody else. The fire is glowing on the faces of my fellow TIM Teamers and surprisingly, everybody looks beautiful in it. This light is forgiving, it is beautifying.

Finally, Cody releases my hand gently. He stands and helps me up.

“Goodnight,” I whisper. I can’t pull my eyes away from his dark ones. He’s beautiful and strong and everything I’d ever imagined in a man. A perfect man.

“Goodnight, Eva,” he whispered back. The next instant he was gone. I walked slowly over to my friends, huddled up near the base of the trail.

“Does anyone have to pee?” Taylor asked. Krista nodded and the two made their way over to the bathroom.

“I’m so hungry!” Ama complained. The rest of us nodded in agreement.

“Let’s make that hunger fuel our walk,” I said. “At the end we can just start shouting food. It’ll be a…goal.”

Mel nodded and laughed, her tiny hands clamped over her mouth. “Wow, we’re pathetic.” I laughed along with her and Ama.

Krista and Taylor return.

“Is it sad that I’m starving right now?” Taylor asks. Ama, Mel and I laugh uncontrollably.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh nothing,” Mel says. “We’re hungry too.”

“Where’s Maria?” Krista asks. We all crane our necks, searching for Maria. Her dark red hair and pale skin is such a contrast to everyone else that it’s easy to spot her over by the fire. She’s talking quietly with Hope.

“I see her!” Mel shouts. “Lets go get her.”

“Wait,” I say, grabbing her arm. “Let her talk to Hope. Hope will make sure she gets back to village three.” Mel shrugs and walks over to a guy that I can’t make out, tossing her blond hair and flirting it up. I roll my eyes and dig a tootsie pop out of my bag.

“Anyone else want?” A bunch of hands shoot out and I hand out the suckers. Then one of the female counselors starts walking along the trail and we follow. The boys cry out different forms of goodnight and we yell back. I usually loose my voice part of the way through the week, we do so much singing and talking and screaming that it’s almost inevitable. I have no idea how the counselors make it through the entire summer.

“What about Maria?” Krista says again.

“She’ll be fine,” I murmur, pulling Krista along by her sweatshirt sleeve. “Don’t worry about her.”

We walk the rest of the way in silence; the only sounds are our heavy footsteps on the ground. I hear Krista complaining about hunger, Mel singing lightly under her breath and Tay asking once again if anyone’s ever watched “the little toaster”.

At the cabin, we sigh and start to get ready for bed, leaving and returning in different groups as we use water bottle water to wash our teeth and stolen toilet paper from the guys to go to the bathroom outside.

“Please say it gets colder,” I said, huffing as I lifted my duffle bag onto my lower bunk. Ama pressed a cold hand to my back, her fingers icy. “How are you so cold?” I asked, truly intrigued.

She shrugged in the darkness. “Natural.”

“Jealous,” I murmured and she laughed. I quickly stripped off my shirt and shorts, pulling on a fresh sports bra and tank top and boxers.

When we were all ready, Hope came in to do Devos with us.

“Goodnight girls,” she whispered. “Love you.”

“Love you,” we replied softly, the echoing of our unanimous voices lulling me to a deep sleep.

SUNDAY

When I was thirteen, I saw my best friend fall in love. What I didn’t know was that I was the object of his affection.

Alex and I have been best friends for longer than I can remember. So the summer after eighth grade changed many things. He began to hint at our friendship being more than I wanted at the time. But after pressure throughout freshman year, I finally gave up halfway through and agreed to date him.

At first, it was so strange. I remember the first time our lips came together, a mix of nerves running so deep that I thought I would melt in a puddle of sweat at his feet. But it became natural, it became habit. I started to fall in love with my best friend, returning feelings I knew he had long had for me.

But even before Wapo this fateful year, I began to stop loving Alex. It wasn’t because of who he was. Because he’s the perfect male specimen. He’s athletic and toned, astonishingly gorgeous, funny, a runner, smart, classy and from a good family. Plus, the most important fact of all: he’s in love with me.

Alex, though, had become predictable. He had become someone that I again started to see as my best friend, not as my boyfriend. I wanted excitement and fun and passion and life. Not a box of white roses, the standard, every Friday night of my life. I wanted a tie-dye dress with a note tucked in the box, explaining the concert tickets left on my bed. I wanted a surprise trip to Manhattan. I wanted an invite to his grandmother’s house for cookies and stories of the thirties.

When I thought about what I wanted, I thought in abstract ideas like this. I didn’t think of someone I knew who satisfied these qualities, which was unconditionally perfect in the constrictions I had.

That was, until I found Cody.

I knew from the moment I stepped off the bus that this week at Wapo was destiny. It was fate that brought our church here on the week that Cody counseled for TIM Team. It was fate that drew him to me, as I was drawn to him. It was fate that I had had the guts to tell Alex I needed a break, right before Wapo began.

Our time together was fate.

When I woke up on Sunday, my eyes filled with the early morning light seeping through the thin canvas of our tent, I already knew what was going to happen. In my heart, I sensed my soul mate was near, I sensed love, I sensed fear.

But I also had a premonition of death. Early death. So as I stood up and stretched, the thin light straining against my eyelids, I felt sad and happy and nervous.

And then I felt scared.



*************************************

As we gathered the Wapo campus for Sunday morning boat-in worship, Tay and I brought up the rear. Her flip-flops kept breaking and I was dragging my heavy bag stuffed with supplies, at the off chance I would get to shower before the campers arrived. Yes, Ox has no showers. Since Friday morning I’ve gone without showering, something I’d never admit to anyone who isn’t a part of Wapo TIM Team and doesn’t understand. I was shaking my greasy hair into a braid, slipping on a wide heather gray headband to cover my noticeable hairline.

“Does this match?” I asked Taylor. She looked up and took in my royal blue athletic shorts, plain white v-neck tee shirt and gray jersey knit headband.

“Yep,” she replied, leaning down once again to fix her shoes.

“God, I’m so excited for Wapo brunch,” I said.

“Oh, man, I know!” she exclaimed. I let out a small giggle at her utter excitement. “You know you’re ridiculously excited.”

“Oh, I am, don’t worry.”

“Hurry up girls!” Jason yelled when we were within sight of the buses. All of the boys were waiting, impatiently, crowding the door of the bus. We laughed as we pushed through them, hearing their angry sighs, and taking a seat on the bus. As we passed Sketchy Dan, he smiled, revealing several gold teeth. I grimaced inwards.

“What took you two so long?” Krista asked. She was sitting with Ama, in the seat behind Mel and Maria. Taylor slid into the seat across from them and I pushed in after her, releasing my grip on my giant canvas bag too soon and it dumped onto the floor. Just climbing on the bus, Parker scrambled to help me pick all of my things up.

“Thanks,” I smiled. He looked up and gave me a rushed and embarrassed glance. After our small kiss, Parker and I have been avoiding each other; it’s simply easier. I see him and Taylor flirting it up at various times and it makes me smile. I never, ever had any feelings for Parker. He’s just Parker.


When I turned around, Taylor was staring at me.

“What?” I asked.

She just smiled, seemingly looking right through me. “You’re pretty. That’s all.”

I laughed. “Okay, Tay, okay.” The rest of the bus ride we sing loudly, my lungs burning by the time we make it to boat in worship at Wapo. As we pull into Wapo, the entire bus erupts in cheers. We pass through the front gate, the beach and campfire pit on our left and lower commons field to the right. As the bus winds around the corner of the soccer field and around art shop, we drop the windows and begin to scream, scaring no one for no one is on campus yet.

As Sketchy Dan pull the bus to a stop, we were all already on our feet, a mass of sweaty bodies pushing towards the bus door. I heard Kevin jump the last few steps, screaming in gibberish as he did so.

I grabbed my canvas bag from under the seat and pushed my way to the front, flying down the stairs and into the open air. It was surreal; Wapo was something we waited for all year. The smell of food cooking in dining hall, the great expanse of lake beyond the fire pit and cross; inside of me I felt excitement welling like a fountain.

“How psyched are you?” Krista asked, squeezing my arm as she got off the bus. I nodded.

“Crazy, isn’t it,” I said, walking where everyone else was going, Old Chapel. Old Chapel is practically TIM Team haven. It’s where we put our stuff if we can’t go to our kid’s cabins, it where we do group bible studies; it’s where we do Devos sometimes if we can’t make it back to Ox.

I paused on the two concrete steps, peeing inside the old wooden doors. It was a small room, the chapel before Wapo became so big they had to build another one in Crossfire, the only air-conditioned building on campus. At the end of the room was a fireplace, the area when my friends and I always put our stuff. I saw Mel was already perched on the edge of the rock fireplace, in her hands her Camelback water bottle and a colorful bracelet already taken shape. Krista turned around.

“You coming?” she asked. I nodded and climbed those few steps towards my friends.




***************************

At boat in worship, Ama and I volunteered to hand out the offering baskets. As I crossed over the stage, I looked out and Cody caught my eye, smiling. I smiled back, a huge grin plastered over my face.

When we were finally allowed to leave, we ran the entire way to dining hall, pushing past families with little kids. Ox food is at it’s best, horrible. Wapo food on the other hand is fantastic. We descended upon the food line like scavengers, grabbing anything and everything in our sight.

After, stuffed and groaning, the six of us headed back to Old Chapel to wait to hear from our counselors and find our cabin assignments.

“I need Crossfire,” Mel whined. Maria laughed, grabbing more string from the bag that Krista held out.

“Wait, so do I,” I replied, laughing along. “But seriously. Last year in Woodland sucked.”

“Omg, I remember!” Tay exclaimed holding up her hands. “You always showered in Brooke’s room.”

We all sighed and looked at each other. Brooke was a friend we had all lost contact with, someone so full of life and vigor it was impossible to think she was who she had become. Someone melancholy, someone sad.

“When we get home,” I said. “Let’s call Brooke. Have a Wapo Girls Lunch.” The girls nodded enthusiastically, each of us pulling out our individual bracelets.

“Those bracelets,” Charles said, coming up to us. He plopped down on a chair across from Ama, who scooted away only to be bombarded by Ryan.

“Boy invasion,” Krista whispers in my ear before Kevin saunters in through the side door, causing her to blush furiously.

“Hey,” he says, doing the manly head nod. I suppress a chuckle because it’s aimed at Krista and she had no idea.

“Make me one,” Tyler demands from Maria, her long fingers twisting a bracelet perfectly. Ama throws him the bag of string.

“Pick out four,” Maria says quietly. “And I’ll make you one.”

“Thanks,” he beams. I can’t help but notice that they would be adorable together.

Parker sidles up to Tay, “Me too?”

She giggles girlishly and I feel embarrassed for her. God, she has Morgan, a sexy hockey boyfriend. And she’s drooling all over Parker, who we all know goes off and gets high after Wapo ends.

“Eva Rossum and Samantha Kalapu!” I hear from the front of the church. I groan.

“Seriously?” I ask in distaste. “I was alone last year too.”

“You’re not alone,” Mel says with naivete. “You’re got some Samantha girl with you.”

“I mean alone by none of you are with me,” I say, standing up and smoothing my shirt. My hair is in dire need of a wash; it’s twisted up into a bun with a pink and orange scarf tied around the roots. At the front of Chapel, I see Cody with the list of names. He’s looking straight at me, and instead of calling my name again, he winks.

I giggle and stretch my arms, knowingly showing a few inches of my tummy. When I look back, Cody is still watching me, his face a mask of happy and something I cannot place. I walk over to him, slowly, and reach out my hand to the girl next to me.

“Eva,” I say.

“Samantha,” she replies. She has light brown hair that curls just past her shoulders and she’s wearing a track and field sweatshirt from my freshman year. I know that she’s a year older than I am, so it would have been her sophomore year. Her eyes are light brown and she sadly fades right into the background of the old wood chapel.

“Girls,” Cody said, putting a hand on each of our shoulders. His fingers cup the top of my arm as he does so. “You’re counselors are Lauren and Alyssa. They’ll meet you at the art shop tables.”

“Thanks!” Samantha says brightly, already heading for the art shop.

I turn to him. “Thank you,” I say, barely at an audible whisper.

Cody smiles, his face plastered with a toothy grin and his eyes sparkling with flecks of emerald. “No problem, Eva.”

Then I walk away with the heat of Cody’s eyes on me as I leave.




*********************************

My counselors tell me it’s fine to shower before the kids arrive. I gaily grab my things from Old Chapel, practically singing as I skip up the big hill towards Crossfire. It’s the largest building on campus, and I’m lucky enough to have campers in it.

“Hey.”

Appearing next to me, Tyler has a small black leather cosmetics case in his hands.

“Hi,” I reply, giving him a wary look. “What are you doing?”

He laughs. “Quite honestly, I need to shower.” I look him up and down, from his sandy blond hair to his blue and white Addidas.

“Yeah, me too.”

“Want to sneak me in?” he says with a sly glance. I laugh loudly.

“Into my room?” I ask. Tyler nods, sheepishly, and I take a look around.

“Fine,” I whisper. “But if we get caught, I’ll be so mad at you.”

He laughs. “Oh, I know.”

We creep down the hallway, and I pull the door open to 223. It’s empty except for a bottom bunk, a counselor’s bunk. The two of us dash into the room, and I lock the door behind us.

“Okay,” I whisper. “I’ll shower first, fast, and then you. If you hear anything, knock on the bathroom door and try to hide?”

“Alright,” he says, looking around, “but there’s not really a good place to hide.”

“Window? I ask.

He looked outside and starts to crack up.

I demand, “What?”

Tyler looks at me. “We’re on the second story.”

“Oh,” I laugh. “I’m going to shower, okay?” He nods and I drop my canvas bag on the ground, digging around for my toiletries and then head to the bathroom. The hot water of the shower is exhilarating and beautiful, I’ve never wanted a shower so bad in my life. When the water began to turn cold I had been in it so long, I pulled at the handle and let the fresh steam whisk out of the doors as I opened them, pulling a towel around my body.

Cocky, I know, but I had often been called beautiful, pretty, smart. It wasn’t as gratifying as it may sound, which would explain why, even though I had a boyfriend who called me beautiful, I was always searching for something more.

I walked out of the bathroom holding only a towel around my body. My wet hair dripped down to past the halfway point of my back and I knew I looked attractive.

“You’re turn,” I said. Tyler looked up from a book he had been reading, the Bible, and his eyes widened. He stood up, tripping a little, and grabbed his stuff before disappearing into the bathroom, still shocked.

I smiled a little, rummaging thorugh my bag for fresh clothes.

After choosing a loose white tank top, a purple sports bra and a pair of black knit shorts, I sat on the ground cross-legged, sorting through my makeup.

Tyler emerged from the shower, dripping wet with a towel wrapped around his hair. I looked up and smiled; he smiled back and turned to the mirror.

“Ty?” I asked. He looked back at me.

“Yeah?”

I stood up and walked over, hopping up onto the counter next to him. “What has Alex said to you?”

He shook his head and stuck a hand in his black bag, emerging with a stick of deoderant. “Not much. Just that you’re on a break.”

I sighed, kicking my legs against the counter. Tyler grabbed the attached hair dryer and started to blow dry his hair. When he finished, I took it from him and did mine, taking time to smooth out through the long layers. I realized he was watching me do my hair and it made me blush.

Facing the mirror, I applied my makeup and braided my crown while Tyler sat on the ground watching from afar.

“Ready?” he asked as I picked up my bag.

I smiled, “Yep.” Then I unhinged the lock, checking twice for hallway traffic, and we snuck out, down the hall and out into the hot summer air.



*****************************

I have always had luck with guys. They swarmed like flies to me, for no good reason. At 5’3”, I’m short. My dark hair falls in waves past the middle of my back and my eyes are straight up hazel. I’m what some people call beautiful, but I’m no catch. I’m impatient and moody, obsessed with strange things like the concept of love and the food network.

Alex was always just there. As a best friend, he was fantastic: supportive, consoling, nurturing. But as a boyfriend, he was too perfect and that perfection became his flaw. I no longer see him as the beautiful boy that I’ve always known. I see him as the flaws he has that anger me; the way he taps his pencil, the tufts his hair makes after he sweats, the easiness that is his relaxed personality.

Over the course of a year, I’ve become someone else. I’ve become uptight, rigid, and I want to blame it on my relationship with Alex. Yes, he’s gorgeous and to many, a track god. But to me, he’s just Alex. And he will always be just my Alex.

*********************************************************************

The rest of the day flashes by quickly. We’re consumed with actual hygene in the seemingly lacking atmosphere. It’s always a mixture of stressful and rewarding meeting the campers as they arrive baggage in tow, fresh faced and excited. Samantha and I greet our girls, they’re beta and about to be freshman in high school, and welcome them to the cabin in crossfire. Everything goes smooth and fun. We laugh over the traditional pizza and carrots dinner that is Sunday night and get a little bored over Wapo campfire when Lauren Tag does his usual speech. Before we know it, we’re on a bus back to Ox and the real part of the night begins.
********************************************************************************************
I close my eyes for prayer and am suddenly tugged to my feet, a hand pushed gently on my mouth to keep me quiet. I start to struggle then realize I’m at church camp during campfire. Obviously whoever is behind me is part of Ox.

I turn around and see Cody motioning that we run to the Trail Blazer. I jump into shotgun and bend as far down as I possibly can. Cody turns off the lights inside the truck and starts it, the noise rumbling and, I’m sure, disrupting prayer.

As soon as we’re around the corner and out of sight, I pop up from my crouched position.

“What are we doing?”

Cody laughs. “Skipping campfire.”

“I realize that,” I say, staring out the windshield. This is weird. Cody, the sexiest camp counselor ever, just ran away with me. Me.

We’re quiet for several minutes before he speaks. “I just wanted to hang out. Talk.”

“Talk about what?” I ask. I turn and look at Cody. His left arm is out the window and wind is blowing his already tousled hair around. It’s still dark in the cabin of the truck so it’s hard to make out distinct facial features but he’s beautiful, I just know it.

“Anything,” he whispers. “Everything. For some reason, I want to talk to you. I need to.”

I hesitate a second before slipping a hand lightly on his forearm. He turns to me and smiles. “Okay,” I whisper back. “I know the perfect place.”

Ten minutes later, we’re lying on our backs and staring at the stars. It’s a clear, clear sky and there are thousands of stars lighting it up. Back home in the cities, it’s hard to see the sky with all of the other things in the way.

I was prepared to have to convince Cody to sneak into the horse pasture with me but I was pleasantly surprised. He jumped over the fence first, and then helped me over.

I choose the biggest hill on the pasture and threw myself onto the ground, rolling over so that I could see everything in the sky. Cody lay down next to me; close enough so that our hands barely brushed when we shifted.

“I know that there’s a God and all,” Cody said. “But I believe that stars are spirits. People who have lived happy and after death, they stay suspended in the sky to shine down on everyone else.”

I smiled. “I like that.”

“Are you afraid, to be a star?” he asked me.

“Yes,” I replied truthfully. “Of course I am. But aren’t we all?”

“Some people,” he replied “But some people aren’t scared.”
I push myself onto my elbow and turn towards him slightly. “I’m scared out of my mind. Whenever I start to think that once I’m dead, I’m dead forever. And ever and ever and ever and there is no end to it. It’s a black hole. It’s not the pain of dying that scares me nor is it the pain of loss of what I had in life. It’s the dead for eternity thing that scares me.

“But I believe in Heaven, I guess I have to. Even if there is Heaven though, I’m scared about how long I’ll be allowed to stay.” I flatten myself on my back again and close my eyes.

Then I feel Cody’s warm and large hand wrap itself with mine. Our fingers intertwine naturally and it gives me warmth. I shudder from the cold and feel him scoot closer so that our bodies are flush at the sides; our hands resting near my hip.

“Cody?” I whisper, my voice quaking a little.

“Yeah?”

“Why me?” I ask. “Why not one of the other girls who is prettier or funnier or a better singer. Why me?”

He pulls me upright and I find that I’m sitting cross-legged on his lap, facing him. It should be awkward, but it’s not. It’s perfectly comfortable. And maybe, if not for the beautiful setting and the exhilaration of sneaking off, it would have been awkward and I would have worried what he thought of me. But at that moment, it was okay.

“You are beautiful and you’re funny in that, I’m able to laugh at myself and I can make sarcastic jokes no one understands, kind of way. I can tell that you love to sing, no matter if you have a good voice or not. The easy way you talk with guys shows me that you’ve probably had only a few serious boyfriends, that you’re not the type to love easy. And that out of those, you’ve probably been hurt more than once.

“I can see in your eyes that you’re covering up something painful in the past. And for reasons unknown, I’ve been drawn to you. I’m risking my credentials as a camp counselor to be here with you. I’m risking everything but right now, at this moment, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I’m with the perfect girl in the perfect setting for our first kiss together.”

Then he leans forward and kisses me on the lips. I melt into him and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him closer. My legs unfold and wrap around his waist and we fall back onto the grass. His hands cup the back of my neck and I can feel his kiss all the way to my freezing toes.

When he pulls back, I can see green sparkling in his eyes. I had always thought they were a dark, dark brown.

“You’re a romantic,” I whisper, my voice suddenly hoarse from kissing. Cody laughs and kisses my neck, running his hands through my hair.

“Is that a good thing?” he asks. I sit up and pull him with me, so that I’m sitting on his lap with my legs around his waist again.

“Definitely,” I murmur, my lips close to his ear. “I love a guy who can quote Shakespeare.”

“I love a girl who can quote Shakespeare,” he whispers.

I look into his eyes. “But passion lends them power, time means, to meet/ Tempering extremities with extreme sweet.”

Cody stares at me and for a moment, I’m convinced he thinks I’m a nut case. Then he runs his palms over my cheeks and kisses me again. This time it’s sweet and gentle, barely a whisper.

“I’ll never forget you.”

“Never,” I answer, too caught up in Cody to notice a dark shadow moving behind the only tree in the entire pasture.



*********************************

An hour later, Cody drives me back silently to second village. He parks his truck half hidden in the woods and walks me back to third village.

My favorite part of the walk is across an open field. The field looks out over a drop and trees line the entire hillside. I run out into the middle of the field skipping; I can’t help but feel overjoyed and full of life.

“Dance with me!” I sing and hold my arms out to Cody. He lets out a light chuckle.

“I can’t dance,” he admits as I spin around him.

“That doesn’t matter.”

“I want to be able to dance. For you.”

I look up at him. He’s wide-eyed and innocent and it’s easy to forget that he has a girlfriend and that I have a pseudo boyfriend and that what we’re doing is completely wrong.

“Tell you what,” I whisper, pulling him close to me. “You learn how to do a dance and I’ll learn how to do something you like. By…Thursday.”

“Deal,” he says and we shake on it. Cody pulls me into his arms and we do a quick side-to-side shuffle in the middle of the field.

“What’s the one thing you want me to learn?” I ask, my face buried in his chest so that my question comes out as a murmur.

“I don’t want you to learn anything.”

“But that’s the deal!”

“I want you to write a poem,” Cody whispers. “And I want you to read it to me.”

I stare up at him. How could he have known that I write poetry? Or that I have never read any of my writings aloud to anyone?

“How did you…” I trail off. Cody is just smiling.

“I just know,” he says, pushing a thumb to the base of my neck and making a small swirl. We make googly eyes at each other for another few minutes before Cody checks his watch.

“Crap,” he mutters, pulling me towards the trail on the other side of the field. “It’s one thirty in the morning! Hope is definitely going to be pissed. And how are we going to explain this?”

I think for a moment. “Family emergency and I had to talk to my dad on the phone.”

Cody nods. “Yeah, that’s good. But what phone?”

“Umm…You’re cell?”

“No, we’re not allowed to let campers use our phones. Ever.”

“Lauren’s. His farm is only a couple miles away. And he is the executive director.”

“Perfect,” Cody says. We step gently around the mud pile at the base of the trail near third village. We walk up silently to my cabin. The entire village is cloaked in dark; even the tiki torches are burned out.

“Goodnight,” I whisper. Cody pulls me into him and kisses me on the lips, slow and sweet. I can taste the gum he had chewed and the lemonade he drank.

“Goodnight,” he whispered before disappearing into that engulfing darkness.

MONDAY

I wake up with an image of Cody stuck in my brain. It’s a picture of him in the field, with the moonlight spilling across his shoulders and nose. He’s spinning me around and he’s absolutely gorgeous doing so.

Even if I try my hardest, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget Cody. He wasn’t my first kiss, that was taken long ago, but he’s my first romance. It’s exciting to have to sneak away; maybe the fact that it’s forbidden makes it so much sweeter.

And I wish, God I wish, that I could tell my friends. If he wasn’t our counselor and it wasn’t against the rules, they’d be ecstatic and we’d stay up half the night discussing every last detail of our meetings. I love my friends, but if I told them it would ruin everything.

I think that half of Cody’s and my relationship is the fact that only the two of us know. We’re breaking so many rules, camp and personal, that it would be a tragedy for someone to find out. He has a girlfriend, however butch lesbian she looks, and Alex and I are only on what he calls a “break”.

Cody is charming and older and experienced. He has a slight sophistication that I think comes with age and maturity. None of the boys I know could hold a candle to what Cody has demonstrated in only a few days. I think that if this goes on, I could easily fall in love with him in this short week at Wapo.

Love is an opinion. There is no factual definition for love because each person creates his or her own idea of love. I’m a romantic, I know that. And yes, I probably am more in love with the idea of love than I am in love with Cody. But maybe what I’m feeling, a mix of beautiful, out of body and extreme happiness, is what love is. Or maybe it’s not.

But when I look at Cody, I stop short. I’m dazzled by his ease and grace and chivalry, the way he eats pancakes, the smile he gives me when he’s tired. Everything wrapped up, he’s perfect.

I’m shaken from my daydream when Mel taps me on the shoulder. Her baggy grey sweatpants have a grass stain on the butt and her AGAPE shirt is on backwards. I stifle a laugh and follow Mel out for first word.

After first word, I head back to the cabin before I’m interceded by Hope. Her blond hair is sticking straight out and her blue shirt is rumpled. She’s wearing glasses instead of contacts and has a pair of sweat stained tennis shoes on.

“Eva, where were you last night? I did a count during Devos and you were missing.”

“There was a family emergency and I had to call my dad.”

Hope tipped her head, looking me straight in the eye. “How come no one told me? I am your counselor.”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure.”

“What phone did you call from?”

“Lauren Tag’s.”

“At his home?”

“Yes,” I say.

“Who took you there?”

“Cody.”

Hope gives me a look; it’s a mixture of disgust and sympathy. “So it was just you and Cody?”

“Yeah,” I say, pushing my hand through my ponytail. “He took me to Lauren’s so that I could call my dad.”

“And he stayed with you?”

“Yes.”

“How come he didn’t tell me any of this himself?”

“He didn’t want to wake you. He said he’d talk to you today.”

“Okay,” Hope sighed. “You should probably go pack before breakfast. Don’t forget, it’s swim test today.”

I nod and hurry away, mentally thanking God for not spilling the beans in front of Hope. I love her, but she would be completely against any TIM Team-counselor relationship. Especially with Cody.

“Where were you?” Ama asked. She was sitting on my suitcase and I shooed her off, peeling off the top and starting to pack my travel bag for Wapo. Everyone else was changing into swimsuits to wear underneath their clothes.

“When?”

“Last night!” she said, exasperated.

“Oh,” I mumbled. “I was talking to my dad.”

“Is everything okay?” Krista asked. She was wearing a hideous floral two-piece that had an optional skirt, which she chose to wear. I felt bad for her. Everyone else was slipping on multi-colored string bikinis and tank tops while she lumbered around in that suit.

“Yeah,” I said, pulling out a peach colored bikini. It was Juicy and ridiculously adorable. “He’s fine.”

“Are you sure? No one calls during camp.”

I sighed. “Obviously I’m sure because I’m the one who talked to him,” I snapped, flinging my used underwear in my suitcase. I chose this bikini because it shows off my tan and I’m hoping that Cody will like it on me.

“Simmer,” Tay whispered. Her light green bikini was cute, but a little revealing at the top. She pulled a black tank top over it and a pair of Nike athletic shorts over the bottoms. “Anyone ready?”

We all groan and there is one “no” thrown out. Tay flings herself back on her bed, checking her nails out. I stuff extra clothes and cosmetics, a bible, flashlight, flip-flops and a towel in my bag. Then I stand and stretch my arms over my head, revealing several inches of tanned tummy.

“Want to grab a granola bar for later?” I ask Tay.

“Def,” she says, grabbing her backpack and slinging it over her shoulders. All the other cabins are waiting at the base of the trail for our cabin. A few girls mull around the dining hall, grabbing food from their own bins.

Taylor and I reach under the counter, grabbing the three huge bins that are ours. We all bring different stuff and combine it all. It’s a virtual pig fest and it’s kind of nasty actually. Mel always brings a six-pound bag of gummy bears, Krista brings a huge Tupperware full of puppy chow and Tay brings Wonka mix. She has since we were little kids.

“Fiber one?” I ask, grabbing two and stuffing them in my bag. Tay shakes her head.

“You know what fiber does.”

I laugh and shake my head, throwing a few packs of Wonka candies into my bag. Then I think again and grab a big bag of Skittles.

“I’m going to bribe my girls if they get bad.”

Taylor laughs at this, shoving Quaker Chewy bars into her bag. “I love my girls. They’re chill.”

“I like a few of my girls,” I say. “The others are kind of strange. I think that was just an awkward time.”

“What grade?”

“Beta. Eighth grade.”

“Ouch.”

“I had frizzy hair and braces,” I murmur, remembering. It was a bad, bad time for me.

Taylor looks up. “I had chicken legs and a horrible sense of style. Plus a bob.”

I laugh, gripping the edge of the counter to keep from falling. “God, I don’t miss Chippewa at all.” Chippewa is the name of our old middle school. It’s like a dungeon; dark, damp and barely any windows.

“I don’t think anybody does,” Tay says, zipping up her backpack.

“Ready?”

“Yeah,” she replies. We step out of the dining hall to see the other cabins already started down the trail. I sigh.

“How is it that every single time we do this walk, our cabin is the very last?”

Taylor chuckled. “Our cabin is just lazy.”

“Do you think we should wait?”

“Nah,” she said. “Let’s just go. Knowing Mel, it’ll be good fifteen minutes more.”



We’re panting and out of breath by the time we’re at the horse cabins. The horse cabin girls are already on the bus and all of the guys are waiting, impatiently, at the door. We scramble on and take seats towards the back. I scoot into the window and Taylor sits next to me, her silky blond hair hitting me in the face. We have a habit of all sitting mixed up each bus ride. And we always sit, the six of us, in a triangle of bus seats.

Once we’re all on and chatting, I see Cody get on. He looks around, catches eye contact with me and smiles. I smile back, even as he sits down on the seat next to Michelle, a slutty girl who hasn’t changed in looks since we were in seventh grade.

“Jump in jump out?” Ama asks. We all shriek and scream in response. Kevin stands in his bus seat, yelling over everyone else.

“My name is Kevin!”

“Yeah!”

“I like Wapo!”

“Yeah!”

“When I grow up!”

“Yeah!”

“I’m gonna work in the shoppo!”

“Yeah!” we all hoot.

“I’ve got one!” Mel shouts.

“Go Mel!!” we scream in encouragement. The entire bus is singing and clapping along.

Mel stands up on her bus seat. “My name is Kandy!”

“Yeah!” I start laughing uncontrollably. I know exactly what’s coming next.

“I like to dance,” she says seductively.

“Yeah!”

“When I grow up.”

“Yeah!”

“I’m going to flaunt my bra!” I crack up, my face probably red from laughter. Mel and I made up Kandy, the stripper, about a year ago to mock the way girls dress to go to clubs and stuff. When we were in our prank phone call phase, we always called as Kandy. It was hilarious.

“I’ve got one!” I yell. Then I stand on the bus seat.

“Me name es Nacho!”

“Yeah!”

“I like tu taco!”

“Yeah!”

“When I grow up!”

“Yeah!”

“I’m going to have little friend named Chancho!”

Everyone laughed and sang the rest of the song. I looked up and saw Cody laughing along. I grinned at him and he smiled at me.

“Maria!” someone shouted. Maria blushed then stood on her seat.

“My name is Bill,” she said in a husky voice.

“I like to farm.”

“Yeah!”

“When I grow up.”

“Yeah!”

“I’m going to spend all day in a barn!”

“Whoop!”

Just as we are about to start more, the bus takes a sharp right and we’re at Wapo. The drive in is beautiful, we pass the lake and can see all the way up the commons field to commons: upper and lower. Upper commons is dining hall, lower has canteen, the Wapo Shoppo and table tennis. The bus curves around art shop and pulls to a stop at old chapel. Old Chapel is pretty much TIM Team headquarters. It used to be the main chapel before they build Anderson and Crossfire, both of which are at least three times bigger than Old Chapel.

I grab my stuff and we all push our way off the bus. The six of us throw our stuff in the back corner near the fireplace; it’s always been our spot.

“Okay everyone!” We turn. Jason, one of the TIM Team counselors, is standing at the front of the room. He’s wearing hilarious purple and orange swim trunks. “Swim test is now. TIM Team goes first. After you’re finished and have gotten your wristband, come back to old chapel for bible study before lunch and free time. Bring your towels with you to the beach.”

I grab my bright turquoise towel and slide on a pair of beach appropriate flip-flops.

“Anyone have a hair binder?” Krista asks. Tay slides one off her thin wrist and hands it to Krista, who wraps her thick dark hair into a ponytail and winds the binder around it. I pull off my sweatpants to reveal shorts and shed my jacket. Then I pull my hair up into a French braid, swirling the pieces around each other.

“Can you do mine?” Ama asks. I nod and motion that she should get down on the floor. She sits at my feet and I run my fingers through her silky blond strands.

“What kind?”

“One French.”

“Okay,” I say. My fingers fly over her hair until I’ve amassed a perfect French braid. There is even volume at the top, so as not to look too horse rider-y.

“Thanks!” Ama squeals, hugging me quick then grabbing her tropical themed towel. I laugh and grab my towel, following her out the door.


When we reach the beach, I see my cabin sitting on some benches not far from the TIM Team ones. I wave and they wave back, enthusiastic.

“Looks like they like you,” Mel says. She reties a side of her bikini bottoms.

I laugh lightly. “Yeah.”

“Read for swim test?”

Maria groans. Her black bikini shimmers in the light and is beautifully contrasted to her pale, pale skin. I drop my shorts and yank of my shirt, exposing my creamy peach colored suit.

Krista’s jaw drops. “You look fabulous.”

I smile eagerly. “Thanks hon.” Krista slowly takes off her shorts and tee shirt to reveal that hideous tankini. “Your suit is cute,” I lie. I don’t want to hurt her feelings.

“Really?” she asks, tugging on the skirt part. “You like the flowers?”

“Def,” I say, turning around to grab my sunglasses. The other girls are already laying on their backs, soaking up the early, ten in the morning, sun. I lie down next to Mel on her Dora themed towel.

It takes another ten minutes until the counselors are ready for swim test. They explain what’s going to happen, and then someone blows a whistle.

“TIM TEAM!”

We jump up from our place on the ground and grab our towels, rushing towards the gates of the beach and throwing our stuff onto the rocks. Then we line up at the shoreline near the slide, waiting to be called into the water.

“I hope Cody can see us,” Mel purrs seductively. We look into the crowd and see him, talking to Jason.

“Damn,” Maria whisper-laughs. “Too bad.”

“Whoooooe!!” Ama screams, just loud enough for Cody to look over. His eyes shimmer when they catch mine and I see him scoping out my bikini appreciatively.

“Ama!” Tay murmurs, smacking her arm.

“Don’t worry,” Mel whispers. “He’s looking straight at Eva anyway.”

I blush. “No he isn’t.”


“Yeah, he kinda is,” Krista says. I give her the evil eye.

“What’s up with that?” Ama asks. “He’s always looking at you, talking to you. Do you think he likes you?”

I shake my head, maybe a little too vigorously. “He’s got Tracie, remember?”

Ama shrugs. “Like there’s never been a simple case of a boy crushing on another girl even though he’s got a girlfriend.” I laugh as I’m called up to swim. I throw myself into the water, feeling the rush of cold surround me.

I swim around the perimeter and then wait to be called out to tread water. Honestly, I’d have forgone the swim test and just taken a purple bracelet, but Ama really wanted the green so we all decided to take it together.

After, tired and dripping wet, we ran up the beach to the rocks, where several lifeguards/counselors were waiting to give us swim bands with numbers. I don’t ever remember a time when, other than beach bash and swim test, I ever went swimming at Wapo. I never have.

“Name?” A pretty blond asked.

“Eva Rossum.”

“Okay. Go to Cassie.” I moved down their little assembly line towards a chubby red head with glasses that I assumed was Cassie. She gave me my band and put a number on it in sharpie.

Then we headed over to the showers, rinsing off well to avoid swimmers itch. I had no desire to spend the entire week covered in calamine lotion. The water was freezing and came out in small drizzles and sporadic ones at that.

Taylor whined and shivered beneath the showerhead. “This is freezing!”

Ama laughed, dunking her hair under again. “Shut up, Tay. Suck it up.”

Taylor glared at her. “You shut up.”

“Hey!” Maria said, putting her hands out like a Ref. “Let’s play nice, eh?”

I giggled, running my palms over my hair, Kardashian style. We grabbed our towels and dried off, pushing on flip-flops and heading back for bible study and lunch and covenant time.

“Who is craving sparkle toast?” Mel asked.


“Me!” I shouted eagerly. As we’re rounding the corner of dining hall to Old Chapel, someone grabs my hand and pulls me beneath the deck. There is barely enough room for me to squeeze under and the other person does too.

“Cody?” I ask. This is the first time I’ve spoken to him since last night and everything that had happened.

“You look amazing,” he breathed. He kissed me lightly and I grabbed onto his neck, kissing him more.

“Wait,” I said, pulling away. I look over my shoulder, but where Cody chose is pretty secluded. “Can anyone see us?”

“No,” he whispered, pulling me in closer. I easily slide my arms around his neck, feeling his butterfly kisses over mine. Although he’s a lot taller than me, Cody seems perfectly fine to bend over to kiss me. I run my hands over his soft tufts of hair and feel my towel drop to the floor.

When we pull back, Cody runs a light hand over the thin straps of my bikini top. “It was really hard not to come and kiss you during swim test. You look beautiful. I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.”

I laugh lightly. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

Cody looks at me with a serious expression. “Eva, I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you. Maybe it’s just a camp thing, but maybe it isn’t. I can’t stop thinking of you.”

Without thinking, my hand comes up to cover the small diamond necklace that I always wear. I roll the small stone sideways, as I always do when I hear something beautiful and touching.

“I feel the same way about you,” I murmur, wrapping my arms around him and pushing my face into the soft cotton of his shirt.

For several more minutes we kiss and whisper. Kids run past the dining hall, only inches away from us and still incredibly oblivious. With a few last kisses, I pry myself away from Cody. His lips are berry colored from kissing and his shirt is rumpled from where I’ve been crushed against him. He runs a nervous hand through his hair.

“I have to go,” I whisper and laugh. He pulls me to him once more, kissing me softly but with need.

“Seriously!” I giggle.

Cody lets go and I grab my towel, checking to see if there is anyone out there and dash from beneath our hiding spot. My hair is tangled and probably, ick, crawling with spiders. I shake it out madly and do the same with my towel, then run into the old chapel.

My friends are already changed and talking in the corner, most of them working on bracelets.

“Where were you?” Ama asked, thin neon colored string attached to her water bottle. “You just like disappeared.”

“Um,” I say, thinking on the fly. “I had to help one of my counselors. The other had an emergency so I helped check the girls in.”

“Oh,” Krista said.

“EW!” Taylor screams. I jump.

“What?”

“Why do you have cobwebs in your hair?” Mel shrieks.

I whip my head around, using my hands to vigorously shake them out. “One of the girls dropped her shoes under the art shop table. I had to grab it for her.”

“But you have Beta.”

“So?”

“They’re old enough to grab their own shoes.”

I laugh. “That doesn’t mean they’re willing to.”

The other girls nod in agreement. Kristin walks through the door.

“Incarnation! Grab your lunch and meet in Anderson Hall for covenant.”

While the girls scramble with their bracelets and flip-flops, I grab my clothes and look around.

“Where did you guys change?” I ask. They nod their head towards the closet.

“There,” Krista says. “But we got in trouble.”

I shrug my shoulders and sneak in, changing quickly and vigorously. I hear a thumping on the door and grab my wet suit and towel, throwing it open quick.

“You’re not allowed to change in there,” Katie says. Her thick, nasal-y voice is even more annoying and I hold in a grimace.

“Sorry,” I singsong and grab my bag. “Won’t do it again.”

Then I skip out of the chapel, never noticing that a single white note is tucked in the corner of my bag.


*************************************************************


When I’m grabbing my shampoo from my bag, I find a small, folded up white letter. It says my name in small unrecognizable script.

I flip open the letter and see below:

Eva,


I know about you and Cody. Stop, or one of you will get hurt. Go to authorities on this and one of you will get hurt. Try to find me, and I’ll hurt him.

My breath intake was sharp and shallow. I flipped the card around, searching for a name, a symbol, anything to make me recognize the person. Someone knew about me and Cody, and they were willing to hurt us.

First I thought that maybe it was one of my friends playing a joke. But them I dug around in my bag for more evidence and cut myself on an exposed razor blade that had been popped out of it’s plastic applicator. I was sucking the blood off my finger when I saw the note tapped to the back.

Gotcha! There is more of this if you don’t stop seeing him.

I tore the note off and ripped it to shreds, burying both the scraps and the blade in the bottom of the garbage. Then I started to run.

************************************************************

In the middle of all camp capture the flag, I grabbed Cody and we ducked towards the woods. When no one was around, I started to talk in hushed and concerned tones.

“Cody,” I whispered, tugging his arm hard. “Someone knows.”

“What?”

“Someone knows about us,” I answered. Cody shook his head and kissed my forehead, then my lips lightly. I had to push him away. “I’m serious.”

“Eva,” he murmured. Then Cody took my hands and folded them neatly in his, placing all four again his chest. I could feel his heart beating rapidly beneath my fingers. “No one knows, okay?”

I snatched my fingers back and dug in my bra for the note. “Then read this and tell me that someone doesn’t know.”

Cody took a few moments to read the letter. Then he turned a slightly paler shade and handed it back to me.

“Do you believe this?” he asked.

I nodded. “Of course I do. And they slipped a razor blade into my bag at the same time. Cody, this person is serious.”

“What?” he gasped. Unknowingly, his fingers traveled over my face, my arms and across my neck. “Are you okay? Did you get hurt?”

“Just a small cut,” I said. “But aren’t you listening to what I’m saying? This person could be dangerous. And they know about us.”

“How do we know this isn’t a joke?”

I stare at him. My eyes are, I’m sure, dark and cold. “It’s no joke.”

“Alright,” Cody says, pacing a few steps back and forth while running a hand through his hair. “Okay. We can’t tell anyone. So we’re going to have to be extra careful where we meet. And we are going to have to take every precaution about safety. That means no swimming during beach bash, no going anywhere at night by yourself. Okay?”

I smile at him and place one palm on his cheek. “You still want to see me?”

“Of course,” he whispered, pulling me into a hug. “This thing, it could be real or it could not be. But I’m not taking any risks where you’re involved. I want you safe and I want you. Nothing else matters.”

I feel a small sob escape from my throat and before I know it, I’m crying in Cody’s arms. He tightens his grip around my waist and I can barely make out small, soothing words that he whispers in my ear. There is a rustle in the trees and I take a step back, wiping away the tears from my eyes.

“Did you hear that?” I whisper, hoarsely.

“What?”

“I’m not sure,” I mumble. Cody wraps his arms around me from behind, kissing the top of my head. I lean back against him and close my eyes, wishing for a moment that it could be this easy. Then I hear the rustle again.


“Someone’s here,” I whisper. Cody shakes his head.

“I don’t think so.”

“I’m sure of it,” I whisper back. I walk over to the nearest trees, shaking the branches by myself to see how they sound. “See, I hear this.”

“Wind could have done that. Or some random kid running by.”

“No.”

“No?” Cody asks. He comes over to where I’m standing, crouched down near a pile of bushes and close to the stream.

Down on a pile of rocks, just about to be swept under the tide is a single rock.

It reads:

I see you.

And I will tell.

The writing is red. And it looks like blood.

*********************************************************
I feel like I’m going to throw up and I bend over, sucking air into my lungs loudly. Cody’s hands are smoothing circles on my back, his low and sweet voice whispering quietly in my ear.

“They’re here,” I croak. “They’re watching us right now.”

Cody stands straight and looks around, using his cupped hand as a visor. “I don’t’ see anyone, Eva. Just relax for a moment, okay? It’s going to be fine.”

“How can you say that?” I demand. “Someone is watching us and writing letters and oh my God, it’s evidence. We have to get rid of it.”

I run over to the edge of the hill and see that the water is already washing away the lettering on the rock. I sigh in relief.

Cody comes and stands at my side, his arm strung protectively over my shoulder. “Go finish the game. But stay where there are a lot of people, don’t go on the outskirts of camp. I’ll see you when we meet back up for dinner. We’ll talk later.” I nod slowly and walk away, turning over my shoulder for one last look at him. Cody is still looking at the message, probably almost completely faded by now.

When I walk away, I swear that I can hear him praying to God.


************************


As I’m eating dinner with my kids, I look up and see Cody scoping out the dining hall. When we catch eyes, he tries to cover up his worry with a smile, but I can see it. I spend the rest of dinner pushing salad and mashed potatoes around my plate.

And if the day couldn’t get any worse, Tracie, Cody’s girlfriend, comes to visit. I have to hide my disgust and horror, something that I can’t show to my friends. Sure, they’re also disturbed by the fact that Cody has a girlfriend. But they aren’t secretly dating him on the side.

Tracie isn’t attractive. She has short dark hair, a tall and athletic body and a stout man voice. I don’t know what he saw in her, but I would have called them twins had I not been steered otherwise. All they do is talk at the art shop picnic tables when I’m doing outdoor Devos with my cabin. Samantha, my other TIM Teamer, catches me looking at them.

“Sucks, right?” she says. Samantha is a year older than me, has curly light brown hair and soft eyes. I didn’t know her when we first came to Wapo, but I like her a lot. She’s growing on me.

“What?” I ask.



“Cody,” she laughs. “That he has a girlfriend. Gives none of us a chance with that impossible hotness.”

I laugh along too, pretending that I know what she’s talking about. But Samantha doesn’t know what it’s like to have Cody’s arms surround her, making her feel like there could be a home anywhere in the world. She doesn’t know that he secretly loves pea soup and the smell of his grandmother’s perfume. He told me that he searched for that perfume since he was little and she died and he still can’t find it.

When we finish Devos, Samantha has to use the bathroom and I cross the small expanse from crossfire to Old Chapel alone. It’s almost eleven at night and misty clouds cover the stars. My heavy canvas bag is slung over my shoulder and I’ve bundled up in a Track and Field sweatshirt from freshman year.

No one else is out around me. All the campers are in their cabins; all of the counselors with them and all of the TIM Teamers are in Old Chapel.

“What are you doing here?” I jump and grab my umbrella, jabbing it at the person who is about to attack me.

It’s only Parker.

“Park,” I sigh, lowering my umbrella. “You scared me.”

He looks at me strangely. “You okay? That was a pretty crazy reaction.”

I wave one hand in the air and laugh. “That’s just me. Kind of an over-reactor.”

“Alright,” Parker says. He falls into step with me. I feel strangely comforted that he’s with me and I’m not alone to walk in the dark, something I know Cody wouldn’t approve of.

“So how was it seeing Tracie?” he asked. I stiffened.

“What do you mean? I don’t know her.”

“But you all have a thing for Cody, right? He’s the hot counselor.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “He is. And honestly, I don’t think she’s that pretty.”

Parker laughed. “You wouldn’t. I think she has nice teeth.”

“Teeth?” I ask. “That’s what you look for in a girl? Teeth?”

“Well, she has nice ones.”

I turn to him and smile slyly. “I could make that last comment so dirty.”

Parker rolled his eyes. “Oh, Eva.”

I laugh along with him and when we make it to the old chapel, I see Cody pacing in the dining hall.

“I’ll be right there,” I say to Parker. “I want to grab a sparkle toast for the road.” He chuckles and waves me off, turning and disappearing into the light of the Old Chapel. I scurry into dining hall and approach Cody.

It’s dark, except for a single blinking light in the kitchen. He is startled when I touch his shoulder.

“Eva,” he sighs, pulling me into a hug.


“What’s the matter?” I ask.


He looks at war with himself for a moment, and then pulls a note out of his pocket. “I found this stapled to a tree down by the water. Where we found the other message.”

There is a small clock drawn on the paper. Instead of numbers, there are letters that spell out “secret lovers” and underneath is that same small script
Tick tock, tick tock, I know you’re listening. Don’t let the suspense kill you before I can.

My blood runs cold as I fold the note over and over in my hands. Cody, instead of looking reassuring, looks frightened as well.

“They know everything we do,” I whisper. “Everything.”

“We can’t let this person do this to us. How dangerous can they be? It’s bible camp for God’s sake.”

I look up at Cody. His handsome face is twisted into anguish. “Cody, we can’t do this. I won’t let you get hurt.”

“Baby,” he whispers, cupping my face with his large hands. “No. That’s what they want. They want us to break up, for whatever reason. But I refuse to give you up.”

“You’re too perfect,” I whisper. Cody, so much taller than me, leans down to touch his forehead to mine.

“No, I’m not. If I were, I would be the guy who takes the lead and is able to fix this. But I’m scared out of my mind and I’m afraid to lose you. So I’m a coward and I’m the sidekick.”

“I’d rather you be a coward and a sidekick,” I murmur. “Than be the hero who dies.”

“That’s why I chose you,” he whispers, running a finger lightly over my arm. I shiver beneath his feathery touch. “Are you cold?”

“No,” I answer. “I’m fine. I’ve got a sweatshirt on.” I shove my hands in my pocket. “I should probably load the bus. They’re waiting.”

Cody nods and I jog lightly to the door.

“Eva!” I spin around at my name.

“Yeah?”

Cody jogs over, a small piece of toast wrapped in a napkin in his hand. Parker, I suddenly remember, thinks I came in here for toast.

“How did you know?”

Cody smiles. “I just do. Go, catch the bus before it leave.” I return the smile and grab the toast, running for the bus. I’m so wrapped up in making it to the bus that I barely see the small white paper taped to the railing of dining hall.

I rip it off and flip it over to reveal another drawn watch. Instead of “secret lovers” it says “Cody’s betrayal”. Then, scribbled underneath in that perfect script it reads:

Eva, I know that you love him. But we all have our secrets, right? Make sure you find out his, before it’s too late. Is it really that easy to find perfect love?

I’ll let you in on a little secret of mine. I don’t believe in love.

And neither should you.


Without thinking, I ripped it to shreds and throw the shreds in the trashcan. I didn’t know that this would be a big, big mistake.

I was in for a surprise.

Tuesday

I wake up when someone is screaming. I nearly hit my head on the top bunk as I sit up straight, groping for my flashlight on the side of my bed.

“What’s going on?” I hear Ali ask. The screaming continues and it sounds like it’s right outside our door. I throw a pair of shoes on and hit the door hard, it swing open easily to reveal Taylor crouched over. At first I think she’s crying because she’s huddled over and then she moves.

A tiny, dead squirrel lies at her feet. Its head is chopped off and its body is mangled. There is dried blood in a circle around it and it’s staining the grass.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper. Then I grab Taylor, holding her in a tight hug. She continues to sob. “Taylor, did you just find this?”

“Yes,” she whimpers, her sobs turning into small hiccups. The rest of our cabin files out, and so do the counselors.

“What’s the problem?” I hear Hope ask. She’s rubbing at her bleary eyes. Then she spots the squirrel and stops short. “Oh, man. What happened?”

“I-I-I don’t know!” Taylor sobs again. Our cabin is hiding their eyes. I even hear someone retching in the woods.

“It must have been some sort of animal,” Hope murmurs to herself.


“Animal?” I ask. “This is so ripped up. What kind of animal would do this?”

Hope looks at us, a small and gentle smile on her face. “We didn’t want to scare you, but there has been reports of a red wolf on campgrounds. A few counselors have seen it lurking in the shadows and there were a few mangled animal bodies found on the horse trail a yesterday. We didn’t want to have to tell you girls.”

My friends and I huddle closer together. My arms are intertwined with Ama’s and I can smell someone has vomit breath.

“Mel?” I whisper.

She coughs. “Yeah?”

“Did you just throw up?”

“Sorry,” she whispers quietly. The rest of us back away slowly as she goes into the cabin for a piece of gum.

“You should all go back to bed. It’s only four a.m. And I’ll call Cody to come clean this up. If you hear a van, don’t worry, okay girls?” We nod at Hope and return to the cabin. Taylor swipes at her almost dried tears and climbs back into bed. The rest of us sink into our lumpy mattresses and then Krista speaks.

“Why were you outside anyway?”

I can hear Taylor sniffle lightly. “I had to pee.”

“Oh.”

I’m about to drop my flashlight in my suitcase when I see a small white card propped up on it. I swivel around quickly but everyone else is sleeping. I pull the card out of the envelope, tugging gently on the corners.

It’s from the person again.

This time it reads,

Eva, Eva, Eva,


What am I going to do with you? Didn’t your mommy ever tell you that secrets are no fun? Oh, wait; she never had the chance did she?


And there is no such thing as an accident. That squirrel, he had it coming.


You’re next.

I almost started to choke and had to concentrate on breathing for a moment. This person, whoever they may be, had killed that squirrel and left it out. And they had put this note on my bag, only inches from me, when I had been sleeping. And they knew about my mother.

They knew everything.

Mentally, I started to do a count. This person showed obvious early signs of being a sociopath. They also knew a lot about me. Personal things that I only told my best of friends. I looked around the cabin. These girls knew everything about me, except about Cody. Was it possible that one of them was stalking us?

Cody was outside, talking to Hope. Then I heard her zip her tent shut and I grabbed my flashlight, tip toed to the door and opened it. Cody had gloves on and was scooping the carcass into a plastic bag. He jumped back a foot when I opened the door.

“We need to talk,” I murmured, pointing at the top of the hill. Cody dropped the bag and followed me, peeling off the dirty gloves and setting them on top of the bag.

At the top of the hill we stopped and looked down. The four cabins and single counselor tent were small and unprotected. They were easily accessible.

“They did this, didn’t they,” he whispered. I nodded solemnly. Cody’s eyes traveled the length of my boxers, tank top and socks.

“Cody,” I said. “They left me another note. They left it on my suitcase when they killed that squirrel. This person was in my cabin while we were sleeping and no one noticed.”

I showed him the card, and waited until he asked. I knew that eventually, he would.

“What does this person mean? About your mom?”

I sighed and then sat down, pulling my knees to my chest. I shivered and Cody sat down behind me so that I was circled in his embrace.

“When I was five, my mom got really sick. We didn’t know what it was, but it was lymphatic cancer. She died when I was six.”

Cody’s arms tightened around mine. “I’m so sorry.”

“That’s what everyone says. And it doesn’t make a difference. But I don’t tell people, simply because it’s easier not too. People make all kinds of assumptions about why I only live with my dad. Why I never talk about my mom or why I don’t say during biology that I have my mom’s eyes or ears or mouth.

“And so this person, they have to know me. Only to the people close to me, do I tell the truth about my mom. This person knows way more about us than we know about them.”

We sat for a moment; the only sounds were that of our staggered breathing levels. Mine were short and thin, I was on the verge of crying. And when I started to cry, I leaned back into Cody and he held me as I sobbed. For a solid five minutes, we sat in silence except for my tears.

After my breathing is normal again, I swivel around in Cody’s arms.

“Cody,” I say. “This person knows a lot about us. We have to find out who they are.”

He strokes my hair gently. “Don’t worry, I’ll find them.”

“You aren’t doing this alone.”

“Baby,” he whispers, rubbing one thumb over my lips. “I’d never risk hurting you. But this is something that obviously can’t be ignored.”

“I’m coming with you,” I say sternly. “Take it or don’t go at all.”

Cody laughs quietly. “We don’t have to start now. How about when it’s morning and I’ve had some coffee and you’ve had breakfast. When we get to Wapo tomorrow, say that you have to go check on your cabin. I’ll meet you in the meditation room of crossfire on the lower level. We can talk there.”

“Fine,” I murmur, closing my eyes and letting Cody run his hands through my hair. I start to kiss him, he’s so magnetic, and for a moment I forget that we are possibly being watched. I forget that someone dangerous is looking for a chance to off us and I just sink into an embrace with the boy that I may love.


*************************************

Once we get to Wapo and are settling into the Old Chapel before lunch, I sneak out with the excuse that I promised my counselor I’d help with the cabin. Then I wait for Cody in the meditation room.

After five minutes, I’m antsy.

Ten and I’m afraid.

Fifteen and I’m scoping out the entire lower crossfire before he bursts through the double doors, his face red with exercitation.

“What’s going on?” I asked. Cody looked around wildly, and then pushed me towards the meditation room. He locked the door behind us and we were silent.

“Serious, you’re freaking me out,” I said. Cody peers out the stain glass window at the front of the room.

“We alone?” he asks.

I give him a look like he’s crazy. “It’s just you and me. You locked the door. What’s the matter with you?”

“This,” he said, whipping out yet another ominous white letter. I snatched it, devouring the sour and menacing words in my head.

Cody,



I can obviously find you wherever you are. Want to know who I am? I bet you do. But that doesn’t mean you can sneak out and try to find me.


You won’t be able to.


Here’s my list of things I now about you:


You wear blue boxers everyday.


You don’t really love your girlfriend Tracie.


You’re having an affair with Eva.


And you’re lying to her and yourself.


Eva is an amazing girl. Hurt her and you will be sorry. Stay with her and you will be sorry. I suggest that you tell her soon and hurt her no more.


I’ll be watching.

“What does this mean?” I asked. “What’s your secret?”

Cody sighed and sank into one of the chairs lining the walls. He cradled his head in his hands and I sat in a chair across from him.

“You’re sixteen. I’m guessing that this isn’t your first relationship.” I shook my head.

“No, I’m on a break with a guy. Whatever breaks means.”

“Well,” Cody continued. I couldn’t see his eyes. “I’ve dated a few girls before Tracie. And one of those relationships got physical. I’m still Christian and I believed in abstinence, but it didn’t work out for me.”

I gasped a little bit. Cody wasn’t a virgin? Sure, he’s in college. But I thought, being that he’s a Christian bible camp counselor, that he was pro-abstinence.

“Oh,” was all that I could say.

“I know you’re disappointed,” he said. “But it’s something that I’m not proud of. Something that I regret deeply. Not just because we weren’t married. But because I didn’t love her.”

“You don’t have to explain to me,” I said.

“Yes, Eva, I do.” Cody took my hands in his and held them tightly. “I think that I’m falling for you. And I want you to know that what she and I had, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s the future that is important.”

“Don’t be ashamed,” I murmured. Then, “Wait, you’re falling for me?”

He smiled lightly. “Yeah, I think I am. It’s only been a few days but I see something in you that I’ve never wanted in anyone else. And sure, maybe we have a psychotic stalker that wants to kill us. But when I’m with you, everything else melts away and it’s only us here, in this world, at this moment, together. I’ve never felt this way before. And honestly, I hope I never feel it for anyone else.”

Everything that he was saying was perfect. I jumped into his lap and started to kiss him, not caring that our “stalker” could be watching. All that mattered was that I was kissing a guy who liked me just as much as I liked him.

Suddenly, I pushed myself up so that we were looking eye to eye.

“If you could have one true love or a hundred hook-ups a year, what would you choose?”

“True love,” he said instantly. I kissed the top of his head gently and hugged his head to my chest.

“Perfect,” I whispered lightly. I don’t think he heard me.

Cody laughs lightly. “This wasn’t the reaction that I was expecting when I thought about telling you. I thought you’d be mad, storm out, never want to see me again, scream. I don’t know, any of those seem like logical things. How are you forgiving me for this?”

“Cody,” I murmur, running a hand over his hair. “This all happened before I even met you. I’m not so keen on the fact that you’ve done stuff, but I have to accept it because that means accepting you. You’re amazing and perfect in all the other ways possible and I think those qualities should mean more.”

“I don’t think it was coincidence that brought us together,” he said. I leaned back so that I could see his face. His dark hair was shining under the stained glass and his eyes had those green flecks that I had only discovered Sunday night. “I think it was God.”

“Then let God help us through this,” I whispered. “Because that’s all we’ve got left.”

“Dramatic much?” he chuckled. “That seems like a line from Titanic or something.”

I laughed along. And when we laughed, it was easy and simple. There wasn’t anything holding us back and I wasn’t afraid. But I feared that the moment we left the meditation room, everything would change.

“I have to go,” I whispered.
Cody tugged on my tank top. “Don’t.”
I giggled. “I have to. Covenant is almost over and Kristin’s going to be worried.”
“One more kiss,” he murmured. I leaned down and kissed Cody from where he sat beneath me. His lips melded into mine and it was hard to drag myself away.
“Stop doing that,” I said. I grabbed my stuff and headed for the door.
“Stop doing what?” he asked, genuinely concerned. When Cody stood up, his shirt was bunched up at the waist and his hair was sticking out from where I had pushed my hands through it.
I opened the door and slipped halfway out before I turned back to answer him. “Making me fall in love with you.” And before he could reply, I left the meditation room, and him, behind me.


**************************************


Halfway through my shower, I hear the door swing open.

“Eva?”

“Yeah!” I yell through the steam.

“It’s me, Ama!”

“Hey!” I cry back. “I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Okay,” she replies. Technically, we’re not supposed to have friends in our kid’s cabins. But during free time, no one but the TIM Teamers are allowed in the cabins so we’re never caught.

I emerge with a multicolored towel around my body and another wrapped up in my hair. My dad used to say that was bad for my neck, but then he’d laugh and call me Kimosaba. He doesn’t’ t do that anymore.

“What’s up?” I ask, pulling my makeup from my canvas bag.


“I kind of have to tell you something,” Ama says. I look up and she’s fidgeting with her hands.

“Is something wrong?”

“Not exactly.”

I c*** my head to the side. “Not exactly?”

“Alex is here.”

My jaw falls open. “My Alex?”

Ama nods, her beautiful face frozen in a sympathetic smile. “He wants to talk to you.”

“He’s not suppose to be here,” I mutter, twirling around and repacking my bag. “He can’t be. We’re on a break. This is a break.”


“Eva,” Ama says, stopping me before I freak out. I drop my bag. “You don’t have to go right this second. You should probably put on clothes and do your hair and makeup.”

I quickly braid my bangs back and pull the rest into a messy bun and apply a few strokes of mascara.

“How do I look?” I ask quietly. Ama pats my arm and sprays me with a vanilla body spray.

“Go break some hearts,” she whispers. She has no idea that my heart is breaking inside.


************************************************


Alex is just like, and nothing like, I remember. His skin is tanned so that he looks Native American and his eyes are still that celery green so light that I swear they are going to fade to white. He’s wearing a plain light blue tee shirt and a pair of tan cargo shorts that show off his light brown hair. In his hands is a box that I know from experience hold a single white rose, my favorite.

“Alex,” I murmur when he’s close enough. It was so strange to see him relaxing on the steps of the Old Chapel. “Why are you here?”

He looks at me and then moves in for a kiss. I reply by turning my face to the left and giving him a small hug instead. His celery eyes show he’s hurt, but he won’t admit it.

“This is for you,” he says. I take the box and tuck it under my arm.

“Why are you here?” I demand again.

“I was wrong,” he whispers. “I don’t want to be away from you. I love you.”

I didn’t even try, but I accidentally bark out a laugh. He looks wounded and I take it back, laying a hand on his smooth cheek. Once he told me that in a skiing accident, he broke his jaw from falling off the lifts. It’s become a habit of mine to touch his once broken jaw.

“Honey,” I say. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do.” Just then, a kid runs by and sloshes water only inches from our toes.

“Is there somewhere we can go? Somewhere we can talk?” he asks. I nod and point towards crossfire.

“We can sit in the chapel.”

Halfway through the walk, I start to feel like someone is watching me. I whirl around, incredibly conscious, but no one is there.

“What?” Alex asks. I shrug.

“Nothing,” I say, trying to convince myself. “Nothing at all.”

“I’m sorry. I should have called first.”

I sigh and look over. “No, it doesn’t matter. But I’m sorry that it to be like this.”

We reach crossfire and I lead Alex to the soft couches at the front. No one is around and I snuggle into the corner. Alex moves to the other corner.

“Are we that bad together?” he asks.

I shake my head. “No, of course not. The time that we spent together, I loved every minute of it. But something that I’ve learned recently taught me that I should look deeper than what I see at first. You and I, we’re not meant to be. We never were. But we’re good at being friends.”

Alex looks so hurt, his eyes sad and drooping. I crawl over to where he’s sitting on the couch and curl my arms around him.

“We can’t be the way we were. But we can be something new.”

When I let go, Alex straightens up and crosses his arms.

“Eva,” he whispers softly. Then he cradles my head in his large hands. They’re slightly sweaty but his voice is tender, the most tender I’ve ever heard him. “Give me one more chance. Please. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

I lay my head down in his lap, staring up at the ceiling. Alex runs his hands through my still wet hair. “I don’t know,” I say quietly.


“Please.”

I sit up. “Alex, I’ll think about it okay? When I get back from camp, I’ll let you know. But I need the rest of his week to think.”

Alex stares at me. “If you knew, you’d know right away.”

“But I don’t right now,” I whisper. “Please, go home. When I get back, we can talk. But now, I’m not ready.”

He stands up. “I will because I still want you. But you should know, I’m not going home.”

I sigh and stand up also, placing my hands on my hips with an angry face plastered on. “Alex! Come on. Give me the rest of the week, I’m begging you. I seriously would be so pissed if you stayed and bugged me all week.”

Alex smiled. “I mean that I’m doing the running camp at village two at Ox. It started today. So don’t worry, you probably won’t see me. But I’ll be here.”

I shook my head and laughed lightly. “God, running camp? Are you trying to put yourself through torture?”

He patted his ridiculously defined abs and arms. “Got to keep this body rocking.”

“Okay, The Situation.” I laugh and push him towards the door. “I promise, when we get back we’ll talk about us. But right now, at church camp, I need to be with myself. And only myself.”

Alex stooped down a bit and kissed my forehead with care. “I could wait forever for you,” said and then he was gone.

I went back to the table and grabbed the flower box, opening it. Alex had given me a single white rose on every date we went on, every dance we went to, every important time in our lives. He was responsible, respectful, and dependable. When I opened the box I saw an entire bouquet of white roses.


*****************************


“I heard your boyfriend is here,” Cody says as we pass during alpha dinner and beta cabin time. I nod.

“Yeah. It ends up that he’s at the running camp at village two.”

“You’re dating a runner?”

“On a break with,” I murmur. Cody points to the box in my arms.

“What’s that?"

I shrug and hand it over. Cody opens it and his eyes go wide.

“Oh,” he says.

“What?”

“He bought you roses?” Cody’s face is smeared with some dirt from field games and his tee shirt is hanging loosely on his frame.

I sigh and wave one hand in the air in a so-so way. “That’s just Alex. He tends to go all out. He buys me a white rose for pretty much every occasion. His family is old money.”

Cody’s expression goes from surprised to sad. “I’ve got to go,” he whispers, disappearing into the commons.

I shake my head and head back to my girls cabin.


“Hey, girls,” I say when I open the door. They all do different forms of greetings.

“Laurens gone,” Rachel says. Rachel is probably my favorite. She wears a pair of dark framed glasses and leaves her hair to naturally curl.

“Where is she?”

“Counselors have a meeting,” Samantha says, bursting through the door. “We’re supposed to hold court. I’ve got the other room covered. Can you take this room?”

“Sure,” I say, slipping off my shoes and settling onto the floor. Samantha leaves and I toss my rose box onto the ground.

“What’s that?” Ellie asks. She’s pointing at my rose box.

“Oh, just roses.”

“Roses?” Faith squeaks. Her blond hair reaches almost to her shoulder blades and her thin gymnast’s body is barely covered by booty shorts and a tank top. “From who?”

“Cody?” Rachel purrs.

I laugh. “No, my boyfriend.”

“You have a boyfriend?” they all ask.

I nod. “Yeah. It ends up that he’s staying at Ox for a running camp.”

“Can we see him?”

“No, he’s probably back there now. But I’ve got some pictures.” I dig out my camera from my bag and pass it around. The girls ooh and aah when they see Alex and his tanned-ness and muscles.

“He’s gorgeous,” Rachel says, handing the camera back to me. I throw it in my bag, and on second thought open the rose box. The girls gasp and I smile lightly. They’re going to be freshman, so many of them probably haven’t experienced romance or relationships yet. I hand a single white rose to each of them and they smile giddily.

“Thanks!’ they chime unanimously.

“I’m going to go into the other room and give them the rest,” I say. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

They laugh and I leave the room. The girls are old enough, so I told them many of my stories. Including streaking at Wapo a year ago and forking some guys lawn, only to find out that it was our gym teachers house. Plus stealing a federal cone and almost getting caught and crashing my dad’s precious ’67 Jag when I didn’t even have my license.

The girls in the other room were very excited to get the roses too. Samantha laughed when I told her that Alex was staying at village two for running camp.

“That’s fate,” she said simply. I shook my head, knowing that fate had brought Cody and me together. Not Alex and me. I retreated back to the room I was supposed to look after.

They were gone.

*********************************************************

“SAMANTHA!” I screamed, pushing back through the door.

“What?” she asked.

“The girls,” I panted. “They’re gone.”

“WHAT?” She exclaimed, throwing her hands up. “They’re what?”

“I was gone for four seconds and now they’re gone.”

“OH, my God,” she said. I pushed on my shoes and grabbed the door handle.

“If I’m not back in twenty minutes, tell Lauren and Alyssa. But if I am, this didn’t happen. I have to go find those girls.”

“Eva,” Samantha said, grabbing my arm. “Don’t freak out, okay? They’re probably just in the chapel or something.”

I nodded my head. But inside I knew that something much worse could be happening to the girls.

My stalker was on the loose.

And my girls were missing.


**************************

Unknowingly, I sprinted out of Crossfire and straight to Old Chapel. Cody was standing on the steps and I grabbed his arm, hard, and pulled him to the side.

“Cody,” I panted. “My girls are gone. I was out of the room for two minutes and they’re gone.”

“You lost your kids?” he said loudly. I shoved a hand at his mouth.

“Quiet!” I hissed. “My counselors don’t know yet. And honestly, I don’t want them to ever know. We need to find them, now.”

“Do you think?” he asked.

“Yes,” I nodded my head. “I think our stalker has gone a little further than stalking. I think they’re out for blood.”

Cody took the top of the campus near crossfire and dining hall and I took lower campus near the lake and soccer field. My lungs were burning once I scoped out near the beach and campfire pit. I ran all the way to the soccer field and down towards the small lakeshore where Cody and I had found the note from our stalker written on the rocks.

Sure enough, as I approached the water I saw something metallic on the sand. When I approached closer, I found that it was a silver-mixing bowl, probably taken from the kitchen. Then I peered over the edge of the bowl.

Inside, all of the petals of the white roses had been plucked off and tinged red at the tips. There was another note wedged underneath the bowl. I slid it out from under the bowl and flipped open the now familiar white note.

Evaaaaaa,


Worried about your girls? Don’t be. They’re completely safe.


But you aren’t. Naughty, naughty little girl. Don’t worry, I would never kill you.


But I can’t say the same about Cody.


Think it’s a coincidence that your boyfriend showed up? Remember my last note.


There is no such thing as a coincidence.


Make sure you don’t have Cody out searching for the girls late at night.


And one more riddle for you before you leave.


Whose blood is on the rose petals?





Yours.


****************************************************

I screamed in frustration and dumped the bowl of petals into the water. They floated across the top and out towards the middle of the circle. I started to run again. The letter dropped from my fingers as I sprinted up the big hill, past Old Chapel heading towards Crossfire.

“Eva?” Krista called. I whipped my head around and saw her standing with Kevin, their alpha cabins running amuck around their ankles.

“Eva!” I turned my head the other way and saw Cody running towards me. But it was too late and we collided, falling onto the hard ground.

“Oh, God,” he groaned, pushing himself up into pushup position so that I could roll away.

I flicked several pieces of grass from my shirt and stood up, wiping away blood from my knee.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

A few people had gathered around the corner of Old Chapel, peeking to see all the commotion.

“I have to go find my girls,” I hissed quietly so no one could hear. Cody put a hand on my arm and I shrugged it off. “Not here.”

“Eva, I found them.”

“Where?”

“Someone locked them in the meditation room.”

“Oh, my God,” I whispered, already started to walk there.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I let them out and told them that it was part of a scavenger hunt. They didn’t see who put them there and I told Lauren that it was my fault, I did it.”

“I can’t believe it’s gone this far.”

“I know,” he whispered. “But now you have to go explain to the girls that there isn’t a scavenger hunt. And they left this on the outside of the door.”

He held up yet another white note.

“I am seriously starting to hate white paper.”

Cody chuckled. “Yeah, me too.” I opened the note, folding it over in my palm.

Codyyyyy,


I know that you’re the one who’s finding the note because I’m right behind you.

Gotcha!

In all reality, I’m everywhere you and Eva are. Stealing these girls isn’t very drastic.

Killing you would be.

I’ve become more than a mentor.

I’ve become the teacher.

I hope you learned enough poetry to decode this message.


If by tomorrow night your affair is not done

So shall be you and your Hon

By nightfall I am but a whisper of wind

And at the crack of dawn a chilling factor that may bend.


‘Night, ‘Night my dearest.



“God, this one rivals the one that I found at the lake.”

“You found another one?”

“Yeah,” I said, digging in my shorts. It wasn’t there. “Crap.”

“You lost it?”

I nodded my head.

“That’s bad, Eva. Someone could find it. We need that note.”

“Don’t yell at me.”

“I’m not yelling.”

“Yeah, you kind of are.”

“Because you’re being stupid.”

“Oh, God!” I said, throwing my hands in the air. I hit a tree and laughed. Cody laughed too and our first little fight was over with. We were hidden in the woods near the old counselor cabin, which was now the laundry cabin.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “But we have to find that note.”

“With the way this is going,” I whispered back. “I’m sure that person already has the note and is in the middle of writing another one.”

“This is so messed up,” Cody said. “Seriously messed up.”

“Yeah, I know.”

We were quiet until I heard one of my girls calling my name.

“I’ve got to go,” I murmured. “But can you try to find the note? I dropped it somewhere from here to the volleyball water shore.”

Cody nodded and quickly kissed me on the lips. He was already down the path by the time I realized he had done it. A smile parted over my lips and I made my way over to where my cabin was.

I hugged the first few that I saw.

“Where’s the scavenger hunt?” Faith asked.

I patted her arm. “There isn’t a scavenger hunt, sweetie. That was a joke from a friend. A very not funny joke that freaked me out. I’m sorry that you girls were pulled into it.”

Rachel smiled. “That’s okay. The guy that took us to the meditation room was cute.”

My head shot up. “You saw who it was?”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Who?” I asked, walking closer to her. I didn’t want to freak her out, but I needed to know whom she had seen.

“I don’t know his name.”

“Describe him,” I demanded. Rachel shrunk back a bit and I backed up.

“Rachel,” I said lightly. “Could you please try to remember who took you to the meditation room.”

“He was blond,” Ellie piped up.

“No, I though he had light brown hair,” Katie said.

“And muscular!” Kelsey exclaimed.

“He was skinny and gawky!” Haley yelled.

“Okay, okay,” I said, shushing them with my hands. “Let’s go into dining hall.” I herded them into dining hall and Samantha jogged up next to me.

“What happened?” she asked. “I was actually worried.”

“I know, me too,” I breathed. “I’m not even sure but one of the guys lured them away with the promise of a scavenger hunt.”

“Who do you think it was?” Samantha asked as we walked up to the toast station. I slid a few pieces of wheat bread in the closest toaster and pushed them down at medium toast-ness.

“I have no idea,” I murmured, stirring the butter with the knife. “Probably just like Tyler or Kevin.”

“We can’t leave them alone at all,” she said.

“Yeah, I know.” I plucked my toast from the toaster and slashed it with butter and sprinkled it with sparkle. “God, they scared the crap out of me. I’m so pissed off.”

Samantha nodded. “Yeah, me too. I’m going to go get dinner.”

“Sounds good.”

Just as I was about to leave the toast station, Charles popped out of nowhere and jammed some toast into the toaster.

“What’s up?”

I swished my hair back with my fingers. “Hey.”

“I saw that Alex came today.”

I groaned. “God, let’s not talk about that.”

“We were on the same cross country team last year, you know?” I walked away slowly as Charles plopped more butter than would ever be needed onto his toast. His words rang in my ears. We were on the same cross-country team, you know? Cross-country is long distance. Someone would have to be able to run long distances if they were our stalker. We never saw them coming, we never saw them leave. They either were at first or third village but they know detailed information about both Cody and I which means they’d have to spy on us in the night.

Charles runs cross-country.

But so does Alex. And he just happened to be at the running camp at village two, portioned perfectly between village one and village three. And sure, he said that he came up today. But he could have easily been here since Sunday; the campsites aren’t well securitized, as we’ve seen.

Could Alex, my sweet, kind, beautiful boyfriend of over a year, be the mastermind behind this plot against Cody and me?

Could Alex be serious enough to kill one of us or both?

The entire dinner I was zoned out, a hundred questions and a hundred different answers floating through my brain.

“I’m so excited for Agape tonight!” one of the girls squealed and her voice broke me out of my trance.

“Huh?” I asked, shoving a corner of toast in my mouth.

“Tonight is Agape,” Rachel said. I had almost forgotten. Agape is this amazing Christian rap artist who comes to Wapo every year. The entire chapel of Crossfire is packed and we’re all sweating and dances and it is amazing. No one cares what they look like and after, Agape aka Dave, stays around to sell shirts and sign things and take pictures. I’ve got four consecutive years of photos with him and me, holding up tee shirts. I’m going to make this my fifth picture.

After dinner strange sights bombard me. It’s only Tuesday night but already the camp romances have begun. I guess that I’ve been so wrapped up with Cody and our stalker that I didn’t realize the budding romances. Outside, Krista and Kevin are sitting at an abandoned art shop table. His hand is covering hers gently and she’s smiling radiantly.

By the nine square pits, Ama and Ryan are having a decent conversation without fighting or anger.

Parker and Taylor are sitting on the steps of Big Lodge, Tay’s girl’s cabin, and both are smiling.

And I’m so focused on my friends and their flirting that I almost step right over Maria. She’s lounging on the grass outside of Old Chapel, a tiny and delicate bracelet half made and clinging to her water bottle.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” she replies.

“You going up for Agape soon?”


She looks around. “Yeah, I am.”

At second thought, I plop down next to her, pulling my hair back with my fingers into a french braid. “What’s wrong?”

She shrugs. “Nothing.”

“Maria,” I sigh. “Don’t give me that. I know you, probably better than you do. Something is wrong.”

“Fine,” she says. “Okay, you can’t tell anyone. Seriously.”

I nod. “I promise.”

“Okay. So I’ve kind of been seeing Colin.”

“What?” I explode. I’m the only person that Maria told about Colin, her d-bag of an ex-boyfriend who was abusive to her. I hate him with so much vigor that I could rip him apart with my bare hands. “You two are back together?”

“No, no,” she corrects. “We’ve just been hanging out and um, doing things.”

“Oh, Maria,” I whisper and accidentally lay a hand on her arm. She shrugs it off fast. After Colin, she hates to be touched. “Sweetie, are you sure?”

She closes her eyes and tips her head back to the setting sun. “No, I’m not sure. Because I know that it could happen again. But I keep going back to him, because I still have feelings for him.”

“How can you have feelings for someone who hurt you?” I ask.

She looks me straight tin the eye. “You don’t understand it because your life is perfect. You take Alex, the sweetest, most attractive guy ever, for granted. I love Colin, I can’t not love him. Even if he hurts me, it doesn’t seem like enough to break things off.”

“Maria,” I say. “No one should ever make you feel inferior. Ever.”

She stands up and wipes away dirt from her butt. “I’ve got to go.”

“Wait!” I say, reaching over but she’s already jogging away.

It seemed that these days, I was always saying something that pissed someone else off. Maybe it’s not even what I say, but who I am.

“Eva?” I look up and see Jason, one of our Tim Team counselors, looking down at me. “Why aren’t you with your cabin? It’s almost time for Agape.”

I jump up. “Yeah, I’m going now.”

He looks at me closely, his tie-dye tee shirt straining against his girth. “Is everything alright?”

I choke back the urge to tell him everything, about Cody and me to our stalker to Colin, when I see a glimpse of someone in black running across the woods.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, starting to run. Jason is left behind me, a befuddled look on his face.

I sprint after where I saw the shadow and suddenly, I see the person running. They’ve got on long black shorts and no shirt.

“It’s him,” I breathe to myself. And before I know it, I run hard and jump, flying at the person.

We land with a crack! On the cement.

When I come to consciousness, I feel hot, bitter regret bursting through my veins. If this truly is my stalker, why did I just throw myself at them in the middle of the woods? I’ve seen enough Criminal Minds to know that is practically the most stupid thing I could ever do.

Beneath me, the mystery person is stirring. I roll to the left and off the person, but my ankle is throbbing. I drag it out from under the person’s leg and see that it’s twisted and puffy. Great, I’ve got a sprained ankle too.

They roll over and I have a chance to see their face.

It’s dirty with mud and has a bloody nose.

“Who the hell are you?” I growl, dragging my body and limp ankle with my hands as far away from the person.

“Tyler,” the person spits. I pull myself closer to him and look again. The white blond hair, the tanned and well defined back. “Who the hell are you?”

“Oh, my God, Tyler,” I breathe, wiping away the grime from his face. Without thinking, I pull of my shirt and wipe at his bloody face. When I touch his nose gently he cries out in pain.

“Sorry, sorry!” I mutter, continuing to wipe at his injuries.

“Why did you tackle me?” he asks.

“I thought you were someone else,” I say.

“Do you usually tackle random runners?” he asks, taking my shirt and wiping at his own face. I realize that I’m only wearing a pair of shorts and a pink sports bra and that he’s half naked too. This could come across as very, very inappropriate if a counselor saw us.

“Are you okay?” I ask, truly concerned.

“Yeah, just a few scrapes,” he says. “But your ankle looks pretty bad to me.”

I look down and see that my ankle is swollen and slightly blue. I touch it and grimace in pain.

“I’ll take you to first aid,” Tyler says. Even with his face dirty and bleeding, he is still gorgeous. There are so many attractive guys at Wapo that it’s hard to be focused on God all the time.

“I need a shirt,” I say. “I can’t walk around campus in a bra.”

Tyler laughs and easily loops arm around my bare waist. I try to walk on my ankle but it hurts so bad that I buckle and fall down again.


I laugh when Tyler bends down.

“Sorry,” I mutter. He laughs too.

“Don’t be.” Then, before I even realize it, I’m in his arms. He’s slightly sweaty from his run, but I’m okay with it because his arms are so muscular. That’s my absolute weakness, toned arms on guys.

“You sure this is okay?” I ask. Tyler looks down at me, his ice blue eyes caring.

“I don’t mind.”

“Wait,” I say. He stops. “We shouldn’t go through the front. Everybody will be there for Agape.”

“True, true,” he says. “But then how do I get there?”

I grimace. “The side door?” The side door is on the other side of Crossfire and it has a two story metal staircase that I’m sure Tyler doesn’t want to carry me up. But he does exactly that, not even panting hard at the top of the stairs.

We reach the top and I lean over to push the handle down. Tyler tightens his grip around me so that I don’t fall and I’m silently glad that this happened because there isn’t much better than being carried by a hot guy. We creep down the hallway and Tyler kicks open the door to my kid’s room. Thankfully, it’s empty because everyone is in the chapel for Agape. I can feel the sticky heat and hear Agape singing “Sprinkle Sunshine” as everyone sings along.

“You should go,” I say. Tyler is standing at the door, the perfect gentleman, as I pull a random tee shirt from my bag. “I don’t want you to miss Agape.”

“Eva,” he says, moving into the room. He closes and locks the door behind him. My heart races for a moment. What if he is the stalker? And now I’m trapped, injured, and no one can hear above the noise of Agape. Oh, my God, he’s going to kill me.

But then he leans down and hoists me up onto the nearest bunk bed. We’re sitting side by side and he gently pulls my ankle onto his lap. I grimace again but his hands are tender.

Slowly, he starts to massage the area around the ankle so that it isn’t in as throbbing of pain as it was before.

“How are you doing that?” I ask, bewildered.

Tyler shrugs. “My mom is a physical therapist. When I broke my ankle, she did this for me every day.”

“How’d you break your ankle?” I ask.

He grins. “Night games.” I laugh and then pull on the tee shirt. Tyler puts my ankle down slowly and the pain has dulled.

“Thank you,” I said quietly. Tyler nodded and stood up.

“Should I bring you to first aid?”

“Sure,” I murmured, wrapping my arms around his neck as he held me in his arms. We swung through the door and out through the side door again. Tyler easily galloped down the stairs and towards first aid. Near the chapel, he leaned into my ear and whispered.

“Sorry I hurt your ankle.”

I laughed. Then I whispered back, “Sorry I tackled you like a football player.”

Tyler laughed and I bobbed up and down in his arms.

Just then, Cody came rushing out of dining hall. He took one look at my swollen ankle and Tyler’s bare, toned arms wrapped around me and frowned.

“Give her to me,” he commanded. Tyler looked down at me.

“Is that okay?” he whispered. I nodded and he handed me over to Cody. As soon as I was settled in Cody’s arms, I called out to Tyler.

“Tyler!” He turned around and came back to where I was in Cody’s arms. I struggled to lean over and then I kissed his cheek gently. He smiled lightly and then walked back to Crossfire and Agape. As soon as he was out of earshot, Cody fumed.

“What happened? Why was he carrying you? And why wasn’t he wearing a shirt?”

“Simmer,” I murmured and laughed lightly. “I saw somebody running in black and I took off without thinking and tackled them. Ends up it was Tyler, but we landed weird and he fell on my ankle. He was actually really sweet about it, even though it was all my fault.”

Cody was angry, I could tell. “Eva, you don’t know anybody anymore. We’re in danger and you’re alone with some half-naked guy.”

I chuckled. “Tyler isn’t some guy. He’s Tyler.”

Cody glared down at me. There was no one around and it was just beginning to get dark. “I don’t trust anyone. And neither should you.”

“Stop it,” I said. “You’re freaking me out and I don’t want that. I love my friends, I trust them, and you should too. Whoever is stalking us, they’re not our friends.”

“Our friends?” he asked. “So we have mutual friends now?”

“Why are you being like this?” I asked.

Cody sighed and then stopped walking, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “But you’re hurt and I’m freaked out and this isn’t what I’m used to. Nothing about this is what I’m used to. Plus, your boyfriend is here, whatever you call him he’s still your boyfriend,” he said when I tried to interrupt to say that Alex and I are on a break.

“This person, they’re too close for comfort. I can’t afford to trust anyone because I want you. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything or anyone and I won’t let some crazy psycho ruin this for us. I need you, Eva. I need you.”

I smiled up at him and closed my eyes as he kissed me gently on the lips.

“We’re here,” Cody says. I open my eyes and see the rustic wood of first aid.

We burst through the doors and I see two plump female counselors lounging around, reading magazines and eating popcorn. First aid is one of the only places with air conditioning on campus, and it feels amazing to get out of the heat. One girl directs Cody to the second room and he lays me down gently on the cot.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asks. I nod and he moves to the waiting room and sits on a ratty old chair.

“We can just call you when she’s done,” the prettier of the two girls says. I see her bat her eyelashes and swipe at her long blond hair. But Cody looks over her shoulder at me and I smile at him.

“No, it’s okay,” he says. “She’s my TIM Teamer.”

“Oh, okay,” the girl says, obviously confused. Then she comes to my side and slowly lifts up my ankle, looking at it carefully.

“Seems like you’ve got a major sprain going on,” she explains, pulling down some ice from the freezer and gauze from cabinets. “We’re going to have to wrap it and apply ice three times a day until the swelling goes down. And I don’t want you to do anything that involves walking around a lot for at least a day.”

I nod my head and she starts to wrap my ankle. I stay at first aid for at least an hour, letting the ice pack chill on my ankle until it goes down to the size of an orange instead of a grapefruit. Cody talks to the two first aid girls and then to me for a while, the door shut so they can’t hear us whispering.

When they’ve cleared me, dumped a few Advil’s down my throat and given me a to-go ice pack, Cody helps me hobble out of the first aid with the help of crutches.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asks. I nod.

“Yeah, I’m good.” Then a few seconds later, “Wait, how am I going to get to village three? I refuse to sleep in the horse cabin. I want to be with my friends, in case anything else weird happens.”

Cody sighs and puts a hand on my upper arm. “I’ll work things out.”

I smile gratefully at him and hobble towards Old Chapel. He laughs at me.

“Shut up! I’m a gimp.”

He laughs. “Run, Forest, Run.”

I turn to him and give him my meanest glare. “Not funny.”

He smiles back, satisfied. “Kind of.” I laugh with him and he helps me up into Old Chapel.

“Wait, I should go do Devos with my girls.”

Cody nods. “I’ll walk you there.” By this time, it’s dark and Agape is over. I’m depressed that I didn’t get my tee shirt.

“I’m sad I missed Agape.”

Cody looks over. “Yeah, I’m sorry you missed it too.”

“I have a picture with him from every year I’ve been at Wapo. And I have a tee shirt from every year.”

“Really?” he turns to me. I shiver in the light breeze and he slips his fleece zip up over my shoulders. I stop to pull it on and zip up the front.

“Thank you.”

“Always,” he replies. The night sky is a dusky navy blue and the clouds are covering all of the stars. Kids are rushing back to their cabins, most are sweaty and overjoyed, and a few are clutching tee shirts and Cds.

Cody stops at the front of Crossfire.

“Will you be okay from here?” I nod and walk into the building, feeling the sticky heat hit me full force. We don’t dare embrace because of all the people around. I move down the hall and go into the room that I am in charge of.

The girls are all sitting on their beds, talking and taking pictures and passing notes. When I walk in with my crutches, they bombard me at once.

“OMG what happened?”

“Eva what happened?”

“Are you okay?”

“Our roses are gone!”

“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I say, hobbling over to the chair in the corner and sitting down. “I just tripped over someone and sprained my ankle.”

Rachel burst out laughing. “How did you trip over someone?”

I giggled. “I have no idea.”

We laughed and talked for a few minutes before Lauren came bursting through the door. Lauren was one of my girl’s counselors and she was drop dead gorgeous. In fact, it was kind of annoying. She had the minute features of a chipmunk and perfect silky blond hair that never looked greasy or dry and was perfectly straight. She wore no makeup, but she still had visible eyes and a natural glow.

“Eva!” she said. “Where were you?”

I gave her a short look. “Didn’t anyone tell you?”

“No.”

“I sprained my ankle,” I said, motioning towards my gimp foot. “I had to stay at first aid for a while.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, plopping down onto her bed. “Alright girls, we’ve got a half hour of down time before Devos. You can use this time to shower or just chill out.”

A couple girls jump up and start arguing about who gets to take the first shower. Haley settles into her top bunk and starts to write notes to her friends back home. Rachel scoots over on Ellie’s bunk and they start to talk quietly. I’m exhausted and it’s been a while since I’ve slept well because after the whole squirrel thing, I haven’t felt safe sleeping in my cabin.

So I drag myself off the chair and onto the floor, positioning so that my injured foot is on the chair that I just vacated. Then, without a second thought, I fall into a deep sleep.


***********************************************

“Evaaaaa,” I hear a whisper in my ear and hot breath on my neck. I snap my head up, hitting something squishy with something hard inside and my ankle is throbbing in pain. When I look up, I see Charles’s face close to mine, his blue eyes blurred into one mega-eye and that I’ve hit my head on the seat in front of me. Wait, seat? Where am I?

“Charles?” I murmur, pressing the bottoms of my palms over my eyelids then reopening them. “Where am I?”

“A van,” he says. I struggle to sit up and he helps me to a sitting position. I look to the front and Jason is driving one of the big camp vans that hold up to twelve people. Charles and I are the only passengers.

“What happened?” I murmured.

“You fell asleep from the medications and missed the bus. Cody had to come get you from your cabin and you had to ride in the van with me.”

I yawn and prop my foot up on the seat. “Why aren’t you riding the bus?”

He laughs. “I was kicked off on Sunday and banished. Sketchy Dan won’t let me ride, ever.”

Jason turns around. “Dan isn’t sketchy.”

I laugh a little. “Yeah, he kind of is.” Jason chuckles and continues to drive. The night is dark and the neon numbers on the dashboard says it’s already close to midnight.

“Are we late?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Charles replies. The bus left but then they radioed back saying that you were missing. Cody freaked out and drove the van back to go get you.”

“Where is Cody?” I asked.

“He’s at camp. For some reason, he’s super emotional and they wouldn’t let him drive us.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Jason was driving me when they called and said we needed to turn around and pick you up.”

“Oh,” I said, gathering my dark hair into a topknot. Then I think twice and let it down. “God, I must have been asleep for forever.”

“Here,” Jason sang, jumping out of the van. Charles leaned over me and opened the door, hopping out and then helping me out carefully. I winced when my foot hit the side of the van.

“You okay?” he whispered softly. Charles could actually be very sensitive and nice, I realized.

“Yeah, thanks,” I murmured back. He helped me hobble over to a bench near my friends. Campfire had already started and I had to crawl over people with my crutches.

“OMG, what happened?”

“What happened?!”

“Are you okay?”

My friends hadn’t seen me since what happened with Tyler. I shot him an amused glance over the fire and he smirked back.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I whispered lightly. “I just sprained/possibly broke my ankle.”

The girls made different sounds of sympathetic whispers and patted my hair and arms gently. After campfire, everyone else was starting to walk towards the trail when Taylor turned to me.

“How are you going to make it to village three?”

I shook my head. “I have no idea. Cody said that he’d work it out because I refuse to sleep in the horse cabin.”

“Cody?” Mel shrieked. “You were with Cody when you sprained your ankle?”

“Well, I tripped over Tyler and sprained my ankle. Cody took me to first aid.”

“Please say he carried you in his arms,” Ama whispered dreamily.

I laughed. “Yes.”

“Oh, God!” they murmured in delight. I laughed again, just as someone large came up behind me. I felt big, warm hands on my shoulders.

“Are you okay?” I hobbled in a circle and saw all of the guys facing me, their faces apathetic. Kevin’s large hands were still on my shoulder blades.

“Of course,” I said. “Thanks to Tyler.”

Towards the back of the group, he blushed and moved forwards. I embraced him in an awkward hug with my crutches and he hugged me back.

“Thanks again,” I murmured in his ear. He smiled brightly.

“You’re welcome.” A few of the boys hooted and hollered but I didn’t care. They didn’t know what they were talking about, because I was obviously with Cody.

“Time to go, girls!” Hope shouted from where she stood at the base of the trail. Then she looked up at me. “Eva, Cody’s going to drive you in his truck. We’ll see how far it can go on the roads, and he’ll take you the rest of the way by foot.”

I nodded and went to sit back down by the fire while the rest of the girls said goodbye to the guys and headed off on the trail. Kevin came and sat next to me, his large frame partially obstructing my view.

“Do you think Krista likes me?” he asked suddenly. I gave him a strange look.

“Are you saying you like her?”

He lowered his eyes and nodded lightly. “I think so.”

I clapped and laughed happily. He looked up in delight. “She really does.”

“Seriously? Or are you just messing with me?”

I laid one hand on his thick arm. “Kev, I wouldn’t do that. Go for her, she’s liked you for a while.”

He smiled brightly. “Thanks, Eva.” Then he stood up and left, joining a group of boys over by the dining hall. I continued to sit near the fire, watching the orange and yellow flames dance before my eyes. I started to think about the stalker, how the notes had come in such rapid succession, one only minutes after the previous and here it had been more than five hours without a note.

Could it be that Alex really was my stalker and that’s why I hadn’t gotten a note since he’d been here because it would be too obvious?

Or was it Charles, the cross-country runner who obviously had a crush on me?

Was it possible that one of my best girlfriends had begun to stalk Cody and me?

Or could our mysterious stalker be someone unknown to both of us, clever enough to gather our secrets and use them against us?

Just then I felt a soft pat on the top of my head.

I swiveled around the best I could and saw Parker standing above me.

“Hey.”

“Hey,” he replied. Then he sat down next to me. In the light of the fire, Parker was even more gorgeous than he was in regular light. I thought of our botched kiss on Saturday, and our vow to never tell anyone about it.

“How’s it going with Tay?” I asked. Parker fiddled with a string bracelet on his left wrist and stared into the fire.

“She said she wants to be with me,” he mumbled.

“That’s great, Park!” I said, grabbing for his hand and holding it. He looked up at me, his eyes sparkling and sad at the same time. “What’s wrong?”

He stared at me. “Now, I’m not so sure if I want to be with her.”

“What?” I asked. “Why?” I dropped his hand.

“I may have feelings for someone else,” he murmured, looking up at me with sad dew in his dark chocolate eyes.

“No, no,” I said, standing up with the help of my crutches. I hobbled a few steps away. “Park, NO.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “The heart wants what it wants.”

I moaned. “Parker, honey, we can’t do this. You and Tay, you two are supposed to be together.”

He stood also and moved closer. “Eva, that kiss, I can’t stop thinking about it.”

“Stop thinking about it!” I said, a little too loudly. Cody came rushing over.

“Is there a problem?” he asked. Parker shook his head.

“I want to go now,” I whispered quietly. Cody took my arm and started helping me to his truck. He turned around and gave Parker a death glare.

As soon as we were settled in the truck, Cody flicked the lights straight at Parker and zoomed out of village one. We didn’t say anything until he stopped at the horse cabins around the curve.

“What’s going on?” he demanded. I burst out crying and Cody said, “Get out of the car.” I looked at him with bleary eyes but he jumped out, opened my door and pulled me out. I fought him at first but then just sank into his embrace.

My tears streamed down my face as he lifted me into the back of the pick-up. The truck was hidden in some bushes, far enough that without lights, no one could see it. I settled into the blankets that were strewn around the bed of the pick-up and Cody jumped in behind me, pulling me into a hug.


“Shh,” he whispered close to my ear. I continued to cry, leaning my head back into his warm body.

When the tears were dried up, I sniffled a few times and then turned in his embrace. He wiped under my eyes with one big thumb

“What’s the matter?” his husky voice asked.

“Alex is here and he’s staying at village two and Parker just said that he likes me and doesn’t want to be with Taylor and Maria is going back to Colin even though she knows what he did to her, and our stalker is on the loose and I sprained my ankle because I jumped on Tyler thinking he was our stalker and what if Charles is our stalker because he runs cross country and has a thing for me, but so does Alex and I don’t want to believe that my boyfriend of a year is our stalker…”

I huffed because I was out of breath by that long run-on sentence. Cody gave a small laugh and tightened his arms around me.

“That’s a lot of things to be worried about.”

I sighed and sniffled. “You have no idea.”

We leaned back and I tipped my head to the stars. How was it possible that I had found the perfect guy in the completely wrong time? My entire life I’d dreamed of being with someone as perfect as Cody. And now, here, I had him. But everything around us was crumbling.

“Do you think this is all karma?” I asked.

“No, I think this is just the luck of the draw. We drew the bent end of the straw.”

“I have no idea what that means,” I laughed. He laughed with me.

“I don’t either. I just made it up.”

I cracked up and leaned backwards in his arms. He was solid and true and I felt for that moment that even if I were in Africa, riding camels and drinking coconut water, I’d always feel at home in Cody’s arms.

“What are you going to do about it?”

“About what?” I yawned.

“Parker, Charles, Alex, Tyler?”

I giggled. “Somebody jealous?”

Cody laughed. “No. Well, maybe.”

I turned around, suddenly serious. “Of who?”

He grimaced. “I haven’t been completely truthful.”

“About what?”

“Remember what you said about Alex being old money?” I nodded. “Are you old money too?” he asked.

I thought for a minute before replying. “My family is wealthy, if that’s what you’re asking. Not as wealthy as Alex’s, but wealthy.”

Cody’s eyes were big and sad under the almost full moon. “I got a full scholarship to college through tennis. Eva, my family isn’t rich.”

I touched his cheek softy with the pads of my fingertips. “I never said you needed to be.”

“But your boyfriend, Alex, he’s got money. I can’t compete with that.”

I shook my head. “I never asked you too. That isn’t why I dated Alex, because of his money. I dated him because he was my best friend and I owed it to him to try it out. And I love you because you are who you are, money not included. Here, at camp, you never know those kinds of things about people. And I’m fine with that. I don’t want to be with you only because you have money. And I won’t not be with you because you don’t have money.”

“Has anybody ever told you that you’re amazing?"

I swatted at him lazily with one hand. “Stop, you’re making me blush,” I said in a fake nasally voice. He chuckled.

Under the blanket of stars, we were the perfect couple. We had the looks, we had the setting and we had the natural banter that came from years of practice but in our case, had happened instantly. Yeah, there were a lot of things that I had yet to learn about Cody. It’s only been a few days and we have even less until we must part.

But under the stars, where the cold, bitter wind doesn’t bite, where the screeching of frogs and crickets is quiet, everything between Cody and I was perfect. I didn’t worry about our supposed stalker. I didn’t even think that someone could be coming and catching us, namely Alex.

“What’s going to happen after Wapo?” I whispered dreamily. “Humor me. Make up the story of our lives.”

Cody sighed lightly, his warm and mint-y breath tickled the space on my neck behind me right ear. “We’re going to stay in touch and date long distance. Then, when you graduate high school and I graduate college, I’ll move to wherever you go to college. I’ll wait until you’ve finished two years until I propose, in an elaborate and romantic evening proposal, filled with candlelight and poetry. We’ll get married in a big church, somewhere near one of our homes and fill the church with everyone we know and love.

“Then we’ll honeymoon somewhere exotic and beautiful where we can enjoy just the two of us. You can finish college and I can finish medical school and we’ll buy a small house that we trade in for a big house in the suburbs when we finally have kids. We’ll be old and gray and sipping lemonade on our wrap around porch with our grandchildren running in the big back yard and I’ll still remember the day that I foretold our life history to my eternal wife.”

I turned around and kissed him lightly, our lips barely touching but I still felt a hundred volts of energy surge through us.

“You’re my destiny,” I murmured against his collarbone. He held my head with his warm hands.


******************************

That night, as Cody drove me back to village three, I felt a sense of urgency, a tidal wave of emotions come over me. I had the desire to hold him against me, feel his body heat melt with my own. I wanted to bottle his voice in a time capsule and keep it for a rainy day; just like the money my grandma gave me. I wanted to tell him that the whole life he planned for us was perfect and beautiful and absolutely, devastatingly tragic and romantic. I wanted to kiss his lips, feel him singing against me and see him dance under a full moon.

Instead, as he helped me out of the truck and as I fumbled with my crutches, I ran my hands lightly over his face and shoulders and arms. I memorized him like a blind person would Braille and I kissed his lips lightly.

Then, just before I turned around, he pulled me towards him, pressing his berry colored lips to my nose.

“Falling,” he murmured.

I smiled up lightly. “Fall away,” I replied and hobbled back to my cabin, amazed that ropes dialog could convey so much more than a high ropes course.

I gimped back to the cabin, my metal crutches making an unholy sound as they scraped against the concrete platform. I heard a few of my friends moan in their sleep. I didn’t have a watch and there were rarely glimpses at a clock, but I guessed that Cody and I had spent over an hour talking.

Try as hard as I could, I still couldn’t change and get ready for bed without waking up my friends.

“Eva, seriously?” Tay moaned from her spot across the way from me.

“Sorry!” I whispered.

“Where were you?” Krista asked, rubbing her eyes with her closed fists.

“God, could you make any more noise with those crutches?” Mel moaned.

I pulled off my clothes and replaced then with warm Pjs. “Village One,” I said answering Krista.

“Oh,” Krista said, falling backwards into her bunk and pulling a pillow over her head. “Goodnight.”

The rest of the girls pulled their sleeping bags over their heads and muttered goodnight before falling fast asleep. I distinctly heard Tay’s soft snore that she refused to admit to and Ama’s heavy breathing in the bunk above me. Everything was normal again, I hadn’t gotten a note in more than half a day and Alex hadn’t shown up any more.

Except for my sprained ankle, everything seemed completely normal. I was up reading a book while the rest of my friends were dead asleep. The Turduckins outside our window were squawking and doing whatever Turduckins do. Wapo was the same as it always was: full of adventure, fun, life, God and boys.

I flashed my flashlight down at my suitcase to that I could put my book away. My heart stopped for a moment.

Lying on top of my suitcase was a small envelope. It was stuffed and white and had the same script on the front.

Eva

Then, from the inside, several petals tinged in blood fell out. A handmade bracelet in starburst colors fell out also and my left hand flew to my right wrist. My starburst bracelet I had made with Tay was gone. Then, finally, another note fluttered out. I picked it up and opened it.

Thought I was gone for good? Don’t kid yourself. Did you feel, ahem, safe, without me bothering you? Did you ever think that maybe in all that downtime, I was spying on you? Stealing your bracelet, stealing your blood, stealing your secrets, stealing your girls. What’s next?

I’m one of you. You’ll never, ever expect me because I’m the person that you know. I’m the person that you least fear.

Or am I?


P.S. Do you think that you guessing Tyler was me was a coincidence? Can you run away from me now with a sprained ankle?

I think not.

Everything I do is meticulously planned and executed. Don’t think too hard about what meticulous means, my dear. You never were a brainy one.


Much Love!

I stared at the note, it’s grainy white paper rough against my hands. I know this person well? And they planned that I would trip over Tyler? I shivered, this person was far more keen and planned out than I had guessed.

When I fell asleep, clutching my flashlight as a weapon, I thought about the day and how many bad things had happened. Little did I know that the next three days would be even worse?

WEDNESDAY

There is a soft rapping on our cabin door. I sit up straight in my bunk, clutching my covers in fear. The sun is barely rising on the horizon and the knocking continues. I lean a little to the left so that I can peer through the screen and see who is there.

It’s only Alex.

Wait, Alex? Why isn’t he at village two?

I pull a hoodie over my head and shove my feet into someone’s flip-flops. They’re purple and sparkly, something I’d never buy in my life. When I peer around, thankfully no one else is awake and I tip toe out of the cabin. I grab Alex’s wrist, hard, and lead him a good hundred feet away from the cabin and the counselor tent.

“What are you doing here?” I hiss, smoothing my hair back into a low bun with my hands. Alex looked perfect in a navy blue Henley with exposed stitching and a pair of white sport shorts that show off his deep tan.

I, meanwhile, am in baggy pj’s and my hair probably looks like Medusa’s.

“Alex, I told you that I need a break! The rest of the week, at least!”

He frowned. “That wasn’t what I wanted to talk about.”

“Then what did you want to talk about?”

He grabs my hand and deposited a few of the tinged petals. “What the hell does this mean?”

I shook my head. “Alex, it isn’t what it seems.”

“Who put these in my cabin?”

“I have no idea,” I breathed.

“Who would do this? And is this dye?” he touched a single petal lightly with his fingertip.

“I don’t know,” I breathed. Even though I was so into Cody, Alex was still beautiful and tempting. We dated for a year, but he was still so inviting and exciting and familiar. I had to draw my eyes away from his bulging arm muscles, his strawberry colored lips and his velvety voice.

Alex moved closer and was it just me, or did he have a mischievous sparkle in his eyes? And then, before I knew it, he was kissing me. And I was leaning into him, pressing my lips back against his and wrapping my arms around his neck. His arms came around my back and lifted me off the ground for a few seconds, my legs twirling around his taunt waistline. But then I pulled back and set my good foot on the ground, lowering my sprained ankle slower than the healthy one.

“We can’t do this right now,” I mumbled, unconsciously touching my lips with my index finger. “I can’t do this.”

He smiled brightly. “Your eyes tell a different story.”

“I never said I didn’t want you,” I murmured. “I said I couldn’t want you.”

“What, are you seeing someone else?” he laughed. But then he caught the stone cold look in my eyes and his eyebrows knit themselves together. “Eva?”

I brushed one hand through his short and light brown hair and then cupped his cheek. “I loved being with you,” I whispered. “But I don’t even know what it’s like to be without you. I need this break, from us, to find myself. Can you try to understand that?”

He grabbed both of my hands and held this in his large ones. “No, I can’t. But I love you, so I’m going to try. You take this time and figure out what you want. I’ll be here. You’re my best friend.”

I smiled up at him. When he dropped my hands, the petals flooded the ground below us. It looked like a ruined wedding; the petals swam in a pool of thick mud.

I turned and, just as I was about to wobble away, Alex spoke.

“Don’t say I never loved you,” he whispered. His light green eyes were a little watery and his heart shaped mouth was drooping. “Because I did.”

Then he walked away and I was left standing above the ruined rose-petals.



**********************************

I’m exhausted by the time we even get to the Wapo campus. Our usual two-mile trek had been elongated by a stop at village one for breakfast with the guys, which had turned into a food fight that we had to pick up. So, even though I was dressed in fresh clothes, I smelled like broken pop tarts and maple syrup.

“Go meet up with your cabins for lunch and then come back here for chapel time.”

I sigh and pick up my bag from the floor where I dropped it. Tay is perched on the rock fireplace, her thick Jesus fish bracelet halfway completed in her hands.

“Crap,” she muttered to herself and slung her thick blond braid over one shoulder. I saw Tyler check her out as she stood up and stretched and automatically, I looked at Parker. He looked back, not at all caring that he could see three inches of Taylor’s taunt tummy.

I grabbed his arm, tightly, and pulled him outside to the woods where Cody and I had gotten our first joined message from our stalker.

“Stop it,” I hissed. Parker’s light blue eyes flew open. “Seriously.”

“Don’t be angry,” he said.

“I don’t want you in that way, alright? Go for Tay, you two are supposed to be together. I want you two to be together. You don’t want me, this isn’t real.”

Parker’s eyes were glassy, his frown evident. “You don’t know that.”

I tugged my arm away from his outstretched hand. “I don’t like you Parker.” It was blunt, be he was obviously not taking any of my hints.

He shrunk back, suddenly small and tiny. “What?”

“You heard what I said,” I yelled, grabbing my canvas bag and throwing it over my shoulder. “You and me, we’re friends. That’s all. Understand?”

His face was the picture of anger and hurt. “You didn’t have to be so sharp about it,” he cried and stomped away. I resisted my maternal urge to go and comfort him, say it wasn’t about him.

Instead, I shrugged my bag back onto my shoulder and made my way to Crossfire, my head in angry turmoil. After dating one guy for an entire year, it was hard to function with four guys liking me at once.

Camp was suppose to be about God, but the closest thing I had gotten to a direct relationship with him was Devos and even those I wasn’t concentrating enough in.

“Hey!” I looked up and saw Ama bounding up the stairs of Crossfire.

“Hey,” I replied. “Don’t you have Big Lodge girls?”

“Yeah,” she smiled. “But we’re meeting in the meditation room for bible study, I guess.”

“Have fun,” I said. She jogged of, her tan and toned legs making me more envious with each step.

When I opened the door of my girl’s room, there was chaos. All around were strewn candy wrappers, pillows, blankets, feathers and hair products. Lauren sat on her bed, completely calm for a counselor whose room was being trashed. The girls were dancing and taking pictures wearing only sport bras and boxers.

“What are you doing?” I asked, completely aghast. The girls laughed but continued to jump up and down and take crazy pictures. Faith’s white blond hair was crazy and flying and Rachel and Ellie had matching side ponies.

“What’s going on?” I asked Lauren. She looked up from her bible, her make-up free face absolutely gorgeous.

“I asked them what they wanted to do for their free hour and they said this. I’m trying to ignore it.”


I laughed. Lauren closed her bible and set it down on her bed. “Do you mind watching them for a minute? I have to go talk to someone in the kitchen.”

I nodded. “Sure.” But inside, I was terrified that someone was going to come and take the girls and me.

“Thanks!” she said and left the room, the faint smell of lilacs swirling around my nose.

I plopped down on my chair and started to slather some lotion on my legs. Some of the girls continued to take there wild and crazy pictures while a few wandered over to where I was sitting.

“What happened yesterday?” Ellie asked. Her milk chocolate colored skin was flawless and her lips were covered in a deep purple lipstick.

“What do you mean?” I asked, looking up at them. I dug in my bag for my mascara, suddenly feeling the need to reapply. Wait, it was no makeup Wednesday. “You girls know its no-makeup Wednesday, right?”

They nodded. “We’re taking it off before lunch,” Rachel said.

“Alright,” I said, skeptic. I had been a thirteen-year-old girl once too and I knew just how important makeup was back then.

“About yesterday,” Faith said. “What, exactly, happened?”

“I wanted to ask you girls the same thing,” I said. “At the end of free time, would you girls mind doing kind of a big one-on-one with me? The four of us.”

They nodded happily. “We’d love to.”

“Good,” I said. Lauren came back into the room, and I settled onto my chair near the window. I pulled a long sleeve cashmere sweater on and a pair of yoga pants, the weather outside a dreadful gray and the forecast even worse.

I curled up on the chair, wrapping my thin arms around myself when I looked out and saw that it was raining.

“So what are we going to do for lunch?” Alexa asked.

Lauren looked outside for presumably the first time. “We’ll eat it.”

I laughed but the girls looked disappointed. They whined and started banging around with coats and closed toed shoes.

I just sat on the chair, my arms wrapped around my body, and shivered. The light drizzled had turned into a downpour and I was thankful I had yet to shower today because it seemed I wouldn’t need it.

“Okay girls,” Lauren said, standing up and adjusting her pink raincoat. “Time for lunch.”

The girls angrily grabbed their rain gear and made towards the door. I dug in my bag for my umbrella and headed towards the door too.

When I entered the dining hall, I rung out my soaked hair and waved my umbrella around to get the water off. Even with its protection, the downpour was hard and had pelted me with water. I was soaked.

My cabin was already up at line, the girl grumbling about their soaked apparel. I saw a few of my friends sitting with their charges, eating pork sandwiches. I groaned inwardly and headed towards the toast machine, my soggy shoes squeaking across the clean floor.

Just as I was about to turn to the side, I saw Cody waving at me from the door to lower commons. I smiled and waved back and he waved me over. I looked around, seeing that no one was watching, and sprinted towards where he was. He pulled me into the dark staircase, closing the door so no one could see us.

I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him lightly on the lips before he pulled away.

“Eva,” he whispered. His voice wasn’t friendly. “We need to talk.”

His warm hand found mines he and pulled me to the base of the staircase, where a small crack of light seeped out from under the door.

“I know that you kissed Alex this morning,” he murmured.

My body went slack. How could he have known that?

“How?” I whispered.

Cody waved one hand in the air, his face tight. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is that it happened.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching out with one hand to touch his shoulder. He moved backwards and I dropped my hand. “It wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t even know he was coming. One minute he was knocking on the cabin door and the next he was kissing me.”

“I want to believe you,” he whispered. “But I’m not sure that I can.”

“What?” I asked. “Why not?”

“Because you kissed Parker too, on Saturday. And Charles wants you. And I love you. But I can’t be with you if all you’re going to do is cheat on me.”

“Cody, no,” I whispered, laying a hand on his arm. He allowed it. “No, that thing with Parker, it was nothing. I swear. And Alex, well it was a mistake. A big mistake.”

Then, a moment later, “Wait, you love me?”

Cody looked at me, his eyes going a little softer. “Of course I love you. You’re crazy beautiful and you love animals and you’re sympathetic and funny and smart. But you’re also fickle. I want you to want me and only me. I need that.”

“What about Tracie?” I hissed back. “If you want me all to yourself, you have to break up with Tracie for it to be fair.”

“I already did,” he whispered. “Last night. Had you told me that you loved me too, it would have made a difference. But I guess that’s not what you feel,” he said and stormed out of the door and into the light.



********************

As the day wore on, I felt worse and worse. My heart wasn’t in field games, and I barely enjoyed my daily shower, usually a high point. Instead, I lacked any kind of response; people threw balls at me in dodge ball and I didn’t notice, I was pelted by questions from my girls during bible study and didn’t even hear them. My friends whirled around me in a blur, one constant stream of color and open mouths talking.

I saw Cody twice and tried to talk to him, but he moved away before I could reach him. Parker avoided me like the plague; I guess my morning talk had scared him away.

Over during dinner, I gazed over my food at Cody. He was sitting at the counselor table, laughing at something Jason said and shoving a spoonful of corn into his mouth. He was gorgeous and I missed him. The rain outside had subdued, but beach bash had been postponed until Thursday anyways. Instead, we had a skit in the Crossfire Chapel.

After dinner, I followed my girls out of dining hall, ducked past Lauren and Alyssa and whispered in Samantha’s ear.

“I’ll be right there, okay?” I said.

Samantha, the perfect TIM Teamer, gave me a quizzical look. “Okay,” she replied softly, her tennis shoes smacking the ground as she walked away. I slipped past the herds of beta cabins leaving dining hall and looked up at the dark sky. It started to sprinkle again and even though everyone else started to run away, I tipped my head to the sky, closed my eyes, and did my best to twirl in circles. I laughed aloud, alone, several times, before I felt a tap on my shoulder.

Cody stood in the steady rain, his head-sopping wet and his face laughing.

“Hi,” I whispered, leaning nearer under the cold rain. Cody inched closer and a tree branch swayed towards us.

“Hi,” he replied, his voice soft and tender.

I leaned my head back to the sky and opened my mouth; a smattering of giggles leaking from my lungs. Cody did the same and we laughed as the hard rain droplets fell on our faces and in our mouths.

“I love you too,” I said. At first, I thought he didn’t hear because he didn’t reply right away. And just as I was about to walk away, disappointed and shunned, Cody looked at me.

His eyes were dark with a few flecks of green and his wet face was smiling in a way that I couldn’t place.

Then, he lifted one finger to my nose and touched it gently, his finger burning like fire against my skin in the cold, cold rain.

“You’re impossible to stay away from,” he murmured, wrapping me into his warm embrace. We kissed in the rain, his arms wrapped tightly around my cashmere-cloaked body. The trees around us shielded us from the world and the rain continued to pour down on us. But I didn’t care. I didn’t care at all.

Cody was the one. His lips were soft and tender and matched mine perfectly. His arms circled my waist with ease and my fingers ran through his hair like a habit.

It was easily to believe that we were meant to be at that moment. His sugary lips were like candy and his arms were warm and dry in the pounding rain. Lightning was flashing above us and behind the covering of trees, kids were screaming and running to their cabins. But the pressure on my mouth from Cody’s lips was enticing and took away all of that. I didn’t feel the cold rain soaking into my skin.

Instead, I felt the beauty that was Cody. I felt his body heat radiating from him and the strength of his arms as he gripped me tighter. When we broke apart, I couldn’t help but stare into his eyes.

“Why me?” he asked quietly, just like I had Sunday night.

“Because you’re everything I could ever wish for,” I murmured, tracing his square jaw with one index finger. “And you’re perfect.”




******************

Through everything, I saw the magnificent beauty of us. Cody was awe-inspiring and I couldn’t get enough of him. But it scared me that I was so in love with him. After less than a week, I was already willing to give everything, including my life, to a guy that a month ago, I hadn’t even known. Now, I would do anything for Cody, and I only hoped that he felt the same way.

“How are you holding up?” Krista asked me as we were walking from the chapel to the bus.

I smiled at her. “I’m good, how about you?”

She blushed. “I’m good too.”

“What’s going on?” I asked, hitting her arm gently.

“I think Kevin and I might have a thing,” she whispered.

I yelped quietly and grabbed her hand. “Oh, my gosh! When did this happen?”

“Yesterday,” she whispered back as we took our seat on the bus. It was already crowded and we slipped into one of the only available seats. I looked at the front of the bus and saw Kevin, his giant figure swerving in and out of my eyesight as he danced and sang to a song. Personally, I found him incredibly annoying and obnoxious. But if he was what Krista wanted, then I was happy for her.

“That’s great, K,” I whispered. The bus started moving and sketchy Dan moved his dog from his lap to the dash of the bus. The tiny wiener dog walked timidly to one side and slid a little as the bus turned out of the Wapo campus.

The night sky was dark and I leaned my head onto the cold glass, feeling the chilly air seep at my skin and I shivered. Cody was up front, sitting with Neil and I had a great view of the back of his head.

Behind me, a few seniors started to sing, “Grace like Rain” and without thinking, I found myself singing along.

“Hallelujah, grace like rain, falls down on me

“Hallelujah, all my stains, are washed away, they’re washed away,” I murmured, staring out into the black sky and fields and wishing if only that were true.




****************

What I never got a chance to tell Cody was this: I loved him more than I loved myself at that time. He was more than I was, and of that I was jealous. It was hard to compare with him, and while I spent the week at Wapo in love, I also spent it in self-denial. I told myself that I was pretty enough for Cody to love me, that I was smart enough, athletic enough, correct. So in the end, I gave him everything, and at the same time, I lost everything.

Someone asked me a few months after if it had been worth it all. I looked at them strangely, not comprehending. Then they said,

“Would you do it again? Would you fall in love with him, only to have him die?”

I gave them an open-mouthed stare. “Of course I would,” I said. “And I’d give my life to see him again.”

I lost everything I had ever had. But I gained something I couldn’t even have imagined before I met him.




***********************

As had become routine, I sidled up to Cody after campfire. In the darkness, the campus had no electricity; no one could see us gently touching at the hands, our faces turned towards each other yet we said nothing.

“Hi,” he breathed. I felt my hand melt into his.

“HI,” I replied. His breath was warm and tickled my forehead as he bent down to kiss my nose quickly. He was so much taller than me; I had to stretch to reach my arms around his shoulders. My raven hair was glossy in its low braid; I could feel it swinging between my shoulder blades.

“I have to go now,” I whispered, as the other girls started their walk.

“I’ll drive you,” he said, pointing towards my injured foot. I had almost forgotten.

“Oh, okay,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

I wandered over to where my friends were standing at the base of the trail. It was thick with mud and the sides slipped down by about two feet.

“I’m always afraid I’m going to get stuck in there when I’m running,” Ama said, pointing at the rift on the side of the trail.

“Explain to me why you go running?” Mel said. I laughed and they turned around, noticing my presence for the first time.

“Hey,” Krista said lightly.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Tay walked up to me, her stance rigid. “Is there something going on between you and Parker?”

I shook my head vigorously. “No. Absolutely not.”

“I don’t believe you,” Tay said.

“I don’t like Parker, okay?” I said. “And why do you care, anyways? You have Morgan.”

Taylor huffed, her cheeks blushing slightly and she crossed her arms over her chest, a defense mechanism. “I don’t care.”

“Then why you all up in my grill?” I whispered quietly. Krista laughed and I turned to her, smiling. But just then she frowned, turning back to the others. The rest of them turned away too, their eyes averted as they did so.

“What’s wrong?” I asked but I didn’t receive an answer. Finally, after a few minutes of discussion, I wobbled away, back to the campfire and Cody.




**************

When we were driving in the truck, the windows rolled down, I hung my arm out the window, singing along lightly to the songs we had just sung at campfire.

“Are you okay?” Cody asked, reaching one hand across and touching my shoulder lightly. I didn’t answer, I just leaned my head against my shoulder, feeling the sharp evening breeze and squeezing my eyes shut tightly.

“I don’t know what’s right anymore,” I whispered, so softly that I didn’t expect him to hear. But he did and just then, he pulled over to the side of the road.

“Look at me,” he whispered. I sat up, staring into his dark eyes. There were no lights on in the cabin of the truck; only the thin stars from the sky gave us light. “Don’t let anybody judge you or make you feel like less of a person.”

I was silent.

“Do you hear me?” he asked, gripping the tops of my arms with his hands.

I wiggled from his grasp and got onto my knees on the seat. I leaned over, brushing my hands through his hair and pulling his head into my arms.

“Let’s not talk,” I whispered, then I leaned down and kissed him.



******************************

That night as I crept into my bunk, pulling a thick gray wool sweatshirt over my head, I thought about dreams. Not the kind that happen in the night, but the kind that we have for our futures.

Before this week, I had always dreamed of being a doctor. I wouldn’t let anyone get in the way of me going to a top tier college and med school, graduating early and doing my residency somewhere in Washington.

But now, with Cody, all I can think about is our life together. He’s twenty one and I’m sixteen, he’s already in college and I’m only halfway through high school. So if we got married young, like I want, I would probably have to give up my dream of becoming a surgeon.

But it would be all worth it.

I couldn’t think of anything other than being Cody’s wife, Cody’s love, the mother of his children, and the woman of his life. I didn’t want to be anything other than that. And that was the difference.

With Alex, I knew that it wouldn’t go anywhere other than high school. We probably wouldn’t even have made it to senior year. But with Cody, I would trade everything to have him; I would give away my soul.

Because I’ve already sold my heart.

As I awake, I feel a sense of pure dread, dripping from my mind into my body. It’s a fear of falling, a fear of losing, and a fear of flight.

I’m afraid for Cody.

Before my friends are awake, I tiptoe out of the cabin, shivering in my cable knit sweater and thin leggings. I shove my feet into cushy Uggs, feeling the warmth of the lining.

Something about cool and crisp fresh air makes me forget about what I’m feeling, and allows me to feel a sense of depth in life. I open my mouth wide, sucking in the air and feeling it rest on all parts of my body.

At camp, where there were no distractions, it was easy to believe that what Cody and I had was real. That when he touched me, there was a surge of electricity and not just something my brain made up. It was easy to imagine a future life, because we had time.

He and I have all the time in the world. It’s only been six days, four days since we first kissed. I’ve fallen in love almost as fast as Romeo and Juliet, yet I would never say that what we have is fickle or fake. What we have is magnetic, it’s heart wrenching, it’s true and it is love. Whether your opinion of love is that it doesn’t exist, or that it is God in his simplest form, Cody and I are in love.

So when I awake with the fear of losing Cody, my body goes into shock. I’ve known what it is like to lose someone that you love.

But I’ve never lost someone that I’ve been in love with.
My mother was beautiful. She was everything to me, because at that time I didn’t know anything else. The strongest bond I had was with the woman who cut my sandwiches in half, who sang to me as I fell asleep, who waved goodbye to me on my first day of kindergarten. Her death was pain. I fell asleep each day trying to remember what had happened those last few minutes. In the years after, I tried to remember what we had said as easy conversation, the way her hair had felt and smelled, what perfume she wore, what her laugh sounded like. I didn’t ask my father, because it hurt. So, after years and years of memories, I began to stop thinking. I started to forget, to make up memories, to keep the hard stuff at bay and the easy memories on hand. It wasn’t easy to forget my mother.

But it was harder to remember her because that’s what really hurt.

I don’t want to have to fear, simply, the thought of Cody. I don’t want to have to lose two people that I love in this lifetime.

So when I reach down to my suitcase and find yet another letter, my heart stops short. My breath turns shallow and thin, my mind begins to race as my trembling fingers slide opens the thick white paper.

My Love,


Your strength I admire,


Your will I command


Your love creates desire, always in demand


Let knoweth thou art taketh, by my greedy hand


Thou knowest I shall loveth as man doth land


Beware that eyes will see what need be


My love for you a vast and eternal sea


So love knoweth this for it be true,


I loveth you


And I shall kill Cody too.





Enjoy my poem, my dear? I’m giving you one more day. One more day to end things with Cody and spare his life, or my hands will be covered in his blood.



**********************

“Meet in the mediation room,” Mel hisses as she walks past me. I look up, surprised, but she’s already jogging away. All of my friends except Krista have been semi-ignoring me. I think it has something to do with the whole Parker and Taylor thing. But she can’t even be mad because she’s got Morgan back home and they’re a real, solid, true couple. Not like Alex, and me something that’s on the rocks and could easily be broken.

“K?” I asked, walking slowly to where Krista was braiding a bracelet by the fireplace in Old Chapel.

“Yeah?” she said, catching my eyes. Her right one was blue while her other was brown and green, so startling and beautiful that it took me a moment to compose myself.

“Are you going to Meditation room?”

“Yeah, after lunch,” she said, wiping her hands on her theirs.

“What’s going on?”

“Um,” Krista murmurs, piling her stuff into her bag when Jason and Cody announce that it’s time to meet our cabins. “I’m thinking it has something to do with Parker, but I’m not sure.”

“Oh, God,” I murmured, looking across the room. The guys are huddled in a bunch: Parker, Kevin, Neil, Kirk, Charles and Cody.

Krista stood up, slinging her day bag over her shoulder.

“I’ll see you at beach bash, okay?”

I nodded and lifted one hand in a semi-wave. “Yeah.” When she disappeared through the door, Parker came up to me, his eyes sad, his demeanor sagging.

“Eva,” he said quietly. I turned around.

“Yeah, hon.,” I said without realizing.

He blinked. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Let’s talk outside.” I led him to the small picnic table near the jungle gym.

“Okay, so what are you sorry for?” I asked.

Parker breathed deep, “I’m sorry for putting all of that on you. For blurting out that I want you, and not Taylor, when you were the only one that encouraged us.”

“Oh, Park,” I sighed. His hand was woven into mine and I clasped it a little bit tighter. “I’m sorry too. The way I reacted, it was horrible. It’s just with Alex here, and all of the emotions that come with camp, I just wasn’t expecting it. And I wasn’t ready.”

“I understand,” he said quietly. “But I want you to know that my feelings haven’t changed. I still like Taylor; at least I think I do. But I think I’ve always liked you too.”

“That’s sweet,” I said, tracing one finger over his cheek. “But I can’t. Not right now, anyways. A part of me still loves Alex, and if he wants to fix things, then we’ll try. But I’ll always think of you.”

He stood up, defeated. But then he slumped over, unconscious, in my arms.




*************************

I screamed so loud I thought the whole camp heard me. Cody, Neil, Kevin and Samantha came running out of Old Chapel. Several counselors came running from where they do their laundry and I saw my friends approaching.

Parker was seemingly dead in my arms, his weight a heavy one so that I fell over, onto my knees. His head lolled in my lap, his eyes were shut. I started to cry, my tears flooding his face and plastering his hair to his forehead.

“Park, Parker, wake up!” I said, hitting his face with my hands. There was no response and I leaned over to hear or feel his breaths.

There were none.

“Please,” I whispered anxiously, my voice rising as I sobbed. Around me, people started to talk, their voices mixing with my cries. I closed my eyes as someone moved Parker from my lap, as someone else lifted me up from the ground. I heard the loud counting as Parker was given CPR, his chest bouncing beneath the person’s locked hands.

When I opened my eyes, I was held in Cody’s arms. His face was a mask of pain; his dark eyes were staring down at me.

“Are you okay?” he asked. I felt the hot tears spilling out of my eyes.

“I did this to him,” I whispered.

“What, no, I promise you didn’t,” Cody said. I was still cradled in his embrace, but in the panic, no one saw anything strange. I looked over and saw Peter, another counselor, giving Parker CPR, his strong voice chanting out the compressions. Around him were people, some freaking out and other on their unauthorized phones. Cody lightly shoved my head away from the commotion.

“Don’t look,” he said quietly.

“I told him I didn’t want to be with him.”

“You what?” Cody asked. He set me down on the bench next to him. I curled into a ball.

“He said he wants me, not Taylor. And so I said that no, I’m not interested. But when he stood to walk away, he collapsed in my arms.”

“That’s not why he collapsed, Eva.”

“It is,” I cried, covering my eyes with my hands. “I know it is!”

“Look at me,” he said, tipping my chin towards him. I dropped my hands to my sides, opening them slightly. Cody’s handsome frame came into view, his eyes now soft and comforting. “I’m in college to be a physician. I know what happened to him. And it wasn’t the stress of you telling him or a fictional broken heart.”

I let out a small sob. “Then what was it?”

Just beyond dining hall I could hear the shriek of the sirens as the ambulance made it’s way to Parker. Peter was still doing CPR, his tan hands pumping to the rhythm of a heart on Parker’s exposed and naked chest.

Cody turned to me, his hand reaching for mine. “He was drugged. By our stalker.”



********************************

“What?” I whispered, my head snapping up. “Are you kidding?”

“No,” Cody said as the EMT jumped out of the truck, pulling a stretcher from the back and running over to Parker. He was pale, limp in Peter’s arms. The EMT and his partner slowly lifted his body onto the stretcher, someone immediately going into action and placing a breathing mask over his face, another taking over compressions. I shoved my face into Cody’s shoulder, my tears soaking his light green tee shirt.

“I can’t believe it’s gone this far,” I whispered. “It’s all my fault.”

“You can’t tell yourself that,” Cody whispered, stroking my hair gently. His hands were large and soft and gentle; his touch was electrifying.

I looked up. “Of course it is. I fell in love with you. I was greedy and I wanted you. And now, look what’s happening. We’ve endangered everyone around us.”

Cody crushed me to him, an embrace so forceful that it took my breath away. I gasped against his side, my lips gaping. His arms were thick and strong around me, holding me, saving me, torturing me.

“Don’t you ever think for one second that this is your fault.”

“Oh, but it is,” I whispered. He let me go and I sucked in air quickly, it’s freshness biting at my lungs. “It all is.”

He crushed me to him again. “Stop it.” The lights faded as the ambulance moved away. I started to realize that people were looking, comprehending, growing suspicious. I pushed Cody’s arms away, wiping tears from my face. The next friendly face I saw was Tyler. He was standing a few feet away, his arms crossed over his chest. He and Parker were very close.

“Ty,” I whispered, hobbling those few feet and throwing my arms around his neck, sobbing.

“Shh,” he whispered into my neck, his breath warm and minty. Over his shoulder I could see Cody, shocked, bewildered but understanding. He knew that we couldn’t risk our cover. He understood that I had to throw my self at Tyler, just to show that Cody and I weren’t involved. “It’s going to be okay,” Tyler murmured. I pressed my fingertips into his back, clutching the cotton fabric of his shirt.

“Eva,” he whispered. I looked up and Tyler was looming over me, his tanned skin seemingly glowing in the sun. I closed my eyes, thinking he was going to kiss me. But instead, he pressed his forehead to mine quickly, then disappeared into the crowd that had assembled. I turned in circles, searching for Cody, but he was gone.



**********************************************

Everything was going wrong. I couldn’t handle my relationship with Cody. I was throwing myself at other guys, struggling to even keep myself in line. Parker was drugged and seemingly dead in my arms, the EMT swooshing down to come and takes him from me. Dried tears were thick on my face as I made my way to my girl’s cabin to change for beach bash. There was nothing fun about what I felt.

“Eva!” I jumped a foot, landing crushingly on my bad ankle. I turned around to see Rachel and Faith, their hair done up in high pony ails and wearing sweatpants. “Are you coming back to the room?”

“Yeah,” I replied, limped a little and rushing to catch up with them.

“Did you know that guy that got taken away in the ambulance?” Faith asked, her white hair swinging as she walked. I nodded.

“Parker.”

“He was so hot,” Rachel sighed. “I mean, he didn’t have a shirt on when they were loading him.”

I laughed, surprising myself. “Yeah, he’s pretty hot.”

“Do you want him?” Faith asked as we swung through the doors of crossfire. I was hit by the blast of air conditioning, the only building on campus equipped with it.

“What do you mean ‘want him’?” I asked, plopping down on the floor of the room. It was empty except for the three of us. “Hey, where is everybody?”

“Breakfast,” Rachel said calmly, taking down her thick curly hair and brushing it. “We skipped out early.”

I knew I should have said something reprimanding, but instead I laughed.

“What about Tyler?” Faith asked eagerly. “Do you two have a thing?”

“Oh, no,” I said. “I’ve got a boyfriend, remember?”

They nodded, but Faith looked disappointed.

“Want to know a secret?” I asked them. They looked up, eager and excited. I waved them near. “Parker is in love with me. But I don’t like him. Alex is in love with me, but I don’t want to be with him anymore.”

The girls stared at me for a moment. Then, “Why don’t you like your boyfriend anymore?”

I sighed. “It’s hard to explain. But after being with him for so long, everything has become predictable. And I’m all about the unexpected. Plus, I may have someone new in mind.”

“Who who?” Ellie asked quickly, entering the room at an amazing speed and plopping on the ground.

I laughed. “That, my dear, is the ultimate secret.”

“Why can’t we know?” Rachel whined.

I smiled. “Because if you did, it wouldn’t be the same.”

“So it’s a secret?” Faith asked.

I grinned. “Of course.”

The girls stomped their feet and I laughed again. “That’s not going to help.”

They sighed and began to grab their swimsuits. I plucked a black string bikini from my bag, fingering the small lace detail on the bodice, all the while wondering if Cody would like it.

“Eva?” I looked up to see Samantha entering the room.

“Yeah?”

“Do you know what time Beach bash is? Is it now?”

“Ten minutes,” I replied. Samantha nodded and disappeared through the door. “Ten minutes girls and we’re heading to the beach!” I called out. There was a small shriek and the girls started to hurry, their voices carrying as they scrambled to get ready. I looped a towel around my body and undressed, sliding the swimsuit underneath the towel and changing. When I dropped the towel, my black lace swimsuit was perfectly intact and I smoothed my wavy hair with my hands, stretching my arms.


“Ready girls?” I called. Rachel appeared at my side, her lanky body clothed in a striped bikini, her curly hair pulled away from her face.

“You look amazing,” she said. I smiled and looked down, admiring the tan I had gotten from the week and the body cardio had given me.

“Thanks,” I replied, grabbing my towel and sliding my feet into a pair of plastic flip-flops. “Let’s go!” I yelled. I slid a pale lavender cover-up over my head and opened the door, holding it open until all of the girls had left. The other rooms, Samantha’s charges, were mingling in the hall with my girls and I closed the door behind me.

“Oh, shoot, I forgot a hair binder,” I said to Samantha. “Can you watch the girls? I’ll meet up with you at the beach,” She nodded and walked away, her blue one piece puckering at the shoulders and butt as she moved. I slipped back into the room, diving into my canvas bag for a hair binder when I felt a brush with thick paper. I knew it was white and where it was from before even seeing it.

I yanked my hand out of my bag, pulling along with it a crumpled white note. My hands trembled as I pulled it open, folding the crease over before reading the perfect script I had began to fear.

Eva,


In case you hit your head, it’s Thursday. That means that tomorrow is Friday. And you know what that means……


I’m giving you and Cody one more day. One more day until I tear apart your star-crossed hearts and kill his with one swift cut.


A tip: don’t try and find me. Who you expect is not what is real. I am only a shadow in your imagination and I am only a whisper in the wind.


I love you Eva, I always have. And I always will. Cody is only a toy, don’t you see. In the end, you will come to me. I promise.


P.S. If you ignore this message, something very bad will happen very soon. With love, my dear.




I clutched the letter in my hands, feeling the paper go soft beneath their sweatiness. My breathing was labored and rough. I had thought for a blissful while that this was all over, that it couldn’t possibly be real. Was this a sick game, played by an acquaintance or, God forbid, a friend? Who wanted me so badly they would kill?

Alex. He was my best friend and boyfriend and I had left for camp without really explaining why I felt the way that I do. He followed me up here; he is at the running camp.

Ama. She’s one of my best friends, a Wapo girl. But she also is a runner and I have probably overlooked her problems in the light of mine at times out of pure selfishness.

Charles. He’s always been greasy, unkempt, funny Charles to me. I don’t love him as I love my other friends, but he knows that. He runs cross-country also.

Tyler. He had been running the day I tripped over him and sprained my ankle. But other than that, he was nothing more than a chill guy friend, someone that is decently attractive and moderately sweet.

But I loved my friends, and I couldn’t believe that one of them was doing this. What if it was all a joke, just to scare us? But what if, in fact, it were real?

I crumpled the letter and jammed it in the bottom of my bag to show Cody later. Then I grabbed my hair binder and towel, exiting through the door and trying hard to forget all that the letter said. But what stuck with me was the premonition that something bad was coming incredibly soon.

I had dealt with this stalker enough to knew that at least that threat was valid.




***********************************

Down at the beach, my cabin is spreading their towels on a picnic table near the back of the campfire rows and everyone is huddled in small groups. I join my girls down by the water, their arms linked together so that they formed a line. I realize they’re taking a photo and back away before Rachel breaks the chain and pulls me in and we both smile for the camera that Samantha is holding.

I smile and laugh at the fact that the girls like me. Last year, I had alpha, kindergarteners, and they liked my co-Tim Teamer, Kelsey, better than me. This year, I tell my girls, who are old enough, wild stories about my life, some flourished a little extreme but they’ll never know. I even give them my number at the end of the week, promising to friend them on Facebook and even take a few shopping.

“BEACH BASH HAS BEGUN!” cries one of the counselors over a speakerphone and several of my girls run towards the water, screaming shrilly. I move back to the benches and spot my friends lounging on a single beach towel. I laugh and throw myself on the pile of sun-warmed and tangled limbs.

Tay shoves one of my legs over and laughs. “What are you doing?”

“This isn’t doggie pile up?” I ask innocently and she chuckles, sliding out from underneath the pile. I see her gaze at Tyler, tan in his swim suit and occupied with throwing a beta girl into the water. Beach bash always turns into a huge mob of throwing people into water and it actually becomes dangerous. I spy a few of our guy friends and counselors creeping over and shriek in forewarning. My friends get up and start to run the other way, a few of us actually legitimately trying to not get throwing in. one by one, I see the boys choose a victim and scoop them up, kicking and screaming towards the marshy waters of the lake. It takes both Tyler and Neil to scoop up Mel, she’s kicking and fighting so hard and I laugh as they dump her into the water, Tyler throwing a splash over her just for good measure. I am so enraptured with my friends that I don’t even see the bodies moving behind me, as Kevin and Cody lift me into the air. I try to kick but my legs are clamped together as they carry me in their arms. I scream and scream, laughing as I do so, and they do also. I feel the cold rush of water over my body as I’m slapped into the lake, the water forming to fit me.

As I rose just to the top of the water, about to let my lungs breath, I felt something pushing and pulling at my feet. I had never been good with underwater seeing, I always kept my eyes solidly shut. But as the resistance stayed on my foot, until I understood that it was a hand, someone was gripping me and pulling me under, I opened my eyes. The water was a murky brown/green and even with my eyes open, my limbs automatically flailed so that all I could see of my torturer was pale skin before I began to kick harder and harder because it was hard to breath.

My legs were moving faster and faster before I slowly felt myself slipping into darkness.



*********************

“Eva! Eva!” I heard. I lifted my eyelids, they seemed to weigh as much as a brick each. Immediately I turned to my side and vomited up water, the only thing in my stomach. I couldn’t remember the last time I ate without the weight of our stalker on my shoulders and coincidently, in my stomach.

“Eva?” I opened my eyes again and saw Cody dabbing at my mouth with a beach towel. I groaned, not wanting him to see this.

I tried weakly to bat him away and he grabbed my hand and gently laid it at my side. “Don’t try and talk,” he said. “I’m going to carry you to first aid, okay?”

I looked around him and saw that it seemed beach bash was over. The beach was deserted, no towels were left nor flip flops. Only Cody and Hope stood above me.

“I’m fine,” I croaked, throwing my arms to the side and trying to push up on them. Fail.

“Don’t,” Cody whispered. I felt his strong arms wrap beneath my body as he lifted me from the ground. Hope’s cool hands moved my head to the crook of his arm so that it didn’t loll, as it had when he picked me up.

“I’m going to go back to Old Chapel, okay?” she said, more to Cody than me.

“Alright,” Cody said. I thought about the fact that this week of my life had seen more accidents than my entire life and that this was the second time I had to be carried in Cody’s arms because I was injured. Me, a girl who had never seen even a stitch, now almost drown and had a sprained ankle. But wait. I had been a swimmer for over 13 years. How could I have drowned?

Then I remembered.

“Cody,” I whispered, tension in my throat. “Cody, someone drowned me.”

“What?” he asked.

“In the lake, during beach bash. I didn’t drown. I know how to swim, I have since I was three. Someone was pulling me from beneath the water.”

Cody’s face was looking down at me, his brow slightly sweaty, his eyes trained on mine. I felt his hands, warm against my cold skin. I was still wearing my semi-skimpy black bikini, Cody’s muscular arms wrapped around me.

“I didn’t drown,” I whispered. “It was them. I got another letter. It practically foreshadowed this. I don’t know why I didn’t expect it.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but instead crushed my body to his in a frighteningly forceful manner. His mouth was placing kisses in my wet and disgusting hair, I could feel his breath warm on my scalp.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered lightly. I closed my eyes and imagined what it would be like not to know Cody. Not to remember the touch of his hands, the smell of his skin, the taste of his lips. Not to understand how one person could make everything slow down so that it was possible to memorize each groove of their face, the way their mouths formed vowels, the veins on their arms.

I touched his hair gently, my arms weak and tired. “Leave me,” I whispered.

“What?”

“I said leave me. Go back to Tracie.”

Cody stopped and I was still cradled in his warm arms. Afar I could hear the cries of the kids as they ran to dining hall. He walked to the left, sitting down on the slanted slope of the soccer field, directly to the right of first aid.

“Everything, it’s all rooted in us. Parker, Tyler, my accident, the girls being kidnapped. If we split up, it will all be over.”

He looked down at me with wide eyes. Cody’s hands gripped my arms, causing me to tilt in his arms. “NO.”

I sighed. “I love you. But I want you to be safe. I want to be safe. I can’t love you, if you’re dead.”

He looked at me, sympathetically. “Leaving you would be dying.”

I touched his face. “If that is what it takes to make you safe.”

“I don’t care about this person and their threats, whether they be empty or legit. I don’t care. All I know is that before this week, before last Sunday, I didn’t know who I was because I didn’t know you. And I’m not about to give that up.”

“Maybe this is all too much,” I whispered. “You, the soul-mate thing, the notes….maybe I can’t handle it.”

I tipped my head upwards, catching Cody’s gleaming eyes. “Is it?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know anymore. Everything, it’s bleeding into one big mural that I never said I would paint in the first place, and now I’m stuck finishing it.”

“Do you even like to paint?” Cody asked.

I gave him a look. Didn’t he know? “Of course I do,” I said. “But that wasn’t what I meant. I was using a metaphor. When I meant was, this has all become so much, so quickly. I don’t see how it can work, once Wapo is over. Tomorrow everything changes.”

“Baby,” he whispered, touching my cheek with his thumb. “Tomorrow changes nothing.


“Exactly. Tomorrow changes everything. What if we find that we’re not good in real life? If everything we have is all part of the mystic of camp and of Wapo?” I asked, shivering. Cody looked down at my scantily clad body and draped a warm beach towel over me.

“Here, there, Paris, Manhattan, it doesn’t matter. You and I don’t change, the setting does.”

I pressed my head to his chest; his heartbeat was thumping near my ear. “It all can change.”

“He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat,” he whispered, quoting Napoleon I in my ear. I leaned up against him, feeling the warmth of Cody and his strength; I knew that no matter where this conversation went, I’d always find a way to go back to him. He was my illicit drug, so new and promising that I could never give him up. We stayed like that for a while, my still shocked body curled against his warm one until we both heard voices coming nearer and nearer and Cody stood, pulling me in his arms with him.

“We should probably go to first aid,” he murmured.

I shook my head. “Don’t bother. I think I just want to take a nap, somewhere warm and take a shower. I’ll go back to my girl’s cabin. I’ll be fine.”

Cody looked down. “I’m bringing you there. And I’m going to get one of the guys to watch your room.”

I stared back. “You can bring me, but having someone baby sit me is a bit of a tip off. We don’t want the stalker to think that they’re ahead. If I act like it’s no big deal, it will confuse them.”

“Alright,” Cody said, swinging through the doors of Crossfire. He stopped before the door of my girl’s cabin. Then he set me down gently, the beach towel falling off my body.

He looked to each side, then kissed me swiftly on the lips, just once.

“Be careful,” he whispered.

I had turned, but now I turned around to face him. I reached my hands to hold his face, the warmth of his skin warming my digits. “Promise me something,” I whispered.

“Anything,” he replied.

“If they find you, and they’ve already found me, don’t save me. Save yourself.”

“But-,” he said and I cut him off with a wave of my hand.

“But nothing,” I said. “You fight like hell to live.” And then I shut the door, creating a barrier between us and crumpling to the floor against the door in the empty room, crying as though the world had ended.



******************************

I felt a light tap on my shoulders. Opening my eyes, I saw that I was asleep on Ellie’s bottom bunk. She was huddled above me, her round brown eyes peering at me.

“Hi?” I whispered, my voice thick with sleep.

“Eva, Cody told me to wake you up. He says he wants to take you to see your friend, Parker.”

“Park,” I murmured, sitting up and nearly hitting my head on the above bunk. I grabbed a few clothes and went into the bathroom, locking the door behind me. My limbs were a bit sore, especially my legs. I looked at my ankles, there were faint traces of bruises where my stalker had grabbed me and held me under.

When I emerged from the bathroom, wearing a pair of denim shorts and a loose, off the shoulder Free People shirt, my entire cabin was staring at me.

Lauren moved closer to where I was, still wearing her red lifeguard swimsuit. “Are you okay?” she asked, her arm outstretched. Instinctively, I moved away.

“I’m fine,” I murmured, grabbing a grey cashmere zip up from my bag. “I’m going to go see Parker, at the hospital.”

“Are you sure you’re up to that?” she asked. I tipped my head sideways. “You were unconscious for almost five minutes. I thought you were dead.”

I looked down at my body, surprised by it’s fierceness. “I’m fine,” I repeated, walking out the door and into the sun.




****************

From the doorway of the room, I could see Parker lying on the bed. He looked fragile, pale, sad. I couldn’t understand how someone would do this. Even though he wasn’t who I loved, I didn’t want him hurt.

“Give me a few minutes,” I whispered to Cody. He stood behind me, holding my grey sweater. I took it from his hands and he kissed the top of my head, disappearing down the hall. As I moved into the room slowly, Parker shifted beneath the papery white sheets.

“Eva,” he croaked, stretching out a hand. I rushed to his side, clamping his outstretched hand with my own.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. There was a thick IV running down his arm, popping out of a hole. The machines behind him beeped, reminding me all too much of the last time I had been at a hospital, where the light had been so white that I couldn’t see, until everything had blurred into one massive moment that lasted too long and not long enough.

“What happened?” he asked.

I pulled a chair next to the bed, leaning my elbows near his shoulder. “We were talking and I was yelling at you and then you turned to walk away, but collapsed. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean the things I said, I was angry. Please, God, don’t be angry with me.”

He smiled hallways. “I’m not mad,” he whispered hoarsely. “But everything, it felt so strange.”

Suddenly I remembered what Cody had said. “Did you eat or drink anything before you collapsed?” I asked.

He thought for a moment. “A bowl of cereal.”

“Who were you with?”

parker gave me a strange look. “A couple of the guys.”

“Who?” I pressured. Parker’s hand closed around mine.

“It doesn’t matter,” he whispered. “And unlike you, I meant what I said before this happened. I love you Eva, I always have.”

My mouth rounded into an O, my hand covering it.

I love you Eva, I always have.

Exact words of my stalker.


It was Parker.

I backed away from the bed, pushing my chair with the back of my legs, my mouth still formed into a perfect O.

“Eva, what’s wrong?” Parker asked. I shook my head, unable to answer. Then, before he could raise from the bed, I ran out of the room as fast as I could in search of Cody, of protection and of freedom.


***************************

“Am I rushing to conclusions?” I asked Cody, panicked. He had one arm out of the truck, his hair rumpled in the wind. I pushed my legs through the open window, something I always found tacky but thought it was called for in a pick-up.

“I think that the chances of Parker being the note sender are extremely low,” Cody answered. His hair flopped in his eyes and I reached over, smoothing his silken bangs with my fingers.

“I don’t know,” I said, leaning back into the worn leather of the seat. I could feel the heat of the midday sun on my forehead. “It’s just too coincidental to me.”

“You’ve got a lot of suitors, Eva.”

I let out a low giggle. “Yeah, okay.”

Cody turned to me. “I mean it. It could be any of them. It could be Alex or Parker, Charles or Tyler or even one of your girlfriends.”

I frowned. “My friends aren’t lesbian.”

“You never know,” he answered.

“Yes, I do know,” I said, straightening in my seat. “They’re my best friends in the entire world. I think that I know our friendship from sexual tension.”

“All I’m saying is that there is a crazed stalker out there and a generous handful of people who are willing to be with you, myself included.”

“You’re not one in a bunch of grapes,” I said, sliding my white Versace sunglasses through my hair and away from my eyes. “You’re the only one.”

“The only grape?” he asked, laughing. I laughed too, slapping his arm lightly with my fingertips.

“You’re my grape,” I whispered. Cody leaned over and kissed the bridge of my nose, causing me to erupt in a fit of giggle and the car to swish around on the road before Cody caught a firm hand on the wheel again.

Cody stared straight ahead, his brow furrowed; this was something I had learned was his deep thinking face.

“I think that it couldn’t be Parker, because he wouldn’t injure himself so severely, he’s too much of a pretty boy.” I made a motion to comment, to back up Parker, but Cody cut me off. “I think that who we’re dealing with has someone on the inside. I know it’s unlikely, but I think they have someone working for them, helping them. How else could they be so many places at once, leaving so many notes, seeing so many things? They have to have an accomplice, or at least a small time helper.”

I thought about it for a moment. “That’s possible, but who?”

Cody turned to me. Ahead, the trees were breaking to form the Wapo campus. He took a hard right, pulling through the entrance gates. I looked over at the beach, the water now dark and menacing.

“I think it’s possible that they’ve convinced one of your girls to do it.”

“My friends?” I asked, misunderstanding.

“No,” he said, pulling the truck into park near the counselors old cabins. “One of your girls from your cabin. How else would they get the notes in your bag and personal items? That never happens to me.”

“True,” I said, pulling my legs to my chest. “But I love my girls. I can’t imagine one of them is working against me.”

“What if they don’t know they are?” he said. “What if the stalker is leading them to believe the notes are happy things, like, say a secret admirer.”

“The question is how they’re getting them to do it. And who the girl is,” I said.

“I have no idea,” he replied. “But we have to keep our eyes peeled. If we can find the acomplice, we’re one step closer to finding the stalker himself.”

“True.”

“We should get going,” Cody said. I nodded, opening the door and hopping out. Cody came to my side and pulled me into his arms, even though there were people watching, even though there were kids running amuck around us.

“Be careful,” he whispered into my hair, releasing me. I wrapped my arms around myself, missing his presence, the soft cashmere of my sweater a sad substitute for the warmth of Cody’s arms.

“Hey.”

I turned around and came face to face with Maria. Her shoulder length red hair was already dried perfectly straight and she wore a pair of dark denim shorts and a tee shirt.

“How is he?” she asked.

I moved towards the art tables, sitting down. “He’s okay. Has anyone else gone to see him?”

Maria shook her head. “Taylor wanted to, but they said that visiting is over now and he’ll be back tonight or tomorrow. Did he say what happened?”

“No, he doesn’t remember anything. All I remember is yelling at him, and then he collapsed.”

“It’s not your fault,” she whispered, touching the top of my arm lightly.

“It feels that way,” I murmured.

Maria was quiet for a moment. Then, “You and Cody seem to be close.”

I nodded. “He’s great. We have a lot in common.”

“That’s great, Eva,” she said. “I’m glad you have someone to talk to.”

“I’m here for you, you know that right?” I asked. She tipped her head to the sun, the rays soaking her freckled face.

“I know,” she whispered. “And I know that being with Colin is wrong. But I love him. You can understand that, with Alex and all.”

I looked at her. “Yeah, I can understand,” I said, not thinking of Alex but of Cody.

Maria smiled at me lightly. “What I wouldn’t give to be with Colin, the Colin that I used to know.”

“You’d give everything you have,” I said. “Until it ruined you.”

“How do you know?” she asked me.

I glanced at her, my eyes sad. “Because I’ve done it.”



********************

Thursday is the last full day of camp. It usually consists of beach bash, a fantastic lunch of grilled cheese and soup, field games run by TIM Team and banquet. Banquet is the one time everyone dressed nice, not greasy and sweaty and wearing Nike shorts and a wife beater. I relish the banquet, the food is amazing and we can dress up.

I smooth my hands over my pale yellow dress. It’s silky and strapless, far too sophisticated for camp but I don’t care. There are tiny embroidered flowers along the sweat heart neckline, ones I added myself.

“Wow, that’s gorgeous,” Rachel murmurs. In her arms is a bright turquoise skirt and a white tee shirt.

“can I see yours?” I ask, holding my hands out. She embarrassedly slips the skirt into my hands. I fold the material over and over, looking at the pattern and stitching. “I like it,” I answer. Rachel blushes and takes the skirt from me, heading towards the bathroom to change for field games.

I stand up, rubbing my sore ankle that I now only use wrapping for. I know that I’ll have to sit out for field games, but I don’t mind, throwing on a slouchy Urban Outfitters tee shirt and a pair of high waited denim shorts. I let my hair loose from it’s bun, hoping it’ll dry in time for banquet.

“Ready to go girls?” I yell, corralling them in a circle.

We leave Crossfire, headed towards the soccer field.

“Beta is playing on commons field,” Jason, one of the TIM Team counselors, says. I steer the girls towards the field and watch as they descend the hill, joining their friends in the middle group. My other friends who are beta Tim Teamers are down in the circle too. Ama sees me and waves. I smile and wave back, choosing a spot in the shade to finish the one bracelet I’ve been making all week.

To say I’ve been distracted would be an understatement.

“Hey,” Ama says, jogging up to where I’m sitting. She plops down next to me with the grace of a baboon, yet she’s beautiful. “Is that your first bracelet?”

I laugh, “Yeah. But I take credit for many other things.”

“Including?” she asked, pulling her sweaty hair into a bun. “I mean, you’ve been kind of distant and distracted. Are you okay?”

Picking at my bracelet I answered her, “Distracted? I hadn’t noticed.”

“That’s the thing,” she said, “You wouldn’t have noticed. You’re so pulled in to your thoughts. It’s like you’re not Eva anymore.”

I looked up. Ama’s soft blue eyes were sympathetic, comfortable. But her words were mean, and I took them the wrong way.

“NO, I’m not,” I said, defensive.

“Yes, you are,” she whispers. Her hand covers my upper arm, our skin melting together and hot. I pull away angrily.

Stand up, I say, “Maybe it’s you. Maybe you’re the one whose changed.”

Ama looks at me, sadness in her light blue eyes. “Honey, who is pulling you away from your friends?”

I look back at her once. “You don’t understand. You never could.” And then I backed away silently, the only sounds were those of my rugged breaths.



******************

Maybe what Ama had said was true. Maybe I was changing, maybe I was not the person I was when I came to Wapo.

But I didn’t want to believe it because that meant believing that Cody changed me, that he took me away from my friends. And the only thing I could see about him was the good, was the beauty. I didn’t want to see the consequences.

As I stalked away from commons field, I heard someone calling my name. I turned around, angry and expecting Ama, when I saw Rachel. Her face was flushed a rosy pink and her white shirt had smudges of dirt.

“Are you okay?” she asked, taking in my expression and gait.

I sighed, “Yeah. I’m going to the bathroom.”

“Me too,” she said, looping our arms, “let’s go together.”

Once inside lower commons, instead of going to the bathroom, I laid down on the ground under a table tennis table.

Rachel laughed and laid down to, her curly hair fanned out. “What are we doing?” she asked.

“Hiding,” I replied, my voice low. For a few moments, all we did was lie on our backs and breathe. No one else was in lower commons, but above we could hear the chairs and tables being moved in preparation for banquet.

“I’ve done a lot of bad things lately,” I whispered. Rachel turned towards me; I saw her out of the corner of my eye.

She asked, “like what?”

“I’ve cheated on my boyfriend, I’ve cheated on my friend, I’ve lied, a lot, and I’ve changed. I’ve left the people I love behind. I’m the reason Parker is in the hospital and I’m the reason that this whole week is going aflame.”

“What do you mean you cheated on your boyfriend?”

I sighed and sat up, Rachel doing the same.

“Can you keep a secret?” I asked. She nodded. “I mean, a serious secret.”

“Of course.”

“I kissed Parker on Sunday, even though my friend Taylor as a thing for him. And I kissed my boyfriend Alex the next day. But then I also kissed someone else, someone I can’t tell you about.”

“Why?” she begged.

“To protect you,” I whispered. I stretched out my fingers, brushing back her curly hair with a motherly movement. “There are some things that shouldn’t be said aloud.”

“I can handle it,” she whispered back.

I looked Rachel in the eyes, her black framed glasses surrounding her large hazel eyes. “I don’t doubt that. But this, it’s more than gossip. It’s life.” Or death, I added silently in my head.

“Who do you love?” she finally asked. I shook my head silently.

“Someone I’m not suppose to.”

“But isn’t love forgiving?” she asked. “Isn’t it the one thing that we all strive for and you should just take it when it comes?”

“Yes,” I answered, “but only when it’s right. Sometimes love hits you in the face, and you want it so badly you go cross eyed but you’re holding the hand of someone else and they refuse to let you go.”

“Is someone holding your hand?”

I nodded. “And they’re struggling with this.”

“It’s Alex, right?” she said. I turned to her, questioning. “The guy who won’t let go. He loves you?”

“Alex thinks he loves me, and so does Parker. But neither of them understand love. It’s not just a game. It’s a lifestyle.”

“Do you understand love?”

I smiled tightly. “Yes. And it’s both a blessing and a burden.”

“Why were you with Alex so long if you never loved him?”

“Because he was always there. And I guess in some ways I was tricked, because I believed that because he loved me, I had to love him back. And I really did thing it was love. It wasn’t until I got here, this week, to Wapo that I really began to understand that what Alex and I have, isn’t love. It’s friendship.”

“Does he know that you don’t love him anymore?” she whispered. I looked at her, her eyes sad and dark.

“He knows. But he refuses to accept it.”

“You’re lucky. You have guys who love you. You have a passion.”

I wrapped my arms around her shoulders, pulling her into a hug.

“You will too, someday. But today, just have fun.”

We pulled apart and stood up. Everyone was leaving commons field, running to the cabins to get ready for Banquet.

“We should go,” I said. “I need an outlet for my curler.” Rachel laughed and opened the door, hot air spilling into the room and engulfing the two of us.




****************

I ran my fingers through my hair, fluffing the curls I had just made with the curling iron. My eyes were perfectly made up with subtle black liner and mascara, golden eye shadow and pale peach lips. My yellow silk dress, with it’s sweetheart neckline, flowed gently over my bust and to mid-thigh. My crème Coach T-strap sandals fit perfectly and I felt unstoppably beautiful.

As I looked around, approaching the steps of dining hall, I spotted my friends who had Alphas and had already eaten dinner.

We ran and clumped together, everyone pulling out sleek cameras and taking photos.

“You look amazing.” I turned to the whispering voice and saw Parker, dressed in a polo and jeans. His face was still pale, and he was walking slowly. My fingers flew out and gripped his arm, steadying him for my own sake to know that he was okay. Then I pulled him into a hug, flattening my cheek against his neck and I felt him rest his head on my shoulder.

“Park,” I whispered into his hair. “What are you doing here? They released you this soon?”

we broke apart and he started to talk. “The doctors say that whatever I injested, it wasn’t as powerful as it seemed. They only needed to keep me until I woke up and had a few tests. I’m fine.”

“Parker,” I whispered. “When I was at the hospital, I didn’t mean any of it. The way I left, it wasn’t right.”

He held my hand in his, brushing it softly with his fingertips. “I understand. You blamed yourself. And you shouldn’t have.”

“But it seemed like my fault,” I said, blinking an eye,” and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he murmured. I had an urge to reach out and hold him, to make sure he was alive and well and not a mirage. But I knew that Cody was out there somewhere and I couldn’t do that to him, not again. This was our last day together and I didn’t want to ruin it.

I dropped his hand gently. “I have to go, Park,” I whispered. “But find me later. We should talk,” and then I walked away, meeting Rachel at the top of the steps and allowing myself to be escorted inside while Parker was still watching me.

Inside dining hall there was a loud and cheery vibe. The counselors were dressed as waiters, bringing over the food instead of our usual buffet table. I spotted Cody in the corner, dressed in a pair of dark jeans and a light green polo, his hair perfectly dark against his lightly tanned skin and bright top. I smiled at him and he saw me, taking in my attire and glow and grinned back before heading out the door. He did a small head twitch and I excused myself from the table.

Once outside, I spotted Cody in the corner near the counselors cabin, the area in the woods where we had made up and made out in the rain. I looked around before running towards him, laughing giddily and jumping into his arms. He smiled and caught me, planting soft kisses on my mouth.

“You are beautiful,” he whispered, amazed. His fingers traveled over the smooth skin of my arms and collarbone, twisting the small layer of golden necklaces flattened against my chest.

“And you,” I murmured, holding my hands up against his cheeks,” are stunning. And perfect. And beautiful. And I want to make today last forever.”

“Today will be a day that neither of us will ever forget,” he said, words that foreshadowed truth so startling, neither of us could have foretold it.


***************************************

As we fought each other in line for ice cream cones, my friends and I took more pictures. I was happier than I had been in a long time and I hoped that the pictures reflected that. During all the commotion, I spotted Charles and Neil off to the side on one of the art shop benches. Neil had a chocolate chip cone, the one I had wanted but wasn’t patient enough to wait for because that line was 10x longer than the nasty peppermint cone I had dripping in my hand.

I wandered over, plopping down between the two.

“Hey,” they said in unison. I laughed.

“Is that peppermint?” Charles asked. I nodded. “Can I try it?”

“Ugh, you can have it. I hate it.” He took it from my hands and the next moment Neil looked away; I bit a huge chunk out of his ice cream cone. He looked up, angry and I laughed. Neil laughed too and handed the divided cone over, defeated, and I giggled. Leaning back against the table, with Neil calm next to me and Charles eating his ice cream on my other side, I felt blessed. Blessed because I had friends who meant everything to me. Blessed because I was in love and it meant something. Blessed because camp reminded me of all the things that God gave us and that life was the biggest one of all.

“We should probably go,” Charles said, standing up. He held out his hand, and I took it, standing up and smoothing my dress with my hands. Neil stood took and before any of us left, I whipped out my camera.

“Wait!” I cried, holding the silver item in my hands. I tapped the green button and it started to life. “One picture.” The three of us huddled close, our cheeks touching as the camera sprang to life and captured our images with a quick and bright flash.




******************

I spent the rest of banquet socializing with my friends and my girls, whom I had come to love. I caught glimpses of Cody, laughed aloud when he did a skit about toilet paper, but I understood that tonight would be ours and the day was to be spent with my friends.

Ama had been right. I spent so much time focusing on Cody and the letters that I hadn’t even tried to be a friend to my best friends in the world. Camp was more than just time with God, it was the perfect slice of life when everything was fun and easy and unplanned. It was where a years worth of inside jokes came from, it was where we pigged out endlessly on puppy chow and gummy bears. It wasn’t for fear or forbidden love.

It was for friendship.

So as the dark crept over campus and we prepared for our last evening campfire at Wapo, tears flooded my eyes. As I stared over my friends and the girls that I had come to love, I saw what I was going to miss. Camp was more than just camp. It held a deep place in my heart, one that I found I could never fill in exactly the same way as singing under the stars during campfire did.

“Hey.” Kevin walked up from behind me, pulling a navy blue sweatshirt over his head. I shivered, pulling a black cardigan over my shoulders. We started to walk together down the big hill next to commons field.

“How are you and Krista?” I asked quietly. I hadn’t talked, really talked, to my friends in so long that I didn’t know what was happening in their lives. I only understood what motivated mine.

Kevin smiled brightly, his large frame extruding happiness. “She’s great. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. But for some reason, she doesn’t want anybody to know.”

I turned to him, “It’s a girl thing. You’re her first real relationship, and I think she’s afraid of how it might end. Like if it ends, everyone will see her differently.”

“But she has to know that’s not true,” he said, the light of the campfire lighting his eyes, “because I really like her. And I’d never do anything to hurt her.”

Ahead of us, Krista was leading her group of squealing alpha girls up to the seats near the front of campfire.

I nudged Kevin. “Don’t tell me. Tell her.”

He smiled and leaned down, kissing the top of my head gently and hobbling over to Krista, his tall body doing an awkward rhythm of steps.

“Seems you have yet another admirer,” Cody whispered in my ear, passing near to me.

I laughed quietly. “No. He was just asking for advice about Krista,” I said, pointing at the two of them up near the bonfire. Kevin said something and Krista laughed, wrapping her arms around his neck and the two of them kissed, quickly.

Cody nodded. “I don’t mind,” he whispered. “That you have guy friends, I mean. But tonight, tonight I want it to be just you and me.”

I looked up at him, smiling with my lids partially closed. “Of course,” I murmured. “Where should I meet you?”

“At the fork in the road after campfire.”

I squeezed his hand. “I’ll be there.”



**********************

As the bus pulled away from camp, the windows open and voices loud in song, I leaned my head against my shoulder, feeling the crisp cold of the wind on my face. I had simply forgotten to change; I still wore my banquet dress although everyone else was wearing sweats. I pulled my black cashmere cardigan closer to my body, admiring the wind upon my cheeks.

“Are you okay?” Taylor asked, her hand resting on my arm gently.

I smiled at her. In the dark of the bus, it was hard to see. You could only hear the voices of everyone singing. “I’m great,” I whispered. “Perfect.”

She smiled and it looked almost sad then turned around and continued talking to Mel, their conversation animated as they talked about Morgan, Taylor’s boyfriend, and Mel’s flavor of the week, Blake Durban.

In the row behind us, Krista and Maria sat making their bracelets quietly. Next to them, Ama and Ryan were having what seemed to be a deep conversation, although it was occasionally punctured by thick laughs. All around me, my friends were demonstrating exactly who they were. And I wondered if they could place me this easily, if I was that easy to read. If so, why hadn’t any of them found out about Cody?

Maybe one of my friends knew me so well that they did know, and that they were my stalker. And Cody’s.

I wondered if maybe I was so hard to read that even my best friends couldn’t understand me.

Then how, I wondered, did my stalker know me so well?

And why were they in love with me, if inwardly I was so cold?



****************************

Back at Ox, sitting around the warm campfire as the stars lit the sky with heavenly brightness, I looked around. Surrounding me were friends and people I didn’t know, all blessed in their oblivion. All were beautiful and strong, mighty and saved. And when I sat next to them, my voice ringing out just as clearly, I was one of them and I was saved. I couldn’t help but feel the way that I did, indescribable and beautiful, and it gave me Goosebumps.

Across the fire, Cody was standing. His figure was illuminated by the light; I felt irrevocably proud. Proud because he was a part of me, and in ways he made me better. He was all the things that I was not, and it was in partly why I loved him.

Ama grabbed my hand and instinctively, I grabbed Mel’s next to me. Together, we held hands, the six of us. And together, it was complete. My doubts disappeared at that moment, flooded instead by love for my friends and admiration of their strength. None of them could be against me, they would be happy for me and Cody under any other circumstances.

As we prayed silently, I rose all of my questions to God. And I thanked him, for giving me the chance to meet Cody and to fall in love. With Alex, it had been so forced and had I not met Cody, I probably would never have realized it.

But now I had met true love, and there wasn’t any going back. It wasn’t that I didn’t love Alex, he was after all my best friend. And yes, it was going to be difficult to be with Cody.

Our age difference put us in different places. But so did our backgrounds. I came from a upper middle class family. I dated one boy for my whole life and I am used to riches at my fingertips.

I don’t even know Cody’s background well. All I know is he got a scholarship for college and wasn’t given a silver spoon, like me. He was jealous and afraid of Alex, simply because of wealth and privilege.

Class difference doesn’t effect me. I didn’t date Alex because he was rich. I dated him, because it was what seemed right. After being best friends for so long, we owed it to ourselves to try and make a relationship out of something purely friendship.

Love overtook me. Before, I had been a different person. I would have balked at the lack of riches. I would have stuttered when face to face with someone so beautiful and enticing. Without Cody, I would have been the prissy Eva who dated the rich Alex and we would have been eternally unhappy and in a rut.

As my thoughts corralled in my head, I saw Cody slip off into the darkness. I smiled knowingly, as I watched him disappear down the trail.

In the quiet, I felt my friend’s hands gripping my own. I felt the strength of our love and faith. But I also felt the pull that Cody had on me.

We all stood, separating into chunks before leaving for village three. I stood up slowly, rubbing my arms with the slight chill.


“I’ll be right back,” I murmured to Maria. “Bathroom.”

“Stay, Eva,” Mel said, grabbing my arm, “we all should talk. This is our last campfire.”

I shook my head. “Emergency.”

My friends looked at me, sadly. Thankfully, Kevin shouted something and they all turned so I had time to slip past them, past the dining hall and onto the dirt path towards Cody.

Ahead on the path, I could see the fork near the horse cabins. At the end, there was a tiny light, so small I could barely make it out. As I approached, the light was thin and gliding from a small lantern that Cody held in his hands.

He had his back turned to me and his head bent back towards the sky, searching.

I crept up behind him, slowly sliding my arms around his waist and kissing his neck. One of his arms snaked backwards around my hips, making me giggle.

“Whatcha doing?” I asked quietly.

Cody turned around, facing me and placing the lantern on the ground. His hands came up to my cheeks, holding my face as he kissed me under the spilling moonlight.

“I want to show you something,” he murmured. I was so infatuated, I couldn’t move. “Follow me,” he said. I stood still and after a moment, Cody picked me up into his arms, swinging me high in the air. I laughed.

“Remember when you caught me during low ropes?” I asked, leaning in his arms to grab the lantern.

“Of course,” he replied. “That was the first time I understood that I was interested in you. You were all I could think of.”

I smiled, brushing a light hand over his creamy skin. “You’re all I think of.”

We approached the truck and Cody swung the door open, plopping me into the passenger seat. He crawled into the drivers spot, turning the key and the old truck roared to life.

Through the window I could see the trees and thick dirt path that had become a familiar friend. I pushed my hand out the window, laying my head on my shoulder as I always did and closed my eyes. I felt the harsh sting of the wind, the cold chill and the muted noises of animals. Cody’s warm hand found my leg, resting on the yellow silk of my dress.

“We’re here,” he whispered. “Keep you eyes closed.”

I heard him pull the truck into park, cutting the engine. Then I felt the door being pulled away and Cody’s strong hands sliding beneath my body. At once, I felt the cold breeze around me as I was lifted into his arms. A thick blanket, what felt like wool, was draped across me as Cody shut the door of the truck.

“Look,” he whispered, his lips grazing my ears as he talked softly. “Open you’re eyes.”

I opened my eyes, and for a moment I was awe-struck. Cody had carried me to a thin sliver of hill that overlooked a valley of tree covered hills. Beneath us was only a small dirt path before behind us the hill continued upwards, stretching like a mighty giant and plummeting to the ground in front of us.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered, gazing at the night sky. I touched Cody’s face with my hands, buried in the blanket.

He looked down at me, so thoughtful it made me want to cry. He said, “This is how I think of you. That moment of beauty you felt, it’s what I feel when I’m with you, all of the time.”

He set me onto the ground and I sat on the blanket, Cody sliding into place next to me. We were quiet for a moment, overlooking the hill and the small lights dotting the vast land. I had always hated Minnesota; for its cold, its lack of designer wear, for its undeniable farming majority. But times like this made it worth it, to be able to see the sky and the land without pollution or obstruction. Just as I was about to comment on that, Cody turned to me, his eyes red with tears.
He bent his head onto my shoulder, tears flowing freely. I grasped his head with my hands, trying so hard to comfort him. My fingers smoothed over his face countless times, as I whispered words of comfort and strength. I couldn’t’ help but feel the endless shaking that came from inside him. Cody, with his dark shock of hair, dark eyes and pale yet tan skin, was my dream.

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, practically lying on top of him as he crunched to himself, sobbing wildly. Whispers escaped my mouth, comforting, as I stroked his face and skin over and over.
“What is it?” I asked. He didn’t answer. “Cody!” I yelled, my arms wound so tightly around him I couldn’t feel my fingers.
“I love you,” he said, the words mixed with tears. I eased my grip on him and he sat up. My fingers slid away the tears from his face, as I sat on his lap.
I smiled brightly. “I love you too,” my voice murmured.
“It freaks me out,” he replied, running a hand through his dark and messy hair. “That I want you so much, I’d do anything. This pull,” he said, laying a hand over my heart, “that’s what brought me to you. But who you are made me fall in love with you.”
Above, the stars shimmered in their coldness. Cody, with his wondrous beauty and strength, had cried…for me. He loved me. He was drawn to me. So why did I feel so afraid?
“You’re my missing half,” I said simply. “The part I was born without. The section I tried to fill by loving Alex. The half I could never fill with anyone but you.”

“Does it scare you?” he asked, his voice thick with tears. I brushed my fingers through his hair, sandwiching his face with my hands, my acrylic nails soft against his hair. Cody reached out for me, his arms circling my waist.

“Of course.”

“Do you think it’s suppose to be like this?”

“I do,” I whispered, “because if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t feel so exhilarating and fresh. If love wasn’t wanting someone so badly you’d die for them, you’d lie for them, if it didn’t make you ache in a way unfixable when they were far, then I don’t understand love.

“I want everything for you. I want all of you and I’m willing to do anything. But I’d die for you, so that you were safe.”

Cody’s eyes caught mine. They were that dark brown again and under the slim light, I saw no green. And yet, he was still magnificently beautiful. Not only in his physical appearance, but the fact that he allowed himself to simply be around me. There wasn’t any hiding, I knew the majority of his secrets and he knew mine. Our connection wasn’t just sexual or infatuation, we were bound on an emotional level so deep I didn’t even understand.

He touched my face and I felt a hundred surges of tingles. “You always know how to say the right thing, Eva.”

“Only because you’re right in front of me, so I have an example.”

His warm fingers intertwined with mine, and we lay on the ground; the night was perfect and I couldn’t get enough. I pushed myself on my elbows to get a glimpse of Cody, running a hand over his lightly tanned face.

“What are you doing?” he asked, half grinning.

I smiled, cupping his face with my palm. “Just looking at a boy, who fell in love with a girl and wondering how those two are us.”

“Because it was meant to be,” he said. “I never believed in all that true love crap. I love God, because he’s a huge part of my life. I love my family. I love my friends. But I was never in love. And I didn’t understand. I thought true love was a stupid thing made for movies and to sell candy on Valentine’s day.

“And then I met you. and it was instant, I felt that pull. So I wanted you, and this is how it turned out. The two of us, lying beneath the blanket of stars on a field that overlooks the world and we’re in love. I couldn’t think of anything more perfect.”

“Neither could I,” I whispered, clasping his face in my hands and kissing him deeply, unwilling to ever stop.



*******************************

Back in the truck, I expected Cody to take me back to Village three, where I had probably already missed check-in and Devos. It was getting hard to make up excuses for being late every night, but the night was our time.

When Cody pulled the truck to a stop near the field, I expected him to walk me to village Three. But then he pulled open my door, grabbing me by the hand and pulling me into the center of the field.
I tipped my head to the stars, the same ones I had first seen on Sunday night. I danced in a small circle, my feet tangling together and I fell to the ground, laughing. The bright stars illuminated the sky as Cody pulled me from the grass.

His arms snaked around my body, pulling my closer. Then he placed one hand under my shoulder and another grabbed mine, holding it frozen between our sides.


“What are you doing?” I laughed. Then he tightened his arm, our bodies crashing together. Cody began to step forwards, forcing me backwards; we stepped twice back and once to the side. It took me a moment to realize we were doing a waltz. I had taken dance as a little girl, ballroom being one of my favorites. Cody twirled me when right, pulled me back in after twists, and did a semi-sexy version of a salsa. Above us, the constellations twinkled with light of fresh love.

“And you said you couldn’t dance,” I whispered. Cody pulled me in closer. His breath was warm on my shoulder.

“I lied,” he whispered. “I took ballroom dancing for a year.”

I laughed. “Why didn’t you mention it?”

“Because you’d do that,” he replied, laughing along, not at all angry. “It’s the typical reaction.”

I stroked the side of his face gently. “I think it’s cute.”

“What about this?” he asked then quickly dipped me. I laughed loudly and he joined me, the sound echoing off the trees. I snapped back up and looked at Cody. His eyes were so intricate and beautiful, lighting up the night sky brighter than even the stars could.

“I’m so in love with you,” I whispered, holding onto him for support. Every time I said the words, I meant them. But it scared me because of how much I meant them.


“Eva,” he whispered, touching my face gently.

“I’m afraid,” I whispered. “I’m afraid because I love you more than I ever imagined possible.”

Cody’s fingers trailed across my arm. “I’m scared too.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Of course,” he whispered. “First love is supposed to be scary.”

Then he kissed me and it was a hundred thousand feelings at once. I felt beautiful and wanted, scared and timid, shy and blossoming and gloriously loved.

It was then that I knew what I would do. I would give everything I had to Cody, and I wouldn’t regret it. Perfect first love only comes once, and though I wasn’t naturally a risk taker, I knew this was something I had to do.

“Quod Deus no is diligo parumper causa,” I whispered lightly in Latin, a language I hadn’t spoken in years.

“What?” Cody asked, his voice echoing in the sky.

“You said you wanted to know me right?” I asked, sitting down. Cody sat next to me, the heat from his body warming me in my strapless dress.

“Yes,” he answered. “I do.”

“Okay,” I said quietly. I lay back in Cody’s arms, bending my neck so that I could see the stars. “When I was six, my mom died. But you knew that.” Cody nodded solemnly.

“Secretly, she taught me Latin. She told me it was the language of Italy, a far away place that she hoped someday I would go. She told me that our ancestors were Italian, that we were distantly Italian. She spoke to me in words so beautiful and strange that they took on new meanings to me. She taught me about words, she gave me a love for words and stories and beauty. I owe it all to her.

“Last year, as I was searching through old boxes in the attic, I found one labeled in symbols that I hadn’t seen in a long time. Finally, I recognized them as Lain. Inside the box were hundreds of books in Latin, some were diaries, some were picture books, and some were scrapbooks with newspaper articles.

“At the bottom, I found a small envelope. It was in English; it was faded and yellow. And it was addressed to me.”

Cody looked up at me. A few tears were spread underneath my eyes. He wiped them away carefully with one big thumb. I smiled gently.

“I opened the letter. It was from my mom. She explained that when she wrote the note, she was sick. She was dying and she knew it. So she wrote the letter to me, hoping that someday I would find it.

“It went on to explain why she had ever taught me Latin. She said there were secrets that I would find out, things that were meant to be kept a secret. Then she said she was sorry she was gone, but that I shouldn’t be sad. That one day, I’d make sense of all the secrets and it would makeup for leaving me without a mother.”

Cody touched my knee lightly. I shivered in the wind and he placed the wool blanket around my shoulders.

“What is it?” he asked lightly. “What’s the secret.”

I turned in his arms to face him. “I’m haven’t figured it out yet. But I will.”

His lips turned upwards in a smile. “That’s my girl.”
“EGO mos tribuo panton sursum vobis.” I touched the edge of his chin lightly with two fingers.

“You’re a mystery, Eva Rossum,” he whispered lightly. I pressed my lips gently to his forehead, feeling the heat his body radiated.

“A woman of mystery always has two sides,” I murmured back.

Cody smiled. “What’s your secret?” he asked.

I looked at him, my eyes filled with the darkness surrounding us. “You know them all.”

“Can I ask you a question?” he whispered quietly.

“Anything.”

“What made you fall in love with Alex? Is it the money? The family history?”

Our fingers were pinched together, his skin hot against my own. “No, of course not. And you’re wrong. I was never in love with Alex. He’s my best friend, he always has been. And as childhood friends grown up, we deserved it to ourselves to try, to see if a relationship would work. For me, it didn’t. For him, it was everything.

“The family, the money, the name; they’re all just parts of him. And not necessarily parts that I enjoy. Sure, it’s nice to have a boyfriend who doesn’t think twice about paying for your expensive dinner or wears fancy shoes or is able to trace his lineage back to the Mayflower. But none of that is important to me. It might have been, at one point in time, but not anymore. Because now I know what true love takes. It takes sacrifice and it isn’t always with the person you originally thought.”

“You’d give all of that up, all of the respect, the history, the lineage, the honor, to be with a guy like me?” Cody asked, his voice a thin whisper.

“Not a guy like you,” I replied, my voice bouncing off of the trees. “You.”

Cody leaned forward and kissed me, pushing my body with the sheer mass of his onto the ground. It was so carefree and easy; the forbidden factor made it that much more memorable.

His lips were soft and tender against mine, his fingers lost in tangles of my hair. Cody leaned further over until he was hovering over me, his hands everywhere as I kissed him in my dreamy haze. After a while, the blanket I had previously worn around my shoulders was bunched beneath us. Cody’s lips were halfway down my arm, his hair tickling the side of my face.

“Is this okay?” he asked quietly.

I looked at him and I understood. I knew that after this night, I could no longer say that I’m a virgin. But you wait for true love, right? So what’s wrong with finding your true love early?

Absolutely nothing.

“Yes,” I whispered, leaning into him and pulling him closer while doing so. My hands were tight across his back, laced together at my knuckles. “I love you. All of you.”
I opened my eyes and focused on Cody. His dark hair shone in the dark of the night, his eyes glittered by the moonlight. I hadn’t noticed, but he had removed his shirt to reveal his carefully constructed abs. I trailed a light finger over his chest and finally, pressed my hand directly over his heart.

“Don’t forget,” I whispered.

Cody covered my hand with his. “I could never forget you.”

Then he pressed his lips to mine, sealing our secret as we fell back into the grass in the dark, open field.



*********************

After, I felt deep-rooted regret. Cody pulled his shirt back on and I struggled with straightening the hemline of my yellow dress, now tinged with dirt from lying on my back. Cody offered me his hand, helping me to stand.

“Are you okay?” he asked. Instead of answering, I threw myself into his arms, feeling the warmth of his body, placing my hands over his chest, and showing what I could not say in words. I didn’t want to let Cody go because I knew he was my other half, the half you’re born without and spend your entire life trying to find. Cody was older and more mature. His idea of life was geared more towards the future, towards having a family and children and a career. I was sixteen, still amidst of gossip and drama and Prom.

“Come with me,” he whispered into my curly hair. “Please.”

“Okay,” I said, grabbing his hand and beginning to walk towards the truck and village one.

“No, not there,” he said. “I mean in life.”

“What?” I asked, my mouth agape.

“Come live with me,” he said. “Get emancipated, join me at college. You can get your GED online and then you can go to school where I do.”

“Are you kidding?” I asked, half laughing, half in disbelief. “That must be a joke.”

“Now that I know you, I can’t live without you,” he said. “I can’t.”

I closed my eyes, seeing swirls of color. When I reopened them, Cody was staring at me intently. “I can’t do that, Cody.”

“Then I’ll come to you. I’ll come and live near you, transfer colleges. Whatever it takes.”

I looked past his shoulder, to the dark expanse of the surrounding trees and woods. “You like me that much?”

“No,” he said. “I need you. I love you so much I can’t imagine living apart from you. I’d die for you.”

“Don’t act desperate,” I whispered. Cody laughed. I wrapped my fingers around his, the thick calluses of his hands rubbing into the soft pads of my fingertips. “I joke a lot, but when I say that I love you, I mean it. It scares me because of how vast these feelings are, how completely out of body I feel when I say them. And how deeply I feel them. Because it’s true, I do love you.”

Cody smiled. “You put into words what I could never be able to.”

“But you mean it,” I said. “And that’s enough.”

On that day, in the field with Cody, where everything had been said and done perfectly, where I left insecurities and sadness behind, I understood life. I understood that love was a river, constantly flowing and that at some point, you would have to jump in before it was too late.

“I want to tell you a story,” Cody whispered. “One story before we leave.”

“Okay,” I whispered, settling onto the ground, the wind picking up pieces of my hair and making it fly.

“There once was a boy. He was kind and smart, yet he knew that he was afraid. He was afraid of living alone, of being alone forever. Then he met a girl. She was beautiful and perfect in any way that a human can be. But they were separated by constraints of society, by laws and by rules. Although these rules worked against the two, they fell in love. And with the girl, the boy no longer felt as though he would live life alone. Because he knew that even if he didn’t live for the next day, he had found his soul mate and that was all that mattered. He had experienced love and love was what made a person not empty inside.

“Eva,” he whispered, cradling my head in his large hands. “You have made me into someone else. I can’t imagine what I would be without you, and I never want to. Please, I’m begging you, stay with me; somehow, someway. I can’t spend another moment of my life without you.”

Tears sprung up in my eyes. Cody wiped them away with his large thumb pads. “I wouldn’t dare let you go.”

Cody wrapped his arms around my neck and I fluttered my eyes closed, feeling the warmth of his breath on my cheek. Then I felt his hands underneath my hair and something cold hit my chest.

I looked down and saw a dog tag, a fading silver color. I picked it up carefully with my fingers, feeling the worn part of the chain, seeing the inscription on the tag.

“Every time I think of you, I thank my God. Philippians 1:3”.

I pushed my fingers over the indentations of the carvings. “It’s beautiful,” I replied. “Thank you.”

“It’s true,” he said. “God brought us together and I think of him when I think of you.”

I wrapped my arms around Cody’s shoulders, pulling him close. His breath was that mix that I could never recreate, something so special and unique that it was what I thought of when I thought of him: lemonade, cedar wood and vanilla.

“And that’s all I could ever ask for,” I whispered. I held him in my arms and it was beautiful.



***********************************

I took one last look over my shoulder. Cody’s trim silhouette was fading fast as we both walked in opposite directions away from the field. His body was flowing in fluid lines where the moonlight lit him from behind. I smoothed my hand over the dog tag; the metal was cold against my collarbone. The passage engraved on the metal was one I had never heard, but as I had said it, the words flowed over my tongue, a protective covering so familiar that I believed I had heard it before.

“Every time I think of you, I thank my god,” I repeated aloud, the words tight in my throat.

I thought for a moment before remembering; the words had not been familiar because I wasn’t used to the English version.

“Omnis tempus I reor de iste, I actus meus Deus.”

It was then that I remembered the soft words my mother had whispered to me as I stood at the base of her bed. She had insisted on having a priest present during her last days; my mother’s side of the family was strictly catholic.

Then, the words had been haunting, the dark vowels, the thick tones of the priest as he read from a damp bible. My mother had waved me over and whispered these few words of Latin in my ear, the pronunciations swirling in my head for hours after.

“Mom,” I whispered, clutching the silver dog tag. My fingers closed over the metal, warming it to a degree much closer to my skin. Then I turned around again, but Cody was gone, his silhouette etched into my memory so hard that I could still see him, even if he was already gone.

“I love you,” I whispered to both of them, knowing neither could hear me.

Then I walked away from the glorious field, whose shadows were those of Cody and I, whose sound was of laughter and of secretive whispers, whose air smelt of cedar wood and lemons and whose name would always be Cody’s.

And as I walked away, I knew deep down that nothing would ever be the same.



*********************************

I was walking back from the field when someone pushed me down. I dropped my flashlight and heard it roll away before hands clothed in leather gloves covered my ears. A figure stood above me, wearing all black, and all I could see were their eyes. I screamed, and they pushed a gloved hand over my tiny mouth.

I scrambled to stand and they let me, turning into the dark so that I couldn’t see them anymore. But when I started to run, they knocked me over with a football style blow to the side. I dropped to the ground, clutching my abs and whispering to God.

“You’re my destiny,” the person mocked in a fake falsetto. I couldn’t tell if it was a boy or girl. “Cody, I love you. I don’t care about Alex or Parker or Charles or Tyler or Kevin or Neil. I only want you.”

“Why are you doing this?” I screamed.

The person leaned down close to me. I could feel their heated breath from behind their full-face material mask. “You did this to me.”

“Who are you?”

They grabbed my shoulders hard in their hands. “You’ll never guess.”

I was shaking; my entire body was in distress. I had gotten countless notes and signs from this stalker, threatening both my life and Cody’s. And here, in the dark wilderness with no one around, they had me trapped.

I saw the gleaming silver blade before I saw those ice blue eyes again.

“Please, don’t,” I begged, pulling my legs to my chest.

The figure laughed and wiped the knife on their black shirt. “This has already been used enough.”

“What do you mean?” I cried.

“Do you think it’s a coincidence that the night you sleep with Cody is also the last night of camp?” the voice was a lot huskier than a girls voice would be. I tried to search my memory for that voice, but I was too scared.

“What do you want?”

“I wanted you, before you were unclean. But now, blood has been shed. I did this for Christ,” they whispered in a low voice. “I did this for him.”

“Blood?” I repeated.

They laughed again. “Not-so-innocent blood.”

I stepped backwards, almost tripping over an exposed tree root. In the dark, all I could see was the ice blue of their eyes.

There came a deep chuckle and I threw my hands out in front of me, but there was nothing but air. The chuckles continued, spread around in a circle surrounding me.

The chuckling stopped and once again, I saw the flash of pale blue eyes. They were close to me and I could feel the disturbing heat of the person’s breath. When they spoke again, I knew who it was.

“So much for a happy ending,” they murmured. I curled my hands into fists, ready to jump up and try to knock this person down. But before I could, they threw a few things at me and shoved me, hard, into the tree.

When I regained consciousness, my breath was uneven and when I picked the items up, they felt like photos. I searched on my hands and knees for my flashlight, dropped in the initial struggle.
When I felt the cold metal of the flashlight, I picked it up and turned it on. My hands were stained with blood and I realized that it was dripping from my head. I pushed a few fingers to my skull and felt the thick, stickiness of blood. A part of the exposed tree root was also covered with my crimson blood.
Lying on the ground were dozens upon dozens of Polaroid’s. I flipped through them rapidly, my fingers seemingly frozen. They were all of me. Me sitting outside Old Chapel wearing a baggy red sweatshirt, me and Cody kissing in the bed of his pick-up, me and Cody barely touching hands at beach bash. There were pictures of Cody and me everywhere, anywhere that we had gone at Wapo. There were pictures of my girls and me, singing along at evening worship.

There was a picture of Parker and I kissing on the steps of the horse cabin. Another one was of me whispering in Tyler’s ear as he carried me to first aid.

There was even a photo of me kissing Alex, my legs wrapped around his toned body, on the morning he had come to apologize.

Lastly, there was a photo of me and Cody, taken tonight. We were sitting on the pale green blanket under the single tree in the horse pasture where we had first kissed. My yellow dress was hiked up to mid-thigh and his shirt was off; our foreheads were pressed together and my eyes were squeezed shut.

I turned my head away, thinking of what had happened after that picture had been taken.

Just then, the person’s eerie voice echoed through my brain.

Blood has been shed. I did this for Christ. Not-so-innocent blood.



Cody.



I gathered the photos and started to run.

I woke up to the sound of chatter.
I opened my eyes and saw boys.
And then I thought of Cody.

“OH, my God!” I screamed. The guys jumped. I looked around and saw that I was sleeping on Cody’s empty bunk, his red plaid blanket pulled tightly around me. I was still wearing my dress from banquet, now muddy from my encounter with our stalker.
The stalker.
He was after Cody.

“Where’s Cody?” I yelled. The boys were distraught. Kevin stepped closer, his face blurring as he came near.
“Eva?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”
I looked around. “I don’t know.”
I got up, yanking at my strapless dress and smoothing my hair back in place.
“I have to go,” I said loudly. “I have to find him.”
“Find who?” Parker asked.
“Where is Charles?” Neil asked at the same time I asked, “Where’s Cody?”
The rest of the guys looked around their unclean bunk. They all shrugged.
“Neither came back to the cabin last night,” Kirk said. I started to tremble and Parker came and sat on the bed next to me. He slung one arm around my shoulders and I leaned into him.
Just then, my memory came flooding back: my chance encounter with my stalker in the woods, the pale gleam of their stony blue eyes and the silver flash of the blade.
How, just before I was shoved down the last time, I remembered exactly to whom that husky voice belonged.


Charles.

“NO!” I screamed, tearing out of Parker’s grasp. I hobbled out of the door and tried to run but it was close to impossible. Kevin came behind me and picked me up. I kicked at him and started to scream and soon the entire village one was outside of their cabins.
“Put her down!” I heard a voice roar. We all turned and saw Jason, his skin a sickly pale color and his hair mussed beyond its normal disheveled state.
Kevin quickly set me down, making sure that I was stable. I curled into a ball, inconsolable. I knew exactly what had happened last night, from my liaison with Cody to what they had said.
Innocent blood has been shed.
Cody wasn’t safe and he hasn’t returned.
Charles was our stalker.
Charles was our note writer.
Charles had jumped me last night, thrown the Polaroid’s at me, bashed my head against the tree, and threatened me with a knife.
Charles killed the squirrel.
Charles stole my girls and locked them in the meditation room.
Charles tried to drown me during beach bash.
Charles had hurt Cody.

“Eva,” Jason said, coming close to me. His eyes were bloodshot and tired; his face was a horrid shade of green. In his hands was a stack of photos. “Eva, look at me.”
I looked up, completely exhausted.
“Cody’s dead,” he said.


****************************
My entire system died at that moment. I crumpled to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. Parker came over and I felt his light hands on my arm, his quiet voice asking me what he could do, and his warm breath on my shoulder.
Cody would never have warm breath again.
I felt someone tall scoop me up and someone else cover me in a blanket.
I heard Jason explain what had happened to the guys as they stood, awkward and in shock.
Ama had gone running this morning, just like she had every other morning.
It was Ama who stumbled on his blue body, shoved halfway underground in the big mud puddle near village three.
The arms around me changed and I saw I was wrapped in Jason’s arms.
He walked over to the burnt out fire pit, a few scraggly embers still burning.
“Eva,” he whispered. He set me down in the wooden chair next to him and I instinctively curled into a ball. “These were where we found Cody.”
I looked down and saw the Polaroid’s in Jason’s hands. I reached out a frail arm and took them, turning them over and over in my hands.
“We know that you two were involved,” he murmured. “But I need to know how far that went.”
I closed my eyes and thought of the previous night, when Cody’s hands had felt so warm, his voice so high, his arms so strong. I thought about his dreamy whispers of our future, his deep secrets and how in the end, I had given him everything without thinking twice.
I didn’t have Cody anymore. He was dead. And if all I had of him were memories, why would I share?
“I need to know if you know how this happened.”
I looked up at Jason. I’m sure my eyes were blurry and unfocused and my head was matted with blood.
“I loved him,” I whispered quietly. Jason’s face softened a bit.
“Do you know who did this to him?” he asked.
I nodded. “Charles.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” I murmured. And then my face and heart and voice went stone cold. “You find him and make sure he pays for this.”

“What do you mean find him?” Jason asked, standing.

I sighed. “He’s missing.”

Jason stood up and waved a few of the guys over. He shoved the van keys into Kevin’s hand.

“Take her to village three,” he said. “Don’t let her out of your sight. And be careful, they’re still digging up the body.”

I started to cry again as Kirk picked me up and carried me to the van. He laid me down on the first row of seats and Josh, Neal, and Parker climbed in after us. Kevin flung open the driver’s door and barreled in as I continued to clutch the Polaroid’s, the only proof that Cody and I had ever existed together.


*************************************************

The rest of the morning was a blur. The guys drove me to village three, careful not to let me see the recovering of Cody’s body. Girls were crying in small clusters and my friends took me in their arms the moment they saw me.

I was in such a state of shock that Taylor and Krista had to redress me and feed me. I just stood, motionless, with no expression on my face and no ability to talk. The guys waited outside of our cabin, talking to Mel and Ama and Maria about Cody’s and my relationship. I heard their gasps as they found out that we had been together. I heard their soft cries as Ama retold how she had found him.

“I was running back to the cabin,” she said. Her voice carried lightly through the wind and I was listening as Taylor pulled a blue shirt over my head. “I wasn’t paying attention, listening to my ipod, when I realized that my foot was caught in the dried mud on the side. I yanked at it, but it didn’t budge so I grabbed a stick and poked at the dirt around it.

“It collapsed and I saw a shock of dark hair. I started to dig with my hands, not even caring that it was dirty and I found him,” she sobbed. “I found him and he was blue and there was blood, God there was blood, and it was covering his clothes. The photos, they were carefully placed in his arms, which were folded across his chest.

“But the stabs,” she murmured. “It was horrible.”

“It’s going to be okay,” Krista murmured in my ear. “They’re going to find him.”

“Don’t talk to her about it!” Taylor hissed. Someone’s hands smoothed over my hair and pulled it into a thick braid. Krista’s eyes were close to mine as she wiped away dirt with a wet washcloth and handed me a tube of chapstick.

My fingers went limp when I tried to take the tube from her and she put it on for me instead. I was in shock, I was in grief, and I was in denial. Accordingly, the day was overcast and cold. Taylor placed my feet in a pair of short Uggs and I looked down, realizing they had dressed me in black yoga pants, a light blue shirt and a black zip up.

Cody’s zip up.

I lifted the sleeve to my nose, breathing in his scent: vanilla, lemonade and cedar wood.

“Come on,” Krista said, holding my arm in hers. She grabbed my crutches, someone had found them on the trail, and handed them to me. I pulled them under my arms and hobbled out of the door that Taylor held open.

All around, people were crying in clumps. Someone had restarted the fire and a few were singing around it. Police in uniform were clustered at the base of the trail; I even saw a stretcher with a body bag being brought in.

“Don’t look that way,” Parker said. He tipped my face towards his so that we were eye to eye. “Don’t worry about that, alright?”

I nodded.

My friends were huddled around me, their bodies blocking my view of anything outside of them.

“Do you want to talk?” Mel asked. Ama slapped her arm.

“Of course she doesn’t want to talk, meathead!”

I let out a low giggle and everyone turned to me, surprised. I blinked my eyes, surprised by myself.

“Eva,” I heard a whisper. We all turned and saw Alex, wearing only a pair of running shorts and shoes. He looked crazed and worried. Kevin stepped in front of me protectively, but I waved him off.

“It’s okay,” I croaked, the first words I had spoken in hours. “I’ll be fine.”

My friends backed away, their beady eyes focused on Alex. They stepped over to the fire pit but I saw Kevin and Kirk still facing Alex and me.

“I just heard,” Alex whispered. I lowered my head and he cupped my face with his hands.

“Let’s go inside,” I said, pointing with one crutch to the cabin.

“Is that okay?” he asked.

I gave a sharp laugh. “I don’t think a guy being in our cabin is such a big thing right now.”

Alex guided me onto the first bottom bunk he saw which happened to be Mel’s. He sat down next to me.

For a moment we were silent.

Then, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“That I was seeing my twenty-year old counselor? Oh, I don’t know because it would be considered not okay.”

Alex looked wounded. “I’m not saying that I would have been okay with it. But I wouldn’t have told.”

“You wouldn’t have accepted it either,” I said. “I love him.”

“Loved,” Alex whispered.

“No, I love him. I always will.”

“Did you ever love me?” he asked.

I turned away from him, my body rigid. “I fell in love with Cody in 6 days. For sixteen years I’ve been trying to convince myself that I’m in love with you.” I turned to him. “Which one do you think means more?”
And then I stood up. I was out the door when Alex muttered to himself, “I’ll always love you.”

He didn’t think that I heard.

But I did.



***************************

The morning was strange. The police and homicide detectives finished talking to everyone, including me, and cleaning up the murder area. But Charles was still missing. One policeman volunteered to stay behind and keep a look out for him, and I was thankful. My friends flanked me like personal security guards.

In my mind, I kept replaying the last minutes that I had spent with Cody. How he had learned how to dance for me, the way his arms fit around me as we swayed in the field under the stars.

Then I replayed my encounter with Charles. The way his ice blue eyes had made my soul cold, it continued to scare me.

He said he did it for Christ.

“Oh, God,” I whispered.

“What?” three people asked me? I looked up. Mel, Kevin, Krista and Ama were staring down at me, their eyes large with worry.

“I just remembered what Charles said to me, last night,” I whispered.

Ama slung an arm over my shoulders and squeezed. “Do you want to tell us?”

I nodded and scooted closer to the fire. The rest of my friends huddled around, their eyes wide as saucers.

“I was walking back from the field when someone in black pushed me down. They had blue eyes and a knife. It took me a while, but I recognized the voice as Charles’s.

“He pushed me down a last time, threw the pictures at me and said that blood has been shed and that he did it for Christ.”

“Oh, Lord,” Tay whispered. Krista grabbed my hand in moral support.

“They need to find him,” I said.

“They will,” Neal replied. “The police are here. They don’t know where he could be or why he’s still out there, but they’ll find him.”

I frowned at him. “We know why he’s still out there.”

“Why?” they all asked at once.

I looked at each of their faces, so enraptured and scared, allowing their true feelings to show.

“Me,” I whispered. “He wants me.”



**********************************

After my confession, I had to speak to the police again. He called back a few partners to be on the watch and so one could be my bodyguard. Tay kept shoving food at me, demanding that I eat and one time even forcing a bite of chewy bar down my throat. The girls helped me pack my stuff up and we shoved everything into the dining hall except mine, which was locked in a van just in case Charles came back. The boys reluctantly went back to village one to pack, but they all hugged me before leaving and promised to be back as soon as possible.

Before the guys left, I heard harsh whispers between a few of them. I was sitting on my bunk, watching Ama repack my heavy suitcase and listening to her make cheery small talk. But when I listened hard, I could hear multiple sets of voices outside.

“How could you not have known?” Kevin demanded in a whisper.

“How could I?” Krista whispered back harshly. “She never told us. How could you have not known that Charles was stalking her? That he killed that squirrel and he killed Cody!”

“He didn’t exactly tell us either,” Parker hissed. “Do you think he really did it?”

“Of course!” Tay said. “Eva saw him, heard him, and knows him. He’s Cody’s killer.”

“Shh!” Kevin hissed. I heard Taylor huff and stalk back into the cabin, her silky blond hair pulled into a high topknot.

“Hi hon!” she cried when she saw me staring at her. I’m sure my eyes were ringed in watery mascara and bloodshot but I’m also sure she knew I heard her.

“Hey,” I replied, a tad bit sassy.

“You almost done?” Mel asked. Her bunk was clean, her suitcase already pulled out into dining hall. She wore a pair of jeans with a long sleeved tee shirt, her hair mussed in its pony tail and an over the shoulder carry on bag next to her on the bed.

“I can finish,” I whispered to Ama. Her blue eyes were clear and for a moment, I compared them with Charles’s blue eyes, that shocking cold sensation in the pit of my stomach, the horror and depression they had seen.

“Alright,” she said, turning away and her eyes were gone. I breathed a sigh of relief and finished packing myself, shoving things unceremoniously into the large black suitcase I had arrived with.
But I hadn’t come with the purple agape shirt that Cody got for me. I hadn’t arrived with the guilt on the yellow dress I had worn for banquet. I hadn’t arrived with the pictures, with the heartbreak, with the dog tag Cody had slipped over my head as we danced under the spilled moonlight.
When I looked at the tokens of Cody’s love, I pictured him beautiful and alive. I didn’t imagine the body at the end of the crick, I imagined the man that I had loved who had shown me just how strong and amazing he was. I couldn’t imagine the week had I not met Cody, had I not fell in love with him.
I wouldn’t trade a minute of our time together. He had been the perfect gentleman, the most beautiful friend, and a glorious soul mate.
As I clutched the photos, I felt a strange nostalgia. I know they had been taken as evidence of my fickleness, but I saw some of them as beautiful.
There were complete candids of Cody and I that were shockingly beauteous.
All of the times that I snuck away with him, all of the whispers behind closed doors, all of the secret hand brushing near chapel, that had meant something. That will always mean something.
A week is a week; it can be neither short nor long. Seven days. One hundred and sixty eight hours. Ten thousand and eighty minutes. Six hundred and four thousand, eight hundred seconds I had spend with Cody. And that’s 604,800 seconds more than I had spent with him before I came to Wapo.
We were destined to meet and fall in love, I’m sure of that. We were meant to have a rugged relationship, battered with old flames and new ones, constantly being pushed over the edge with sociopath notes. But the determination to keep our relationship on board was something so spectacular and strong and willing that I saw in Cody that I’ve never seen in anyone else.
I won’t ever forget the way his eyes sparkled with green flecks under the full moon, the way his teeth shone against his tanned skin and the way his arm fell perfectly around my waist.
His touches left only shadows. His words were just sounds of a tongue. My memories of him are not documented; they aren’t perfectly preserved in an album that the two of us can share with our kids.
The time that I spent with Cody was beautiful. It was beautiful and wrong and underhanded and perfect.
Fate brought us together.
Destiny made us fall in love.
God gave us time.
And Charles took all of that away from us.
He made me question my love for Cody. He made us scared in the sacred and short time we had together. And he killed Cody, the only man that I’ve ever truly loved.

So even though I was scared out of my mind, I knew that I had a power. I had made Cody fall in love with me from one glance over the fire, I had made Parker ditch Taylor for me with one kiss and I had made Alex come begging for me after only days.
And I had enticed Charles enough to make him kill Cody.
So I excused myself for a bathroom break. Kevin and Neil offered to walk me but I said I needed the time alone.
Instead of heading up the hill towards the bathroom, I took off towards the dark woods.



*****************************
I swore I was having PTSD from the night before. In the stormy gray mid-morning, I fumbled around in the trees, trying to find the path while hobbling on crutches. Where would Charles be hiding for me? Did he know that I would come looking for him?
In the distance I could see the lights from the police cars, backup coming after I told the cop about Charles’s wanting revenge on me. I couldn’t help but think that maybe I deserved to die. Because if I died, I would be with Cody. And it was my entire fault that he had been murdered.
I had wandered into the middle of the trees. Over to the left was a drop off on a rocky cliff, plummeting hundreds of feet down to a tree-laden death. The other side was a hill of trees and I gimped forward on the small horse beaten trail.
I heard light breath and turned, my body wobbling but there was nothing there. When I turned forward again, my heart stopped.
Charles was wearing the all black attire he had on the night before. His lips were curled back in a smile, one I could see now that his mask was off. His eyes, his cold, cold eyes were the same as I remembered, if not worse.
“Why?” I asked, my voice cracking. He started to come closer and I screamed in pure terror.

“Shh,” he whispered. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
I grimaced. “Is that what you told Cody too?”
“You want to know what Cody said before I killed him?” Charles asked.
I sank to the ground, the soft and slightly wet leaves cushioning my butt. “Yes, and no.”
“Choose,” he commanded.
“Yes,” I replied automatically. “I want to know.”
Charles sat down next to me. I could feel the tension in his body, he was so close. “He was leaving the field,” he said wistfully. “I jumped him, hurtled him down and told him. I told him what I knew about the two of you and he begged me not to say anything. I pulled out my knife and he looked at me. Then, finally, he said ‘Don’t do it. God wouldn’t want you to ruin your life like that’ and I replied ‘You’ve already ruined my life’.”
“That’s all?” I whispered. My heart was throbbing in pain, my eyes were watering and my throat ached.
“No,” Charles said. He stared straight ahead, his fingers dancing over his black-cloaked knee. “When I pressed the blade to his throat, he said ‘tell her. Tell her that I love her’ and then I killed him. And every time I stabbed him and I saw his blood oozing from his skin, I thought of you.” He turned to me. “Every single time.”
“Charles,” I whispered. “You didn’t have to kill him.”
“You’re wrong,” he replied. “I had to. Because he took advantage of you!” he stood up, his body blocking out the small amount of gray light from the sky. “He wasn’t good enough for you! But you loved him, and you let him take everything you had to give and more! I couldn’t stand around and watch the woman I love be taken advantage of.”
“If you truly loved me,” I whispered. “Then you wouldn’t have killed the man that I love.”
“YOU DIDN’T LOVE HIM!” he roared, coming at me with such force that I thought he was going to kill me. “You didn’t,” he murmured, his face close to mine. I was shaking hard, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut from crying aloud.
Charles’s hand smoothed over one side of my face. I got an eerie feeling and shirked away. “You were so much more beautiful when you were Snow White. Now you’re just the dirty whore.” A tear slipped out of my eye. “But it’s okay.
“I’m in love with you. Can’t you see it? Can’t you see that you and I are meant to be and that Cody was just a stepping stone that could have been avoided.”
“He wasn’t a stepping stone.”
Charles’s voice was cold and hard. “He’s gone now.”
“You took him from me,” I whispered, my voice low. “You took him from me so I will never, ever love you. Because that is an eye for an eye.”
“Then I’ll kill you,” he said simply.
And even though my blood had run cold and my insides were scared as hell, I tested him. “No, you won’t.”
Charles whipped out the blade from his pocket. “Want to bet?”
“You killed Cody because you’re in love with me. If you kill the person that you love the most, you lose everything. You’ll want to die yourself.”
Charles looked at me and I looked back. His blue eyes were sad, his clothing was dirty and I could tell that he was tired. Tired of running around, forcing me to love him while actually pushing me further and further away.
“You’re right,” he said. “I can’t have you. So I don’t want to live.”
Then he stabbed himself with the shiny blade.



*******************************

I started to scream and I dropped to the ground next to him. My natural instinct came over me as I yanked the blade from his side where he had stabbed himself. I pressed his balled up sweatshirt to the wound, screaming as loud as I could for help. Charles’s face was spattered with blood, his face growing paler and paler and after a while, he stopped screaming as loudly as I was.

“HELP SOMEBODY HELP ME!” I bellowed as loud as I could. For ten minutes I screamed, holding the life of the guy who had killed my man in my hands. But I couldn’t wait there and watch him die without trying to help. The blood covered my arms and hands, soaking into the fabric I pressed to the wound and puddling on the wet ground beneath us.

Charles stopped screaming, his face drawn in angry pain.

“Don’t,” he whispered. His voice was cracking and low and barely audible. I looked down at him. “Don’t help me.”

“Too late,” I replied. He smiled sadly, and it was a struggle to. “You don’t deserve to die because it’s what you want. No. Cody didn’t get a choice, so neither do you.”

“I deserve to die,” he retalliated. “But not in the arms of the woman that I love.”

I laughed harshly. “You don’t know what real love is, Charles.” I pressed harder with my hands, the blood flow partially stopped. “You don’t because if you did, you’d know that we’re not in love. Cody and I were in love. Had you watched with a more careful eye and saw how tender and blessed and beautiful his and my relationship was, you would have seen true love and you wouldn’t believe that is what you feel for me.”

Just then, I heard running footsteps. Figures were running towards us, shouts were being called out and my breath returned to normal.

Three policemen came running, their steps pounding the muddy earth.

“Is this him, ma’am?” the first one asked. I nodded and moved away as they took over for me. One pulled Charles upright and handcuffed him as another radioed for a stretcher. I heard my friends behind the police and soon I was enveloped in hugs, tears, and sighs of relief.

Two people helped me by the arms as we exited the dark forest trail. I looked around when we emerged onto the real trail and saw that Charles had been camping out near the trail. There was a small tent and a few energy bar wrappers around a burnt out fire pit. His dirty clothes were in a heap at the floor of the tent. Someone handed me my crutches and I grabbed them, breaking free of the hold I was in.

Just then, two police dragged Charles by. His black sweatpants were sagging and his black shirt was smeared with pale tan dirt. His hands were cuffed behind him and his silvery blue eyes were rabid.

“Eva! Tell them it wasn’t me!”

Everyone looked at me and I felt the presence of Tay behind me, her diminutive hands on my shoulders reassuringly.

“Make sure he goes to jail forever,” I said loudly to the men. “And make sure he suffers.” Then they dragged Charles along as he moaned and pleaded with me for his life.




***********************

It took me two showers to scrub off Charles’s blood from my hands and arms. It was thick and sticky, red as a barn and impossible to forget. I had dirtied my hands with the blood of Cody’s murderer. It was hard to believe.
As I stood in front of the mirror in the art shop bathroom, I saw someone who wasn’t me. The girl I saw in front of me had black abysses for eyes; her face was permanently drawn into a frown and her hair-lacked luster. Her arms were thin with misery, her feet were shoved in a pair of blood stained Uggs and her mouth was pale as a tuna fish.

This was the worst I’ve ever looked. This was the worst that I ever saw myself.

But this was the worst I’ve ever felt.

So I grabbed the black backup dress that I had packed for banquet and pulled on a pair of too loose black tights. I secured my wavy hair into a low bun and pushed a red chapstick over my disgusting pale lips.

I slipped my feet into a pair of black ballet flats and looked at myself in the mirror.

I didn’t look horrible.

When I left the art shop, all of the TIM Team was gathered near the steps of Old Chapel. They all looked at me, their eyes a sad shade of sorrow and their arms outstretched in love.

But I pushed past them, throwing my things onto the ground and grabbing Cody’s car keys from the podium. No one questioned me as I slid into the driver’s seat of the truck or as I sped away, my eyes flooding with tears and mixing the colors of the campus into a murky brown.




*************************

I stood in all black at the base of the trail at village three. I had driven Cody’s truck all the way there, the bumpy roads throwing me around in the seat. The car still smelled like him, that intoxicating scent I would never forget or be able to replicate: vanilla, lemonade and cedar wood.

I got out of the truck, slamming the forest green door behind me. The wind picked up and crinkled the wrapper on the small bouquet of flowers that I had bought. The only convince store in town and the only bunch of flowers; they were red carnations, something I never would have picked out but they were fine at this moment.

I walked over to where a stray piece of caution tape was and was about to lay down the flowers when I realized, this isn’t Cody’s grave. This isn’t a place for memories to flow. This was a murder spot. I would not acknowledge Charles enough to care for the spot where he had meticulously killed my lover.

So I got back in the truck, the engine rumbling as I gunned it away from Village Three. I throw it into park outside of the horse cabin, not caring that the tied up horses are crying and the wind is blowing my hair out of it’s bun. I hop over the fence, my hem snagging a bit and I tug hard until it comes free.

In the center of the pasture, I lie down under the tree. My eyes are glued on the sky; the warmth of the earth heats my arms.

“I miss you,” I whisper. The clouds continue to roll and the horses continue to cry. Nothing changes. “You were amazing and I wish I had known you for longer. And I refuse to give up on you.”

I cried under the tree, my sobs filling the chilly air around me. Finally, I sat up and dug a small and thin hole, sticking the stems of the flowers into the unforgiving earth. I started to walk away before I stopped, turned around and kneeled at the base of the tree.

“I loved you. I gave you everything, I told you everything. Cody,” I whispered. “I’ll never forget you and I’ll never leave you.”

Then I turned around and walked back to the truck, slamming the door hard and with vengeance.



**********************

When I returned to campus, everyone parted. I shifted the truck into park and slipped the UMD keychain off, slipping it into my saddlebag. Then I got out, careful not to catch eyes with anyone.

I looked up and saw the sea of TIM Teamers parting once again, to let someone towards me from inside the chapel.

Tracie emerged, her black hair smoothed down and her athletic body covered in a warm up suit. Her eyes were swollen and puffy, her hands were gripping a photo. A Polaroid photo.

“Eva,” she said, coming up to me. I ducked, ready for her to hit me. Instead, she pulled me into a hug. I collapsed in her thin arms, clutching mine around her body and letting go.

After a few minutes, Tracie grabbed my hand and pulled me over to the art shop table. She laid the photo down on the painted wood and I glanced down.

It was another candid of Cody and me. We were laughing, my head tipped back and my loose bun falling while Cody was staring at me, laughing, his right cheek indented with a dimple.

“I know,” she whispered, her eyes damp.

“I’m so, so sorry,” I murmured, pulling my knees to my chest. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said. I looked up, surprised. “I know true love when I see it. And you two had it.”

I was incredulous. “What?”

Tracie smiled at me kindly and placed her hand over mine. “Cody and I weren’t meant to be. We had fun and it was fun dating him, but it wasn’t going to last. But when I saw you two, how easy it was, how beautiful, I knew that you two had more than just chemistry. You had magic. You had true love.”

“How can you forgive us, just like that? We were underhanded and sneaky and wrong. You shouldn’t forgive me.”

“As hard as it is, it would be harder to not forgive you. We share something in common, and one day maybe we’ll be friends. It won’t be easy to forget Cody and this loss, but it would be harder if I didn’t have someone to share it with.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered again.

“Don’t be. Just remember him and save his spirit.”

“I don’t know if I can,” I murmured.

“You loved him,” she said simply. “And you always will. So remember that everyday and everyday think of him and one day, it will get easier. One day, there will be less pain than the day before and suddenly; the memories won’t be clouded by guilt and sadness. Instead, they’ll be clear and happy and just that, memories.”

“I can see what Cody liked about you,” I said.

“Liked,” Tracie smiled.

“That’s not what I meant,” I replied. “I meant…”

“No,” she said, cutting me off. “I know. He liked me and I liked him. But he loved you.”

I smiled at her. “Thank you, for saying that. All of it. Everyone is so mad at me, that I was seeing Cody, that we had a relationship. But no one understands that even though they think it was wrong, it felt so amazingly right. He was the one person that I’ve ever felt like that with and it was addicting.”

Tracie nodded, her thin nose rumpling. “He was, simply, perfect.”

“Yeah,” I murmured. “He was.”


We sat for a couple minutes in silence before she slid the photo over to me. “Keep it. You two look so happy.”

I picked it up, careful not to touch where there could be a visible smudge. “Thank you.”

Tracie stood up and walked over to the edge of the art shop. “Eva,” she called.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll leave my number with Jason for you. I’d like you to come to the funeral.”

My heart dropped. “Of course,” I replied. She walked away and I started to cry.

My insides hurt. My heart hurt. My body hurt. Everything was going to pieces around me and I was too depressed to even try and sweep up the mess.

No one dared come near to me as I sat at the art shop, bawling my eyes out. No one came near to give me a hug or pat my back or whisper words of soft encouragement in my ear.

I was alone.

And even though I knew Charles was in custody, I couldn’t help but feel like he was watching me.

And that made it hurt even more.

Tracie was so quick to forgive and forget. She wasn’t holding a grudge against me or against Cody. She was loving and forgiving and human. I envied her effortless charm and forgiveness; she was beautiful in that aspect. I saw what Cody had seen in her, and it made me sad. Sad that I had lured him away from such a special girl with myself. Sad that I had given everything I had to him, yet he had died before we had a life to share together.

Nothing was making sense, and I was lost. Lost in my own world where there were no walls and there was no up and down; just a solid abyss of sadness and grief and loss.

Cody had been a small piece of my life. Yet right now, he held the biggest part of my memory. I could close my eyes and smell his skin, feel the soft and silkiness of his hair, hear his breathing close to my ear, sense his presence behind me. I touched the silver dog tag around my neck, proof that Cody had existed.

Other than the photos and necklace, there was no proof that Cody and I had existsted. Only the memories served our small time of life together.

I wasn’t ready to move on. I wasn’t ready to spend the rest of my life knowing that I had met and loved and lost my one true love.

Because no matter what anyone said, I knew that he was the one. Tracie saw it too. And I’m sure that if someone else had seen us, they would have known it also.

So when I stood, I felt a rush of emotions leave me. I wouldn’t leave Cody behind here, but I would leave my worry, my sorrow, and my grief. I wouldn’t be the girl who moped for days.

I would be the girl who lived. Who lived life and enjoyed life and wasn’t brought down by things of the past.

So as I moved through the crowd, wiping my tear stained face with one sleeve, I smiled.

And I knew that Cody was smiling too.



*****************

Before we left, I hugged each person that I had met. We cried, our heads bowed together as our tears flowed as one.

When I said goodbye to my girls, they already knew about Cody’s death. But they didn’t know that he and I were involved. So when they saw my dark face, my sad smile and my lopsided gait, they were confused. In private, I told a few of them the truth about Cody and me.

They cried when I said that I loved him. They cried when I explained what Charles had done to him. And the cried when I told them that it had been me Charles had been after, and it had been me who had saved his life out in the woods.

“Why?” Rachel asked, her eyes filled with tears. Ellie and Faith sat next to her, sniffling away. “Why did you save him?”

I smiled sadly. “He killed Cody. But when I rushed to help him, he said he didn’t want to die in the arms of the woman that he loved. He thought he loved me. And I had to prove him wrong. If I had loved him, I would have let him die the way he wanted to. But I hate him, so I saved him so that he can rot in jail forever.”

Later I sat with Tay and Krista in Old Chapel while everyone else pushed luggage into buses.


“Do you miss him?” Tay whispered in my ear. I turned around and looked at her from where I sat on the ground.

“Every second,” I said.

“Was he really everything?” Krista asked. “Didn’t he have a flaw?”

“No,” I replied wistfully. “He was absolutely perfect.”

And with that, I walked away.



*********************

I sat alone on the ground near the water where Cody and I had found our first note together. I looked down at my black attire and thought of Cody. I wrapped my own black sweatshirt more tightly around me, wishing I hadn’t had to throw away Cody’s zip up. But no matter how many times I washed it, I knew that every time I would put it on, I would smell the coppery scent of Charles’s blood on the sleeves.

I would still see the image of Charles’s face as he told me he loved me, something Cody had done only hours before.

I would still feel the icy chill I had felt as Charles’s stabbed himself in the gut, raining a sheath of blood onto the ground.

These were not things that I wanted to remember. I wanted to take this week at Wapo and subtract the fear that I felt from the stalker, the horrid loss and grief that had come with Cody’s death and the encounter I had had with Charles.

Instead, I wanted to remember how soft Cody’s arms were as he held me underneath the rain. I wanted to remember the exact smell of him, that delicious mix, and the way his voice sounded late at night when we were tired. I wanted the image of him to be abundant in my mind, so that I could continue to daydream about our never existing futures ahead.

I wanted Cody alive.

If I could do anything, I would find him and warn him. I loved him so much that even if we had never fallen in love, I would have wanted to save him. Because love is sacrifice.

So if I could have one wish, it would be to save Cody from his untimely death. I would go back in time and greet him as a stranger, tell him to never come to Wapo and to never fall in love with me, to spare his life. I would never experience that euphoria that was Cody, but I would always know in my heart that he was alive and happy.

And that’s all that would matter.




*********************

As I was walking back to chapel before final campfire, I spotted Ama walking from Crossfire.

“Eva,” she said softly coming towards me. I fell in step behind her and somehow we ended right back where I had been only minutes before. The waves were slowly lapping at the shoreline and Ama’s hand found it’s way to mine. “How are you?” she asked.

“Okay,” I murmured, staring out into the glittering lake. The heavy midday sun shone lightly through the veil of clouds but I was still cold.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “So sorry.”

“None of us could have stopped it,” I said.

“I wish you would have told us,” she whispered.

I looked at her. “I know. I wanted to, so badly. But I knew that if I did, we ran the risk of getting caught. And we already had a stalker, so I thought it was best not to bring anyone else into the picture.”

Ama let out a soft laugh. “True.”

For a moment, we were silent. Then, “ How did you know?”

“Know what?” I asked.

“That it was love.”

“Oh,” I sighed, dreaming up an image of Cody in my mind. I could feel his dark hair in my fingers, see his sheer brown eyes and hear his velvety voice as we spoke in quiet whispers. “It was easy. I loved him more than I love myself. I’d do anything for him. And he broke my heart.”

Ama was quiet. “So you’re glad it happened?”

“Of course,” I murmured. “Love is the one thing I’ve always dreamed of. And with Cody, it was natural.”

“I’m afraid that I’ll never find it,” Ama whispered. “And that I’ll live forever without ever being as happy as you were.”

“Love is everything,” I said. “And it takes everything. I gave Cody all that I had to give, and I don’t think I can love again.”

“You really loved him,” she whispered. It wasn’t a question, it was a statement.

“Yeah, I did.”

A moment later, “What do you mean gave him everything? You can’t love again?”

I sighed. “I slept with Cody.”

Ama looked up, startled. “What? When?”

“Last night,” I whispered, suddenly ashamed. I have given away everything and I had nothing in return. “He was so perfect and I loved him so much. I didn’t know that today he’d be dead.”

“Wow.”

“I know.” We stared off at the water, seeing the birds dip through the surface and exiting with fish.

Ama’s breathing was light next to me, her eyelashes fluttering in the slight wind. “Amazing how fast everything goes, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. I thought of Cody and his wonderful smile, something I would never forget. “We’re cheated of time.”

“I lied,” Ama whispered.

“What?” I asked, turning towards her.

“I’m not sorry. I’m not because you fell in love and I don’t think that’s something that should be forgotten. I’m happy for you, E. I’m happy.”

I hugged her from the side. Her hair smelled like light lilacs and her body was warm and soft against mine.

Without thinking, I leaned over and kissed her cheek. Ama pulled away and smiled lightly and again, thinking completely gone, I pressed my lips to hers. For a moment, she was shocked and completely still. Then she ripped herself away, jumping to her feet; a bright scarlet crept over her face.

“What are you doing?” she cried.

I looked up, tears forming in my eyes. “I have no idea.” Then, before she could say anything else, I ran away.



*************************

I ran through the woods, my tiny black ballet flats pounding the meaty earth and becoming dull where they were suppose to be shiny patent. I heard the wind whistling through my ears and I felt my breath catch in my throat as my legs began to burn. I ran and ran until I saw someone I recognized.

Parker was standing at the end of the porch of the dining hall. Everyone else was already at closing worship down by the bonfire pit and Parker was pulling on a long sleeved gray sweatshirt.

“Eva,” he called when he spotted me. I continued to run and grabbed him by his shirt, pulling him under the deck where Cody had once pulled me.

“What’s going on?” he asked, just as I crushed my mouth to his. Naturally, his arms slipped around my waist and his lips pushed back against mine. For a few minutes, all I did was concentrate on kissing Parker. He was, after all, beautiful. And he had feelings for me. So why not?”

“Eva,” he whispered, pulling away. A few of his fingers roamed the valley of my neck and collarbone. “What is this? What are you trying to do?”

I pushed my hands violently through his hair and pulled his body to mine, collapsing in a heap of sobs.

“Feel something,” I murmured before I kissed him again and it was all over.



*****************

I had thought that by visiting the tree, under which Cody and I had both began and ended, would be my mourning process. After my mom died, I did not mourn. Instead, I sat as everyone else cried. In the beginning, I cried. I walked out of the hospital, clutching sketches my grandmother had drawn of me and I ripped each one to shreds. They were pictures of what she thought I would look like when I grew up and I tore them, thinking that my mother would never see me like the images on the page. She would never see me older than six years old, and I didn’t want to believe that.

But now, I had lost someone that I had been in love with. Cody’s death was, in strange ways, harder to take than my mother’s death. I had given him my whole heart, and it was yet to be buried.

I kissed Ama and I kissed Parker, just to get away from all the feelings within me. I couldn’t help but feel lost and confused, my life was shattering into fragments that I couldn’t pick up even if I tried.

They say that you never forget your first love. But I say that you never forget any love.

I loved Cody, but I also loved Alex. I loved Parker as a friend, I loved Neil and Kevin and Kirk as friends. I was fickle, lost in a sea of choices that I had yet to make. Everyone looked at me like I was a sick puppy, their eyes softened into tears of sadness and regret when they saw me.

But I didn’t want to be that. I wanted to be strong through this pain; I wanted to come out on the other side as a better person.



************************

When I was supposed to be helping my cabin clean up their rooms, I grabbed the keys to Cody’s truck once again and drove, determined, towards Ox.

I bumped along past the horse girls at the horse pasture, not letting my eyes roam to Cody’s tree. I gunned the truck, the pedal slipping beneath my ballet flat and I slammed the breaks right before smashing into a tree. I stopped the truck, breathing heavy. I wasn’t attempting suicide or anything, it had just happened.

Or so I convinced myself.

When I was calm, I pulled the truck once again into drive and drove to village two, just in time to see the running boys return to their cabins.

I threw the truck into park on the side of the trail, jumping out of the truck and screaming Alex’s name.

“Alex!” I yelled, my voice hoarse from crying and lack of use.

He turned around, his shirt was off and he wore only a pair of light blue running shorts. He was halfway into his cabin, so he backed out, coming towards me with a concerned look on his face.

“Can we talk?” I asked quietly when he approached. He nodded and pulled me over to where Cody’s truck was, his running friends looking on at us.

“What’s up?” he asked casually, running a hand through his sweaty hair. I couldn’t help but stare at his perfectly defined abs, glistening with sweat and tanned like a cinnamon stick. If I couldn’t have Cody, shouldn’t I still want Alex?

“I want you back,” I whispered. “I didn’t mean what I said before.”

“Eva,” he said tenderly. He put a hand on my waist. “You’re confused. It’s only been half of a day. Take time, I get that. When you really know, tell me.”

“I can’t,” I whispered, leaning in and pressing my mouth to his ferociously, our lips meeting at such high speed I saw stars. He put his hands around my head, yanking me backwards after a few seconds.

“You don’t know what you want right now,” Alex murmured. But in his eyes, I saw that he wanted me just as much as I wanted him at that moment. So, while I lied to myself inside and to him outside, I leaned over and stood on my tiptoes, running a light finger over his lips.

“I want you,” I said, cutting my heart into two and letting Cody’s half fall to the ground, pressing my lips back against Alex’s as I felt his lips melt into mine.

With a simple kiss, I sealed my momentary happiness and shielded my pain. With one kiss, I had almost forgotten what it felt like to be completely alone.



**********************

With one swift movement, I had secured my future with Alex. He wasn’t perfect and he definitely wasn’t Cody. But just then, I needed him. I hadn’t cried when I was searching for Cody, I hadn’t cried during my encounter with Charles. But now, after the fact, I’m helpless.

The only way I can survive is by forgetting.

Alex’s arms were tight around me. I was looking at him, but I saw nothing. His lips were sugary against mine, but I tasted nothing. When he let go and I caught a glimpse of the lake ahead of us, he turned to me and tilted my head.

“Baby,” he whispered. His voice wrapped around me like a familiar blanket. “Talk to me.”

“Do you know what gladiolus is?” I asked quietly. Alex looked at me like I was an alien.

“What are you talking about?” he asked gently.

“It’s the flower of love at first sight. And flax is the flower of fate. The acacia is the flower of secret love and the arbutus is the flower of only love.”

“Eva?” he asked. His eyes were dark with worry but I continued to speak, the words drowning out his.

“Rosemary is the flower of remembrance, the death flower. The one strewn on the corpses. Sage is for wisdom, pine is for pity, and yellow poppies are for wealth and success.

“But what have you given me on every single date, every occasion in our lives?” I asked him directly. This time, Alex smiled, his lips a blushing berry color. One thumb stroked the side of my face.

“A white rose.”

I sighed. “And the white rose means secrecy and silence.” I stood up, brushing one hand over his hair. “That’s something I can’t do anymore.”




*****************************

“What do you mean by that?” Alex asked. I swooped my hair over one shoulder and did my best to run, but my crippled ankle was still in bad shape.

“I don’t know what I want anymore,” I said. “And I can’t drag you into this. I’m sorry that I have.”

“NO, no you can’t do this,” he said, grabbing a hold of my arm. His grip was tight, his fingers lacing prints in my skin. “I won’t let you.”

“Please,” I sobbed. “Just forget me. You don’t need me.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” he said, dropping my arm. “That’s where you’re completely wrong. I’m in love with you Eva. I always have been. And you know it. That’s why you’ve been dragging me along, using me as the rebound guy, dumping me when you remember your dead lover Cody.”

I smacked him as hard as I could across the face.

“Don’t you ever talk about Cody,” I hissed, my voice low. Alex looked up, clutching the side of his face with one hand, his eyes astonished. “Never.”

“Eva!” he said when I was walking away. He grabbed my wrist again, his fingers strong and indenting my skin. “Eva!”

“What?” I cried, thrashing against his grip.

“Don’t do this,” he whispered lightly. I continued to fight him, swirling around, pounding at his chest with my fists, and screaming at the top of my lungs.

Finally, I collapsed into his waiting arms.




**********************


As I touched the silver necklace around my neck, I understood what it was. Not simply what the metal was, but what it stood for. Alex was to me nothing more than an item. He was valuable, but not invaluable. I couldn’t find a reason not to love him, only the fact that I no longer wanted him. Before it had been so simple. He was gorgeous and right, but he wasn’t that one person. I guess that I had spent so long as a friend that for me, it had been hard to transition to a relationship. For Alex, the transition had been easy, effortless. Somewhere deep down, he had always loved me.

And deep down, I had always been waiting for Cody.

But I took Alex back because I didn’t want to be alone. I felt empty without Cody, without the spark that had been between us all week. Without his warm hand holding mine, the fresh air tangling my hair as we strolled near the horses and the big tree, I wasn’t the person that I wanted to be.

Without Cody, I felt invisible. In such a short time, I had found who I was suppose to be. With Cody, I had been the person God intended for me to be. I had been bright, bubbly, and most of all, I had been happy.

As I stare at myself in the mirror of the bathroom, I see a girl in denial. In the past two hours, I’ve kissed Parker, Ama and Alex. In the past day I’ve lost my virginity, found out my lover died, went up against my deathly stalker and saved the life of the boy who had killed the man I loved. And now, I was once again bound to Alex, my more than boring, ex-boyfriend who I didn’t love. Because I now understand love.

Cody was my definition.

No one seems to understand.

Before, I had an image of love. It was abstract, full of colors and shapes, conceived memories and fairytale endings. After Cody, I found that love is not simple nor is it complex. Love is simply the complex part of our minds, racing so fast to try and endure the strong emotions and pain, the tidal wave of euphoria and the crashing impact of grief. Though now enveloped in the grief, I wouldn’t trade it to have not experienced the euphoria and the love.

I dipped my hand into the water. Sitting at the shoreline near the soccer field, with its small rocks and quiet surroundings, I didn’t want to think about Cody. I didn’t want to contemplate life if I hadn’t met him, because I had.

I wanted to think about what I could do, what my life would be from now on. It wasn’t a matter of forgetting, it was a matter of moving on. After death, there are stages of grief. I was now in the stage of tears, of emotions, of unbearable sadness. This would move to anger, and of course, denial. But then my body would trigger reluctance to let go, and eventually, Cody would be only a slot of my memory, a piece of my heart, a sliver of beauty in a world of ugly.

My eyes grazed over the rock that had held our first joint message from Charles. The blood had been so garish, smeared in thick letters so different from the neat cursive on the white cards. After days, the bloody message had been washed by the waves; none of the evidence was found. I had given almost all of my notes to Cody and they hadn’t discovered where he had left them.

A tingle still remained atop my skin where Cody had last touched me, the warmth of his arms as they stretched around my body, holding me in the fading light of the moon. On the field, I had declared my love for Cody; he had done the same for me. We had consummated our relationship in front of God and nature and it is only now that I feel the thick regret seeping into my soul. If Cody were still alive, it would be worth it. Our binding connection wouldn’t be severed as it is now, I would have him as proof. But with Cody dead, I have nothing to show for my recent deflowering. All I have is a necklace, a few pictures and my heart to remind me of who had once held every aspect of me in his hands.

“Eva?” There was a whisper from behind me. I turned, my senses telling me it wasn’t possible, that deep whisper wasn’t Cody, it couldn’t be.


Parker stood only inches from me, his face the clear mask of worry. I sighed, depressed, and took his hand from where it swung at his side, curling my fingers around his.

“Let’s go,” I said, dejected. “Last campfire awaits.”

“Are you okay?” he asked. I lost track of how many times that question had been aimed at me in the past few hours. I gripped his hand tighter.

“Sure,” I answered. “Or I will be. Let’s just go.”

And with that, we walked towards the blazing fire and the shining lake and crowd of people and I tried my hardest to leave behind the thoughts on the rock where I had first began to lose Cody.


*******************************************

Parker led me to a place near the big tree, straight back from the stage in the last row. I cuddled closer to him, and Mel took her place at my other side, her tiny hands comforting on my shoulder and arm. I could smell the thick vanilla that radiated off her body, fresh from a lotion reapplication.

My other friends stood with their cabins, but I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be alone, and I didn’t want to have to face the gazes of my girls as they judged me, conjured up images of me and Cody; to them, he had only been the hot guy, and I was just the semi-slutty, but still fun girl who had cheated with him. They saw me as a whore, because I have a boyfriend and Cody had a girlfriend. Everyone sees me as a slut because I fell in love with a guy older than me.

Parker and Mel were whispering behind me. I couldn’t help but think of the hypocrisy of the fact that these two were the real whores, and I was the one everyone was staring at. But the trust and the comfort of my friends in a time so trying were unmistakable and I had to take it; I didn’t deserve anything yet I wanted it all.

As Jason and the band began to sing onstage, with the entire camp singing along, I missed Cody’s presence. Were he not dead, I would be making secret eye contact with him over the fire, from his place near the stage. I would probably be wearing the necklace he gave me, and wearing his sweatshirt. But not that necklace is tucked away in my luggage, a heavy reminder, and Cody’s fleece is in the garbage, far too stained with the blood of Charles to be of any use to anyone.

It was in the middle of “Amazing Grace” when we all heard it. The sirens of yet another police car zooming down the dirt street through the gates. Everyone in the crowd turned, and the music stopped playing. I was sure that they had Charles in the squad car and I huddled towards Parker’s shoulder. Mel placed a reassuring hand on my arm. One of the police walked up to the podium and said a few words to the lead singer, who turned pale and walked away.

The other roamed around the edges of the crowd.


“Eva Rossum,” the police at the podium said into the microphone. I raised my hand.

“Here,” I shouted. I was positive they were going to take me in for questions regarding Charles and Cody.

Then the other policeman stepped up behind me and shoved away Mel and Parker. He grabbed my hands and placed them into thick metal handcuffs.

“You’re under arrest for the murder of Cody Simpson and the attempted murder of Charles Miller,” he said, dragging me away from my last chance at freedom.

As I was dragged away by my hands, the gruff police officer huffing and my friends screaming out behind me, I saw a flash of green, and I turned.

Hidden, in the bushes, was Charles. His eyes were that rabid ice blue I had seen only once, when he had looked at me right before he stabbed himself. His face was matted with blood and his blond hair was mussed. His white tee shirt had a comma shaped bloodstain where he had stabbed himself, it dripped down to the hem of the shirt. His lips were curled into an evil smile and when I tried to scream, I found I had lost the ability to speak.

Instead, as I looked on, Charles looked back at me. He turned for a moment and grabbed something from next to him.

Then, with a quick movement, he dragged Cody’s body from beneath the bush and held Cody’s dead head in his hands. I tried again to scream, but I couldn’t.

Charles lifted one bloody finger to his mouth and hushed me as Cody’s dead head fell from his lap onto the cold ground.

The doors swung open and I was shoved in a room, the other inmates already sitting at their pods. I spotted Alex, wearing a dark navy top, and sat down at the consol he was at on the other side of the barrier.

“Eva,” he whispered in shock, his fingers reaching up to cover mine through the glass barrier. I picked up the phone on my end, pressing the rusty brown receiver to my ear.

“Hi,” I murmured. His light green eyes stared back at me.

“Are you okay?” he whispered. I looked down at my horrible orange jumpsuit.

“I’m wearing polyester blend, how do you think I’m doing?” I asked, throwing in a light laugh at the end.

He stared back seriously. “I mean it. What have they decided? They can’t seriously book you on murder charges.”

I looked up, locking eyes with him. “They have to wait a while to have the court decide.”

“What?” he asked, his hand reaching out to me again. I pressed my fingertips to where his were on the glass. “Why?”

“They can’t charge me yet. Especially if they’re going to do it on an adult scale.”

“Why?” he repeated.

“We have an execution law,” I said quietly. “But they can’t do that to me yet, if it comes to that.”

“Why not?” he asked, his voice rising. “Why can’t they just decide now, without having to put us through this misery.”

“You can’t kill an innocent life, Alex,” I whispered.

“They’re calling you innocent?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then I don’t understand.”

I looked at him, our eyes meeting. “They have to wait another nine months. I’m pregnant.”