They came back to campus two days early. It was almost nine by the time the bus pulled into the station; Ellery nearly cried from relief when the gates appeared through the window of the taxi, old snow still crusting the great lawn. They were home, finally. Now the lights would turn back on inside Camp’s head and they could all go back to being normal.
“Do you want to go find food?” she asked as they walked in the front door of Honors House, Camp’s glasses fogging with the sudden warmth. Danny had gone over to the old wall of mailboxes, like he was expecting some important post to have arrived in his absence. “Or I could come up and we could watch something?”
But Camp shook his head. “I think I have to crash,” he said. “And I have ethics reading I didn’t do yet.”
Classes didn’t start again until Monday; Camp had never, in all the time they’d known each other, sent her away so he could do homework, or anything else. “Okay,” Ellery said uncertainly. Camp kissed her on the forehead before he disappeared upstairs.
Something changed in Camp after that. It was like he had gone somewhere Ellery couldn’t reach him, even though he was right there on campus with everyone else: He started hiding himself in the farthest corners of the library to study. He started walking circles around campus late at night. Ellery knocked on his door, but he didn’t answer. She texted, but he didn’t text back.
“What,” she said to Danny. They were sitting in the dining hall eating breakfast; Camp had grabbed a granola bar and taken it with him to class. “The fuck.”
Danny shrugged. “He’s working on his Harpswell, supposedly,” he told her. “And for what it’s worth, he’s doing it to me, too.”
“Is he, though?” Ellery asked.
Danny frowned. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” Ellery said. She’d spent the previous night playing solitaire alone in her and Susie’s room, but it wasn’t the same as it was with Camp and Danny; she’d gotten bored as soon as she realized she was losing, picked up a pen, and started doodling on the backs of all the cards.
Danny looked at her for a long moment. “Did you know Camp’s father is the chairman of the board here?” he asked her.
Ellery picked at her waffle. “I guess I did,” she said slowly, though in truth she hadn’t really thought about it.
“So,” Danny said, like it should have been obvious, “when he’s trying to win the Harpswell—”
It took her a moment to realize what he was getting at. “He’s trying to sit next to his own dad at a lunch?”
“Look,” Danny said. “I spent a long time when I first met Camp waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know what I’m saying? Waiting for the gotcha.”
“Yeah,” Ellery said. “And?”
“And I fear there is none forthcoming.” Danny mopped up the remaining bit of syrup on his plate with one last bite of pancake, then gathered his dishes into a pile on his tray. “I don’t think he’s trying to hurt you,” he said, getting to his feet and turning in the direction of the kitchen. “And I don’t think he’s trying to hurt me, either.”
Spring came; it was cold and wet and endlessly muddy, and then one day the sun came out and the grass turned green and everyone at the entire college appeared all at once out in the quad in their Birkenstocks, pale white legs as far as the eye could see. “Who are all these people?” Ellery asked Susie, leaning over her desk to peer out the window of Honors House. “Do they go here? I’ve never seen them before in my life.”
“Yeah, well,” Susie said, not unkindly, “that’s because you only ever look at your own navel.”
At last she cornered Camp in the staircase of Honors House—planting her feet on the landing, blocking his way. “Is this howyou break up with me?” she asked. “You’re too afraid to do it, so you just ignore me until I disappear?”
“I’m not breaking up with you,” Camp promised. “I don’t want to break up with you.”
“But you don’t want to have sex with me, either.”
Camp’s eyes widened. “My god, Ellery,” he said, looking around to make sure no one had heard her. “Can you not?”
“Why?” Ellery shook her head. “What is this about, Camp? Is it about your dad? Is it about Danny—”
“Don’t talk about Danny.”
“Of course we have to talk about Danny!” Ellery dug the heels of her hands into her eyes. “You love me,” she reminded him. She felt sure of this; it wasn’t ego or delusion. It was fact. “You love me.”
“I do,” Camp agreed. “Of course I do.”
“So then what, Camp?”
“I don’t know,” Camp said quietly. “Truthfully, Ellery. I mean it. I honestly have no idea.”
She went back to her empty room even though they hadn’t solved anything. She paced for a while. She gnawed at her ragged nails. At last she yanked a romance novel off Susie’s shelf and horrified herself by reading the entire thing in one feverish sitting; by the time she was finished, it was 11:00 p.m. and she hadn’t eaten any dinner. The dining hall was closed, so she trudged across campus to the C-store and bought Cup Noodles. When she got back, Susie was listing around the room changing into her pajamas, the Fireball coming off her in waves. “Were you reading this?” she asked, pointing to the book, which Ellery had stupidly left on the desk.
