No.
Gage:
Did you tell her that I’m here?
Nini:
No.
Gage:
Do you want to give her a heads up?
Nini:
No.
Well, okay then. This will be fun.
Olivia and I have a history that’s … complicated. From the time Olivia’s family moved into our neighborhood during sixth grade, she and my sister were inseparable. Before that, it was always me and Annie.
Not that I didn’t have guy friends. I had a lot of them, but Annie had a harder time making friends, and we’d always been each other’s person. When Annie and Olivia latched on to each other, it could have been my opportunity to ditch my sister guilt-free and focus on my other friends. Instead, the three of us became the three musketeers.
As we got older and headed to high school, something shifted, at least for me. My feelings for Olivia became less friendly and more romantic. Olivia changed, too. That’s when she started going by her last name. She was almost two different people. At school, she was Delaney, aloof, shallow, and unattainable, but after school she was herself, Olivia: confident, fun, and a little snarky.
At school she was queen bee, but on the weekends, the three of us would still run around the neighborhood, climbing trees in the woods behind Olivia’s house, lounging on the couch to binge-watch Netflix, and playing video games.
I remember this one Saturday around tenth grade when Annie, Olivia, and I rode our bikes to a shopping center near our houses for ice cream. As we stepped outside with our cones—Olivia wearing cut-off jeans, an old T-shirt, and ratty sneakers, her beach-blonde hair braided down her back—two girls from school exited the big makeup store next door. I recognized them as two of the girls Olivia usually sat with at lunch. I’ve long since forgotten their names.
When Olivia saw them, she ducked behind a cement pillar. As soon as she did, the girls looked over at us and squealed my name, waving me over. I chatted with them for a few minutes, and they left. Only then did Olivia come out from behind the pillar, like she couldn’t let these girls who knew her as Delaney see her being Olivia.
“Embarrassed to be seen with us?” I teased her.
She shook her head, green eyes flashing. “Never. But Iamembarrassed to be seen likethis.” She waved a hand in front of herself. I knew she wasn’t dressed as stylishly as she would be for school, but she looked amazing. She always did.
Anyway, while Annie and Olivia are still close, I haven’t spoken to her in years. Not really.
I know what Annie’s trying to do. She’d love to go back to the years when it was the three of us united against the world, when she didn’t feel constantly torn between her brother and her best friend. I get it, and I know the schism between Olivia and me has been hard for Annie.
I head back to my cabin before the next part of orientation starts—a walk-through of the daily camp schedule once the kids arrive. I duck into the bathroom that next week I’ll be sharing with eight ten-year-old boys. I scrub my hands over my eyes and splash water on my face. I stare at my reflection in the mirror for a few minutes. Quietly, I give myself a pep talk.
“You’re at this camp for a reason this summer. Focus on that, and it won’t matter where Olivia is. She doesn’t have a hold on you anymore. You’re over her.”
Even as I say the words, a niggling voice in the back of my mind asks how true they are. But of course I’m over her. How could I still be holding onto feelings for a woman I don’t even know anymore?
And yet, after the rest of the day’s orientation meetings, including a welcome bonfire and our first introduction to the Camp Prairie Star traditional camp songs, I lie in bed and can’t sleep. Each time I shift to a new position, the plastic mattress protector crunches under the bamboo sheets I brought from home. The cabin is quiet and dark, and my mind is racing.
I’ve gone on dates with plenty of women since high school, even had a couple of serious relationships, but every time I think my heart has finally escaped Olivia’s influence, she creeps back into my head. It doesn’t matter that she broke my heart and cut me out of her life; I still look for her in every woman I meet. Most have a few of her characteristics—a sharp wit, sparkling eyes, fierce loyalty—but none have it all. None but Olivia herself.
Knowing I’ll see her tomorrow is equal parts dread and excitement.
Bright and early the next morning, a bugle calling out Reveille wakes me. I groan and press the pillow against my ears. That’s going to get old real quick if they plan to wake us up with a bugle call all summer.
I roll out of bed to shower and get dressed before breakfast starts. A chill lingers in the air this morning—though I know it won’t last long—so I throw my burnt-orange Longhorns hoodie on over my T-shirt before walking to the mess hall, my fitted black UT baseball cap turned backward on my head.
After breakfast, Linda asks me and another counselor, Brynn—a woman who looks to be in her early twenties, like me, and has dark brown hair that’s cut short around her warm, beige face—to follow her to the main office.
Linda is chattering about the orientation activities we’ll be doing today as she ushers us into the office to help her carry the boxes of supplies. Before I step inside, I spot a beat-up pale-blue sedan rolling toward us down the dusty road in the distance. I recognize it immediately from my high school days.She’s still driving that old thing?
