A few torturous minutes later, both teams lined up and high-fived each other, dispersing as they finished. Nat reached out to shake my hand, and I didn’t do the same. She pulled away, a look of surprise on her face.
“This is ridiculous, and you know it. That wasn’t fair play. That was an ambush.”
“Come on, Jack. Take the loss and learn from it,” she said smugly. We were just out of earshot of everyone, but I wished people could see her true colors.
“You just can’t win the right way, now can you, Nat?”
“Are you implying that I’m a cheater?”
“I’m notimplyinganything.” My voice caught in my throat, and I cleared it and looked away from her before spitting out, “But it’s no surprise. You know all about cheating, don’t you?”
Nat narrowed her eyes in confusion as I turned my back on her and left her alone on the field. I expected a retort, but the silence was deafening.
My harmful imagination latched on to a made-up image of Nat and my ex wrapped around each other. Thankfully, I’d only been told by Jamie about the cheating, not witnessed it firsthand, but the pang of hurt lashed through me all the same. She knew what she did back then. I’d had more than enough of Nat Breckenridge.
SEVEN
Nat
Justifiable homicide.
It was the defense I planned to use when I was tried for murdering Jack for making me snake drains.
And sure, he had to do this regularly, which sucked. And yeah, it was a fair bet. But still, I was pretty sure I had grounds for murder.
I had many facets. Girly girl, gets-dirt-under-her-nails girl, and hyperactive girl, but this girl I was not. And I couldn’t believe this would be my life for the next six weeks.
The major takeaway from this unfortunate event was that, clearly, Jack was bad at his job.
I kicked the garbage can I’d been using back into its place like a petulant child and cleaned off the snake to the best of my ability. Snake. Even the cleaning tool was disgustingly named.
Staring at the surprisingly helpful object, I wondered if I could do something to get back at him for this. Because he would pay for what he’d done to me, fair or not. I’d make sure of it.
“I never would have thoughtto do that.” Hazel watched me take a photo of sword ferns in the foreground, framing the blurred Camp Starlight sign in the background. It was obvious what we were advertising, but it was an artsier way of showing the Starlight entrance.
“You post a lot of photos with guests in them, and that definitely shows the heart of camp. But I’d take some more photos of Starlight itself. Build a story around the landmarks. I’d also do some profiles on our staff. Highlight their backgrounds and what attracted them to this place.”
Hazel took the same shot and turned her head sideways as she viewed it. “You’re really good at this.”
I bobbed my shoulders self-deprecatingly. Just like Hazel, I was never good at taking compliments. “What about the camp’s socials? There’s a lot of good content on there.”
“It’s pretty easy to capture joy here. It translates really well for the most part. But man, am I getting tired.”
The bags under her eyes were just as severe as when I’d seen her a couple of days ago. The lines on her forehead were more prominent than usual, and she wasn’t making her usual jokes. Still, she was beautiful in a mysterious, haunting sort of way. She had sharp edges from the tender parts of her that had been put back together and often hid behind jokes, but she had the softest heart once she let you in. She was a head shorter than me but always felt so much bigger. Confident and strong, she was the coolest person I’d ever met.
For as long as I’d known her, Hazel had had high expectations for herself. And even though she had Leo andAutumn to help carry the load, I was sure she took on too much. I didn’t want them to feel like they were lacking in any area, especially when I could help. They’d done well enough with their social profiles, but I could see glaring areas where they could be better curated.
So, I zeroed in on the crux of the issue. “Do you still not have a designated person in charge of social media?”
“It’s still divided between me, Leo, and Autumn, depending on who’s free at the time. We’ve been doing social media for both camps. They send us photos, and we take our own as well. Then we make a plan for the month, pulling from a folder on the… I know. We sound like hacks.”
I chuckled. “No, you don’t. Like I said, it doesn’t reflect poorly on your accounts. You’re doing a lot.”
“It’s what we’ve always done.” It dawned on me how much of herself she gave to this place, as well as to Camp Sunlight. Between the three of them, there was still so much to do, and my friend looked like she could use a bit of a respite.
“Well, if you need some help, I’d be happy to do some posts for the Starlight account while I’m here.”
Hazel lit up like that was the best thing she’d heard. “Really? We’d pay you.”
