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Jack leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms, and observed as she casually flicked her blonde ponytail over her shoulder. She paused, looked up, and smiled directly at him. It was an evil smile with a lie behind it. That much Jack knew for sure. Whatever she was about to say, it was going to be stupid. He was going to hit the jackpot later when he rubbed it all in her face. As she spoke up, her voice cracked a bit but she recovered quickly. “I’m Amelie and I’m eight. This is a poem I wrote in honor of my dad. He was a famous poet. But now he’s just dead.”
The counselors smiled at one another, clearly a little uneasy and then nodded at the girl to go on. She was proud, her smile unwavering. It didn’t even falter on the word dead. This was going to be so good.
“Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
My dad is dead.
If you’re here... yours probably is, too.”
The room was silent. The counselors looked nervous, wary. But the girl, she just smiled, a
nd then glanced at Jack—or was it a wink? For a moment, he couldn’t believe it. But then, as she sat back down, she curtsied in his direction, and that one movement solidified it all. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure that she had, in fact, winked at him. Clearly, this Amelie girl was messing with him.
TWO
Spring 2012
Jack Harrison stood in front of his office window overlooking the lake as he let his thoughts drift back to her. They somehow always did, whether he was here or not. Even still, this had always been the place Jack could feel her most.
No matter how many years passed, he could still picture her there underneath the tree that first summer, and though he could barely remember the boy he was then, in his mind he could still see her there under that tree, pointing her camera toward some unknown object near the lake. Whatever it was, she was forever looking through that lens. He never could quite see what the big deal was. He could remember how alone she looked sitting there that afternoon and also how like him being alone didn’t appear to bother her all that much. He recalled how, finally, when he could not contain his anger any longer he strode over and stood over her, his hands on his hips, his expression fierce. Even years later, and though he would never have admitted it then, he could remember how sweet, how innocent, how beautiful she looked as she lowered her camera, looked up at him and smiled. No one had ever smiled at him the way she did—not before or after that day. It was a smile that implied: “I know more about you than you think I do.” It was a smile that meant it, too. It was a smile that immediately saw right through him—that day and every day since.
“Why’d you do it?” he demanded.
She pursed her lips, brought her camera back to her eye, and resumed looking at whatever it was she had been looking at off in the distance. She didn’t answer him for a long time, and the silence made him uncomfortable. Such a long time had passed between his question and her answer that Jack had given up hope that she was going to respond at all.
Finally, she spoke quietly. “Do you believe in things you can’t see, Jack?”
He frowned. “No. But what does that have to do with my question?”
“Everything.”
That summer was the first of many where he’d fight the urge to let the girl in and lose, after giving it his best shot. What he couldn’t understand then was that, for the rest of his life, he’d be fighting to keep her in.
Over the course of those first few summers, they became fast friends—but with them it was always two steps forward, two steps back. She’d get too close, get on his nerves, and Jack would cut her off. That’s the thing about Amelie. She always was an inquisitive little thing and damn it if she didn’t incessantly hit the nail on the head when it came to people. She never pried. She didn’t have to. She was the kind of person who made you want to tell her things. And what people didn’t tell her, she somehow just knew. This quality fascinated Jack. He found himself drawn to it, to her.
The summer after Jack met Amelie, he still hated Camp Hope and put up resistance when his father made him go—but he never again hated it quite as much. For the next six years, his father insisted on sending him, and each year, he found himself putting up less and less of a fight. By the time June rolled around, he had looked forward to telling Amelie about all of the stuff he’d done during the school year, all the people he pissed off, and how much trouble he had avoided getting into. If he remembered correctly, it was somewhere around the summer he turned sixteen and Amelie fourteen that things began to change. Most of that summer he had been busy chasing a girl named Kristy (he was determined to get to second base) and Amelie was busy doing what Amelie always did, writing poetry and taking photos.
One particularly hot day, Jack found Amelie sitting on the edge of the dock alone, staring off into the water at nothing. He had also been particularly hot and angry that day as he’d tried and failed once again to make it to second base with Kristy. “What are you doing out here, kid?” he remembered saying. He had started calling her kid that summer because it made him feel somehow better than her. It made him feel superior—older and wiser, as if putting a name to it would make it so. In typical Amelie fashion, she didn’t seem to mind in the least.
She didn’t turn to look at him. “I’m thinking, JACK. You should try it sometime.”
Jack plopped down next to her, playfully shoving her shoulder. “What’s your problem?”
“I didn’t have one. Until you showed up.”
“Whoa. Have you finally gotten your period or something?” Jack held his wrist out motioning at the watch his mother had given him. “Because you know, kid, it’s about that time.”
She stood and glared right through him. “You know what? Fuck you, Jack.”
“Geez, kid. Calm down! I was just joking. What’s your deal, anyway?”
She retreated a little. “I don’t have a deal. Just stay away from me, ok.”
“What are you always staring at out here, anyway?” Jack pushed himself up and grabbed at her camera. She managed to grasp it behind her back where he couldn’t quite get to it, so he picked up her bag instead. She deadpanned. “Give me that, Jack.”
Amelie continued trying to wrestle the bag from him as he playfully kept it away, holding it high in the air above her head. He was amused, and to her detriment, much faster, taller, and stronger than she was. “What’s in here anyway? Your tampons?” She grabbed at it once more as he lowered it and raised it above her head again suddenly causing the contents to spill out. Jack’s jaw dropped, and he stared at everything before him. There were dozens of photos of him. Of him and Kristy. There they were, plain as day—he and Kristy swimming. He and Kristy playing volleyball. He and Kristy eating lunch. He and Kristy around the campfire. Him laughing. Him frowning. As Jack stared at the photos, he noticed a strange look play across her face, though he wasn’t sure what it meant. Was it pity? Remorse? Hatred?
