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“I saw her. She actually looks decent. She’s dirty and there are a couple of signs of injury, but considering everything, I would say she looks really good,” I say.
He exhales and turns around so he’s leaning with his back against the wall now. His eyes are turned upward, but I don’t think he’s seeking any kind of divine direction. As the elevator glides downward, I think he’s looking up toward Miranda.
“I should have protected her,” he mutters. “I should have been there to keep hersafe.”
“At camp?” I ask. He nods and I shake my head. “You can’t let yourself think that way. There’s no way you could have known she was going to be in any danger. According to everything I’ve heard, she wasn’t feeling well and just went to her cabin to lie down during the campfire, right?”
“Yeah. She wasn’t supposed to. Mike told all of us that he wanted everybody at the campfire every night. No exceptions. Every camper and every counselor was supposed to be at the campfires until they were extinguished, and then everybody went to the cabins together for lights out. But she had been telling me all day that her head hurt and she just wasn’t feeling well. She gets migraines and sometimes they can get really, really bad. There have been times when she has spent a week in bed throwing up and not even able to have the curtains open because the light from outside hurts somuch.
“I didn’t want it to get that bad. If that happened, she would have had to leave camp and I don’t know if anybody would have been able to take care of her. I thought it would be better for her to just go to her cabin after the fire started and get some extra rest. She takes medication for her headaches, so she took some and I got her a soda from the staff lounge. The caffeinehelps.”
“I know,” I nod. “I’ve gotten migraines since I was pretty young. I’ve found a lot of times the only thing that really helps me is a bottle of Pepsi and some really greasy, salty potato chips. That helps even more than medication a lot of thetime.”
Holden nods. The elevator doors open and we walk out onto the ground floor of the hospital.
“She says the same thing. The doctors want her to have the medication, but she would much rather just have the soda. I figured she was just going to sleep through the fire and probably through the night, and by the next morning would hopefully be fine. I’d see her at breakfast and we’d have the weekend before campended.”
“You were taking care of her,” I tell him. “You were doing everything you could to make her feel better. And it sounds like something you’ve done plenty of times before. How long have the two of you beentogether?”
“Almost five years,” hesays.
They were so young to have already spent so much time together, but it reminds me of Sam and me. I knew he was the one I would spend the rest of my life with the first time I laid eyes on him when I was seven years old. By the time I was Holden’s age, Sam and I had been together for that long. It took a lot of heartbreak and many years after that for us to find each other again and finally get the life together we wanted, but I never lost my love for him. It’s the kind of love I see in this young man’s eyes.
He strikes me as what Camp Hollow would want on the cover of their brochure if they were hosting a full summer again. If nothing had ever happened and they were welcoming new waves of campers ready to spend a few glorious, sun-soaked weeks in the woods playing games, enjoying the lake, making crafts, and creating memories they’d hold with them for the rest of theirlives.
“You couldn’t have known anything was going to happen. You thought what you were doing was what was going to make her safe and keep her from getting sicker,” I tellhim.
We get to the cafeteria and order sodas. I get one for Garrison and after a second of thought, add three box lunches to the order as well. It’s been a long day already and I have a feeling it’s not going to get any smoother or easier from here.
“I thought she was gone,” he says softly. “I thought I’d losther.”
“But you didn’t. She’s up there and she’s stable. The paramedics said she was doing really well and she’ll probably need to be under observation for a day or two just to be absolutely sure, but they don’t think she’s in serious danger,” Isay.
“But the blood. There was so much blood in that cabin,” Holden says. “How is thatpossible?”
“I don’t know. That’s something the doctors are going to have to explain. There are some injuries that bleed a tremendous amount even when they aren’t all that severe. For all we know, maybe that blood wasn’t evenhers.”
His eyes snap to me. “What do you mean?”
“She could have managed to hurt her attacker and some of that blood could be his. She clearly got away from him and was able to survive the last few days. There are fifteen other people who didn’t have that chance. I don’t know what she did, but whatever it was, it was impressive. She got away. She saved her own life and is going to be able to spend it with you,” I tell him. “You need to not think about what you could have done, when you couldn’t have done anything, and think about how you are going to help her move forward. Which includes being there for her after we talk to her about whathappened.”
“I will,” he promises. “Are you going to be the one to interviewher?”
“I don’t know. Detective Garrison is the lead of the investigation. But I will ask if he’ll let me talk to her. It might be easier for her to have a woman,” Isay.
“Can I be with her?” he asks.
I shake my head. “I’m sorry. We have to get her statement privately. But after her official statement, if we need to talk to her again, you can be with herthen.”
He nods, accepting the limitations. “Thank you. I just… I really love her. And I was so scared.” He looks down at his feet for a second, then back up at me. “It was my idea for us to come be counselors at Camp Hollow for the week. She didn’t want to, but I convinced herto.”
“Why didn’t she want to do it?” I ask as we collect the food that’s ready for us and start back to the elevator.
“She’d heard all the stories. Like it was haunted or something. She thought that it sounded like bad luck, like we were tempting fate or something,” Holdensays.
“But you didn’t feel that way,” Isay.
“No. I don’t believe in things like that. It was a tragedy what happened and it messed up a lot of lives, but that’s it. It’s over, right? I told her there was no such thing as a curse and that we’d have a lot of fun. It had been a long time,” he tellsme.
