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We’re halfway across when I make the mistake of looking to my right. There are about a dozen figures huddled around the campfire, silhouetted by the dancing flames and starry sky.
I make direct eye contact with Madison. She smiles wickedly. I look away.
“Lennon! Don’t you want to play?” Shannon and the rest of the girls all stop, so I have no choice but to pause too.
If Madison is inviting me to participate in something, I have no doubt there’s a hidden agenda. But everyone around me is behaving like moths, inching closer and closer to the campfire. Leaving isn’t really an option.
“Play what?” I ask as I walk over to the group gathered around the flickering flames. The group, that I realize with a start, includes Caleb.
“Truth or Dare,” Madison responds. She tosses her hair, shooting me a challenging smirk.
“We can stay for a bit.” Shannon answers before I have a chance to decline, plopping down in an open spot.
The lull in the game turns out to be because of Jake’s current dare. He returns to the fire less than a minute after we’ve sat down, a jar of pickles in hand.
“Couldn’t have been easier, Adams.” Jake tosses the glass container to Colt. Jake challenges Poppy Tisdale to dance for a minute without music next. I stare in the general direction of the lake instead of watching, cringing from secondhand embarrassment.
Maybe the uncomfortable judgment is obvious on my face, but I’m pretty sure Poppy singling me out has more to do with impressing Madison. “Truth or dare, Lennon?” Poppy asks.
“Dare.”
Poppy smirks, then leans back on the bench. “I dare you to kiss Jake.”
Not a challenge I saw coming. A small gasp next to me comes from Shannon. She’s reacting to the fact I was just dared to kiss one of the most popular guys in school. I’m more concerned with his status as Caleb’s best friend.
I stand and take my time walking across the dead pine needles to where Jake is sitting. Right next to Caleb.
As I walk, I weigh my options. There are only two, really. One that will cause harm—irreparable harm—to my ambiguous, strained relationship with Caleb. That should make my choice easy, but I consider it could be easier—better—to take the option away.
I reach the opposite side of the campfire. Caleb is stone-faced and impassive. But as I near the spot where he’s sitting, a muscle jumps in his jaw.
A tiny, barely discernible, involuntary motion. And it decides for me.
I stop in front of Jake and lean forward. He’s wide-eyed, and I can tell he’s resisting the urge to look over at Caleb.
“Don’t move,” I whisper to him.
His Adam’s apple bobs as he hastily swallows. I lean forward.
And kiss him on the cheek.
Before I stand back up, I hear a quick exhale to my left, and that’s how I know I made the right decision. That Caleb wasn’t as indifferent as he seemed.
“You call that a kiss?” Poppy laughs, but I hear the edge of nervousness in her voice as she glances over at Madison.
“Next time you should specify where.” I smile at her sweetly. “I’m going to find Lee,” I tell my wide-eyed cabin mates, continuing toward the woods instead of sitting back down. They follow me, and it feels like a show of support I haven’t experienced in a long time. Maybe ever.
“That wascrazy!” Shannon whispers to me as we walk away from the campfire. “I can’t believe you did that.”
Awe saturates her voice.
I don’t respond. I’m distracted by the eyes I can feel searing my back. If I turned back around, I know they’d be blue ones.
The clearing Lee discovered looks a lot like a stretch of forest that just has slightly fewer trees than the rest of the forest, but at least it’s filled with friendlier faces than the campfire was surrounded by.
I spot Will standing with Marcus and some of the other senior players on the basketball team. He gives me a small wave. I smile back before following Shannon toward a huddle I recognize as containing most of our usual lunch table, Julie, and…Andrew. He looks even more uncomfortable than I feel.
“What took so long? Did you guys get lost?” Eliza asks.
