On a sunny Tuesday in June, Matt Finnigan met Arthur Finnigan at the baggage area of the Portland Jetport.
“Good flight?” grunted Art, the old man stooping down to wrap his porcupine arms around his unresponsive grandson.
“Long,” said Matt, staring impatiently at the unmoving conveyer belt. He was thirteen, prone to smelling bad, slouching too much, and becoming inconveniently erect at dreadfully regular intervals. Even exiting the plane had been an exercise in geometry and close range sleight of hand.
“Hope you got some sleep. I’m taking you straight up to Sherman. It’s about a four hour drive.”
Matt nearly swore. “The camp is that far??”
“Oh, it’s beautiful up there,” said Art. “So peaceful. I practically lived at that lake all summer long when I was a boy. You’ll have a great time. Your father tells me you’ve been looking forward to it.”
“Did he?” Images of Pat Finnigan’s red, bristly face, nestled in a valley of newsprint, came unbidden to Matt’s mind. I swear to God, Matty, you better not lay any of this ‘I didn’t want to go to camp’ crap on your grandparents when you get there. They’re stressed enough as it is. You go and you try your damn best to have a good time – alright? “Sounds about right.”
Just then the air was split with a rattling BUZZ as the belt began to snake its way around in a lopsided cursive Z. Matt rushed forward to watch for his luggage.
“You can swim, right Matty?”
“I guess,” said Matt, eyes glued to the black veiled opening where various leather and canvas bags tumbled out like drunken acrobats.
“Lots of city kids don’t know how,” said Art scornfully. “Just making sure. Swimming’s big up at the lake.”
“How’s the house coming?” asked Matt, desperate to change the subject.
In lieu of replying with actual words, Art Finnigan made a noise like a violently deflating inner tube.
“Oh,” said Matt, suddenly sorry that he’d asked.
“It’ll be fine,” said Art, trying to perk himself up. “Patty told you what happened, right? Your Grandma – silly woman – I’m always telling her to get rid of that old curler. Says they don’t make ‘em like that anymore. Well, you see, it’s not the fire damage that’s the problem. It’s the water damage. Fire went through the wall, ate through a pipe, flooded the whole first floor. That’s the real problem now. Getting out the water, so there’s no mold. Then ripping up the floor. Then laying a new floor. Bit more costly than we thought at first, but good as new in no time.”
“So it’ll be done by the time camp is over? Cause I…” Matt considered his words, his father’s red face hovering like a coffee-scented ghoul in his mental periphery. “I just want to spend time with you and Grandma. I mean, that’s why I came up here, you know. For you two. Not so much…not really the camp.” His words trailed off.
Art sniffed and pointed at the conveyor belt. “That you?”
“No,” said Matt. “Mine’s dark green.”
“Dark green. Dark green. Hmmm. Well, the house’ll be done when it’s done. Hopefully on time, but, you know…we’ll see.”
Matt could tell that pushing the subject wouldn’t do him much good, so he just nodded instead. “And Grandma's alright?”
Art sighed, placing a heavy, knotted paw on Matt’s shoulder. “Well, she’s embarrassed, that’s for sure. I tell her not to worry about it, but she…she takes thing hard. I think you know that about your Grandma. She takes things a little too hard sometimes. And she holds onto things for maybe a little too long. Bad things. She has a hard time forgiving herself.” He cleared his throat. “Where’s that bag of yours?”
The belt had stopped. Matt felt a lump in his stomach.
Forty minutes later they were in Art’s silver Oldsmobile, scaling I-95 at a 55 mile per hour clip. “Don’t fret,” said Art, tuning the radio to a classic rock station. “As soon as they deliver your bag to our house, I’ll run it straight up to the camp.”
“Why can’t I just wait with you and Grandma? What am I going to do up there with no clothes or anything?”
Art laughed. “You got the clothes on your back. Not like you’re naked or anything. And if we wait for your luggage I won’t be able to get you up there until tomorrow and you’d miss out on orientation. First night’s important. It’s when you get to meet everyone and get introduced and play games and things like that. I don’t want you to miss that.”
Matt rolled his eyes and slumped his head against the window. “Right. Wouldn’t want to miss that.”
The next four hours felt like an eternity to Matt. As his grandfather camped the sputtering sedan in the left lane, forcing miles of traffic to pass on the right, Matt’s mind wandered up ahead to the lake and the strange, foreign kids who would all inevitably hate him on sight. He felt like he was being slowly paraded to his own execution.
As they drifted further north, the trees became denser and the exits spaced farther and farther apart.
“What’s up here?” asked Matt, gazing in barely concealed awe at the ceaseless wave of forest that threatened to crash down around them on all sides.
“Lumber work, mostly,” said Art. “There’s communities, too. Past the trees. But it’s sparse up here. It’s no place to get lost.”
“Right,” mumbled Matt, immediately lost again in the vast expanse of green nothingness.
Finally they pulled off the interstate, turning on to a narrow, one land road that wove its way through sparse farmland and threadbare towns that ran five houses deep before they were swallowed up again by the green. In Matt’s mind every house held an ax murderer just waiting to burst out and hack him into a million little pieces. He’d be dead, sure, but he wouldn’t have to meet new people, so he was pulling for the imaginary ax murderers.
Art yelped and pointed at a faded wooden sign, 20 feet high on the side of the road.
CAMP WAB NAK read the sign.
“Here we go!” said Art. “Camp Wabanaki.”
But they weren’t actually there – not yet. The sign simply directed them to pull off onto an even narrower road, this one made entirely of dirt and dust. The Oldsmobile rattled violently as they climbed sudden, sharp curves, veering around deep craters and fallen trees. Matt was convinced the car would fail them, leaving them stranded in the piney abyss. He wasn’t sure which outcome he was rooting for.
Eventually they emerged into a clearing. Matt saws other cars, drenched in road dust, and further ahead slanted, wooden cabins. There were people, too. Kids and adults, awkwardly wrestling duffle bags and suitcases free from car trunks. The kids moved slowly, staring tentatively at their surroundings, contingency plans firing in the corners of their minds untouched by blinding anxiety. The parents all made sure to take big, exaggerated gulps of air, remarking loudly on the purity of the world up here in the nothingness.
Before Matt had come to terms with the fact that they had actually arrived, Art had already parked and pulled the passenger’s side door open.
“Let’s go, let’s go,” said Art. “I don’t mean to rush, but it’s a long trip back and I don’t like driving in the dark.”
Matt followed his grandfather across the clearing. He felt naked and stupid without any luggage. He saw a girl with curly yellow hair beneath a weathered pink ballcap staring at him and knew immediately she was wondering why he hadn’t brought anything.
“I just think it would have made more sense to wait for the luggage,” he mumbled. Art made no attempt to respond.
Soon they arrived in a pen of sorts, where kids and adults milled around aimlessly while teenagers in matching blue shirts buzzed to and fro with clipboards and clipped-on smiles.
“Name?” said one who had snuck up on Matt and his grandfather from the blind side. She had a plain, round face and thick, oval glasses that made her look like a cartoon owl. Matt couldn’t help notice the way her undersized shirt strained against the bulge of her over-large chest.
“This is Matty Finnigan,” said Art, patting Matt proudly on the crown of the head. “First timer, so be gentle!”
Matt pushed the hand away, more aggressively than he’d meant to. Art jammed both hands into his pockets and put his full attention on the girl with the clipboard.
“Alright,” said the girl, flipping through a few pages. “Yep. Here you are. Matt Finnigan. You can take your stuff to Bunk 7, which is through this opening and three cabins down on the left. Has a big…”
That must have been the point in the speech when campers usually started gathering up their things, because the girl finally looked at Matt and frowned. “Where’s your stuff?” Matt’s ears burned purplish-red.
“Lost in translation,” said Art. “Airline temporarily misplaced his bags. I’ll bring them up as soon as they get to Maine.”
This didn’t seem to successfully answer the girl’s question, as her face remained frozen in a contemptuous sort of confusion. “You don’t have any clothes? Swimsuit? Toothbrush? Anything?”
The heat had spread out from Matt’s ears to the rest of his face. His mouth didn’t seem to be working, so he simply shook his head.
“Never fear,” said Art. “Have it all sorted out in a day or so. We didn’t want to miss the first night.”
Matt flinched at his grandfather’s use of the word “we.”
“Shouldn’t you have just waited until his stuff arrived?” said the girl, who had apparently given up trying to communicate with Matt directly. “Kids come late, that’s not a problem.”
“Well,” said Art, his smile drooping heavily on the left side, “I guess we’ll know for next time. Are we all set here? I need to get back on the road.”
“I guess,” said the girl, making no effort to hide her displeasure with how the interaction had resolved itself.
“Okay,” said Art, bending down to grab Matt in a hug. Shellshocked, Matt stood motionless, letting the hug happen. “Have fun. I’ll be back soon with your stuff.”
Then Art was gone. The girl was still standing there, writing something on her clipboard.
“What do I do?” asked Matt, feeling grotesquely vulnerable and alone.
The girl shrugged. “Well, don’t shit yourself, I guess,” she said with a snort, walking towards another girl. “Hey Mags, this one over here didn’t bring any clothes or anything.”
Without looking – without even raising his head – Matt could feel a series of eyeballs settling on him from multiple directions. Something like static electricity went coursing throughout his body, throwing what was left of his central nervous system into chaos.
With a Herculean effort, Matt was able to regain tentative control over his extremities, directing them to lead him out of the crowd and towards his assigned cabin. As he rounded the first corner, he looked back and saw the girl still laughing with her friend. A mental counter flipped over in his mind.
FRIENDS: 0 MORTAL ENEMIES: 1
Bunk 7 was a narrow, gusty hut covered over in a blue tarp, presumably to keep some of the more easily deterred elements out. There were three pairs of wobbly bunk beds along each of the longer walls and a single dirty window at the far end. Five of the beds had some sort of luggage on them. Matt chose an empty bed close to the window and lay down. He could literally feel every individual spring carving a paragraph into his back, but he was already committed to staying in the bed until the two weeks were over.
Soon after, a boy and his father entered the cabin. Matt closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.
“What a shithole!” said the boy, tossing his bag onto the closest bed.
“Shhh,” hissed the father, presumably motioning towards Matt’s prone body. “Language.”
“Seriously, this place is ass,” said the kid.
“It’s fine,” said the father. “It’s perfectly fine. So you behave yourself this week. If I get a call from one these counselors, I swear to God…”
“Why do I even need to be here?” said the kid. “Just leave me at home. I’ll be fine.”
The father laughed. “Yeah, right. Your mother and I need this vacation. You just listen to your counselors and keep your nose clean and we’ll see what we can do for you when we get back, alright?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
The father left shortly after. The kid stayed behind. Matt couldn’t help but notice that no one had said, “Goodbye” or “I love you.” He didn’t know that was even an option.
“Who are you?”
Matt continued pretending to sleep.
“Yo. Hey. I’m talking to you. What’s up?”
Matt opened his eyes. A thin, squared-headed boy with flame red hair and a jagged, white scar branching off from his bottom lip was standing over Matt’s bed.
“What’s your name?”
Matt’s name was right there in his head, sitting patiently, waiting to make an entrance. But just as it was standing up and dusting itself off, another thought had come tearing in from somewhere offscreen. It was Milo, Matt’s best friend, saying something important, saying…
“Camp’s great. Especially if you don’t know anybody. It’s like a license to be whoever. Be totally different, just to try it out.”
That thought immediately seemed silly and stupid and not like a thing Matt could ever do, but just as he was in the process of shouting the thought down, he opened his mouth and said, “Fernando.”
“Fernando?” said the redheaded boy. “Bullshit.”
Well, it was bullshit. So Matt shrugged. “Okay.”
The boy’s eyebrows piledrove each other into a capital V. “Your name’s Fernando?”
“I guess,” said Matt.
For reasons Matt would never work out, this was a very funny thing to say to the redheaded boy, who laughed so hard he stumbled backwards onto the adjacent bed.
“What’s your name?” said Matt, sitting up.
The redheaded boy considered this. It was clear he was trying to formulate his own “Fernando”.
“Luke Skywalker,” said the boy at last, though it was clear from his eyes that he was immediately disappointed with his choice.
“Hi Luke,” said Matt. “I don’t want to be here either.”
“Who does?” said Luke. “Come on. Let’s see if they have any food.”
They did have food, but it wasn’t going to be served for at least an hour. While Matt wanted nothing more than to retreat back to the relative safety of Bunk 7, Luke saw this as an opportunity to build a brand.
“Hi,” he said, sidling up to a pack of jean-shorted girls. “I’m Luke. This is my friend Fernando. He walked up from Mexico.”
The girls stared at Matt, their faces stony and dubious. He felt that familiar current of electric anxiety crawling up his back. His brain wisely engaged the autopilot.
“Hola,” he said. And the girls laughed.
They were off to the races.
Luke moved from freshly formed clique to freshly formed clique, introducing “Fernando” with details he seemed to come up with on the spot.
Poor Fernando, he only has one set of clothes.
Weep for Fernando, who works all day selling oranges on the highway.
Be kind to Fernando, who has left his wife and 28 children back home in Tijuana.
The distance between Matt and Fernando grew with every word of lazy, broken Spanish. It was a welcome distance. There was a thought – half-formed, but resonant – in the back of Matt’s brain. It said that Matt hadn’t dreaded camp so much as he had dreaded being Matt at camp. And maybe, the thought went on, that was the answer to everything.
Matt was leaning into his new trajectory, smiling more than he could ever remember doing, when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
“Finnigan, right?” said the counselor. He was tall and looked athletic. Matt gulped and nodded his head.
“Don’t stress,” said the counselor. “Name’s Hartman. Call me Liam. You want me to call you Fernando?”
Matt blanched. Liam laughed.
“Listen, the Fernando thing got up to one of the camp leaders and they’re worried it’s a little racist. That’s all. Personally, I think it’s funny, but just cool it down a little when we’re in full group settings, okay?”
Matt nodded, not quite ready to let out the breath he was holding in.
“Here,” said Liam, pressing something into Matt’s hands. “When they ask you, tell them I was checking your papers. Then tell them that you stole my wallet.” He laughed again, while Matt inspected the item in his hands. It was a wallet. Cash, ID, and everything. “You can slip it back to me later. It’ll be funny.”
Matt wasn’t actually sure how that was funny, but it was somehow. At least three boys clapped him on the back, while Luke rifled through the wallet.
“Ha!” squawked Luke. “Two condoms! I’m keeping these.”
One of the boys – Gerry, maybe – suggested that Luke ought to share one of the condoms with Fernando. It was a joke – just like everything else where Fernando was concerned. Fernando did have a dozen kids and change, after all. But Matt didn’t immediately see the joke and, he suspected, neither did Luke, because the redheaded boy looked at him, briefly, like you might look at a trained tiger. Luke considered Matt in a way that made the boy flinch. “No, no,” said Matt, waving his hands. “Jee-sus say no row-bers for me.”
They all roared so loud half the camp turned to look at them. For once, Matt welcomed the attention. Luke turned away to pocket the condoms. A girl in a yellow sweatshirt smiled at Matt.
But she wasn’t smiling at Matt, was she?
That night, Matt slept in a borrowed Camp Wabanaki t-shirt and his underwear. Somewhere in the dead, dark of night, a flashlight cracked on, the beam pointed directly into Matt’s face.
“Fernando,” hissed Luke, nudging Matt in the shoulder. “Get up. C’mon.”
Matt sat up in bed. “What? What’s happening?”
“C’mon,” said Luke. “We’re taking the boats out.”
While Matt didn’t want to go – didn’t want to break camp rules and get caught and have his parents find out – Fernando didn’t really have a choice in the matter. Attendance was mandatory for Fernando.
Back in his alarmingly stiff and fragrant clothes, Matt followed Luke out of the cabin and down to the lake, where four girls and two boys stood around awkwardly.
“The boats are chained,” whispered one of the boys. “We can’t get them down here.”
“Shit,” said Luke, pensively digging the butt end of the flashlight into his scalp. The wind whistled as it rushed in across the lake. The girls huddled together and shivered. “There’s houses and cabins further down the shore, right? Let’s check those out. I bet one of them has a boat we can use.”
One of the boys stepped back from the circle.
“Nah, no thanks” he said, shaking his head. That was right, Matt thought. That was the right answer. Stealing the camp boats was against the rules, but if they were caught it ended there. A stern lecture. A call home at worst. A manageable danger. Stealing a stranger’s property was something else entirely. It was criminal. It was a step beyond mischief into something far murkier.
“Alright, that’s cool,” said Luke, before adding in a loud whisper, “pussy.”
The boy heard and nodded, like it wasn’t anything. “Ok, sure. Whatever.” And Matt envied him that blitheness, even as he opened his own mouth and said, “El pussaro.”
Luke’s laugh was like birdsong. A yodeling, gulping caw that cracked and echoed.
“Let’s go.” They followed Luke. His red hair looked muddy-blue in the moonlight. Matt fantasized as they walked. I push Luke down and run. No. Luke gets scared and he runs and I stay back with the girls, the one in the pink shorts and the one with the long black hair. It’s just me and those two and they stand really close to me and they smell like strawberries and I put my hands on their hips and the girl with the long black hair brings her face up to mine, while the one with pink shorts presses her hips against me and… “Which one do you like?” Matt blinked. He realized Luke was talking to him. “Which girl? Abby’s got some nice tits, right?”
Matt looked back to see if anyone else was close enough to hear them. The girl in the pink shorts was only a few feet behind. Was that Abby, Matt wondered? And if so, did she think he was looking back to check if Luke was right about her breasts?
Matt cleared his throat and was suddenly aware of the pressing weight of the erection crouching just past his zipper. “I don’t know,” he mumbled. “You know where we’re going?”
“Around,” said Luke with a shrug. “Just keep the lake on the left and we’re fine.”
Soon after they came to a simple two-story house leading down to a shallow inlet, where a small floating dock lay tied to a crooked birch tree.
“Do you see anything?” asked Luke.
“No,” whispered Matt. Luke stepped through the trees, creeping down towards the water’s edge. “Hey,” hissed Matt. “Come on. They don’t have a boat.”
Luke spun around, flashing a brief middle finger. Down at the water, he grabbed the rope that bound the dock to the birch tree and unclasped the carabiner, kicking the dock out towards the center of the lake. He sprinted back to the trees, grinning madly.
“Fuck them for not having a boat,” he cackled.
One of the girls shook her head. “That was just…”
Just then, from inside the house came a burst of window-rattling barks. The family dog – a German Shepherd – was pressed against the glass of the living room window, howling furiously.
The campers scattered, Luke laughing, the girls screaming. They rushed into the cover of clustered trees and dropped into crouches.
“Anyone see us?” asked the boy.
“Where’s Amanda?” said one of the girls.
“Who gives a shit and who gives a shit?” said Luke.
“I think they’re going back to camp,” said Matt, who had seen a pair of girls holding hands as they raced back the way they’d all come. “They made a run for it.”
“It’s just a dog,” snarled Luke, waving them all to follow. “Why’s everyone such a pussy about everything?”
Together, the five remaining campers continued on cautiously through the wooded shoreline. Eventually they came to a small log cabin with a dock out front. Tied to the dock was an old, wooden boat.
“Jackpot!” said Luke.
“We’re really gonna steal their boat?” said one of the girls.
“We’ll bring it back,” said Luke, already sneaking down the dock to inspect his prize. “Too small for all of us,” he announced. “Fernando, me and you two.” He pointed at the two girls. “We’ll go first. Then we’ll come back and you’ll get a turn.”
The other boy scowled. “Seriously? You’re just going to leave me here. What if someone wakes up and notices their boat is missing?”
“Then go back to camp,” said Luke. “Whatever you want.”
Luke jumped into the boat, then offered his hand to the two girls.
“I can stay here with him,” said Matt. “Don’t want to overload the boat, you know?”
“Get in Fernando,” said Luke. “Let’s go.”
Matt did as he was told, taking a seat on the bow and gripping the gunwale with both hands. Luke picked up the oars and pushed away from the dock. In only a few short strokes they were away from the shore and drifting headfirst into the deeper darkness at the lake’s center. “We shouldn’t go too far,” said Matt, staring back at the dock.
“I agree,” said Luke, dropping the oars into the boat. “Wow. It’s so quiet and dark out here.” He picked up the flashlight and pointed it at the two girls sitting at the rear of the boat. “Bad place to…fall overboard!”
The girls shrieked as Luke began violently rocking the boat back and forth. Matt almost fell out himself.
“Don’t DO that!” said one of the girls.
“Yeah?” said Luke. “What’ll you give me to stop?”
Matt felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, just like it had on the airplane coming up, when they’d run into heavy turbulence.
“What?” said one of the girls, a brunette with thick eyebrows and a crooked mouth.
“Drop your pants,” said Luke. “Let me see what’s under there and we won’t throw you into the lake.”
And again, Matt felt his insides buckle at the use of the word “we.”
“That’s not cool,” mumbled Matt. But he wasn’t Matt. He was Fernando. Did Fernando care what Luke did?
“Just a quick flash,” said Luke. “We won’t tell anyone.”
“That’s disgusting,” said the other girl, another brunette with tan-soaked freckles and braces hiding behind a mouth that rarely smiled.
Luke responded by shaking the boat again. Both girls screamed.
“Knock it off!” said Crooked Mouth.
“Just a peek,” said Luke, shaking the boat again.
“Stop!” said Braces. She stood up slowly. “Don’t shake it again, okay? I’ll do it.”
“Mel!” said the other girl. But Mel already had her shorts down to her knees, revealing a curved T of white fabric. She yanked the shorts back up. “There! Now let’s go back.”
“Not yet,” said Luke. “Let Fernando touch it.”
The girls finally looked at Matt, as if he had been a prop this whole time, a bit of window dressing and not something to notice or take account of. And while Matt had been doing his best to hold to the delusion that he was more like those girls than he was like Luke – that he was a victim, that he was blameless – that lie couldn’t survive the withering heat of the girls’ reproachful glares.
Fernando, after all, was more Luke’s progeny than Matt’s. Playing the role meant being the Fernando that Luke had fashioned. And Luke was an asshole.
In other words, Matt was Fernando and Fernando was just as hideous as Luke. Just as rotten. Just as small and unkind.
It was a realization Matt wasn’t equipped to handle. So he didn’t. He got off the boat instead. In the water he could hear their voices, calling out to him, telling him to come back. But Matt could only bring himself to run. So he swam, as straight and as strong as he could. Behind him two oars crashed through the water as a flashlight’s pale, blue beam swept across the rippling black glass, but he just kept going.
When his hand grazed against sand and rock he pulled himself to his feet and climbed up the bank. By some miracle of dumb luck, he’d come to shore near the camp. Through the trees he could just make out the electric lights above the bank of showers at the edge of the camp. He thought he might be able to steal some towels and get himself at least a little dry before the morning came.
However, as he approached the showers, he thought he heard something like a dull clanging. Rubber against hollow metal. He paused in the deeper shadows. There was a voice. He was sure of it. Something low and urgent.
The door to the shower room swung open. A tall, teenaged boy stepped out, nervously fussing with his limp hair. It was Liam. Matt nearly called out to him. They’d shared a moment, after all. Maybe Liam would understand. Maybe he could help.
But Matt couldn’t manage to get to his feet or open his mouth, and soon Liam disappeared into the camp.
Matt darted inside the shower room. Rows of empty, musky stalls led to an unlocked metal door. Beyond that was the laundry room. Matt was too afraid to switch on the light, so he crept forward cautiously, guided by the small amount of moonlight spilling through an open air vent near the ceiling. He had just reached a canvas bin full of dry towels when he realized he was not alone in the room.
Someone was on the floor near the washing machines. In the near darkness, it looked terrifyingly like a dead body, but as Matt moved closer he could see they were breathing. The urge to panic and flee was momentarily overwhelming, but Matt steadied himself and dropped to his knees. “Hey. Are you okay?”
The body whipped around, startled. “Oh god, why are you here?”
It was the counselor from earlier. Mortal Enemy #1. Owl Eyes.
“Are you okay?” repeated Matt.
She wasn’t and it was obvious, even to Matt, to whom few things ever seemed obvious.
“Why are you out of bed?” she asked. Her eyes were damp and looked bloodshot, even in the dim light. She tugged at her clothes, pulling her shorts and shirt straight.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” said the girl, raising her knees up to her chest. “Go back to bed.”
“I fell in the lake,” said Matt. The girl looked down at the water dripping off the ends of Matt’s clothes and started to laugh. The laughter was deep and ringing and dissolved into sobbing almost immediately.
Feeling at once stupid, pathetic, and useless, Matt slid forward to sit side by side with the girl. He let her cry. Then, when the crying seemed to have ebbed, he said, “My Grandma once told me that she thought people weren’t meant to be happy. That trying to be happy’s a waste and we should let ourselves be whatever we are.” It was the only meaningful thing he could think to say and he knew at once that it was the wrong thing to say.
“Your Grandma sounds miserable,” said the girl, smiling just a little.
“You know, you almost made me shit myself,” said Matt. This time she laughed longer and didn’t cry at the end.
“What happened?” said Matt when the laughter had ended.
But the girl instead stood up, pulling Matt to his feet. “Grab some towels. Go to a stall and strip, then bring me your clothes. I’ll dry them.”
Matt did as he was told. They didn’t say anything else for the 30 minutes it took Matt’s clothes to get dry.
“I didn’t see you, you didn’t see me,” said the girl, handing Matt his clothes.
“Right.”
The next morning at breakfast, Luke slapped Matt on the back before plunking down next to him on the bench. Matt flinched. Not at the hard slap, but at Luke’s chumminess. Nothing had changed. He hadn’t lost his problems in the lake. They weren’t those kinds of problems.
“I can’t believe you jumped out of the boat,” he whispered. “Fernando, you’re the king of this place! I’m working on something for tonight. I think we’re gonna touch some tits!” Across the dining hall, Liam and the girl with the owl glasses sat side by side at the counselor’s table. Matt could see their hands clasped below the table.
“You excited, Fernando?”
Matt cut into his waffle. “I guess.”
It wasn’t meant to be a joke, but Luke howled and howled, while Matt closed his eyes and slowly chewed his food.
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