Page 78 of The Last Session

“Over there.” I pointed to the far end of the pavilion. “The others too.”

At a nod from Moon, the three of them backed away.

“Thea.” Moon pulled me in and down so that our foreheads were nearly touching. “We’re going to enter the memory. Where are you? What’s going on?”

I stared at Sol and Grace, standing side by side. They were holding hands. The image brought tears to my eyes.

“It was an accident,” I said softly.

Trees grew in the space around us, stretching high above. It was a clear night, stars glinting overhead. I’d run away from the group, from the campfire, where Adam had taunted me in front of everyone. Where Mrs. Iona, our teacher, had as usual pretended not to hear.

Melissa, by this time 80 percent into Ashley’s group, had also heard. She hadn’t laughed like Ashley and the other girls. But she’d still smiled mechanically, staring at the ground.

I took off, jogging into the darkness. I felt a desperate need to find Pastor John, the one person in my life who actually gave a shit about me. I couldn’t tell him that the taunts were about me and him together,but just seeing him, just seeing him seeme, would ease this horrible twisting feeling in my gut.

He and Jamie were staying in the main building, like all the adults, while we students were in cabins scattered around the campground. This was the end-of-eighth-grade graduation trip that everyone talked about since the start of junior high.

I burst through the front door and looked for #4.

Wasn’t that interesting, that he’d given me his room number? Told me to come find him if I needed him?

Of course I hadn’t planned to actually take him up on this offer. But Melissa spurning me at the campfire had broken the fragile arch holding everything up.

Ididneed him.

I raced through the hall, past the cheap faux-wooden siding and crookedly hung deer antlers and pulled at the door of #4, forgetting in my desperation to knock…

This was the part that burned to recall, that lived behind a wall in the back of my mind.

Why hadn’t they locked the door? If so, it never would’ve happened. But they’d forgotten. Or maybe they liked the risk. Whatever the case, what I’d seen had momentarily baffled me. They were on the floor, and the view of their naked bodies was like the late-night channel I’d come across while babysitting at a neighbor’s house.

They turned to me. Jamie’s nipples were pinker and larger than the woman I’d seen on TV. She shrieked, trying to pull the edge of the rug over her. He’d pulled back from her—out of her—and I stared at his erect penis, which he quickly covered with one hand.

I was momentarily stunned: Hadn’t he just told me they weren’t having sex? How was I seeing what I was seeing?

He was shouting something, and finally I tuned in.

“SHUT THE DOOR!”

I closed it.

My chest, my stomach, everything was churning, and I could barely get a breath. I just stood there for a moment, immobile. And then I heard it: a laugh.

Jamie waslaughing.

Woodenly, I turned and walked down the hallway. Out the front door.

“Hey.” Someone was walking up out of the darkness with a flashlight.

It was Adam.

“What?” I managed to say.

He pointed the beam at me, and I threw my hands in front of my eyes. “Damn, Thea. Did you tell on me? Did you run to your boyfriend and tell him what an evil sack of shit I am?”

“No.”

“Oh. Okay. Good.” He paused. “I was just kidding, you know.”

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