Page 70 of Until Next Summer

“What do you want, then?” My heart aches; just yesterday, she implied that I’ve run this place into the ground.

“We have a new idea,” she says. “An idea to save the camp.”

I squint at her. “You…what?”

“Can I come in? I’ll explain everything.”

I’m not sure I can trust her. But curiosity wins out, and I open the door. “Fine.”

—

In the little sitting room off my bedroom, I turn on a lamp. Cooper leaves, saying he wants to give us a chance to talk, and I wish he’d stayed as a buffer. The hurt from Hillary’s words feels like a raw, tangled coil in my stomach. She has on a tie-dyed Camp Chickawah shirt, and the immature, petty side of me wants to tell her to take it off. That she doesn’t deserve to wear it anymore.

“I’m so sorry about what I said,” Hillary says. Her face is pale and earnest. “That’s the first thing I want—”

“It’s fine,” I cut in, not because it’s true, but because I don’t want to hear apologies from her. There’s no point anymore.

“It’s not,” she says. “I was overwhelmed and sad, and I was venting to Cooper, but I went overboard and said some things I didn’t mean.”

I appreciate the apology, but my frustration bubbles over. “You made it sound like it’s my fault this camp is failing! I’ve done my best, Hill. Jack Valentine has held the purse strings ever since Nathaniel and Lola passed away—it’s not like I had the freedom to make any big changes.”

“I know,” she says. “I’m sorry, and I know how much this place means to you—”

“You said I was tooemotionally invested,” I say, my throat tightening.

Her eyes fill with regret. “Only because I’ve spent the last twelve years trying toneverget emotionally invested in anything—my dad raised me to believe that’s a weakness.” She shakes her head. “But honestly? I envy you.”

“Me?”

“You’ve always known exactly what you want to do, who you want to be, and you made it happen. Meanwhile, I’ve always done what was expected of me.” She runs a hand through her hair, then glances up at me. “Like when I bailed on our plan to be counselors together.”

The old feelings—resentment, confusion, despair—are pummeling me, and I automatically try to stuff them down. But then I remember my conversation with Luke.

She’s leaving anyway. How can it hurt to be honest with her?

“That broke my heart, Hill.” My voice sounds tiny, mournful. “It wasn’t the same without you.”

Her face softens. “I know. I spent the whole summer wishing I was here.”

“Then why did you take that internship?”

“My dad said it was time to stop ‘playing’ and start focusing on my future. I couldn’t handle disappointing him.” She winces. “Only, I ended up disappointing you. And myself, too.”

The tightness in my stomach eases, just a fraction. “It felt like you never cared about me as much as I cared about you.”

“I cared about you so much. I’ve never had a friend like you, Jessie. Not before and not since.”

“So why didn’t you reach out?” My voice is rough; this part is the hardest to say. Remembering how I kept expecting her to email or call—maybe even show up one day in person to explain. But she never did. As if I didn’t matter to her. As if all our memories, our entire friendship since we were eight years old, meant nothing. I’d never felt so abandoned.

“I—” She shrugs helplessly. “I thought about calling you, but the summer started, and you were at camp, so I thought about writing you a letter, but then I got busy with the internship, and time kept passing…” She looks down at her lap, shakes her head. “I was ashamed of myself, Jessie. I didn’t think you’d forgive me.”

“I would have,” I say immediately. “Even if we weren’t counselors together, we didn’t have to stop beingfriends. But you vanished from my life, Hilly! I didn’t know how to handle that.”

She looks up, her cheeks flushed with those familiar redpatches. “I messed up. I know I did. But all you said in your reply was ‘It’s fine.’ What was I supposed to do with that? I didn’t know if you even wanted to hear from me again.” Eyes fixed on mine, she says, “You could have reached out, too.”

The words hit me in the stomach, hard.

All these years, I’ve blamed her—and yes, she was the one who backed out on our plans—but she’s right. Luke’s called me out on my habit of saying “It’s fine” instead of communicating.

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