Page 70 of The Last Time I Lied

“Because, at the time, I didn’t think it was.” Theo pauses, rubbing the salt-and-pepper stubble on his chin until he can summon the right words. “But I was flattered. And I want you to know that, had you been older, I probably would have kissed you back.”

The same boldness I had felt in that diner returns out of nowhere. I think it might be the sunglasses. I feel different with them on. More direct. Less afraid.

I feel, I realize, like Vivian.

“And now?” I say.

Theo steers the truck to its spot behind the arts and crafts building. As it shudders to a stop, he says, “What about now?”

“I’m older. If I kissed you now, would you kiss me back?”

A grin spreads across Theo’s face, and for a split second it’s like we’ve been shuttled back in time, all those intervening years yet to be experienced. He’s nineteen and the most handsome man I’d ever seen in my life. I’m thirteen and smitten, and every glimpse of him makes my heart explode into a flock of butterflies.

“You’ll have to try it again sometime and see for yourself,” he says.

I want to. Especially when he glances my way, a flirty glint in his eyes, that grin spreading wider until his lips part, practically begging to be kissed. It’s enough to make me lean across the pickup’s bench seat and do just that. Instead, I step out of the car and say, “That’s probably not the best idea.”

Theo—and the prospect of kissing him—is a distraction. And now that I’m inching closer to learning what Vivian was looking for, I can’t be distracted.

Not by Theo.

Not by what I did to him.

And especially not by the lies both of us have told but aren’t yet brave enough to admit.

22

That evening, the girls and I eat dinner at a picnic table outside the mess hall. The whole camp is still buzzing about the paint on the door. Liargate is what they’re calling it, giving the incident the proper ring of scandal. I assume Casey, Becca, and the other instructors are also talking about it, which is why I’m fine with dining outdoors. I’m in no mood for their gossip.

“Where did you go this afternoon?” Sasha asks me.

“Into town.”

“Why?”

“Why do you think?” Miranda snaps. “She did it to get away from this place.”

Sasha swats at a fly buzzing around her tray of gray meat loaf and lumpy mashed potatoes. “Do you think one of the campers did it?”

“It sure wasn’t one of the counselors,” Krystal says.

“Some of the girls are saying you did it,” Sasha tells me.

“Well, they’re wrong,” I say.

Across the picnic table, Miranda’s face hardens. For a second, I think she’s going to storm into the mess hall and punch the offending campers. She certainly looks ready for a fight.

“Why would Emma paintliaracross our door?”

“Why would anyone do it?” Sasha asks.

Miranda answers before I get the chance, giving an answer farmore pointed than mine. “Because some girls,” she says, “are just basic bitches.”

After dinner, I present them with their disposable chargers. “For emergencies only,” I say, even though I know all that extended battery life will be wasted on Snapchat, Candy Crush, and Krystal’s beloved superhero movies. Still, it puts the girls in a good mood as we head off to the nightly campfire. They deserve it after what they’ve endured today.

The fire pit is located on the outskirts of camp, as far away from the cabins as the property will allow. It sits in a round meadow that looks carved from the forest like a crop circle. In its center is the fire pit itself—a circle within the circle ringed by rocks hauled out of the woods and arranged there almost a century ago. The fire is already burning when we arrive, the engulfed logs placed in an upright triangle, like a teepee.

The four of us sit together on one of the sagging benches placed near the blaze. We roast marshmallows on twigs whittled to sharpness by Chet’s Swiss Army knife, the handles sticky, the tips crusted and charred.

---