It’s talent show practice night, which means chaos is performing live and off-key.
The amphitheater looks like someone tossed a costume closet into a tornado. One kid’s wearing two different tap shoes. Another has a plastic sword duct-taped to a fishing rod. There’s a line of campers waiting to scream-sing sea shanties, and in the middle of it all is Alice—clutching her clipboard like it’s a flotation device and she’s lost at sea.
She’s mouthing words to herself, quietly panicking in rhythm.
I hop up onto the stage. “Coach Rivers, status report?”
She startles. “Three missing. One in tears. Two arguing about spotlight cues. And Nolan is... attempting to breathe fire again.”
I glance toward the curtain.
Yep. Singed.
I lean in. “I mean, to be fair, it’s pretty impressive for a twelve-year-old.”
Alice doesn’t smile this time.
She exhales. Long. Measured.
“Do you ever just... feel like you’re about to snap and nobody notices?”
My teasing fades.
I take a step closer. “I notice.”
She blinks.
And for a second, the noise fades. The curtain, the kids, the clutter. It’s just her—tired and overwhelmed and still holding the whole damn thing together by threads.
“Want me to take over for five minutes?” I ask. “I’ll tell ‘em the slug poem won the talent show early and cancel the rest.”
That gets a flicker of amusement. “You’d really lie to save my sanity?”
“Absolutely.”
“And you didn’t?”
Her voice lowers. “I can’t screw this up.”
I don’t know what I’m doing.
But I reach out. Not to take the clipboard. Just to rest a hand on her arm.
“You won’t.”
Alice stares at my hand. Doesn’t pull away. Just breathes.
And then, slowly, she nods.
The show rehearsal ends like a runaway train that somehow lands upright.
We corral the kids back to their bunks—sticky, glittery, exhausted. I promise Nolan I’ll personally guard his tiny cardboard dragon wings with my life. He tells me they’re “theatrically essential.” I salute him.
Once they’re gone, Alice and I collapse side by side in the grass just behind the stage. She lays back, staring up at the early stars. Her breath still comes a little fast.
I prop myself up on an elbow, watching her.
“You okay?” I ask.