Page 21 of Kiss and Tell
But that third summer…I didn’t know if I wanted to puke, run away, or jump on Sawyer and kiss his face off. The urge to do the last one was so overwhelming, I wasn’t sure I could fight it, which is why I wanted to escape to the safety of my cabin before I had to face him.
I needed time to pull myself together. Because even though I couldn’t name my feelings—I wasn’t sure yet what they were—I could feel them written all over my face.
Grace dropped me off, and I got first dibs in the counselor cabin, dropping my stuff on the back corner bunk. I sat and gave myself a pep talk about being normal when Sawyer got to camp.
You can do this, Tab. You are twenty, not a baby.But every time I imagined seeing him again, I felt like I was coming out of my skin. And to have that happen at Camp Oak Crest? The one place in the world where I’d always felt so completely me? To feel like I was a canoe bobbing on the lake, no paddles, no pilot?
I didn’t like it.
I tensed at the sound of every slamming car door in the distance. Any minute now it could be Natalie arriving, wanting to know what I was going to do about Sawyer, and Ididn’t freaking know.It could be Sawyer arriving, wondering the same thing.
Another car door slammed, and I jumped, then pressed my lips together to keep in a frustrated grunt. I poked my head out of the cabin, and when I verified it wasn’t the Rust Bucket, I decided enough was enough.
Time to take control of this situation. I needed to set the terms for seeing Sawyer. I needed the upper hand when I saw Sawyer, or I wouldn’t be able to shake the coming-out-of-my-skin feeling.
I jogged over to the office.
“Hey, Tabitha. Welcome back,” Director Warren said when I walked in. He was a nice guy with an unfortunate ferret-y mouth and nose. Slightly too small eyes. A bristly moustache. His voice even had a tendency to squeak when he got excited. But he was fair, and the counselors liked him.
“Hey, Director Warren,” I said. “When is the next shuttle due from Roanoke?”
He smiled and glanced at his watch. “Anxious to see your friends?”
Anxious was putting it mildly. “You know it. Always feels like forever.”
“About forty-five minutes,” he said.
“Great,” I said, already backing out. Nothing put people—even me—off-balance like a prank. I brainstormed and dismissed several. They were either too elaborate to pull off in a very short time, or too broad to really throw Sawyer off.
I needed something specific, something that would push his buttons specifically. Something that would discombobulate him and bring him down to my level.
Finally, I thought of a plan, but I was going to have to work fast. I stood on the stump next to the office, the only place to get cell reception reliably—and called Grace. “I need you to turn around and come back.”
“What? No. I’m already on the highway.”
“Come back right now or I’ll tell Mom you answered your phone while you were driving.”
“You suck.”
“See you in a few.” I didn’t feel guilty. I had a vision, and Grace would fall in line.
When she turned into the parking lot fifteen minutes later, I was waiting for her with an armful of bed linens and a soccer ball.
“What’s going on?” she demanded.
“I’m starting the prank game early.”
Her face wavered, like she was torn between protesting…and there it was: her smile won out. “Okay, what’s the plan?”
“I need to get Sawyer. Let’s start driving and I’ll explain along the way.” I was already climbing into the passenger seat.
“Spill,” she said as she pulled onto the highway.
“Ben is terrified of bears. Natalie hates small spaces. I have my shark thing—”
“Which is so stupid,” she interrupted. “You never have to go in a shark’s house if you don’t want to.”
“Shut up,” I said crankily because she was right. “Sawyer’s thing is ghosts.” It took me a while to figure it out. The whole first summer, I would have sworn he had no phobias at all.
