You Have a Match(40)

I tuck it into the baggy pocket of my shorts, a crunch in my side and a warmth in my chest.

“Now that’s true friendship,” says Mickey.

She and Savvy head over to the drink station to fill up their water cups, and Leo turns to me with a conspiratorial smile. “Speaking of,” he says, “seems like you and Savvy had a chance to talk things out, sister to sister?”

I brace myself for commentary from Finn, but he’s distracted, watching Victoria talk to the other girls from Phoenix Cabin the table over.

“More like … sister adjacent,” I say, waving it off. I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, because it’s a little embarrassing that half the camp knows about our spat in the first place. “And yeah. We’re chill.”

“I’m glad,” says Leo.

He takes one of my hands in both of his, spreading my palm out. Only then do I realize my hand is still kind of wrinkly from all the dishes Finn and I did this morning. I start to pull it back, self-conscious, but then Leo skims the tips of his fingers over my palm, the skin so sensitive that it feels like every nerve is burning for him.

Some vital part of my brain abandons me, and I’m spreading my fingers out and weaving them between his. He doesn’t stop me, the teasing smile faltering on his face, giving way to something that must already be on mine.

Our eyes meet, long enough for me to see something I’m not sure I want to—resignation. He squeezes my hand and lets go, and we try to laugh it off. I scramble for what to say next, anything to absorb the awkwardness of what I just did, but it turns out, I don’t need to bother.

“Abby, hi,” says Victoria, sitting so unexpectedly that I jump in my chair like someone set a firework under it. She doesn’t miss a beat, leaning in and propping her elbows on the table in the chummy way adults do right before they ruin your life. Case in point: “One of the counselors went through parent emails and just informed me that we were able to correct the SAT prep rosters. We’ve enrolled you and the other girls in Phoenix Cabin back in the appropriate session. So sorry for the confusion.”

The disappointment is so immediate that it feels like someone dropped an anchor on my stomach. I don’t even have it in me to be surprised.

“Oh,” I manage.

She pats the table. “Don’t worry. Yesterday’s session was mostly introductory, so there won’t be much to catch up on. You girls can report to the academic building directly after breakfast.”

Victoria leaves as abruptly as she came, and I suck in the resigned, heavy breath of the academically damned. I know I deserve this, after lying to my parents about summer school and dodging the prep classes in the first place. But I cut a glance at Jemmy and Cam and Izzy, who look every bit as bummed as I do, and feel a separate wave of guilt, as if this is somehow my fault.

And it occurs to me. This is my fault.

“Yowza,” says Leo. “Busted.”

He’s smiling sheepishly, trying to come up with something to cheer me up. Usually he can. But usually I am not preoccupied scanning a cafeteria for a bobbing ponytail with laser eyes set to murder.

“Look, the sessions are what, five hours a day? You’ll still have plenty of time to meet up with Savvy and—”

“The only thing I’m doing with Savvy is going back in time and smacking myself in the face before I agreed to come with her in the first place.”

Leo blinks. “Uh, I’m not following.”

I’m seething, looking for a place to channel my rage, but I can’t find her anywhere.

“And besides, that’s not how time travel works,” says Leo, evidently deciding to distract me from said rage with another deep dive into explaining the linearity of time and the possibilities of creating multiverses. I wonder if I can hop into any in which I am marginally less of an idiot. “If you could time travel, future you would have already gone back and—”

“Warned me that Savvy was a backstabber and ratted me and the other girls out to get revenge?”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do,” I insist. “Remember last night?”

Leo’s face softens. “Yeah?”

I plow on, ignoring the little tweak in my heart. “Savvy was on the phone, saying she was ‘going through parent emails to the camp staff.’”

Plus, Victoria “just” found out. Which can only mean Savvy just told her.

“I’m sure she wasn’t trying to—”

“Shit. That sucks,” says Finn, who ghosted when Victoria showed up, but was apparently close enough to hear the proceedings. He takes a slurp from his juice. “So what are we doing to get back at her?”

Leo pauses in the middle of plucking a banana slice off my plate. I watch his hand linger there, wavering in this moment, Leo on my right and Finn on my left like an angel and a devil on my shoulder.

“I’m fresh out of ideas after last night’s stroke of genius, but we could brainstorm. I know a place where nobody will bother us,” Finn goes on. “You know that trail by the tennis courts?”

I nod slowly, and Leo goes still beside me.

“Go down it a ways. There’s a big old rock there where people meet up sometimes. Great view at the top, too,” Finn says with a wink, nodding down at Kitty, who’s propped in her case on the table. “Told you I could get you the best shots. Have I steered you wrong yet?”