You Have a Match(58)
The word tastes like metal on my tongue, but there’s nothing else to say.
“Okay.”
twenty-three
Somehow, against all odds, I am setting foot back in Camp Reynolds before lunch the next day. It’s such a relief I could prostrate myself in front of the academic building and kiss the mud. It is also such a disappointment that instead I stand in the parking lot, watching my parents drive away, my guilt mounting more and more with every turn of the minivan’s wheels.
“She lives!”
I’m entirely too exhausted for Finn and his boundless energy, and judging by the visible bags under his eyes, he is, too.
“I thought you were straight-up murdered. I was going to start spreading rumors. Make you the next Gaby, find you a decent tree to haunt—”
“Is Savvy here?”
“She got in last night. Had to report back for duty and all. You’re the talk of the camp, you know,” Finn tells me. “Phoenix Cabin thought you’d gotten lost in the woods; they were about to start a search party. I swear Leo looked like he was going to cry—”
“I texted him from my mom’s phone—didn’t he get it?”
“Well, yeah. But we thought you’d be back by dinner. He was convinced you’d been kidnapped or eaten by a rabid animal or something.”
Crap. We were supposed to have dinner and talk. Twenty-four hours ago it would have been so burned into my brain I wouldn’t have been able to think of anything else. Now I’ve gone and made yet another bad situation worse.
“So what happened?” Finn asks. “Are you—”
“Abby!”
Savvy looks stunned to see me, breaking away from the other junior counselors so abruptly that they all look like a fellow migrating bird just threw off their formation. From a distance she looks like her usual camera-ready self, but once she gets up close she looks every bit as exhausted as I feel, her eyes rimmed red and her perfect posture off a few degrees.
“You’re here?”
“I’m as shocked as you are.”
“What happened?” Finn asks again, his eyes darting between us. “Did we solve the mystery? Were you secretly split from the same egg the whole time, a genetic experiment gone wrong, the cover-up botched—”
Rufus interrupts by clobbering me with his usual muddy overexuberance, right as Savvy says, “Meet me after lunch?”
“Yeah,” Finn and I say at the same time.
Savvy raises her eyebrows at him.
“Ugh, fine,” says Finn. “I’ll go find a secret sister of my own.”
The instant Savvy and I are somewhat alone, we spill everything we know, comparing notes. My parents’ and her parents’ stories line up perfectly. They told Savvy about not being able to have kids, and a friend of theirs being in a position where they needed to put their baby up for adoption. Neither story goes any further than that.
“I tried to find out, but my mom got really upset,” says Savvy, shifting uncomfortably.
“You’re telling me.”
“I wonder…” Savvy shakes her head. “What made your parents change their minds about letting you stay?”
“I’m not sure.”
But maybe I am. It could be the SAT thing, but it could also be that they just woke up this morning and decided it was easier not to deal with me than to spend another two weeks fielding questions. Easier not to walk around the house with a living, breathing reminder that what happened eighteen years ago is out in the open, pushing at the edges of the world they’ve built since. I’m not just their problem kid anymore. I’m a time bomb.
The one thing I know for sure is that it’s not my photography. Nobody even tried to access the Dropbox of my photos last night. It should be a relief, but if it is, it sinks way lower than any kind I’ve felt before.
“I wish we knew what made them hate each other so much,” says Savvy.
“I just wish we could fix it.”
“Savvy, have you seen Amelia?”
We both jump, but Victoria seems unfazed.
“Uh … she was in the mess hall,” says Savvy. “Why? Is there anything I can help with?”
Victoria sighs. “There’s some problem with the dock. No ferries in or out since this morning. So now the teacher for AP Lit Prep isn’t here, and I need Amelia to sub in until they get things up and running. Let her know to come find me if you see her.”
“Absolutely.”
The moment she leaves, our eyes snap to each other’s: our parents are all still here.
Savvy’s eyes light up with sudden mischief so familiar to me that I might as well be back home, playing referee between my brothers as they pummel one another with plastic lightsabers and Silly String.
“I’ve got an idea.”
twenty-four
I have done some pretty stupid things in my life, but this plan of Savvy’s—Savvy, the responsible one—might be the stupidest thing I’ve done yet.
In fact, plan is a generous word. She wants us to go out and find our parents, and by our parents, I mean each other’s parents. As in I am walking through the woods, one pair of binoculars away from getting labeled as a certified stalker, because Savvy is sure I’ll find Dale and Pietra on this specific trail. Meanwhile, Savvy is using her one break during the day to hitch a ride with one of the morning teachers up to the little stretch of town.