You Have a Match(86)

I pan out to the grid and see dozens of them—a photo from on top of the Wishing Tree. Another of the sunset gleaming through the crack in a rickety old bench nobody uses anymore. Another I took when Mickey, Leo, Finn, and I were wandering around after dinner, of the embers of one of the campfires blowing in the wind.

There are none of the goofier, spontaneous ones I took of Rufus, or the other girls in my cabin, or the staged ones we took for their Instagrams. Leo went through with a careful eye, picking the exact ones I would have chosen myself—maybe even chose better than I would have. A photo of the mismatched kayaks all lined up at the shore in their yellows, blues, and reds that I dismissed as soon as I took it has more likes than anything in the last three weeks.

If that’s staggering, the amount of DMs flagged in my inbox is enough to knock me off my feet. I tap on them, hit by a wall of everything from why no people in your feed, girly? bet ur a stunner to omg!! how can i BE you to one that I click on too fast to process, so fast that I have to read it three times before I can even begin to let it sink in.

Hello Abby,

I hope this DM finds you well—we couldn’t find an email for you. We work with a scholarship program through Adventure Lens, and we’re sponsoring teen travel photographers to go on short trips and take photos as wildlife ambassadors. It’s for graduating seniors. I wasn’t sure if you qualified this summer or the upcoming summer, but either way we’d love for you to consider the opportunity. The travel dates are flexible, and all expenses are paid, with the expectation that your photos are used as a part of our campaigns that subsequent year and featured on your personal Instagram. Please let me know if you’d like to hear more details!

I click out of it, breathing hard, pressing the phone between my hand and the floor as if something is going to leap out of it. I had no idea. I had no idea. All this time Leo hasn’t been keeping my photos safe—he’s been building them a home.

My eyes squeeze shut, but it’s like the grid of photos is tattooed to the inside of my eyelids. Every single one of them carefully plucked, posted, and hashtagged. A little ritual Leo must have committed himself to, one he kept up even when we weren’t keeping up with ourselves. Like these posts aren’t just posts, but messages that mean something—I’m sorry, or I’m still here, or maybe even the hope for something more that swallows all of them, even now.

I can’t reach him tonight. He won’t pick up the phone, and it’s too dark to sneak back to camp. Tomorrow I may get a chance before I leave, but if I don’t—he has to know the truth. And I know exactly how I can make him.

My dad’s computer is still out on the table. I upload the memory card on Poppy’s camera, pulling up all the photos. It only takes a moment to find the one I need. It’s the first time I’ve seen it at full resolution, the first time I’ve really been able to look at it, but even in that split second I know it’s more precious to me than any photo that’s come before.

I hit “Share” and close it before I can see reactions come in. I fall asleep with the phone in my good hand, willing him to see it and hoping he sees the same things I do when he does.





thirty-five




I wake up the next morning to my wrist throbbing and three missed calls from Connie. I rub my eyes, aware my parents have long been up and gone in search of breakfast from the way the light is hitting the window. It’s probably the latest I’ve slept in years.

My parents left a glass of water and some ibuprofen on the coffee table. I chug some immediately, and before I can overthink it or chicken out, call Connie back.

She picks up on the first ring and speaks before it’s even over.

“I’m sorry. I mean, you know that, but I’m going to start with that and end with that, and possibly say it into perpetuity.”

I close my eyes, trying to acclimate my brain to what’s happening.

“I just—the whole thing was—so dumb. I really didn’t think it was gonna, like, be a whole thing, you know? Or maybe that’s it. I was worried it was gonna be a thing, and either you’d both leave me behind, or you’d have some big messy breakup and the whole thing would get ruined and I’d have to pick a side, and shit, Abby. I love you both so much.”

I open my eyes again. “So you … you told me Leo didn’t like me.”

“Yeah. But what you don’t know is … after, you were so relieved about it … I told Leo you didn’t like him.”

“Hold up. One sec. Sorry. I just woke up, so I don’t … really know what’s happening.” I take another swig of water and see that there’s a banana, too. I rip it open as if I didn’t eat my weight in Thai food last night, hoping it will make the ibuprofen work its magic faster.

Then my eyes snap fully open. “You told him what?”

“You’re pissed.”

My mouth is too full of banana to allow me to be much of anything. Or maybe it’s that, when I try to summon the anger I’ve felt since figuring out what she did, I can’t find it. If it’s there it feels like the smoke it left behind, something too thin to hold on to.

“Kinda.”

Connie’s not crying, but her voice is at that specific decibel it gets just before she starts. “I ruined everything, haven’t I?”