Things I Can't Forget (4 page)

“Judgmental,” Parker says, staring me down. Will squeezes his eyes closed.

Emily said the same thing about me. That’s why we got into the fight. That’s why I haven’t talked to her in three weeks. In the past, people at school would call us Jesus Freaks, and Emily always told me not to worry, that they were raised differently than us. And I believed her—until she called me judgmental and said that church isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Why do Emily and Parker, who were both raised in the church right alongside me, think so differently now? What changed?

Was I supposed to have changed?

Is that why I’ve never had a real boyfriend?

“Judgmental?” I say softly. “Really?” I add, even more softly.

“Really,” Parker exclaims. “Like last year.”

“What do you mean?”

“When my mom left my dad for another woman last year, you weren’t supportive at all.”

I take a step back.

She goes on, “You acted like I didn’t exist when I needed friends more than anything.”

I open my mouth to argue, then close it. She’s right. Brother John always said if you associate with people who sin, there’s a good chance you’ll sin too. So I steered clear of Parker, because after her mom left, she started hooking up with lots of guys at school and supposedly she seduced a teacher. Who does that?

That line of thinking didn’t do me much good, though—I ended up helping Emily do something so, so wrong. I did it because I love her.

“I forgive you,” Parker continues. “But that doesn’t mean I have to spend time with you.” She turns on her heels and marches toward Dogwood.

Will gives me a shrug. “Night, I guess.”

Then he follows her and I’m left standing in the middle of the trail, surrounded by drooping branches and darkness.

•••

That night, I sleep alone in Cardinal, with only the whir of a box fan to keep me company. The fan blows warm air across my shaking body. Tears coat my cheeks and no matter how much I try to empty my mind, all I can think about is what I did to Emily’s baby. Emily’s baby, and what Emily and Parker said about me being judgmental.

I’m not happy, and I’m making everyone around me miserable. If I don’t figure my life out, the loneliness will continue into college. Into forever? What if I never have a best friend again?

What’s going on in Dogwood right now? If I were in there, would Matt be sleeping in the bed next to mine? What does he wear to bed? Pajamas? A T-shirt and shorts? Only boxers?

I shake those thoughts out of my mind and clutch my pillow.

I’ve tried to live a good Christian life. I follow the Bible to a T. I listen to everything Brother John says. I’m trying harder than ever and it just isn’t working. This is not the sign I was looking for.

I’m a good, good girl.

A good, good girl who’s got no friends.

A good, good girl who helped her ex-friend get an abortion.

I don’t deserve any friends.

I focus on the humming box fan, watching one blade spinning over and over in the same circle.

•••

The next morning when I wake up, I grab my shower caddy and head to the bathhouse. I cut across the dewy grass. Nobody’s awake yet. That’s a good thing since my face feels puffy and I need a long cool shower to rinse off the sweat and shame from last night. I shriek when I find two massive granddaddy longlegs in the shower stall, then laugh at myself. They can’t hurt me.

When I’m done, the clean underwear, T-shirt, and shorts I put on make me feel like I just left a spa. But the guilt is still fresh. I run my things back to Cardinal, where I dry my long black hair and put on sunscreen, as if it could stop the freckles. When I step back out onto the porch, I jump.

“Matt!”

“Morning to you too,” he says, yawning.

“You scared me!”

“I thought my morning breath had upset you.”

He’s lounging on the porch swing. Sunglasses sit on top of his head. I take in his biceps and lazy smile and the blond stubble covering his cheeks and dimpled chin.

“You doing okay?” he asks.

“I’m fine,” I lie. “Did you sleep well?”

“Will’s snoring sounds like a freight train.”

We smile at each other. A long, still moment. He makes me feel calm, like wrapping up in my robe after a hot shower. I can’t explain it. But then I remember he’s a streaker. How far did he have to run when he went streaking?

Instead of dressing as Miss Piggy, what if he ran a marathon naked?

And then I’m wondering what he looks like naked.

And then I’m shaking my head and rubbing my eyes.

“I thought I’d see if you’ll help with breakfast?” He scratches the back of his neck, peering up at me.

“You’re cooking?” I ask.

“It’s my day to fix breakfast for everybody. Want some expert tips on scrambling eggs and making doughnuts over a campfire?”

“You can make doughnuts over a campfire?” I exclaim.

“Oh sure.” He smirks a little. “I can’t do anything fancy like Boston cream pie or anything, but I can make killer cinnamon doughnut holes.”

“I love those,” I say quietly.

“Well, I’d love some company.” He stands up, clutching a shaved tree branch.

“What’s that for?” I ask.

“My walking stick? It assists me in walking.”

I giggle. “Are you injured?”

“Naw. Of course not. I’m the lifeguard! Who would hire an injured lifeguard?”

“My mistake.”

“Your mistake indeed.”

“You’re hilarious,” I find myself saying.

He elbows my arm and glances over at me. Using his walking stick, he makes his way to the cafeteria on the hill. The building’s green paint is flaking off and the air smells like grease. He unlocks the doors and we raid the fridge for eggs, bacon, juice, and biscuit dough.

“Grab that big can of Crisco off the shelf, please,” he says, nodding toward it.

We lug all the supplies back down to the fire pit area next to Great Oak. He says, “Let’s get us some firewood.” Out in the woods, we pick up logs.

“That one’s too wet,” he says.

I drop it and pick up another.

“That one’s too big,” he says.

I drop it and pick up another.

“Get some tiny branches for kindling, please,” he says.

Matt arranges the logs in the fire pit, then grabs a wad of paper towels and stuffs them under the sticks. Then he turns the Crisco can upside down and lets the goop drip onto the wood. He lights a match and throws it on the wood pile. A flame bursts up.

I jump back, panting. “Are you a pyromaniac?” I blurt.

“Crisco’s amazing,” he says, smiling. Squatting, he begins tossing tiny sticks and grass onto the fire until the flame gets hot enough to catch the thicker logs.

“Isn’t that cheating?”

He laughs. “I wasn’t aware there are rules for starting a campfire when you’re starving for breakfast. I mean, sure, if this was a Boy Scout competition I totally would’ve been disqualified.”

“Maybe I’ll use your Crisco trick when it’s time for me start my own fires,” I tell him.

“I just converted you to my Crisco Cult!”

I laugh. “Now what do I do, oh master of the Crisco Cult?”

“Grab that cast-iron kettle and hang it over the fire,” he tells me. “And dump the rest of the Crisco in it so it’ll melt. Then we’ll fry up the doughnuts in it.”

“What doughnuts are we gonna fry?” I ask, glancing at our supplies.

“Take the biscuit dough and start rolling it into balls.”

The first thing Matt does is get the coffee brewing (he has a secret stash). It’s a humid June morning and the fire’s roaring, so I’m wiping sweat off my face like crazy. For a second I’m terrified Matt thinks I look hideous, but then I glance over at him and find that his face is covered in dirt and he’s all sweaty too.

Once Matt has the eggs cooking in the skillet, he pours us each a cup of coffee. I watch as he briefly shuts his eyes and murmurs a blessing.

He sips his coffee and asks, “Why didn’t you share a cabin with us last night? Were you afraid that I snore too loud?”

I bite back a laugh. “Nah. I just don’t think my parents would like it if they knew I was sharing a room with boys. And what if the regional conference finds out? They’d be mad.”

Matt slaps his palm with the spatula. “Eh. They’d never know. But I know what you mean. My mom would kill me.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah. She’s the youth minister at Bell Buckle Chapel and spends most of her time teaching sex ed and trying to keep teenagers out of each other’s beds. Especially her own kids. My brother Jeremiah’s practically a man whore.”

I stop moving. “A man whore?”

He chuckles. “He’s got a new girlfriend every day.” He points at me with the spatula. “I’m not exaggerating. One time, this girl Laura came to lunch at our house and by dinner she’d been replaced by someone named Mary.”

I laugh, rolling biscuit dough into a ball. “And what about you? Are you a man whore?” I stutter, trying not to seem interested in his answer.

“I wish,” he says with a sigh. When he sees the look on my face, he quickly says, “Just kidding. I’m a one-girl kind of guy.”

“So it’s just Andrea?” I ask, baiting him.

He pauses and picks up his coffee cup from the picnic table. He sips. “Naw. I’m single right now. You?”

“I’m single all the time.” I blush.

“So…you have a moratorium on dating?”

“No,” I say slowly. “I just haven’t dated anyone.”

“Ever?”

I hesitate. “Ever. Unless you count our date to the Thursday Night Dance that time.” He’s so easy to talk to, I can’t help but tell the truth, no matter how embarrassing it is.

He takes a swig of coffee. “Are you picky?”

I don’t know how to answer that. This is probably the longest conversation I’ve ever had with a boy. Well, besides Jacob, and he belonged to Emily. I still can’t believe she broke up with him.

I sip some coffee.

“I’m picky too,” he says before I can respond.

I change the subject. “Now what do we do?”

“Throw some bacon in that skillet, woman.”

“‘Woman’?” I burst out laughing.

He adjusts his bandana, smiling at me, and my stomach leaps into my throat, and I feel this longing deep inside—a longing to have a friend.

what happened on may 5

After making breakfast with Matt, I sharpen my pencil so I can sketch, to keep my mind off my pathetic dating history. But my plan doesn’t work.

One day in May, I pulled open the front door and Jacob marched in, brushed past me, and headed for my living room. No hello, no hi, no nothing. I dug my fingernails into my palms and took a deep breath. I trudged into the living room and sat down beside him on the couch. His face was buried in his palms. Emily had broken up with him a week before, right after the abortion.

I had never seen him that upset. Come to think of it, I’d never seen him upset at all. Jacob always had been a carefree kind of guy. I sketch his hair: black curls pulled back into a low ponytail. I draw the sticker-covered skateboard he always carries around, as he smiles and talks to everybody. Like Emily, he’s insanely musically talented. Sometimes he wears a kilt and plays silly music on the bagpipes. Once he played “Happy Birthday” for me and I couldn’t stop smiling. Lots of girls wanted him, but he’d been with Emily since they were fourteen years old.

I draw the blank TV screen that Jacob had stared at that day. Draw tears leaking from his eyes.

For a moment I wondered if he knew about the abortion, about what I had helped Emily do to his baby, when he spoke. “What did I do wrong? Why did she break up with me? Please—” His voice broke.

I continued to dig my thumbnail into my palm. “She hasn’t told me.”

He glanced up, flashing me a look. “That’s bullshit.”

I sucked in a breath through my nose. “I’ll try to get her to talk to you, but I can’t promise anything.”

“I need to know what’s wrong, Kate. Tell me.” His eyes dug into mine. “Does she not love me anymore?”

I wanted to tell him that Emily loved him so much, but she wanted her future more than a life with the baby they hadn’t planned for. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the decision she’d made without Jacob, so she broke up with him. If Emily had had the baby, would she have had Emily’s auburn hair? Would he have had Jacob’s black curls?

And then I started crying for Jacob and Emily, who wanted to be together so badly. They loved each other, but her guilt was messing that all up.

That’s not the only reason I cried.

Deep down, I was jealous of that love and I wanted a boy to show up crying for
me
because he loved me so much.

“She loves you,” I told him.

He abruptly stood up. “This is not what love is,” he said, and left my house.

I start an outline of my body, sitting alone on the couch after Jacob left.

Then I scribble over it and start a new picture. A picture of Matt teaching me to use Crisco to start a campfire. I smile and reach for my yellow coloring pencil to draw the flames licking at my feet.

saturday, june 2 ~ week 1 of 7

Before going swimming, kayaking, and canoeing this afternoon, Megan’s giving us time to plan our individual sessions. Will’s in charge of the Monday ice cream night, so he’s fiddling with homemade ice cream makers. Brad’s been counting hula hoops, unfolding a giant parachute, and inspecting a tug-of-war rope because he’s in charge of field games. Andrea’s the camp videographer, so she’s playing with various cameras and her laptop. Carlie’s writing out clues for the treasure hunt.

Matt already cleaned the pool, so he’s lounging in a camping chair, lazily strumming his guitar, playing what sounds like a Hawaiian version of “Kumbaya.”

I’m inventorying the paintbrushes when Will plops down on the picnic table bench beside my closet.

“You okay?” he whispers, glancing over his shoulder at Parker. She sees him talking to me and her face looks pained. It’s like she’d rather him talk to a Playboy Bunny than me.

“I’m fine,” I tell him, placing paintbrushes in a plastic box and storing it on the shelf.

“Matt said you seemed upset this morning.”

I focus on my watercolor painting of White Oak and remember the time I found a frog in a bush outside the cabin. He was so scared, he peed on my hand. Part of the reason I like art so much is the escape. The escape into a world that I fill with my colors and music.

“I’m sorry Parker yelled at you last night,” Will says, lounging against the table.

I organize the boxes of crayons into a straight line. “I’m sorry if I hurt her,” I tell him. “I didn’t mean to.” I just don’t want someone else to go through the same pain as Emily and me.

“You should tell her that, not me.”

I let out a sigh. “She doesn’t want to talk to me.”

“How do you know? She’s a pretty forgiving person.”

I don’t say anything.

After a few seconds, he goes, “She forgave me.”

“What did you do wrong?”

His eyes meet mine. “Left her when she needed me most.”

I want to tell him that I don’t have a best friend anymore.

“Listen,” Will says, drumming fingers on the picnic table. “This is none of my business and I hope you don’t take it the wrong way, but I want to tell you something about your church.”

I brace myself. “Yeah?”

“Forrest Sanctuary destroyed Parker after her mom left.”

I smooth my hair. Until last night, I had had no idea Parker was so badly affected. I mean, she and I were never all that close growing up—I had Emily, after all. And Parker was always fooling around with random guys in high school. So I ask Will about that.

“Why do you think she was so screwed up?” Will asks slowly. “It must suck to give your whole life to a church, only to watch everyone disappear when you need help.”

This reminds me of how Emily’s parents kicked her out after the abortion. How I played it differently. I stuck by, only to have her call me a judgmental bitch.

I feel bad for not having noticed what Parker was going through.

“So Parker’s mad at me because I go to her church?” I ask quietly. “Because she’s mad at our church?”

Will lifts his shoulders. “I think she’s just, um, wary of people?”

In high school, people called me a prude and Jesus Freak because I had no problem telling people that I care about church and God. It didn’t make people rush to invite me to the movies on Friday night, that’s for sure. But I had Emily to hang out with, and I had soccer, so all was okay.

Until it wasn’t.

I say, “Parker’s lucky to have you.”

He grins. “I’m lucky she agreed to give me another shot.”

No guy has ever stood up for me this way. I glance over my shoulder at Matt.

“Is Parker feeling better now?” I ask Will. “Since her mom left?”

“I like to think so. But as you saw last night, she’s definitely not anywhere close to being fine…She doesn’t really have any friends who are girls.”

I know how that feels.

“I’m around if you want to talk more,” he says, then leaps up and dashes across the trail to Great Oak, where he pulls Parker into his arms and pecks her lips. She grins.

My mouth edges into a smile.

•••

We’re walking down the path toward the lake, where Matt will train us to canoe and kayak. I look for trail markers that I can remember when walking my campers to the lake. Breadcrumbs, like Hansel and Gretel, but all I see are trees, trees, and more trees.

Parker is a little ways behind me, so I slow down.

“Hi,” I say, clearing my throat.

She just looks at me and passes on by like I said nothing. I open my mouth to speak again, but nada comes out. The thing is, I wasn’t in the wrong last night. This is a job at church camp. Should guy and girl counselors really be sleeping in the same cabin together?

Rules exist for a reason, right?

Maybe I’d been less than tactless, accusing Parker of sinning, but I was just trying to help. And I feel bad for not noticing her pain during high school, but it’s not like she paid much attention to me then, either. She never checked on me after my surgery or asked why I didn’t play soccer anymore. The first time she confronts me, she bites my head off, leaving me embarrassed and alone.

Or have I made myself that way?

Am I embarrassed and alone because of who I am as a person?

“You lost?”

I look up to find Eric standing in front of me, narrowing his eyes. His camo outfit truly blends in with the trees. The rest of the group is way ahead of us.

“Just thinking, I guess.”

“You can’t do that when you’ve got ten girls to watch out for, okay? You can’t take your eyes off them even for a second, or you could lose one.”

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I say, hardly believing how intense this guy is.

He stalks off. I follow everyone down to the algae-spotted lake, where Matt is pushing canoes and kayaks into the water. Shirtless. His tan biceps and smooth chest just about make my heart stop.

“Ogle much?” Andrea asks me.

My face goes hot. Matt looks up as he unties a canoe and pushes it into the water. He gives me a little wave.

Matt makes everybody put on a lifejacket and hands each of us an oar. Will and Parker share a canoe, and so do Andrea and Carlie, but the rest of us get our own kayaks.

Matt takes my hand, helping me step into my kayak, the rough callouses of his skin scraping against mine.

“Okay, everybody,” he yells, clapping once. “The rules of canoeing are simple. If you want to go right, then put the paddle in the water on your other right.”

I laugh.

Andrea drops her oar in the water and it starts floating off, so Matt leaps into the water and rescues the oar and returns it to her with a smile. I bet she dropped it on purpose, just so she could see him get all wet. I don’t blame her.

I paddle around the lake slowly, drifting in various directions. Will’s pointing into the water and Parker’s peering down, smiling. Is it a turtle? A school of fish?

Eric circles the lake like it’s his job to secure the perimeter from bears or something.

My kayak gets stuck on the side of the bank, and when I touch my oar to the bank, to push away from the land, a coiled brown and white snake catches my eye.

I scream.

I scream again. I thrust my paddle into the water and start paddling away as quickly as I can. Can the snake come in the water? I think they can swim.

Was it a copperhead? A rattlesnake? A water moccasin?

I look up from paddling to see Matt dive off the dock and swim my way. I stop thrusting my oar into the water and lean over onto my thighs, swallowing. Everyone is staring at me like I’m a major moron, which I guess I am. But what if the snake had bitten me?

A minute later Matt surfaces next to me and shakes the water out of his hair. “You okay? What happened?”

I chew my lip. “I saw a snake.”

His eyes dart around, probably to make sure the snake isn’t about to retaliate because I ruined its nap. “Snakes scare the bejesus out of me.”

“I’d never seen one before.” My body is trembling.

“They’re more scared of us than we are of them,” he says, treading water, bobbing like a cork. “But they are still scary as hell.”

I’m disappointed that he curses, but I keep my mouth closed. I’m not messing up the good start with him.

He says, “Can you get yourself back? Or do you want me to try to squeeze in and paddle for you?”

My heart pounds at the idea of him squeezing into a kayak with me.

“There’s not enough room in here,” I say, smiling.

“Too bad,” he teases. He grabs my hand. I suck in a deep breath. “You sure you can make it?” he asks.

“Totally sure.” I paste a smile on.

“Okay—I’m gonna go rescue that runaway over there,” he says, jerking his head toward an orphaned canoe nestled up against the banks. “Race you back to the docks.”

He takes off swimming in the opposite direction and I start paddling as hard as I can, smiling to myself about our race. He doesn’t seem to be going all that fast. I hope he’s not the type of guy who lets a girl win.

After a billion years of paddling, I beat him back to the docks. I shakily climb out of the kayak onto dry land and face an inquisition.

“What happened? Are you okay?” Will asks, crossing his arms.

“I had a run-in with a snake.”

“A snake?” Megan asks, playing with her whistle.

“I doubt she saw a snake,” Eric announces, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

“I promise you,” I say, catching my breath. “It was a snake.”

“I have a book you should read before campers arrive on Monday morning,” Eric says, puffing his chest out. “It will tell you everything you need to know about dangerous animals in Tennessee.” Eric looks pointedly at Megan.

She blushes. “Yes, you should read it,” she tells me. “And please, no more screaming.”

“Are you sure you saw a snake?” Eric asks, scanning the banks.

“Yes, I saw one,” I say again, wringing my hand. “Maybe you should read the chapter on snakes in your book.”

“I don’t think there are any snakes around this lake,” Eric says. Is he pretending he didn’t hear what I said?

“I dunno if that’s true,” Matt says, leaping onto the docks from the canoe he just rescued. “Last year I killed a copperhead that was swimming near here.”

My heart swells as I smile at him.

“I’ve got a picture of it on my phone!” Andrea says, nodding quickly. “He smashed it with an oar!”

Eric checks his ginormous watch that’s the size of a compass. “Whatever.”

I suddenly want to start studying everything I can about the outdoors so I can one-up him, like Matt just did.

“Regardless of whether there are snakes in the lake,” Megan says, “you can’t react like that in front of children, Kate. It’s unprofessional and it will scare the kids.”

I look around at the other counselors and nod. Parker raises her eyebrows at me.

I turn to gaze across the lake at the deep green woods. When I was younger, I learned about how Henry David Thoreau went out into the wilderness and lived by himself at Walden Pond for a long time and wrote his magnum opus. I’m not saying I want to go write a magnum opus or anything, but I’d love to have a tiny cabin to myself in the mountains, where I could paint landscapes until my hand falls off and not be around people like Monkey Megan and Eric “I refuse to play the animal introduction game” and Alligator Andrea, who probably is an alligator disguised as a sorority girl.

Parker appears beside me and whispers, “I would’ve screamed if I saw a snake too. And I want to be a vet!”

I slip my thumbs into my belt loops. “I’m, uh…can we talk about last night?”

Megan blows her whistle and beckons for us to follow her back up the trail, and Parker walks off with Will without responding to me.

“I can’t believe you killed a poor snake!” Parker snaps at Matt, passing by him.

“It was swimming near a group of eight-year-old campers who were canoeing. What was I supposed to do?” Matt replies, drying his face with a towel. He waits for me to catch up. “You okay?”

“I never want to see a snake again.”

“Me neither.” He jerks his head toward Parker. “For multiple reasons.”

I laugh. “Thanks for swimming out to save me.”

He looks over at my face. “You saved me once too.”