Chapter Text
Two weeks.
It feels like a lifetime, at first. Week five at Blackwood is a haze in slow-motion, a film reel of highlights stitched together into something golden and glowing. Days spent in blinding sunlight, tossing balls in the clearing and drifting in canoes on the lake. Sweating in the kitchen and cooling off in the shade with popsicles, dropping glitter and paint into every corner of the arts tent. Dinners at tables too small in the mess hall, evenings on the bench smoking Natalie’s cigarettes, nights wasted with all of them crammed into one cabin playing a passionate game of go-fish.
A lifetime. But then week five is over, and Shauna goes barrelling into week six at a speed she can’t control. Time sliding right out from under her feet and Shauna is clinging, digging her claws in, but it makes no difference.
It’s all of them - the counsellors she didn’t even think she’d like, let alone miss the hell out of. Even back home, Shauna will only have a month or so with Tai before they’re both off to college, and if saying goodbye to the counsellors feels hard, then with her it’s impossible. Her best friend for as long as she can remember, never more than a street between them, suddenly an eight-hour drive away.
And then there’s Jackie.
God. How is Shauna supposed to say goodbye to her?
They still haven’t spoken about it, because how can they? After all the shit, after the mess with Jeff and Randy, neither of them dare to burst the sunlit bubble they’ve been floating in. Stolen kisses in their empty cabin and touches that linger a second too long. To talk about it is to acknowledge that it’s on a deadline, and Shauna can’t face that.
So week six arrives without fanfare, and Shauna doesn’t think about it.
Monday, August 4th, is a day without incident.
It passes pretty much the same as every other day at Blackwood, wasting hours in the dried grass in the clearing behind the cabins, squabbling in the mess hall. Shauna’s laughter is backed with the hum of industrial fans, breathing in grilled cheese and bug spray. The walls are still decorated with crooked banners from the colour war, rusted trophies at the front of the room from years past.
Akilah keeps them entertained through dinner with stories from her own days as a camper at Blackwood – tells them about the friends she made and the first boy she ever kissed, behind the mess hall. It’s how she drops an absolute bombshell on them all – at age seven, her first year at camp, she’d had a big crush on one of the oldest boys: thirteen and cool and rocking an impressively high quiff.
One Benjamin Scott.
So Shauna listens and laughs, eats with the counsellors and flicks crumbs at Randy, joins the others making faces at Ben across the room.
Sure, it’s the first day of their final week. But Shauna doesn’t think about that at all.
The biggest thing to happen on Tuesday is the spider.
(Seriously, Shauna has never seen a spider that big. The thing could bench 150 and barely even break a sweat.)
In dark cabins and staff bedrooms, Blackwood sleeps soundly. The big clock in the mess hall, edge dented and hanging off-centre, marks the time as 12:42 a.m. Huge, dark shapes flit between the tops of trees, skirting around the edges of the clearing Blackwood stands in, silent. The grass here is tramped down by hundreds of tiny shoes, sun bleached and crosshatched with gravel tracks in every direction
The only light in the pitch-dark clearing glows warm and low through the back window of a cabin, roof grown over with moss and sagging just a little to the left. It’s indistinguishable from the others that circle the Bowl like spokes on a wheel, other than the rusted metal numbers hanging from the door.
Cabin Fourteen is awake.
Behind the closed door, the window fogged with condensation, twelve people crowd into a space too small. Overflowing from bunks and benches, splayed across the floor with long legs stretched out in front of them – it’s sticky warm and overstuffed, quiet music humming from the radio in the corner.
The place is a mess. It always is, really - backpacks wedged into corners with their contents scattered all around the room. The three unused beds have become shared closet space. One of them is piled high with scrunched up shirts that are gonna be a nightmare to separate out when they leave (not that Shauna’s thinking about it). The second holds bottles of shampoo and deodorant, suntan lotion and bug spray. It’s a little harder to categorise the third bed – loose tennis balls and crumpled paper, receipts from the shopping trips in Chatsworth, empty bags of chips. There’s a couple of Shauna’s books, some loose change, even a few unidentified CDs.
The girls call it their collective ‘junk drawer’, and never bother trying to sort it.
On Tuesday, though, it’s a seat for Travis and Mari, Akilah on the floor in front of them. She leans on Travis’ legs, passing cards back to them from the pile on the floor every time it’s their turn to pick up. Lounging back against the stack of clothes, Lottie and Nat have given up on the game entirely, opting instead to place quiet bets between themselves. Folded on the floor in front of them, Tai and Van are taking turns slinging cards at Jeff and Randy, with Misty sat between the pairs keeping score.
Only Jackie and Shauna survey the scene from on high, both of them in their own bunks but at the ends, so close they may as well be sat together. It reminds Shauna of another night, the first night – but thinking about that first night means thinking about how there’s gonna be a last night, and she is not doing that.
“Okay,” Jeff scowls, taking another card in the forehead from Van. “This game sucks. Can we play something else?”
“Sore loser, much?”
He throws the card back at Van. “Whatever. I just think something else could be more fun, like, I don’t know, a round of spin the – “
A chorus of ‘no’s cuts him off from all directions, even Randy grimacing at the thought. He flashes Shauna a quick wink – so different now to the past few weeks, and she smirks back at him, wondering how she ended up with him as her trusted confidante.
“Okay, fine, but what if we – “
Jeff’s second suggestion, though, remains a mystery. Because he only makes it halfway through the sentence before springing up, yelping, and brushing frantic hands down the front of his shirt.
“Dude, what the – “
“There’s a fucking tarantula,” he squeaks, spinning in a circle and smacking at himself. After that, he’s nothing but a blur, dragging Randy up from the floor and grabbing Travis by the front of the shirt, ferrying them to the door. The last thing they hear from him, fading into the distance as they stumble as one unit into the shadows, is a cracking yelp. “Crazy bitches and their crazy fucking pets – “
Now Shauna wants to laugh at him. Really, she does – laughing at Jeff is kinda one of her favourite hobbies. But just as she’s about to crack up with the rest of the girls, she spots the spider that freaked him out, a black shape scuttling over the floor.
She’s no wuss. But that thing is big.
Mari and Akilah spot it too, squealing and disappearing even quicker than the boys. Tai and Van dive back onto the bunk with Lottie and Nat, the four of them crammed together like little girls and yelling. Even Jackie, up in one of the top bunks, jumps a foot in the air and launches herself over the wooden rail into Shauna’s bunk.
“Guys, it’s just a little – “
“Little? ” Van howls. “Misty, that thing’s a fucking monster!”
She rolls her eyes, pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose with no apparent hurry, then leans forward and scoops the spider up in both hands. Her slow, leisurely walk across the cabin is soundtracked by the others’ horror, before the door opens for a third time and Misty tosses it out onto the porch without a second thought.
“Seriously guys,” she huffs. “It was just a little spider.”
“Misty, we’d be lost without you.”
The other girls come back a couple minutes later, but the boys are long gone, Jeff probably having locked their door and barricaded it with all their bags. With the invader banished, the night drags long and joyous and full, and even when they can’t fight off the pull of sleep any longer, nobody leaves.
Clothes pile shoved to the floor, Misty takes the bunk underneath Shauna’s. Lottie claims the mattress under Nat’s (formerly known as the junk drawer, of course), and Tai and Van have their usual beds to themselves. It leaves Mari and Akilah to squeeze into the last unclaimed bed together, but just as they’re shuffling around trying to make room for one another, a quiet voice calls out from above.
“She’s knocked out, guys. One of you may as well take her bed.”
Jackie, as it turns out, never made it back to her own bunk after the spider. And with the hours of quiet conversation, her head drifted lower and lower until she was breathing slow and even, cheek pillowed on Shauna’s chest.
“You sure?”
“I don’t wanna wake her,” Shauna whispers, shuffling a little so the two of them are fully horizontal. “It’s fine.”
So the cabin for four houses nine that night, all of them clinging to their last week together with sleepy hands. And sure, insomnia’s a bitch, so Shauna lays awake listening to their breathing for a good couple of hours by herself – but Jackie is asleep with her head on her chest, and she’s crammed into a cabin full of people she’s lost a battle against caring about.
Five days left. But Shauna’s not thinking about it.
Wednesday is marked by betrayal.
(Okay, maybe that’s a little dramatic).
Wednesday is marked by the two little creatures that Shauna once thought of as friends scaring the shit out of her. She’s on the way to the showers at dawn, as usual, well prepared for twenty solid minutes of moping and in the only warm water Blackwood has to offer. The clearing is misty, sparkling with dew and filled with birdsong – peace and tranquillity and blissful solitude.
It should be Shauna’s first clue. Blackwood is never peaceful.
She dries off, puts on her favourite red flannel over a Blackwood tee, denim shorts and a soft leather belt. She squeezes the excess moisture out of her hair, twists it up in a towel turban, pats on suntan lotion and moisturiser. Everything perfect, everything comfortable and smooth and in order.
And then she goes back to the cabin.
Usually, the other girls are just stirring when she creeps back in from her shower, so she doesn’t think anything of it. Lets herself in, kicking her shoes off absently, looking up –
Screaming bloody murder.
The Jersey Devil is in her cabin. The Jersey fucking Devil, wings spread, horned, red eyes staring right at her. And she never believed them, Randy and Jackie and Van filling her head with stupid stories and hauntings, she never fell for it. Not even out in the woods when she saw that rabbit, not even in Thirteen those weeks before it burned – she didn’t believe it. Because she’s eighteen and not, like, a complete idiot. But it’s here, staring her in the face and looming on the bench under the window and –
And then its head falls off.
Shauna stops screaming.
She stops screaming because the stupid head is rolling across the floor towards her and she can see now that it’s not a head. Of course it’s not a head. It’s a fucking football with two red beads glued to the front and a crude toothy smile scrawled on, paper mâché horns stuck to the top of it. On the window, too, she sees the wings for what they are – scrunched up newspaper taped to the glass.
Those motherfuckers.
Nat and Tai are in stitches on the floor, tears streaming with laughter as they clap each other on the back.
“We got your ass.”
“Taissa Turner. I trusted you. And Natalie – “
But her words are drowned out by their laughter, Van and Jackie (traitors, the lot of them) chiming in too. Jackie drops from her bunk, shuffles over to the door and squeezes Shauna’s cheeks in one hand so her face gets all squished up.
“Nawww, poor thing thought we were haunted.”
Shauna’s annoyed and, infuriatingly, kinda impressed. Her heart still hammers and she shoves Jackie playfully away.
And with all the excitement, she’s definitely not thinking about it.
By Thursday, Shauna’s maybe thinking about it. Just a little.
It must be the weather that gets to her – six full weeks of sunshine is a pretty solid run, in all fairness, only broken by the storm after capture the flag. So when the heavens open on Thursday and rain comes down in sheets, it’s hardly part of the Blackwood routine, and everything sort of crumbles.
The kids are having dinner in the mess hall, and they press sticky hands to the windows in there, watching the water roll over the glass with childish wonder. Most of the counsellors watch on in amusement from their usual table, but there’s a couple missing from their numbers. Mari slipped off earlier for a shower, Travis (the only 21-year-old in their ranks) is in Chatsworth picking up supplies for their final party, and Shauna is nursing a headache back in the cabin.
With a couple Tylenol (thank you, Misty), a half-eaten Twix (thank you, Randy), and a steaming mug of tea (thank you, Jackie), she’s pretty much feeling fine again. Sharp pounding reduced to nothing but a dull ache behind her eyes, and Shauna rests her head on the cool glass of the window. She’s curled up in a ball on the bench, mug balanced on one knee and battered journal on the other. If she closes her eyes, listens to the hammer of rain on the roof, Shauna could almost be back in Wiskayok.
Wiskayok. Three days away.
Solitude is rare in Blackwood, and Shauna’s a little out of touch with it by now. So she tucks herself back into comforts she knows – scrawled ink in margins – and for the first time this week, for just a second, she lets herself think about it.
Leaving. This stupid summer job she didn’t want in this stupid summer camp she wasn’t supposed to like. The tiny, perpetually overheated cabin crammed with trash and concrete mattresses and scratchy red blankets. Mess hall tables slouched sideways and overlaid with carved initials of campers past, always a little sticky. The paint splattered canvas of the arts tent clinging to fumes and glitter, tacked up with countless paintings.
Shauna writes about all of it. She writes about how Bill reminds her a little of her dad, before he up and left. She writes about watching Tai finally get the chance at teenage love, messy and embarrassing and beautiful. She writes about Nat’s scowl and the way it softens when she looks at Lottie, writes about the way Travis beams whenever he sees Javi in the middle of a crowd of friends. She writes about the weird bond she’s formed with Randy, post-rejection – how he’s actually pretty funny, now he’s not all obsessed with her.
She writes about Jackie. About the freckles on her bare shoulder and the way sunlight pools in her open eyes.
The rain comes and Shauna writes, and when the last drizzle turns to mist, she slams the journal shut and tucks it safely back under her pillow. Stops the brooding in its tracks and drains the last dregs of her cold tea.
And for the rest of the night, Shauna doesn’t think about it.
Friday finds Shauna back in the arts tent, this time with Mari. It’s always an easy way to spend an afternoon, and her and Mari have to fight to conceal their grins when Bill announces their work assignments that morning. Still, though, his words are punctuated with a less-than-covert fist bump behind Tai’s back (sat between them), and the other counsellors are quick to grumble their jealousy when they file out of the room.
“I can’t believe I have to scrub the bathrooms while you two get to sit around all afternoon.”
“Sucks to suck, Jeffrey,” Mari smirks, tossing long hair over her shoulder. “Bill just loves us.”
Travis elbows her. “Bill loves me, y’know, his son?”
“I don’t know, I kinda feel like I’m the daughter he never had – “
“Don’t push it, Mar’.”
Even Jackie, usually terminally enthusiastic, is a little put out about by the whole thing, and sulks in the cabin on their lunch break. Bill has her on dodgeball with Jeff for the afternoon, and not only is the temperature through the roof, but things have been a little awkward between the two of them since the fire.
“I swear,” Jackie groans. “If he asks me why we broke up one more time.”
She’s laying flat across the bench in their cabin under the open window, legs draped over Shauna’s lap, tossing a tennis ball absently. Mari and Akilah sit cross-legged on the floor in front of them, a half-finished card tower between them. Up above, Lottie and Nat sit sideways in Nat’s bunk, passing a bag of gumballs back and forth. They’re taking it in turns tossing the sweets down for Van to catch in her mouth, Tai watching the whole thing with a bemused grin.
“Break up?” Akilah asks, not looking away from her card tower for a second. She adds another to the stack, tongue poking out in concentration, before it slides to the floor in a heap. “Were you guys ever even together?”
“No,” Jackie insists. Shauna squeezes her ankle sympathetically as she throws a dramatic arm over her eyes. “I kissed the guy one time on a dare, that’s it.”
Nat throws another gumball, and it bounces off of Van’s forehead. “The dude’s been obsessed with you since, like, the ninth grade. Can you blame him?”
Jackie tosses the tennis ball up, missing the catch this time so it bounces across the floor and topples the card tower yet again. “Sorry guys,” she winces. “But no, I know, I just – I didn’t like… play into it, right?”
“Jax,” Nat scoffs. “You were kinda all over him for a while there.”
“I was?”
Van grabs one of the fallen gumballs from the floor, staring at it for a second before shrugging and dropping it in her mouth. “In her defence,” she says around it, one cheek ballooned with the sweet. “She’s kinda all over everyone. That’s just Jackie, right?”
“Hey – “
“It’s true,” Tai hums. “She literally spends every evening in Shauna’s bunk.”
A familiar red flush creeps up the back of Shauna’s neck, and Jackie flashes her a quick wink before turning to the rest of the room. “Y’know, I’m right here.”
“C’mon guys, give her a break,” Lottie grins, tossing a gumball in Jackie’s direction instead. It misses, rolling under the bench to gather dust. “What did you do, Shauna? Randy’s stopped following you around like a lost puppy recently.”
“I told him I wasn’t interested,” Shauna shrugs.
“Tried that. Did not work.”
They go back and forth for a little longer, nobody offering anything near an actual solution, while Jackie groans with ever-increasing dramaticism and Shauna tries not to laugh at her too hard. Finally, though, when their lunch break is nearly over and the girls are all grumbling their way towards the door, Nat squeezes Jackie’s shoulder.
“I’ve got it.”
“What?” Jackie probes desperately.
“We have to kill him.”
Needless to say, it’s not exactly a productive lunch break.
As the others file out, Shauna catches Jackie’s wrist and tugs her back, waiting until the doorway is clear before leaning in and kissing her quick, nothing more than a fleeting brush of lips. “Y’know,” she hums, watching Jackie’s throat bob in a swallow. “I could just do that in front of him. Maybe then he’ll take the hint.”
“Hmm. Or maybe I leave him to it.” Jackie sidles forwards a little, tugs on the hem of Shauna’s shirt and smirks. “We could just stay here – “
“Shauna!” Mari calls from outside. “You coming?”
Shauna clears her throat, pecks Jackie’s pout once more and walks backwards out of the cabin, swinging on the doorframe as she goes. “Good luck.”
“I hate you.”
“Mmhmm.”
It’s hard not to gloat with the others behind them, skipping towards the arts tent with Mari for an afternoon of half-assery. With the end of the summer approaching (not that Shauna’s thinking about it, of course), the kids have been tasked with making friendship bracelets to remember one another.
On tables already crowded with dried clay and unidentifiable origami animals, tubs of coloured beads and lengths of twine squeeze into the gaps. The canvas structure clings to the heavy smell of paint and sunshine, and the whole thing is soundtracked with staticky music from the radio humming away in the corner.
Shauna doesn’t recognise the song, but all the kids are singing along. It doesn’t make her feel old at all.
“Y’know,” she hums. “We could make some bracelets too.”
“Shauna, I like you and all, but I don’t know if we could pull off friendship bracelets.”
“No,” Shauna scoffs, nudging Mari. “I was thinking we make some pink ones for Jeff and Randy, y’know, to match their shirts.”
Mari hops from the table they were perched on, grinning. “I mean, they’re just so pretty in pink.”
“Exactly.”
So the two of them end up right in the middle of the kids, all scrunched up on benches too small. They flick beads at their campers and sing hilariously out of tune and help the kids tie their bracelets around tiny, knobbly wrists. It’s childish and ridiculous and so, so fun, and at the end of it they’ve made two bracelets with every different pink bead on the table. Some shaped like stars or hearts, some round, some square, some flecked with glitter or stamped with tiny lipstick marks – and right in the centre, a letter. One ‘J’, one ‘R’.
Shauna and Mari are very proud of themselves.
It’s just as they’re about to leave though, heading towards the mess hall for dinner, that they’re given another bracelet. This time not one they’ve made, but one their campers have somehow assembled for them while they were distracted.
Mari’s is her name bracketed in beads of green in every shade – her team colours. Even with the colour war cancelled (thank fuck ), the kids still wear their shirts most days, and clearly the team spirit has carried through. And no matter how much Mari might pretend she doesn’t care, she can’t fight a grin as she ties the bracelet onto her wrist.
The one Shauna’s kids have made is a little different. At first she thinks they might’ve horrifically misspelled her name, but when she twists the beads so they all face up, she sees the word they’ve chosen: Sergeant. Either side of the letters are four beads in seemingly random colours.
“We all picked one,” Javi explains. He points to a blue star on one end. “That’s mine.”
Now Shauna is not a crier. She’s fond of a brooding evening, a moody stare off into the distance, but she really doesn’t cry that often. But her kids lined up in front of her, pointing out the beads they picked on the bracelet they made for her, it very nearly sets her off. And true to his character, Billy does something that completely throws her.
He hugs her.
Little arms around her middle for half a second, then scurrying to the back of the group of kids and staring at the floor with a burning red face. Mari helps her tie the bracelet onto her wrist and gracefully ignores Shauna’s rapid blinking.
“Thank you, guys. Seriously. I love it.”
Eight kids in front of her with big toothy grins, eight kids she’s gonna have to say goodbye to in two days.
She’s not thinking about it.
(That’s getting a lot harder to believe.)
The talent show is the crown jewel of Saturday – though ‘talent’ might be a generous word.
For one night only, the Bowl is transformed. The fire pit is cleared of six weeks’ worth of ash, burnt circle of grass hidden with under crosshatched red blankets (seriously, how many of those things does Blackwood have?) to form a sort of stage. Campers fill the tiered seating around it, huddled into small groups and murmuring excitedly to one another.
Four boys crowd around Bill as he teaches them magic tricks, pulling coins from behind their ears and slipping playing cards into unsuspecting pockets. With every trick a fresh round of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ fills the space in the middle of their huddle. Blackwood’s esteemed manager softens again to the sweet, smiling dad that hardened towards the end of the colour war.
There are other groups practicing their performances – Randy is coaching something incomprehensible that Shauna anticipates and dreads in equal measure. Mari is teaching some of her campers the ‘Shoop’ routine (which is probably not age appropriate, but whatever), and Nat’s kids are queued up in front of her taking turns trying to impress her with their chosen skills.
In true Jackie fashion, she is taking the talent show very seriously. All eight of her campers are lined up in front of her, singing in impressive harmony, and she stands at the front of the group conducting. Her tongue pokes out of the corner of her mouth in focus, brow furrowed, and Shauna watches the whole thing with a smirk. Senior Counsellor Taylor until the end, clearly, and though Shauna will definitely be making fun of her for this later, there’s a secret piece of herself that can’t help but find the whole thing adorable.
“Put your eyes back in your head, perv,” Randy murmurs to her, slinging an arm over her shoulders and grinning.
Shauna shoves him in the side, scowling. “Shut up.”
“I get it man, she’s hot, but – “
“Don’t push it, Randy.”
It’s a kaleidoscope of performances. Everything from spoken word poetry (the little emo kid in Shauna is very proud) to Shakespeare scenes. Penny performs an absolutely adorable rendition of ‘You Are My Sunshine’, immediately followed by Billy burping the alphabet. When all the kids are done, though, and Shauna’s sides ache from fighting laughter, Bill takes the stage again.
“Well, we certainly have a talented bunch this year!” He’s met with whoops and shouts, grinning, before he continues. “But we have one more performance left for you. Please may I present: your very own senior counsellors!”
The bowl erupts into applause, and against all odds, Jackie, Travis, and Ben take up position centre-stage.
“This has to be a clause in their contract, right?” Tai murmurs in Shauna’s ear, grin colouring her words. “There’s no way she convinced them to do this.”
Shauna shrugs. “She can be persuasive.”
It earns her a questioning look, a raised eyebrow, but before Tai can delve into whatever the fuck that means, Akilah has started her strumming. And against all odds (with some elbowing from Jackie, of course), all three of the senior counsellors perform a truly awful rendition of the camp song.
It’s the first night all over again. It’s every bonfire and party, every sunset over the lake, every victory chant from the kids. The song that has stuck in her head and drove her nuts every day without fail, the song she cringed her way through in week one. Back when her nose was bruised and her spine hurt from the mattress, and she was seriously weighing up whether the money was worth it. Back when her cabin housed Tai and a few strangers, when Randy drove her nuts (that never changed, actually), when Jackie was a whisper in the dark.
The senior counsellors sing the camp song. And that Saturday, Shauna knows every word.
Sunday hits like a seismic wave.
All week, Shauna has not thought about it. All week she’s forced it down, kept herself busy in the days with camp activities, wasted nights with the counsellors until she could barely keep her eyes open. So when Sunday arrives and brings with it the beginning of an actual, honest ending, Shauna is shaken.
“Who has the marshmallows?”
“Akilah, dude, you’re gonna take someone out with that guitar.”
“Hold on, are we all wearing camp shirts?”
All around her, the main office buzzes with activity, counsellors running around and bumping into each other, gathering supplies for the final (final) bonfire.
Lottie appears in front of her, squeezing her shoulder. “Shauna, have you seen the graham crackers?”
“No, I don’t – “
“I’ve got them, Lotts!”
It’s making her a little dizzy, if she’s honest – the flurry of movement and excitement. She’s grateful when the office door flies open to reveal a grinning Bill, clad in a t-shirt (little tight there, Bill) printed with a peeling Blackwood logo.
“Good evening, counsellors!”
They fall back into their usual spots like it’s rehearsed, the only thing marking the special occasion being the hum of nervous energy that fills the room. Something raw and open must show on Shauna’s face though, because when Jackie falls into the chair in front of her, she reaches a casual hand back and loops it loosely around Shauna’s bare ankle.
“Well, guys, where do I start?” he scans his eyes around the room fondly, taking a second to meet each and every person’s eyes. “I think it’s fair to say it’s been a pretty crazy summer.”
Fires and storms and hauntings – Shauna chuckles with the rest of them.
“But you guys rose to the challenge. First-timers and old-timers, you all stepped up, and you did a great job. And I am so proud of every single one of you.” He clears his throat, folds his arms over his chest and blinks away the mist in his eyes. “Anyway,” he says gruffly. “It’s business as usual for the bonfire tonight. Keep everyone happy, get everyone to bed by 10:30, and I promise you all glowing references for the future.”
Shauna thinks of the crates of beer in the guys’ cabin, fighting a smirk. 10:30 her ass.
“Now we won’t have time for a morning briefing tomorrow. The first buses are arriving right after breakfast, and I need you all loading the campers in with their bags. Everyone clear?”
And that’s it – another thing over. Final dinner and final briefing and final instructions from Bill, and Shauna swallows thickly as they file out of the office. She’s just about got her stupid sentimentality back under control when they troop out to the Bowl and find it glowing. For a moment, she thinks it might be fireflies, hundreds of fireflies lined up on the cabin awnings and edging the pathways and hovering over top the grass.
Then she spots Van and Misty.
Right in the centre of the bowl, they stand with their arms spread and wide grins, strings of wires looped around their hands. And Shauna finally puts it together. Not thousands of fireflies, but fairy lights, twinkling, hung from beams and draped over buildings and threaded through the grass.
“God, it’s beautiful.”
Shauna looks sideways at Jackie, light catching in golden sparks in her eyes. “Yeah. It really is.”
“When did you guys have time to do this?” Akilah grins, spinning in a circle and marvelling when they reach the centre of the Bowl.
“While everyone was eating,” Misty grins. “It was a bit touch and go there, for a sec, but Van and I are the dream team, right Van?”
“What she said.”
So their final bonfire is spent in the middle of something breathtaking. Tiny flecks of golden light catching every rounded face with wonder and glory, every child in awe, every adult the same. It pitches the bonfire higher, the s’mores sweeter, the tone of Akilah’s voice clearer. It bounces and grows in the dark places in Shauna’s chest, and when all eight of her campers catch her in a big group hug, it actually pulls a lone tear from her eye.
Just one, of course. She’s not that pathetic.
And then it’s over. Faster than a blink, and she’s calling lights out for Cabin Six in a voice that shakes just a little in the middle. Ninety-four kids tucked into their bunks. Bill and Ben and Vicky shut in their bedrooms. The last smoke from the bonfire swirling up into black sky.
Under golden lights, twelve people gather on the grass. Trade looks through downturned eyes and bump shoulders together affectionately and watch the lanterns behind cabin doors extinguish, one by one.
And then Jeff does what he does best.
“Enough snivelling, you babies. Let’s. Fucking. Party.”
Well, who are they to argue with that?
With the breeze, the black surface of the lake ripples and shakes, and the light of the lanterns the counsellors carry with them sparks and breaks over the water. It’s a raucous procession, laughing loud and reckless, unconcerned with the constraints of the curfew. Who cares if Bill fires them on the last night, right? That’s pretty good going.
It’s a small miracle that the pier doesn’t collapse under the combined weight of twelve grown adults. They slip a little on the mossy, rotted planks, but nobody splashes into the water (yet), and the group settles in a squashed circle with a suitable amount of shoving.
“Dude, could you sit any closer?”
“Oh but Jeff, I just loooove – “
He flicks Randy in the forehead, shoving him once more for good measure before snatching a beer from the middle of the circle and cracking it open. “Get stuck in, dudes.”
Jackie, raising her own can, nods across the circle. “Everyone say: thank you, Travis.”
“Whatever. You all owe me twenty bucks.”
“Everyone say: Travis is a tight ass.”
Travis rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling all the same. “Fuck off, Nat.”
As summer nights go, it’s practically perfect. Warm but not too warm, balmy and blissful and full of possibility. No fairy lights down here, sure, but fireflies circle over their heads, one dipping and settling for a second on Lottie’s upturned palm before taking flight again. She watches it spiral away, face lit by a soft smile, and Nat’s face takes on that open, quiet expression that it does when she thinks nobody is looking.
“How long do you think,” Jackie murmurs in Shauna’s ear. “Before those two hook up?”
“Please. I bet they have already.”
Jackie quirks an eyebrow at her over her can. “Not a chance. Nat would have told me.”
“Of course, you’re right.” Shauna leans back on her hands, smirking. “By the way, remind me – when are you planning to tell Nat about us?”
“When are you telling Tai?”
“Touché.”
Their conversation slides under notice, everyone else wrapped up in their own things. In the shadows, Jackie slips a covert arm around Shauna, hand falling over the small of her back. The secrecy probably isn’t strictly necessary – the two of them were touchy long before anything happened between them – but still.
“Y’know,” Jackie murmurs. “I wouldn’t mind if you did.”
“Hmm?”
“Tell Tai, I mean. I know she’s your best friend - it must suck keeping this from her.”
Shauna gapes at her. It’s not like she hasn’t thought about it – Shauna hasn’t made a single romantic move (who’s she kidding, a single move) without talking to Tai about it for as long as she can remember. They picked classes in school together, checked each other’s college applications – hell, they even applied for Blackwood together. Tai told her all about Van, Tai comforted her when she was bawling her eyes out over Jackie (even if she didn’t know it) – of course she wants to tell her.
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Jackie shrugs. “I mean, she’ll find out eventually, right?”
It’s so easy for her to say, so confident. She sips from her beer again like she hasn’t just dangled the possibility of a future right over Shauna’s head. Quiet and moonlit and shifting the ground beneath Shauna, again, and she opens her mouth to respond with no idea what she’s going to say.
Thankfully, she doesn’t have to.
“Right, nerds,” Randy grins, draining the last of his can. “We getting in?”
And the moment breaks. Breaks with twelve cannonballs splitting open the still water, whooping and yelling and splashing each other. It’s Tai and Van making out in the water in front of everyone, uncaring and undeterred by any amount of jeering from Jeff. It’s Mari showing off her perfect dive, Travis’ backflip from the end of the pier, Misty’s glasses folded on the wood. It’s more drinks and Akilah running off to get her guitar, singing ‘Shoop’ at top volume. It’s every single one of them joining in, tuneless and laughing.
It's Natalie’s camera clicking non-stop, photos of all of them in different combinations and increasingly ridiculous poses. It’s the last of her cigarettes gone (‘get off my smokes, Taylor’), it’s Jackie dancing away from her and shoving her beer into Jeff’s hand to catch Shauna and twirl her.
As summer nights go, it’s practically perfect. And Shauna clings to each fleeting second with both hands. Tipsy and drenched, floating somewhere above her body. She sways in the circle of Jackie’s arms and this time, this time, she thinks about it.
They’re gonna find out eventually, right?
Blackwood sleeps behind them. But tonight, here, by the lake – the counsellors have never been more awake.
Monday comes, and it’s impossible.
Sure, all the counsellors are a little hungover, but that’s not what makes it hard – or, at least, it’s not the only thing that makes it hard. Cabin Fourteen is tidy and packed away, photos taken down from above their bunks, trash gathered in one corner. Their bags line up on the porch ready to be loaded onto a bus – and sure, it’s a ridiculously small space that they’ve shared for 6 full weeks. But without the clutter of bodies and laughter, it just feels empty.
Then there’s breakfast – rushed and meagre. Shauna has no appetite, really, but she forces down a slice of toast to tide her over and settle her roiling stomach. In the corner of the mess hall, old banners and team posters pile up for the recycling, and she seriously considers stealing the blue banner from the pile before realising how utterly pathetic that is.
But then it’s happening. Buses pulling up at the gates and throwing open their doors, kids getting on (then getting off when they forget something, then getting back on again). Penny cries and Billy cries and Javi clings to Shauna’s hand as his friends all hop on board, and then they’re pulling away.
She can’t do this.
She can’t do this, even when Tai’s kids are boarding the next bus. Can’t do it when Randy herds his campers over to the queue, can’t do it when Ben ticks every name off on a clipboard as they pull away. Can’t do it when Bill stands and waves, one arm around Javi, the other raised in greeting at the faceless drivers. She can’t do this and she can’t do this and the final bus is here for the counsellors and oh God, she has to do this.
“Shauna.”
“Hmm?”
“You okay?”
At her side, Jackie tangles their fingers together and squeezes once, resting her chin on Shauna’s shoulder. They watch Mari’s kids pull away, dust rising from the dry ground behind the bus, and then it’s just the staff left at the gate.
Bill and Ben console a sniffling Javi, Misty trying (and failing) at making polite conversation with Vicky. Jeff and Randy (sporting their matching pink bracelets with pride) have turned their horrific flirting attempts on Mari and Akilah, Travis rolling his eyes beside them with a smirk. Lottie has an unselfconscious arm looped around Nat’s shoulders, Tai and Van lost in low, serious conversation a few metres away. All of them in their own worlds, all of them murmuring their own quiet goodbyes.
“Shauna?”
She doesn’t respond. Instead tugs on their joined hands until Jackie is stumbling after her with a gasped oh. Until they round the bus, the others hidden from view, and the last thread of control that was holding Shauna aloft snaps.
She kisses Jackie like a woman starved. Slams her back against the side of the bus and digs fingers into the bare skin of her waist and catches a bottom lip between her teeth. She kisses Jackie like a woman maddened. Frenzied and desperate and pressing closer, feeling Jackie’s fingers tangle in her hair and tug. She kisses Jackie like she might never get a shot to do it again.
“I have something for you,” Jackie murmurs against her lips, breathless. With the tiny space between them, she digs in the front pocket of her shorts and pulls out a scrap of paper, folded into a little square.
“What – “
“It’s my number. Well, my mom’s number, but you get the idea. And our address – I know you drive, so you have no excuse not to come and see – “
Shauna kisses Jackie like a woman enamoured.
“Not goodbye, then?”
“Don’t be stupid, Shipman. How could I ever say goodbye to you?”
So they don’t. They say nothing else, actually. Round the bus again, flushing bright red when the driver winks out of the window at them, and join the others. Shauna throws her pack onto her shoulder and makes the rounds – tearful squeezes and promises to write, a stack of numbers and addresses pressed into her hand. Then it’s one last wordless hug, Jackie’s arms locked around her shoulders for a second too long, and it’s over.
Two girls huddled close, arms looped together, cast mournful looks around at the woods before they climb the stairs. They’re followed by a bleach-blonde wearing a leather jacket and a scowl, a tall girl with dark curls resting a hand over the small of her back. Two guys stumble up the steps next, the image of stereotypical-jock-douchebaggery.
Tai. Shauna. The bus door closes.
It’s a perfect mirror to that first day. Shauna takes the seat by the window, Tai at her side. Discman balanced on her knees and seatbelt crossing her shoulders. Except this time, the bus doesn’t teem with strangers, and this time, when Shauna waves out of the window, it’s not to her mom and the Turners.
Bill and Ben. Misty. Van blinking around a watery smile. Travis, arm locked over Javi’s shoulders. And Jackie, tears flowing, clinging to his other hand. She mouths something, but Shauna can’t make it out, and then the bus is pulling away.
Tai takes her hand and squeezes, dust filling the space beyond the window. And she finally pieces out the words Jackie was shaping.
Not goodbye. But see you later.
Wednesday, October 9 th , 1996
Nineteen doesn’t feel all that different to eighteen really. It’s still a birthday. I hate birthdays. Everyone looks at you and sings for you (ew) and if you don’t have like, the best time ever, you feel like you’ve failed.
I guess it could be worse, though. Ava and the girls are taking me out tonight to celebrate. Frat parties suck but they’re not so bad with the others.
Mom sent a card, signed it from her and the dog. She’s such a dork. And Tai sent me a vintage copy of The Bell Jar last week. God I miss that girl. Nothing from dad, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised – maybe shitty parent duties end after you hit eighteen.
Jackie’s last letter said there was something in the mail, but nothing’s turned up yet. Ava said I could borrow her car to drive down to Rutgers next week and see her. I have an assignment due, but I think I can finish it in time. The last time I saw her, we were packing up her car for college, and she looked so beautiful waving at me out of the window as she drove round the corner. I should’ve told her –
Shauna’s writing is interrupted by a knock on the dorm room door. It’s probably for the best, really – she promised Ava, her roommate, that she’d hold back on all the moody journalling for the special occasion. Still, she closes the notebook a little reluctantly (the moodiness is hard to put down, promises be damned) and shoves it at the bottom of a desk drawer, under scrap paper and broken pencils. The CD player on the table shakes a little when she closes the drawer, Jagged Little Pill filtering crackling through the speakers, and Shauna grimaces.
Above the desk, a corkboard overflows with tacks. It’s another thing Ava teases her relentlessly for - her sentimentality. Shauna can claim she’s all dark and unfeeling as much as she wants, but her souvenirs tell a different story.
There’s her Brown acceptance letter (in her Brown dorm room, yes, but she’s proud of it) right next to the first postcard her mom sent her from Wiskayok. A photo of her and Ava in their room on the first day is half obscured by a printout of her favourite poem – Hour by Carol Ann Duffy, again a great source of amusement for Ava. There’s a receipt from the movie she saw with Tai the day before she left, the cardboard sleeve of her Jeff Buckley CD, her class timetable.
And then there’s all the stuff from Blackwood.
It’s this that Ava makes fun of the most – Shauna’s ‘weird attachment’ (quote) to her summer job. She’s tacked up the certificate her campers made for her, beaded ‘Sergeant’ bracelet hanging from the pin. Most of the space, though, is occupied by Nat’s polaroids: Van and Tai on the porch of Cabin Fourteen, Travis and Akilah posing in front of the colour war scoreboard, Mari presiding over an arm wrestle between Jeff and Randy. There’s Misty and Jackie, arm in arm, Lottie and Nat toasting s’mores at the bonfire, even one of Ben scowling at the camera.
Shauna has a lot of photos of her and Jackie. One of their backs while they sit at the end of the pier, silhouetted by the setting sun. One of them blurred and laughing, cheeks flushed with Travis’ cheap beer. One of them in their matching blue shirts, pointing at the camp logo with cheesy grins.
Her favourite, though, is a solo shot. Natalie took it, but she gave it to Shauna on the bus back home with a coy smile. It’s Jackie, legs folded beneath her on the bench in their cabin, half-lit by the orange glow of a lantern. She’s hazy, a little out of focus, cigarette dangling loosely by her knee as she looks to the side at something out of frame. Blurred line of her jaw shadowed, curve of her smile small and maddening. On the back of the polaroid, Nat’s scratchy handwriting reads: Jackie looking at Shauna – Aug ’96.
“Earth to Shauna,” Ava calls. “Dude, hello? Are you gonna get that?”
Shauna blinks hard, shaking herself a little. She spins in her chair to face her roommate, lounging back on her bed with a magazine in hand and one eyebrow quirked.
“Do you have legs?”
The thing about Ava, much as Shauna likes her, is that subtlety is not her strong suit. So when she drops the open magazine face-down on her chest, fighting a growing grin, Shauna knows something is up. “I think you should get this one.”
“Ava – “
“Just open the damn door, dude.”
And though her instinct is to be an asshole, she can’t really argue with someone telling her to open her own door. So she crosses the room and tugs on the handle.
Her friends are here – Christina from her Lit seminar and Tove from down the hall and Maeve from soccer, all toting makeup bags and poorly concealed beer, all in glittery outfits.
“Happy birthday!” they shout as one, ignoring Shauna’s shushing. They catch her in quick hugs, clapping her on the back and pressing lip-glossed kisses to her cheek. “Listen, we brought you something.”
“Guys, you didn’t have to – “
But Tove shushes her with a grin to rival Ava’s from a second ago, swapping a look with the girl either side of her before they split down the middle, leaving a gap right in front of the doorway. And the Earth tilts on its axis.
“Hi.”
In the corridor of a Brown University dorm building, Jackie is maybe the most beautiful she’s ever been. An oversized sweatshirt and paint splattered jeans, sneakers muddied at the toes. Hair down and curling around her ears, something like pure sunlight spilling from her open eyes.
“What are you – “
Jackie thrusts her hand between them, envelope gripped in shaking fingers. On the front, cursive letters spell out Shauna in black ink.
I hereby promise that you shall receive at least one on time birthday card every year. No matter what.
“Happy birthday, Shipman.”
Fuck, Shauna loves her.
And sure, she’s in a corridor that anyone can walk into. Sure she’s surrounded by her friends, sure her roommate is grinning somewhere behind her. But Jackie is here on her birthday, and Shauna loves her. So she kisses her.
Kisses her like the first time, like the storm, like the time after the fire and the time in the lake and the time behind the bus and every other time. Moments blurring as they collide and her friends cheer and whoop and whistle. Jackie’s hair threaded through her fingers and Jackie’s arms around her waist and Jackie’s lips on her own.
The card is crushed between them, forgotten. But it doesn’t matter. It was delivered, and on the right day. Because Jackie is here and smiling into Shauna’s mouth.
And Jackie Taylor never breaks a promise.