Today’s prescribed dose of family torture included the ropes course, which was appropriate since I’d probably want to hang myself by the end of it.
I’d done a ropes course a couple of years ago as part of a team-building activity with my cross-country team, and it had been fun and, go figure, team building. However, what brought other people together would do the opposite for our family. I knew this from experience. Christmas, birthday parties, events that required gathering around the dinner table…what most of the world viewed as relatively pleasant encounters were considered rare and cruel forms of torture in my family lately.
After we made the trek to the ropes course, everyone started gathering around Callum as he demonstrated how to put a harness on. Once he was done, Callum separated us into three groups. Harry and I got lumped into his group. I wondered if it had been intentional. I wondered if it had been the luck of the draw. I wondered why I was wondering about those things in the first place.
“Phoenix?” After fist-bumping his friends, Harry wandered up to me.
I fought the urge to pull him into a hug. I’d missed the kid. He’d been so busy with his new friends, and I was doing my best to not play the role of dejected sister.
“Harry?” I replied.
“I like Callum,” he said, waving up at him like he was hailing Zeus.
“Good for you.” I tried to keep a straight face for two reasons. One, I didn’t want him to think I was making fun of him for hero-worshipping Callum, and two, I didn’t want him to catch on that I might have kind of liked Callum, too.
“Do you like him?”
Of course he’d ask that question. Why not?
“I don’t not like him,” I replied.
“But that doesn’t mean you do like him.”
I glanced down at him. “No, it means I don’t really feel like answering your question.”
“What question don’t you really feel like answering?”
I almost jumped out of my brand-new boots when I heard his voice. He was right behind me—two feet behind me.
“Nothing,” I spat out.
Right before I could fire a warning look Harry’s way, he shrugged. “The question if Phoenix likes you or not.”
Callum snorted, looking as if he was trying to swallow a laugh. Then he glanced down at my feet and smiled. “So? What’s your answer?”
“No comment,” I muttered before holding my foot up since he was still looking at the new boots. “Thank you, by the way, for picking these up for me. How much do I owe you?”
“They were a gift.”
“It isn’t my birthday.”
“It doesn’t have to be for someone to give you a gift.”
I worked my tongue into my cheek. He was as stubborn as someone else I knew. “I’d like to pay you back.”
“And I’d like a twelve-inch meatball sub in my mitts right this minute, but sometimes we just have to live with our disappointment.”
Harry’s head was whipping between us, every few turns lowering to my new boots.
My arms folded over my stomach. “You’re difficult.”
His smile went wide. “Thank you. I love a good compliment.” Then he crouched down beside Harry. “Getting back to the topic…what do you think, Harry?” He paused, no doubt for dramatic value. “Does Phoenix like me? Or does she hate my guts?”
Harry lifted his hand and tilted it back and forth. “I don’t know. I don’t think she even knows,” he answered, shoving his glasses higher on his nose as he peeked up at me. My face was one giant warning sign. “But even if she did or one day figures it out, I couldn’t tell you.”
Callum shrugged. “Why not?”
“Because she’s my sister and she’s got my back.” He motioned up at me like I was sitting on some kind of jewel-studded throne. “And I’ve got her back, too.”
I had this strange feeling watching my little brother stick up for me to a guy almost twice his age. Had the switch happened here at camp? Or had he been this way for a while, and it had taken Camp Kismet for me to notice?
“I respect a man who looks after his family.” Callum clapped his hand on Harry’s shoulder. “You’re one of the good ones, my man. Don’t change.”
“Oh, I’m planning on growing at least another thirteen inches and looking into contact lenses one day, and who knows? I might even grow a beard.” Harry drew a beard coming off his chin with his thumb and index finger pinched together. I had to keep biting my lip.
“Change that stuff all you want. Just don’t change the important stuff.”
Harry blinked. “Like my theory on whether the chicken or the egg came first? Because I’m certain which one did. I’ve got an entire notebook of evidence proving it, too.”
Callum gave me a quick look. I shrugged. Harry really did have a notebook full of research and documentation on the topic. “No need to change that since you clearly feel so passionately about it, but I was specifically talking about your loyalty and courage. Hang on to those no matter what.”
Harry nodded all solemn-like.
“Now, if you guys will excuse me, duty calls.” Callum lifted his hand in front of Harry for a high five. Harry didn’t hesitate to give it a solid smack. A month ago, he would have stared blankly at someone if they’d lifted their hand in front of him like that.
Harry and I followed Callum and the other campers down another short stretch of trail. It was only a minute before the Beam came into view and I could see what the hype was about. From our vantage point on the ground, with that giant log suspended a good twenty feet in the air, it didn’t just look ominous; it looked like one of my worst nightmares.
Harry squealed beside me, clasping my hand and giving it a hard squeeze. Of course my dread was his thrill. I was what some people would describe as having an issue with heights.
I didn’t like heights.
Heights didn’t like me.
“We get to climb up to that thing and walk across it, twice, before getting to climb back down?” Harry was still squealing, about to cut the circulation off to my left hand. “Pinch me.” When I stayed frozen beside him, Harry nudged me. “Pinch me so I know if I’m dreaming or not.”
“How about I slap you over the back of the head instead?”
Up front, Callum was talking to the group. The Beam was hanging between two large trees, which climbers would scale by using these small metal “steps” that were sticking out of the tree. To get to the top, a person would have to leap from step to step up the tree.
Super. Just effing super.
Of course, once—if—a person made it to the top, they actually had to balance themselves across the tightrope-thin beam, turn around, and balance back before making the return journey down the stairway to hell.
I wondered if it was too late to disappear. Would anyone notice if Harry and I vanished? Maybe I could fake a sudden stomachache.
“Okay, so who’s going to take on the Beam first?” Callum shouted over to the cluster of campers as he clipped a big colorful rope to his harness.
“Anyone?” Callum said. “I promise, it’s been years since we lost anyone to the Beam.” He shot a grin around, but my stomach was too busy convulsing to laugh with everyone else.
Beside me, an arm shot up into the air. For one moment, I was relieved someone else had volunteered. Then I realized whose hand had shot up.
“Harry Ainsworth. Confirming my courage theory all day long.” Callum winked at my foolish, knocking-on-death’s-door little brother. But then Callum shook his head. “I’m sorry but I suppose I should have mentioned that you have to be a certain height and weight. I should have figured you’d want to be the first to tackle the Beam.”
My whole body sighed in relief. Harry’s whole body sagged in dismay.
The other campers around us gave him sympathetic smiles, and a couple of the dads patted his shoulders. I could tell Callum felt bad. Genuinely bad. After a moment, he called for another volunteer.
“Harry…,” I started
“It’s okay, Phoenix. Rules are rules.” He sniffed. “I get it.”
“Really?” I asked. He sighed, but when he looked up, I could see he hadn’t been crying. “That’s really…mature of you,” I said, pulling him into a sideways hug.
“I learned it by watching you.”
“Learned what?” I asked. How to not cry when you wanted to? How to fake one emotion for another?
“How to be mature,” he answered, returning the hug.
“Oh. Wow. I’m not sure how to take that, but thanks.” I was in the middle of mussing his hair when someone came up beside us.
“Sorry I’m late. What did I miss?” Mom sounded almost out of breath. Like she’d rushed to get here. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail and her face was mostly makeup free.
“Harry being the first volunteer to walk across that thing,” I answered, lifting my eyes to the Beam where it seemed to hover a hundred feet above. Forget whatever Callum had said about twenty feet.
When Mom’s eyes followed mine, she swallowed. “Please don’t tell me…”
“Don’t worry. He’s not big enough to do it yet,” I said.
Her shoulders relaxed.
“But I will be next summer,” Harry chimed in, stretching to his four-foot-eight frame. “So can we come back? Puh-lease? So I can walk the Beam?”
Mom paused.
I leaned in closer. “Don’t make any promises you can’t keep.”
For a moment, she looked at me the way she might look at another adult. Wrapping her hand around my wrist, she gave it a soft squeeze as she smiled down at Harry. “Okay, sweetheart. If you love it so much, we’ll return next year.” Harry leaped up into the air as if he’d sprouted a springing tail like Tigger. “That doesn’t mean I’m agreeing to let you walk the plank…beam…whatever,” she piped up, “but we can come back.”
Harry threw his arms around her and kept bouncing. “And maybe we can get the same cabin, and maybe Phoenix can be a counselor again, too.” His jumping stopped abruptly when he looked over at me. “You’ll come back, too, won’t you, Phoenix?”
I hesitated. I was worried that this whole new Mom act was too good to be true. “I don’t know, Harry. It will depend on the college I wind up going to and when school starts.”
“Maybe if you get into Northwestern you won’t start until the end of September. You could totally be a counselor again next summer.”
“Northwestern?” Mom’s head whipped in my direction. Great. Busted. “I thought you’d narrowed it down to UCLA and Cal Poly. Northwestern is on the other side of the country.” Her voice was different, too high, borderline panicked. Weird.
“Well, now I’m considering Northwestern, too.”
“It sounds as if you’re doing a little more than just considering it.” Mom steered us away from the other campers. She didn’t appreciate having family “talks” with others in earshot. You know, messed with the whole keeping-up-appearances thing.
“It’s my top pick.”
That surprised her enough to shut her up for two seconds. “And you told Harrison about your change in college plans before you told your father and me?”
The first camper had just walked the Beam and was getting unclipped by Callum. I could tell Callum was watching us, but he wasn’t making it obvious. The only reason I knew was because it took him five tries to unclip a carabiner.
“Harry found the application lying on my desk one day. What could I do? It wasn’t like I wanted to lie to him.” I wondered if I was still talking about the college application or the foreclosure notice I’d stumbled across on Dad’s desk. Was I mad because she was all put out I hadn’t told them about my change in college plans? Or was I mad because they’d lied about the house and their marriage and Dad’s job and who only knew what else?
“Besides, I probably won’t get in anyway. That’s why I haven’t told you guys yet. Because I was hoping to avoid this fuss if nothing became of it.”
“You lied.”
“I omitted the truth,” I fired off.
“You lied.” She said it more softly this time, but it didn’t matter. She was accusing me of lying? Yeah, not quite.
“Well, you’re the expert on that topic,” I said before turning my back and walking away.
If only I could keep walking all the way home to California.
I was a glutton for punishment. It was official. That was the only explanation for why I’d let Harry coax me into joining the last part of the family trust- (torture-) building day.
It wasn’t until I actually saw Dad with my own two eyes, a few feet down the bench from Mom, that I wondered if I’d accidentally stumbled into some alternate reality. Or had finally dropped off the ledge of sanity.
“Is that really him? Or the twin brother we never knew he had?” I whispered over at Harry.
“I think it’s really him,” Harry replied, waving at a few of his friends as we passed. “But he’s scruffier than I remember.”
I almost smiled. From the looks of him tonight, he hadn’t shaved in days, and his hair hadn’t seen the business side of a comb for just as long. Even his clothes looked disheveled. I couldn’t decide if it looked like he’d just been attacked by a werewolf or was becoming one. I’d been so caught up in Callum and making sure Harry was having a good time, I’d missed the effect camp was having on Dad.
“Listen, Harry,” I started, slowing our pace so I could say this before we got to Them. “About earlier. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to just bail on you, but I couldn’t stand there and let Mom accuse me of lying….”
“But you did kind of lie about college, you know.”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell them about changing my mind.” As we roamed through the room, I found myself searching it for someone. When I realized who that someone was, I stopped looking. But not before I’d found him, at the front of the dining hall, talking to a few campers.
“I didn’t lie to her about anything, and if I had, I would have fessed up because when you lie to someone, you lose that person’s trust. I take that seriously.”
Harry was staring up at me with that you’re-older-but-I’m-wiser expression. “Really? One lie and good-bye, trust is gone?”
I looked down at him with the I’m-older-and-wiser look. “Really.”
“So you’re saying you don’t think Dad and Mom should trust you anymore because you lied about college?”
“I didn’t lie about college.”
Harry rolled his eyes. “Fine, so let’s say they lied about something. You’d never trust them again?”
I lifted a shoulder. “If the lie was big enough…no, probably not.”
“That’s messed up.”
“According to a ten-year-old,” I fired back.
“What if I lied to you about something? Are you saying you’d never trust me again? Never?” He nudged me, like he knew better.
“And this conversation is officially over,” I muttered as we closed in on our parents. Mom smiled when she saw us. Dad didn’t seem to notice us.
“There you two are. Good timing. They’re just about to get started.” Mom scooted farther down the bench from Dad and patted the space between. Harry darted into the spot beside Mom. Leaving me with the spot beside the Walking Dead formerly known as Dad.
“Have they told us what we’re doing tonight?” Harry shoved his glasses higher on his nose.
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Mom answered him, leaning forward so she could see me. “About earlier, Phoenix…” She shifted in her seat. “I’m sorry.”
Come again? Had my mom, the authority on all things all the time, just apologized? To me?
It was only when I noticed Harry’s face doing the same shocked and awed thing as mine that I knew I hadn’t heard her wrong.
“It’s okay,” I started, sounding like a robot. “I’m sorry, too.”
World-stopping moment, take two. Had I just apologized to my mom?
Life, stop messing with me and
get back to making sense, already.
“How’s being a camp counselor going, Phoenix?” It had been a few days since I’d heard my dad’s voice directed at me in something other than a shushing or groaning kind of way.
“It’s okay,” I said, going with the same response I’d given Mom. Best to keep things simple and uniform when dealing with these two.
“So you’re not enjoying it?” Dad’s foot was tapping like crazy, but the rest of him was so still he could have been a statue. His head stayed facing forward as he talked to me.
“No…” I scanned the room, wishing they’d get this thing going. “It’s okay.”
“So you do like it?”
I sighed. Why, of all the questions he could have asked me, had he glommed on to the camp counselor thing?
“It’s o-kay,” I said slowly, hoping he’d get the picture and stop asking.
Dad was quiet for a moment, other than his foot tapping. Then he asked, “Have you made any friends yet? It sounds like Harry’s already made enough to last a lifetime.”
I glanced over at Harry. He was watching our dad with something that resembled curiosity, because we were so used to having these kinds of casual conversations with our dad lately. Oh wait.
“Not really,” I said. “I’ve been pretty busy considering stuff, studying for the SATs, and keeping up with my training, so I haven’t exactly been a social butterfly.”
“Callum’s your friend,” Harry chimed in.
I ground my teeth together. Callum was exactly the reason I didn’t want to get into the camp counselor thing with my dad. So much for Little Brother Interference—LBI.
“Who’s Callum?” Dad asked.
I squirmed in my seat, feeling like I was having the same conversation with him I’d had with my mom the second night at camp.
Just then, the shrill whine of the mic filled the room. Saved by the family trust-building activity…
“That’s Callum,” Harry whispered over at my dad as Callum moved to the front of the room beside Ben and the malfunctioning mic.
“That’s Callum.” Dad’s brows came together. “Isn’t he a little too old to be your friend, Phoenix?”