I spend the day canoeing with an overly earnest startup founder and doing a ropes course. The guy running the ropes course keeps shouting at me how I need to just trust more, because I’m gripping onto the ropes so tightly and barely inching along, and other people want to take a turn. Afterwards, my hands feel raw.
That evening is The Ball. I guess the idea is for everyone to slow dance victoriously with their newfound loves. No one really looks that formal because we’re in the woods, but the girls are wearing more makeup than usual, and the guys have clean shirts on. I try putting my hair in a bun, but it just looks like I’m on my way to work out, so I take it back down.
I drink four Jack and Cokes in quick succession because the music is loud and I have no one to talk to. And then, I see Declan again. Incredibly, he’s standing in a corner talking to Sarah from the bus. He’s saying something and she is laughing. I wonder if she figured out it’s him. I wonder if she said something like, “Hey, I think I met this girl who used to date you, she seemed sort of obsessed with you.”
I walk over to them, making my way through all the sweat and bass. I’m not sure what I’m planning to say. “Hi,” I guess. I wish I looked fancier.
Sarah sees me first, over Declan’s shoulder, and grins and waves. Declan turns around to see who she’s waving at—and his face is wrong. His eyes are too close together and his mouth is too wide, and he has the beginning of a mustache crawling along his lip.
It’s not him. It’s some other tall guy with dark hair. It’s a completely different guy.
“Hi Lee,” says Sarah. “This is Jake.”
Declan’s not even here. I’d been so sure he was here.
“Hi,” I say. “I just came to say hi.”
Sarah tries to bring me into the conversation. They’re talking about podcasts. I can’t focus. I have a hot, clammy feeling, like wearing a wet swimsuit while waiting for the shower to be free. I need to sit down but I don’t want to say, “Could we all go sit down?” so instead I say I have to go to the bathroom and just walk away. I wonder if I’m going to cry.
I get another drink and go outside and sit in a deck chair next to a wooden bear. Inside, people are jumping around and screaming along to a Spice Girls song. I wonder if any of them are actually in love. I wonder if they’ll go home and text each other and meet each other’s friends and wake up next to each other. Delete their apps. Spend weekends in bed just eating.
“Hi,” someone says, further down the deck. “Sorry, I didn’t want to startle you. I remember that you hate being startled.”
I lean over my knees to squint at him. It’s Mark again. This dude is fucking everywhere. I almost pretend to go to the bathroom again so I don’t have to talk to him, but then where would I go? Who else would I talk to? I feel too tired to move. “Hi,” I say.
“I guess you needed a break too?” he says, getting up to move into the chair next to me.
“Yeah,” I say. “It’s hot in there.”
“It is.”
I slide a piece of ice in my mouth and listen to everyone shout about what they really really want. “Your weekend’s been good?” I ask.
“Eh, I don’t know about good.” He laughs, sort of sad, and hunches over his knees. “I don’t know. I guess I came in with higher hopes.”
“Oh,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. He clears his throat. “I don’t know why. I knew this whole thing was kind of stupid.”
I snort. “It is really stupid.”
“Right?” he grins. “Like, what was I thinking?”
“My first night,” I tell him, “I couldn’t even sleep on my bed because people were having sex on it.”
“Jesus,” he says.
“I know. I slept on the beach—it was not comfortable.”
“They had to have seen that coming, though.”
“Right? So stupid.”
He sighs. “Well. I guess that’s how it goes. It all feels pretty stupid until something works out.”
And for a minute, it’s just like Declan saying I must have been lonely. This guy gets it, I think. Clicking on screens and asking about people’s siblings, telling them you’re free Wednesday but not Thursday but you could also do Saturday, putting on lipstick, deciding what bar to go to, saying, “Thanks so much for the beer,”—none of that feels like love or anything close to it.
I open my mouth to say something and Mark leans over and kisses me, which I should have expected but didn’t.
It’s fine to kiss him for a little bit. It’s nice to have someone want to kiss me. He slips his tongue into my mouth and it feels like a slug. This guy really likes you, I tell myself. You told him
you didn’t want to hang out and he’s still trying to hang out because he likes you so much. He remembers that you don’t like to be startled, even though you told him that six months ago. You should be flattered.
I try to give him a definitive final kiss and lean back, but he still has his hand on the back of my neck, and he pulls me closer and keeps kissing. It seems awkward to just sit there, so I keep
kissing him too, but more and more slowly, so that maybe he’ll get the message that we’re winding down. I try to exert pressure on his hand with the back of my head, to very subtly start leaning back.
He only stops when the fireworks go off. Like, actual fireworks are set off over the lake. Some of them make heart shapes in the sky. People come streaming off the dance floor to watch.
“Well,” I say, standing up. “I think I need to go to bed. I’m gonna go back to my cabin.”
“I’ll walk you,” he says. He whistles tunelessly and reaches out to take my hand as we walk. Both of our hands are sweaty.
“I’m just so tired,” I say. “I can’t believe how tired I am. I can’t wait to like, just collapse and go to sleep.”
He laughs loudly, even though it wasn’t a joke, and we keep walking.
I feel like I should say something, so I say, “It’s cold,” but he misinterprets and puts his arm around me.
When I try to go in my cabin, he slides his hand back down my arm and pulls me closer to him. Then he’s kissing me again. There’s a moment right before it happens where he’s so close and his face looks huge.
“I’m gonna go to bed,” I say, but I whisper it in a cute way to be polite.
“Let me come with you,” he says.
“I’m really tired,” I try again. “I need to go to sleep.” But still, he follows me inside. He presses me up against the bedpost of my bunk. Then his hands are under my shirt, and it just feels easier not to stop him.
I’m so beautiful, he’s telling me. He really likes me. I understand him, he says. No one else understands.