“Please, Dad,” I say, my voice thick. “Nash didn’t hurt me or make me do anything I didn’t want to do. Please, don’t call the police.”
“You’re only fifteen, Aria,” Dad says, what looks like fear in his pale eyes. “You don’t know what you want.”
“I do, too,” I insist, sitting up straighter. “And I know good people from bad people. You taught me that, Dad. And Nash is a good person. He’s so sweet and thoughtful and talented. He didn’t deserve any of those things you said about him.”
Daddy’s mouth tightens. “Well, that may be. If I ever see the boy again, I’ll apologize. After I tell him to stay at least five miles away from my daughter for the rest of his perverted life.”
“He’s not a pervert,” I say, but my voice sounds weaker than it did. I glance around the room, shocked to realize my dad is right. Nash is gone. He’s gone, and he left without saying goodbye. “Where…”
“Nash and his mother went to get his things,” Bea says, pity furrowing her brow as she sits down in the chair across from me, the one Nash was sitting in only moments before. “As the older, supposedly wiser party, he should have known better than to do what he did. But since you’re only fifteen and have been with us for so many years…” Her lips curve in a small smile. “Well, we’re going to offer you the chance to stay, providing you promise not to break the rules again and spend your free period helping out in the cafeteria to make amends.”
“I…” I swallow the words rising in my throat. It’s not fair for me to get to stay while Nash is kicked out, but Bea isn’t going to change her mind. Even if she did, my dad wouldn’t let me stay at camp if Nash was still here. And if I insist on going home in solidarity with my boyfriend, I have no doubt I’ll be grounded from my phone and my laptop, ensuring I’ll have no way to reach out to apologize for my psycho father.
But if I stay here…
Camp is a cell free zone, but there are payphones in the rec room and Delilah has an emergency burner phone her mom made her smuggle in just in case she has an anxiety attack and needs to talk to family in the middle of the night. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t have the chance to get Nash’s cell number. Surely the Geary’s have a landline. They seem like grounded, landline kind of people, the sort who have a listed number a girl can track down if she Googles hard enough.
I’ll be able to talk to him if I stay.
That thought is the only solid thing in my mind as I nod and say, “Thank you. Yes, please, I’d like to stay. I’m sorry for breaking the rules.”
After a lecture about believing in myself that I can’t see has anything to do with getting caught making out, my dad leaves and Bea escorts me back to my bunk, where I lie awake all night, waiting for the sun and a chance to call Nash.
I have to talk to him.
If I don’t, I’m going to go crazy.
The next morning, I sneak online during Photoshop class and track down the Geary’s phone number.
But for some reason, in the harsh light of day, I can’t bring myself to dial the number. I’m so mortified by the things my dad said last night, and also a little…afraid.
What if Nash hates me now? What if he took one look at my rhino dad and decided he wants nothing to do with me? Surely, if he still cared, he would have at least said goodbye, even if he had to shout it over his shoulder as Phil shoved him out the door.
I worry myself sick about it all day and almost pass out in the shower I’m so stressed out. Finally, I decide to stick a pin in the problem. I’ll call Nash when I get back home, where it will be safe to spend days crying my eyes out if things go wrong.
I can’t lose it here in front of my friends. They would freak out. I’m the upbeat, confident one, not the girl who falls apart because a boy doesn’t like her anymore.
Even if he is the best boy she’s ever met.
Four weeks later, after our final show and the reception for the parents, I spend the entire drive home from camp pumping myself up to face my fears.
I’m going to call him.
And it’s going to be okay.
Or at least it will be over, and I won’t feel like a coward anymore.
I call the minute I get home, before I start my laundry or grab a taco from the plate my sister, Lark, made to celebrate my return. I listen to the phone ring, my heart in my throat, until an old-fashioned sounding answering machine picks up.