I wanted to die. I wanted the earth to open up so I could swan-dive in. “We’re both going to be seniors in the fall, Dad. Chill.”
Callum took the mic from Ben, made a few adjustments, then handed it back to Ben. The whining sound stopped.
“Well, he’s too old for you where it counts.”
I felt heat fan my face. Dad had never met Callum. He didn’t know a thing about him other than what he looked like and what Harry had told him about us being friends. Maybe Callum was complicated, but I knew he cared about others, was hardworking, and had a sense of adventure. When I looked at Callum, I saw a good person.
“Callum’s the one training me, Dad. It’s not exactly like I can just avoid him.”
“Phoenix…” There was a note of warning in his voice.
“And if you want to be my parent, that means you have to actually parent. You know, it’s a twenty-four-seven gig, not a ten-minutes-every-couple-of-months job.” I never used to talk to my parents like this, and here I’d gone off on them both on the same day.
A shadow of irritation fired on his face. “I am your father. You will not talk to me that way,” Dad snapped at me.
Heat fanned my face again. “You’re my father in title alone, Dad,” I tacked on with acid in my voice. “You stopped meeting the actual job requirements of the title a while ago, so don’t expect me to fulfill the daughter ones when you’re not holding up your end of the deal.”
Just as suddenly, Dad’s anger disappeared. Watching my dad’s face fall apart brought on a serious case of guilt, along with wishing I could get a do-over for the past thirty seconds.
Why I was feeling bad for him after everything, I didn’t know, but I was. He already had enough on his Fail plate—I didn’t need to add failure as a father to the mix beside unemployed and soon-to-be homeless.
He looked as if he was going to say something right when Ben’s voice echoed through the room.
“Love and light and peace, fellow campers!” Ben was shouting. Kind of made the mic pointless. A chorus of greetings echoed through the room. No one from our bench joined in, though. We were all too busy being pissed, confused, and hurt by one another to even pretend to be happy to be here.
“I hope you’ve enjoyed the day so far and felt like your family was able to take some valuable lessons away from it.” Around us, a bunch of heads bobbed in agreement as arms wound around shoulders. The four Ainsworths shifted in their seats. The only new lessons I’d learned about my family today was that my mom thought I was a liar and my dad could be gutted by a few heated words from me. Probably not the lessons Ben had in mind.
“Tonight we have a real treat in store for you all—the king of trust builders. I’m going to have a few of our wonderful counselors demonstrate what you’ll be doing before setting your families off on your trust-building journey.” Ben waved a few counselors up to join Callum, grinning like today was the best day of his life and sporting his standard Camp Kismet tie-dyed shirt.
Ben lined up the counselors, two wide and two long, turned his back to them and closed his eyes, and then he did the stupidest thing I’d ever watched another person do.
So, yeah. Trust-building exercise was code word for “voluntary sacrifice.”
The point of this gruesome exercise was for each person to take a turn being the victim. Ben had used another term, but victim was more fitting. The victim had their back to the rest of their family, closed their eyes, called out something lame, like Can I trust you? and when the rest of the family answered with a You can trust us, said victim was supposed to fall and trust that the members of their family would catch them before they flopped onto the not-soft-at-all floor.
This wasn’t just a bad idea. There hadn’t been a word devised for just how bad an idea this was.
“Let me know when you guys are ready, okay?” I said as I turned around, my back to them. I didn’t get a reply. Not comforting considering I was about to fall backward into the arms of two people I didn’t trust to keep a gerbil safe, let alone yours truly. I knew Harry would have my back, because he always did. The problem was, he was small.
Maybe if I just grabbed Harry and we quickly and all stealth-like slipped away, no one would notice.
That was when Ben shouted through the mic again. “Just in case any of you are thinking of taking a pass in Can I Trust You? no one gets to eat until everyone’s had a turn. So take your time if you want. We’ll all thank you when dinner is served at midnight.”
Sucking in a deep breath, I crossed my arms in front of my chest like Ben had done, closed my eyes, and called out, “Can I trust you?”
My parents said something. Just not the something I thought they had.
My body crashed right through my parents’ weak hold on each other, and just as I was bracing myself for the impact of the hardwood floor, I stopped. My eyes were squeezed shut and I could feel the grimace cemented on my face, but I hadn’t slammed into the floor. Someone had caught me.
I could feel four hands holding me in place, bracing me from falling. Two small, familiar ones…and two large, strong ones.
My parents’ shrieks were the first thing I heard, followed by my mom blaming Dad for not holding on tight enough, followed by him accusing her of having her head in the clouds. The argument continued, but I tuned it out.
Opening my eyes, the first thing I saw was Harry. His face was creased with concentration, but his eyes were worried. He started to smile when I opened my eyes.
“Thanks for saving me, little man. I’ve always told you you’re my hero.”
His smile spread into a grin.
The second thing I saw was him. Callum, totally calm. Like he was used to swooping in and saving the day. “Nice fall,” he said, his large hands giving me a hoist so I could stand up.
“Nice catch,” I replied, my back feeling warm and tingly from where his hands had just been.
Callum stuffed his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “I told you I’d be there for you when you really needed it. I couldn’t go and renege on my promise. What kind of person would that make me?”
Behind me, I could still hear my parents arguing. “Normal,” I answered him. “But thank you.”
“Welcome,” Callum said with a nod.
“You okay, Phoenix?” Harry asked, looking me over.
“I’m okay. Thanks to you two.” I might have said the last part louder than necessary, hoping my parents might have heard. They were too busy hollering at each other to hear anyone else, though.
“Do you mind if I go hang out with Matt and Carter?” Harry asked, pointing across the dining hall. “Their family’s done and no one suffered any fractured skulls or vertebrae. I’d rather have their family catch me if I really have to do this.”
I messed his hair up good and wild. “Go for it. I don’t blame you.” I checked over my shoulder when Callum stayed in front of me, watching me. My parents hadn’t noticed their youngest child taking off. They sure weren’t going to miss me if I bailed.
“You want to get out of here?” Callum asked abruptly.
“You read minds now, too?”
Callum tipped his head for the door and waited for me to take the first step. He shouldered up beside me when I started to move. “Not minds. Just people.”
“You drove that from California to here and lived to tell the story?” I was standing outside one of the staff cabins, gaping at Callum’s “ride.”
“True story,” he answered, handing me a matte-black helmet that was scratched and beat up.
“My parents will freak.” I took the helmet, but I didn’t drop it over my head.
“Your parents who just let you fall and almost crack your skull open? Those parents?” Callum smiled as he buttoned up his heavy flannel shirt.
I rolled my eyes. He had a point. “They don’t like me getting in cars or, similarly, getting onto the back of motorcycles with random guys.”
“I’m not some random guy. I’m the one who just saved you. I didn’
t go all out of my way to do that to let you go splat across the highway half an hour later.” He waved at the helmet in my hand, and after I slipped it on, he walked over to one of the clothes-drying lines and pulled off another flannel shirt. “It’s going to get cold tonight, and it’s only colder on the back of this thing. I know it’s five sizes too big, but it’s warm.” Callum held up his shirt for me.
When I reached to take it, he kept hold of it, sighed, then held it open.
He was putting it on for me? What the…?
When I spun around, he slid the flannel shirt onto my arms and up around my shoulders. It smelled like laundry soap, sunshine, and him. A combination I shouldn’t have approved of as much as I did.
“There,” he said, turning me around and fastening the top collar button. He looked like he was thinking about buttoning the rest, but he stopped himself. “Ready to get out of here?”
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Somewhere great.”
“Somewhere that has a name?” I pressed as he threw his leg over the side of his motorcycle and scooted forward to give me room.
“Somewhere that needs to be experienced, not described.”
“You’re kind of mysterious, you know that?”
“That’s a relief, because that’s my number one goal in life. To be a mystery, an enigma, a question mark.” His face flattened as he glanced behind him, waiting. “Ready whenever you are.”
“You don’t exactly strike me as the motorcycle type.” I moved closer and hesitantly swung my leg over the seat of the bike. I knew my parents would go all Mount St. Helens on me if they found out, but Callum was right. He’d saved me when they hadn’t. He’d proven himself more capable of protecting me than they had lately.
“I’m not the motorcycle type. Whatever that is.” Callum turned his head over his shoulder. “This thing just happened to be the cheapest, most reliable hunk of junk I could find. Plus, it comes in handy when it’s rush hour in Los Angeles.”
I glanced down at my feet. “And now I feel even worse about accepting these boots since they probably cost as much as this thing.”
He rolled his shoulders and fired up the engine. I stumbled back a few steps. The motorcycle sounded more like it had a bad case of indigestion than other motorcycles I’d heard zooming down the highways did. Callum’s didn’t purr, roar, or rev. It sputtered.
“Where’s your helmet?” I shouted above the noise.
“On your head,” he shouted. “How’s that for proving to your parents I’m safety conscious?”
“Probably not that stellar given your gulliver is exposed and just ready for your brains to splat all over the asphalt.”
Callum chuckled. “Well, at least it would be my splatted brains and not yours. You’re the one destined for college greatness.”
When the motorcycle started to pull away, my arms wound around him as quickly and tightly as they could move. “I might be wrong on this, but just because you’re undecided when it comes to college doesn’t mean you won’t still need a brain for whatever you decide to do instead.”
“Not if I find myself one of those brainless jobs I keep hearing about.” He drove down the road that led right past the dining hall. I held my breath the entire time, sure that would be the moment one of my parents would pop out of there. Callum didn’t say anything else as we sped down the long, winding road toward Flagstaff. I’d never been on a motorcycle before, but it was kind of great. I felt free, alive, like the whole world was waiting for me at the end of this road, wherever it led.
It felt like hardly any time had passed at all before the bike slowed when we made it into Flagstaff. Callum took a sudden turn that led away from the main part of the city, and we weren’t on that road long before it opened up into a parking lot.
My arms tightened around him when I scanned the parking lot. Other than the bike’s headlight, I couldn’t make out anything else.
“Okay, we’re stopped now. Think you could ease up your death grip on me before you crush my liver?” He parked the bike and turned off the engine.
It was so quiet out here. Scary quiet. “Where are we?” I loosened my grip, but I didn’t let go.
He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Don’t you like a surprise?”
“Not when I’m in the middle of some dark parking lot late at night.”
Callum fought a smile. “It’s barely eight. Not quite the witching hour.”
An owl hooted from somewhere in the woods. I jumped. “Where the hell are we?”
He stopped fighting his smile. “The Lowell Observatory. Perfectly safe and nonthreatening, I swear.”
“What are we observing?”
Callum waited for my arms to drop at my sides before sliding off the bike. “Pretty much anything you want to up there.” He tipped his head and looked up at the sky.
My head followed. “The stars? That’s what we’re going to be looking at?”
“Stars, moons, planets. Take your pick.” He helped me undo the helmet’s chin strap after I fought with it on my own for a few seconds. “This is one of my favorite places.”
“In Arizona?”
“Anywhere,” he answered, pulling a small flashlight from his pocket and turning it on. He pointed it in the direction of a sidewalk and started toward it, making sure I was close beside him.
“How many times have you been here?” I asked.
“I come a few times every summer, more when I was coming here with my family.”
I kept my focus on the light in front of us. With that bright beam, the black didn’t seem so thick around us.
“So are you into astronomy?” I asked.
“You could say that.” When another owl hooted, I didn’t leap out of my boots. This time I barely flinched. Callum’s presence calmed me. “But I didn’t know it the first time I came. I only started getting into astronomy a few years ago.”
“Why did you first start coming here?” We were getting closer to what I guessed was the observatory, but nothing about it screamed tourist attraction.
“It was Ben’s idea, I guess. He knew about the trouble my brother was getting into at home and that I was following in his footsteps. He has this freaky way of looking at a person and knowing what they’re feeling or what they’re thinking. Those first couple of summers at camp he used to be able to take one look at me and know when I was about to do something I’d probably regret.” He paused and shook his head. “I really hated Ben at first.”
“And now you love him.” I nudged him as we approached a doorway.
“And now I respect him. I appreciate what he’s doing and why he does it.” He turned off the flashlight and held open the door for me.
“So your mom would bring you here to look up at the sky and your problems were solved?”
He chuckled softly. “That’s what Ben tried to sell. He said there was nothing like looking up at the universe to make my problems shrivel into nonexistence.”
“Is that doubt I’m detecting in your voice?”
“That’s I-know-better-from-experience in my voice.” Callum waved at a lady sitting behind a counter at the front and led me inside. It was dark in here, too, which made me shift a bit closer to Callum. “Ben tried really hard to sell me on the perspective thing, but, I don’t know, looking up at the stars or thinking about the size of the universe didn’t make my issues seem any smaller or less significant. They were still the exact same size when I walked out of this place.”
“Then why did you keep coming back?” I asked as he stopped behind the biggest telescope I’d seen in real life.
“Because it got me out of my head, you know?” he answered immediately. “It got me to focus on something else for a while, and even though I’d leave here with the same problems I walked in with, they felt more manageable. More like I could handle them.”
I hadn’t expected him to open up like that. That was becoming a trend when it came to Callum. One minute he came off as the most closed-off person I
’d ever met, and the next he could spill his guts. “And then you fell in love with the stars,” I said, watching him as he looked through the telescope, making a few adjustments on the dials.
“And then I did.” He made one last adjustment before motioning me to look. Even though it was dark, his eyes were glowing. I’d seen him in his element this summer, but never like this. If this wasn’t passion, I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen it.
“So you’re saying this place has played a totally insignificant role in your life?” I smiled at him as I moved up to the telescope.
“Completely insignificant.” He stepped aside to give me room to look.
I wound my hair around one shoulder, closed one eye, and leaned over so I could peek through the eyepiece. I could have been looking at a star just as easily as I could have been looking at a planet or a moon. I didn’t feel my problems drifting away from me by the masses, disappearing into the Milky Way, but just like Callum had said, somehow they felt less overwhelming. Less powerful.
The longer I stared up there, the stronger I felt down here.
“I get it,” I whispered after another minute, feeling like the entire universe was staring back at me as I gazed into it.
He took a step closer. “I knew you would.”
“From looking at a million stars to having to choose between a million flavors of ice cream.” I tapped my chin as I wandered down the long case for the tenth time. Okay, so there might not have been a million flavors, but close.
“Seemed like a natural progression to me.” Callum had already decided what he wanted, but he was waiting for me. He’d already waited five minutes. Thankfully, it was late and Ice Cream Apocalypse wasn’t too busy, because I’d be testing the patience of the customers behind us.
“What’s your favorite?” I asked him again, but I should have known better. He’d already answered with a solid round of silence, followed by the wise words of listening to my gut when it came to choosing among dozens of flavors I’d never heard of before. Strawberry basil? Bacon and maple syrup? Lemon mint? Wasabi lime?
“What’s the least popular flavor?” I asked the employee trudging down the case of ice cream with me. For now, the eleventh time. I could feel her patience unraveling with every footstep.