Trusting You and Other Lies

  “Dad, pull over.” I leaned across Harry’s lap and punched one of the half-dozen buttons on the door’s armrest. Harry’s window whirred down, letting in a blast of fresh air. For summer in Arizona, the air was surprisingly cool. I was expecting it to be blistering hot and the air to smell like BO. This was almost refreshing.

  “Hello? Calling all parental figures.” I snapped my fingers next to Dad’s ear. “Puke coming. Pull over.”

  Of course that would get his attention. Dad loved this car. It wasn’t even his, and it wouldn’t be his when the lease was up because he couldn’t afford to buy it or anything like it. He wouldn’t even be able to scrounge up enough money or credit to buy one of those domestic four-doors in the used car lots he cringed at as he drove by.

  “Need me to pull over, Harry?”

  Harry shook his head, angling his nose so the fresh air was streaming straight into it. “No. Keep going. I’ll be okay.”

  “Harry,” I urged, knowing what he was up to. He was trying to be tough. He wanted our parents to stop treating him like he was a piece of ancient family china that needed to be handled with the utmost care. To him, pulling over would be a defeat. Sucking it up and keeping his breakfast down was a win in his book.

  That was messed up in my book.

  “Harrison?” Mom chimed in.

  “Harry?” The first thing Dad’s eyes went to was the light beige carpet at Harry’s feet. Yeah, that’s right, Dad. Worry about the carpet in the car instead of your kid whose stomach was unleashing on him. Way to have your priorities straight.

  “I’m fine. Just keep going,” Harry whined, curling into a ball.

  Dad’s gaze went back to the carpet at Harry’s feet before he punched the gas, because we weren’t moving fast enough at fifty.

  Harry was in crisis mode. He was desperate to prove to our parents that he was strong and capable of more than just wiping his own ass and tying his shoes. This was his summer. Since this clearly wasn’t going to be mine, I had all the time in the world to help him with his agenda.

  “Here, this will help….” Twisting around in my seat, I dug through the stuffed third-row seat for the mini cooler I’d packed with essentials like Junior Mints, Red Vines, soda, and…There it was. I pulled the mini ice pack from the cooler and pressed it to the back of Harry’s neck.

  Harry had been prone to car sickness since the day he left the hospital and yacked all over his coming-home outfit. I didn’t know why I was the only one who seemed to notice that any time he was stuffed in a car for longer than an hour his stomach staged a revolt, but it would have to remain a mystery. I’d stopped asking questions like that when I realized there weren’t any answers. At least no good ones.

  A moment later, I reached into the cooler to pull a Sprite free. I cracked it open, and an eruption of fizz and tiny bubbles floated into my face. “Drink this. Car sickness won’t stand a chance against the ice pack–Sprite tag team.”

  Harry’s breath was already returning to normal when he took the frosty can of pop from me. I wrapped my hand around the ice pack and pressed it more firmly on his neck. “Better?”

  He took a sip, then followed it up with a relieved sigh. “So much.” He took another sip, then opened his eyes. He smiled at me and, abandoning my no-smiles-allowed policy when our parents were around, I smiled, too. “Thanks, Phoenix. Thanks for always having my back.”

  My smile crept higher. Part of Harry’s quest to become his own ten-year-old man was picking up a few choice words and phrases he’d heard from my friends. Sick and having my back were two of the many. There were a couple of others I’d had to bribe him to forget. “Thanks for always having mine.”

  He extended his fist toward me. I bumped it with mine and winked. The Ainsworth family’s one redeeming quality was my brother. How this little ball of optimism and loyalty could have been spawned from my parents was the eighth wonder of the world.

  If there was one reason to not start exploring escape options the moment I set foot in Camp GatesOfHell, it was so I wouldn’t abandon my little brother with two people bent on driving their own lives off a cliff.

  I checked Harry over again. His skin was normal, along with his breathing. Crisis averted.

  “Tell Emerson hey for me.” He glanced at my phone and chugged the last of his Sprite before unleashing a burp that would not end.

  “Harrison…,” Mom warned in that tone. The one that basically implied she and her kind didn’t burp, fart, poop, or pick boogers.

  “Sorry, Mom,” he said, grinning at me like he’d just gotten away with stealing an armored truck’s worth of Minecraft games and ice cream sandwiches.

  I’d tilted my phone just enough so Harry could read Emerson’s name at the top. He loved Emerson. As in wanted to marry her. He had good taste in girls—I had to give him that—and she was just crazy enough she might actually consider it one day.

  “We’re here,” Dad announced, finally easing off the gas as we passed under a gleaming wood sign hanging between two more—big surprise—trees. No more trees. For the love of God. This wasn’t natural.

  CAMP KISMET was carved in big letters that looked as if a kid wielding a melon baller had done it. I hadn’t been too far off with the Camp KissMyButt name.

  Harry’s face was hanging out the window, taking it all in, pointing at so many things his arm was a blur. Dad rolled down his window and hung his elbow out. Even Mom had opened her eyes and stopped drilling at her temples long enough to inspect the approaching camp.

  Me, though? No way. Slumping down further into my seat, I plunked my dark sunglasses into place, put one of the songs we played at track meets on repeat, jacked up the volume, and sent another text to Emerson. I hate my life.

  Of course that was when I went from three bars to no bars, trapping her reply in no-reception limbo.

  “This is going to be the best summer ever!” Harry shouted as log cabins came into view. Great. I’d be spending my summer learning about how the pioneers had lived back in the day.

  Crossing my arms, I slumped as low as I could into the seat. I wasn’t holding my breath for this to be the best summer ever—I was crossing my fingers, hoping it wouldn’t be the worst.

  There was running water in the cabin. And electricity. And walls that divided rooms and doors that closed. So I had it a little better than the Pilgrims did four hundred years ago.

  Ever since rolling up to Cabin #13—yeah, really—I’d been trying to focus on counting the positive things instead of zeroing in on the negative…because there was a heap of them. My parents kept getting into one of their typical arguments about God knows what. I walked through a spiderweb as I climbed the few steps to the front door. There were only two bedrooms, which meant I’d be sharing a small space with a ten-year-old boy. So, pretty much, the downsides were stacked at ten to one when compared to the upsides.

  When I stepped inside the minuscule bathroom and was welcomed by the stink of rotten fish, I realized I was being generous with those ten-to-one ratios.

  I yanked my third load of luggage from the car while my dad wrestled his laptop open at the kitchen table. Mom disappeared into the trout-stenched bathroom. Rounding into the “Lil’ Campers” bedroom, I found Harry staring at the top bunk. He’d begged my parents for a set of bunk beds since his fifth birthday, but they’d rallied against his pleas, declaring he’d surely fall from the top bunk and break his neck. To a boy who’d be heading into fifth grade next year, bunk beds were like living the dream. For a seventeen-year-old girl who was ready for her freedom, this was like living the nightmare.

  But this summer wasn’t about me. This summer was about Harry.

  “I bet you’re thinking I’m going to put dibs on that top bunk, aren’t you?” I said as I dropped Harry’s and my suitcases onto the old plank floorboards.

  “Aren’t you?” Harry asked, not blinking as his stare-a-thon continued with the top bunk.

  “Nah. I’m more a bottom-bunk type of girl.” I rolled my purple s
uitcase the rest of the way across the floor before heaving it onto the mattress.

  “Really? You want the bottom one?” Harry stepped toward the ladder at the end of the bunk.

  “Totally. This way if I have to get up in the middle of the night, I don’t have to worry about tripping down the ladder.”

  Harry nodded, his small hands curling around one of the ladder rails. “You are a bit clumsy. It probably would be safer for us both if I took the top.”

  “I prefer the term ‘gracefully impaired,’ and thanks for the favor.” I mussed his hair as he started climbing the ladder. “My potentially cracked skull and bruised shins are in your debt.”

  As soon as Harry reached the top, he leaped onto the mattress. “Woo-hoo!” he shrieked as a plume of dust erupted from the underside of his mattress, raining down onto what was to be my bed. So I wasn’t sleeping in this thing until it was dusted and disinfected. Twice.

  “Yeah, keep it down up there unless you want to alert the warden.”

  Almost instantly, Harry stopped laughing and hooting, knowing our mom would put an end to his top-bunk dreams if she marched in to see what all the “racket” was about. If we kept it quiet and flew under the standard parental radar, I knew from experience neither of them would step foot in our room this summer.

  Harry’s lips might have stayed sealed, but he kept up the bouncing. More dust swirled down onto my mattress and suitcase.

  “Hey, Phoenix?” Harry’s bouncing came to a stop. His head poked over the edge of the bunk, his wide eyes blinking down at me.

  “Hey, Harry?” I answered.

  “Are we going to be okay?”

  My fingers froze in the middle of unzipping my suitcase. “What do you mean?” I said, keeping my tone light and my expression the same.

  “I might only be ten, but I know something’s wrong.”

  “Nothing’s wrong. And you better stop leaning over the edge of the bunk like that.”

  “Come on. I know you know what’s going on.” He sighed, flopping back on the mattress.

  “Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t.” I shrugged.

  “Why does everyone in this family treat me like I’m a child?”

  I started lining my shoes up beneath the lower bunk. The whole four pairs I’d packed. “Eh, because you are a child.”

  Another grumble fired off from the top bunk. “According to my aptitude scores, I’ve got the brain of a thirteen-year-old, which is pretty much like saying I’m a teenager, which is pretty much an adult. I might be ten according to the calendar, but I’m not a child.”

  After lining up my shoes in descending height order—running shoes, everyday sneakers, sandals—I pulled open the top drawer of the dresser shoved next to the wall beside the bunk. I winced in anticipation of what I’d find, but other than a clean, empty drawer and the faint scent of cedar, no plumes of dust or eau de trout erupted in my face.

  “You’re a child in the eyes of the law,” I said.

  A snort echoed in the room. “Whatever.” Then Harry’s head popped over the side of the bunk again. “Are Dad and Mom going to get a divorce?”

  “Of course they’re not. Why would you even ask a question like that?” I restacked my shirts to give myself something to focus on. I arranged them in order of color, dark to light, with charcoal being on top and cream being on the bottom.

  “Because they act like they hate each other now.”

  “They don’t hate each other. They’re just dealing with some things….It will get better. Don’t worry about it, ’kay?” I hustled over to my suitcase, grabbing another stack of tees. I rarely did tanks, I occasionally did sweatshirts, but I lived in tees. They were comfortable, familiar, a piece of home I could take with me wherever I went.

  “Are we going to get kicked out of our house?”

  After the initial shock of the first question, now I was prepared for the rest that would follow. I’d been bracing myself for them. “Of course not. People don’t just get kicked out of houses.”

  “What about the Holloways? They got kicked out of their house last year, and I heard that Sawyer didn’t even get to pack his Legos before they got the boot. If that’s what’s going to happen to us, I don’t want to leave my Legos behind. I want to make sure all my stuff’s packed and ready to go before we get the boot.”

  “No one’s getting the boot.”

  “I don’t want to leave my Legos behind, Phoenix.”

  “No one’s leaving their Legos behind!”

  I hadn’t meant to shout. I wasn’t upset at Harry. I wasn’t even irritated with his questions. I was angry at our parents. For screwing up and dragging Harry and me into it. As far as I was concerned, they’d dug their hole all by themselves. Why did Harry and I have to fall into it with them? It wasn’t fair.

  “I’m sorry I shouted. I’m not mad at you. It was just a long drive up here, and I’d rather be home with my friends instead of trapped at Camp…whatever it’s called. I didn’t mean to take it all out on you, Harry. Forgiven?”

  He nodded. “Forgiven,” he said in a grown-up voice. “But at least you managed to get a job as a counselor so you could make some serious money. I bet by the end of the summer, you’ll be able to buy a Lamborghini or something sweet like that!”

  “For being such a smart kid, you sure don’t understand the concept of money.” I smashed a small spider as it scrambled across the floor plank in front of me. Another item to add to the Camp Kismet con pile—arachnids in my bedroom. “I’d probably have to work summers for the rest of my life to be able to put a down payment on a car like that, but I might be able to scrounge together enough for a nineties Accord with half a million miles on it. Hopefully,” I added. I wanted a car bad. No, I needed a car bad.

  “So you can leave for college.” Harry reined in his sigh, but it was written all over his face.

  I felt the familiar stab of guilt dig right into my side. I’d been experiencing lots of those lately. “More like so I can come home and visit you all the time.”

  The corners of Harry’s mouth twitched. “Really?”

  I nodded. “Really.”

  Harry’s smile tilted from happy to the relieved spectrum. He wasn’t thrilled with the idea of being stuck alone with my parents for a solid eight years—not that anyone would be unless they were into living with things like misery.

  “Hey, just for the record, I’m with Emerson.”

  What wasn’t he with my best friend on? “In what way specifically?”

  “Keats is a douche-burger with a side of scum sauce.” Harry formed his mouth into a sneer.

  “Did you hack into my phone again?” I tried giving him the mom look. I didn’t really have a knack for it.

  Harry’s shoulders bobbed. “It’s so easy I figured you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Why would I mind my little brother snooping through my phone?” Rolling my eyes, I threw my thumb over my shoulder. “I’m going to get the rest of the luggage. Be right back.”

  “I’ll help!” Harry shouted as he scrambled down the ladder. I paused when I heard what sounded like more of a fall than a successful descent. But when I saw Harry rush into the hall after me, I knew no permanent damage had been done.

  “Hey there, Mr. Graceful.” I mussed his hair again when he jogged up beside me.

  He swiped my hand away, fretting with his hair to get it back into place. He gave me an irritated look, but I knew he secretly liked it when I messed up his hair. Once, after a six-day break, he practically promised to do my chores for the next year if I’d just get back to messing up his hair.

  If that didn’t scream affection-starved, I was nominating my parents for dad and mom of the year.

  I shoved through the screen door, Harry shadowing me, and headed for the Range Rover. Parental units were MIA, because it wasn’t like an entire vehicle needed to be unloaded or anything.

  I shuffled through what was left of the luggage in the car, gauging what would be the lightest item to hand Harry. “Here,
you can carry this in.” I snagged one of the reusable grocery bags my mom had packed with enough sunscreen, bug spray, and aloe vera to supply a team of hockey players forced to spend a summer running around the desert, and scooted it toward Harry.

  Mom might have missed the carsick memo with Harry, but she wasn’t blind to the paleness of his skin. Might have been because the poor kid seemed to reflect sunlight whenever he stepped into it.

  “Harry?” I shook the handles of the bag I was holding for him, but he was too busy focusing on a band of boys around his own age. As they marched in our direction, I froze for a fraction of a second. Harry went with the opposite. After adjusting his glasses and patting down his hair, he approached the boys.

  That was when I unthawed. Hopping out of the Range Rover, I lunged up beside him. There were more than I was used to dealing with when it came to Harry, but if I couldn’t manage to scare off five prepubescent boys, then I didn’t deserve the title of overprotective older sister.

  When the boys stopped in front of us, Harry adjusted his glasses again.

  “Did you just get here?” one of the smaller kids of the pack asked Harry, seemingly oblivious to the fact I was even there.

  “Yeah, we got here about”—Harry lifted the wrist his watch was on—“eleven minutes ago. Give or take fifteen seconds or so.”

  I shifted in place. This was usually the point where things got messy. If insults hadn’t been firing right from the start, the teasing and laughing typically came after Harry started rattling off random facts or bits of knowledge that pegged him more as a shut-in academic five times his age.

  “Yeah, we all just got here, too. But more like a few hours ago,” the same boy continued, tipping his head at the other boys around him. “Give or take fifteen seconds.” One of the other kids checked his own watch strapped to his wrist. The electronic display was blank, though, and from the look of the wear and tear on the band, they’d probably stopped making batteries for it last century.

  “How long are you going to be here?” the “round” boy of the bunch asked Harry.