I walk back to my cabin after the campfire feeling more than ready to go to bed. Today has been simply exhausting, and arguing with Becca all night has left me feeling more drained than an empty Capri-Sun.
I'm excited to finally be able to close my eyes and get some sleep, until I realize that my day isn't over yet— I still have one more task to complete before I can let my head the pillow. Three letters wait for me on my bedside table. Three letters, all bearing news from some foreign outside world.
I think back to the conversation I had with Ronan earlier, and the single letter he received from the mysterious Jesse. I can't picture the idea of Ronan having friends, but maybe he only acts like a dick when he's at camp. I doubt that Jesse would go to all the trouble of sending a letter to Alaska if she (Jesse is a female name, right?) didn't care about Ronan in some way. She must really be his best friend. Or, better yet, his girlfriend.
I make a mental note to grill Ronan about this later. I barely know anything about his personal life, and I can't help but be curious about his life of luxury in New York City.
The cabin is dark when I get back, so I assume that by some stroke of luck Ronan has already gone to sleep. I enter the cabin as quietly as possible, trying my hardest not to step on a creaky floorboard and wake him up (I don't need to give him more reasons to get mad at me), but then the light turns on and I nearly jump out of my skin.
"Did you enjoy the campfire?" Ronan asks. He's sitting upright in his bed, and is very much awake.
"Jesus, Ronan. You scared the shit out of me."
"Aw, did you really think that I was asleep? I'm flattered."
"Did you turn the light off just to scare me when I got back?"
"Maybe."
I glare at him. "I hope your insomnia gets worse."
"Ouch. I'm not going to lie, that one stung."
I turn my back on him and start getting ready for bed. I'm used to undressing in a locker-room full of guys, so changing into my pajamas in front of Ronan doesn't really bother me. He always looks away, of course. Like the sight of my bare chest could strike him dead on the spot.
I'm too tired to bother walking all the way to the bathrooms to shower, so I just brush my teeth outside with my finger and the water from my water-bottle and do my business in the woods. The temperature is already starting to drop, even though the sun hasn't gone down yet, and I'm still shivering after wrapping myself in all my sheets and blankets. Alaska can be one cold bitch at night, and the paper-thin walls of the cabin do nothing to insulate us against the chill.
"Can I turn the light off?" I ask, once my teeth have stopped clattering.
"Lights on, lights off— I could care less. It's not like it's going to help me fall asleep."
"You sound like an old man." I pull the curtains shut and lean over to flick off the light, plunging the cabin into darkness.
Then, when I'm completely sure that Ronan isn't paying attention to me anymore, I draw my flashlight out from under my pillow, bury my head under the covers, and get started on my letters.
The first one is, of course, from mom. Her writing meanders from thought to thought, sometimes saying how sorry she is that I have to waste my summer in Alaska, and other times stating that the camp and fresh air will be good for me, a necessary break from my troublesome ways in Indiana. She discusses the Twins' mishaps (apparently they pushed a girl into a lake during one of their Girl Scouts camping trips) and frets over the Alaskan weather, once again reiterating her wish that I brought a warm jacket to wear in the evenings. It's a pleasant letter to read, and it fills me with a warm feeling of home. When I imagine mom sitting down and writing the letter with one of her special gel teacher pens, I feel a little less bitter about her sending me to Lightlake in the first place. I'm not used to getting into fights with my mom, and I can't ever stay mad at her for long.
I slip her letter under my pillow, in the hopes that it will bring me good dreams. Then I bring out the second letter.
The return address is the same street that I live on, which is perplexing because I don't understand why mom would send me two letters in different envelopes. It's not even her handwriting. I would know; I spent years studying that same handwriting on dozens of notes in school. I would know, because the handwriting belongs to the girl that used to be my best friend.
And then it dawns on me: the letter isn't from mom. It's from Anna.
Anna.
I don't know why Anna would try to write me after everything she did; it's her fault that I'm this summer camp, afterall. She wouldn't be sending me a letter at all if she'd just kept her blabbing mouth shut. I've got half a mind to teach her a lesson by throwing the letter in the trash— but my curiosity wins out before I can even debate tearing the envelope in half. Why did Anna write me after everything that happened? What could she possibly have to say to me? Anna never apologizes for anything, ever. So, if this isn't an apology letter— what the hell could it be?
I slide a fingernail under the flap and tear the envelope wide open.
Anna's letter is written on a sheet of Lisa Frank stationary that I got her for her birthday a couple years ago. There's only three words on it. Three words that say:
I'm so sorry.
I read and reread these words, sure that I must be misunderstanding them. Anna never says she's sorry. Apologizing isn't something that she does. Friends don't need to say sorry, she used to insist to me. Real friends can forgive each other without words.
Which makes this letter monumental. This letter is the probably the biggest shift in our friendship since my parents started the divorce process and everything in my life went to shit. According to Anna, friends don't say sorry— so does this mean that our friendship has come to an end? Or, for the first time ever, has Anna concurred that maybe she's the one who is wrong?
I stare at the stationary for a few more seconds, burning the image of those three words into my brain.
And then I crumple the letter, envelope and all, into a ball of paper in my fist.
If Anna really does want to apologize to me, it's too late. My entire summer has been ruined because of her. All of this— my shitty roommate, the terrible cafeteria food, the constant bullying, the agony of Sharing Circle— is because of her. I don't care if she wants to be friends. Because I certainly don't. As far as I know, our friendship ended the moment she picked up that telephone to rat me out to my dad. Friendships ends. That's just how life is sometimes. I need to come to terms with the fact that Anna and I are through.
"Finn?"
Ronan's voice shakes me out of my thoughts of Anna. "What is it?" I reply. My voice is tight, tense. I sound a little like I've been crying, even though my eyes are still as dry as a desert.
"The counselors are stopping by for bed-check soon. You should probably turn your flashlight off until they leave."
"Oh. Okay. Thanks, I guess."
"Don't thank me. I just don't want to get a mark for violating the light's out rule because you're ogling some skin mag under your blankets."
"You're a real hero, Ronan."
I turn my flashlight off and lie still until I hear the door open, then shut. When I'm confident that the counselor is gone for good, I flick the light back on and reach for the third letter.
This one doesn't have a return address. And the handwriting is only vaguely familiar.
For a brief moment, I hear my words from earlier: another wolf. There's no way in hell that dad would actually put in the effort to write and mail me a letter, but I find myself wishing that he would all the same. I don't know what I want from him— an apology, maybe? An explanation?
I think all I want from him is an affirmation. All I want is to know that he still thinks about me, even though he isn't around.
I know that this is a stupid thing to want— I've fallen over the same cliff of disappointment so many times before that you'd think I'd stop running towards it. But, as I tear open the letter and my flashlight beams darts across the name written at the bottom of it, I charge to the edge and fling myself blindly into an airless descent.
The impact almost knocks me out.
The letter isn't from dad. The name at the bottom isn't Bill—
It's Sarah.
My breath catches in my throat. Just like with Anna's letter, I have to read and re-read the name to make sure that I'm not just hallucinating it out of sheer willpower. Sarah. Sarah. My sister.
It can't be possible, but it is. Mom must have given her the address to camp. But why would she write me— why? She's been ignoring me for so long that it must be second nature to her to pretend that I don't exist. Maybe she wants to give me more details about her wedding. Maybe she's finally going to reveal the identity of her fiance....
Any disappointment I felt over not receiving a letter from dad disintegrates quickly. There will be plenty of opportunities in the future for dad to let me down, but the only time that I'll be able to read Sarah's letter is now.
My sister wrote to me. She wrote to me.
This is crazier than Anna's letter. This is crazier than a thousand letters from my ex-best-friend could ever be.
I barely got through the last letter Sarah sent me— I don't know if I'll be able to stomach another.
With shaky fingers, I open the envelope and pull out a piece of yellow notebook paper.
Dear Finn,
What the fuck?
A nervous laugh escapes my lips. Only Sarah would start a letter like this, with both a rhetorical question and an expletive. It's so familiarly her that I feel marginally better about reading the rest of the letter.
I keep going.
Mom left me a message a few days ago saying that you'd been sent to a summer camp in Alaska for breaking into the school. She said that you'd nearly been expelled. I don't understand. You've never gotten in trouble like this before.
Seriously. What the fuck.
I know that my last letter to you contained quite the bombshell, and I really hope that this wasn't you acting out in response to that. But, just to be sure, I talked to my boyfriend and we decided to postpone the wedding, at least until I get to see you again and talk things out. He was fine with it, by the way, so please don't feel guilty. He's just as worried as I am that us getting married put you in the mess.
"Shit," I whisper. I never wanted Sarah to get married to her mysterious English boyfriend, but now that the wedding is off, I don't feel victorious— I just feel ashamed.
I skim through the rest of the letter in a feverish rush.
I never wanted to hurt you, Finn, but I think that I have. I'm so sorry if you were sent to this camp because of me, and I want to fix things between us. I need to.
Please call me at the number or send me a letter to the address on the back of this paper as soon as you can. I'm sure that you're angry at me, but ignoring this letter won't make life easier for either of us. If we don't talk we can't fix this.
I hope you know that out of all our family members, you're my favorite brother.
Sincerely,
Sarah
I can't stop the words that come to my mouth. "She canceled the wedding because of me," I whisper. "Because of me."
There's still no response from the other side of the room. Maybe Ronan finally beat his insomnia and fell asleep, or maybe he's just tired of talking to me.
Either way, his silence only makes me feel worse— worse, and more alone— and it does nothing to stop my eyes from watering, nothing to stop a few stray tears from sliding down my cheeks. But the tears must not be so stray afterall, because seconds later, I feel a flood of fresh ones join them. I grab one of my pillows and hold it up to my mouth. Then I scream, just a little bit, into the soft fabric.
Sarah cancelled the wedding because of me. She cancelled what might be one of the most important days of her life because I was stupid enough to think that I could save the frogs, because I was stupid enough to think that I could save anything.
I don't think there's a single thing in my life that I haven't fucked up yet. My relationship with Sarah, my friendship with Anna, my parent's marriage— all fucked, fucked, fucked.
I must be the biggest failure in the world. And the worst part is, I don't know how to make myself less of a failure— or if that's even possible.
I cry silently into my pillow, my chest burning like I downed a glass of battery acid. When the tears finally stop coming and I feel like nothing more than a husk of the person I used to be, I slip Sarah's letter back into its envelope and tuck it away next to mom's. It's too late at night to make life-changing decisions. I'll deal with the letters from Sarah and Anna later when I'm not feeling like such an emotional wreck.
I turn the flashlight off and set it down on the table.
Then I lay down on my bed, bury my face in my pillow, and try to sleep.