“Fine.” Nobody spoke. I had the distinct feeling they were all listening to our conversation. “Keeping busy.”
“’Course you are. Every time I see you, you’re reading or with friends, or,” he clucked his tongue, “eating cotton candy.”
Oh, God. Corbin Swenson was flirting with me, and all I wanted to do was check to see if Manning was watching. Was he maybe just a little jealous? “You make it sound like I just screw around all day.”
“Don’t you?” he asked. “It’s summer.”
“No. My dad doesn’t let me. That’s why I was reading at the beach. For school.”
“Ahh.” He sat back in his seat, crossing an ankle over his knee. “Charles, right? That’s your dad? My old man works with him.”
“I know.”
“So you’re not screwing around here?”
“No. This is for my college apps. Just don’t tell my dad I enjoy it.”
We smiled at each other.
“I sense a love connection,” Gary said, waggling his eyebrows at me. He sat forward. “But listen, you two—”
“Leave that stuff at home,” everyone recited and before erupting in laughter.
“All right, all right,” Gary said. “I just expect you guys to set a good example for the kids. No alcohol, no sex.”
“Unless you’re the one having it?” Tiffany teased.
More giggling.
“You’re all a bunch of degenerates,” Gary said. He stood and stretched. “I need my beauty rest. Remember—Reflection is at seven tomorrow morning and not a minute later. Last cabin to show gets dining hall cleanup duty.”
Hannah and I exchanged looks. “It won’t be us.”
Corbin got up, too, and gently touched my shoulder. “I’ll be right back. I’ve got a few questions for Gary about tomorrow. Don’t go.”
I just nodded, watching him walk away.
“I’m bored,” Tiffany said.
“There’s a deck of cards,” Manning said. “We could play a game.”
“With alcohol?”
“Christ, Tiffany. I already told you no.”
“I said I was bored, not fifty. I don’t want to play cards.”
“You don’t have to.” Manning nodded at a group of counselors across the hall. “You know any of them?”
“No.”
“Why don’t you go introduce yourself? Part of this experience is meeting new people.”
“Because, I’d rather do other things, like . . .” Tiffany inched her chair closer to him and whispered in his ear.
Manning kept his eyes on the floor. “We can’t.”
“Why not?”
“You know why.” His eyes shifted to my feet but stayed down as he stammered, “We’re not . . . and I promised your mom.”
“She isn’t here.” She tugged on his arm. “Can we go for a walk?”
He blew out a sigh. “I’ll make you a deal. You go over and say hi, make some small talk, and then we can go for a walk.”
She rolled her eyes but stood. “Okay, fine. Will you come with me?”
“Yeah. I’ll be right there.”
I couldn’t look at Manning. My face burned just thinking of them out there alone doing things you could only whisper—now, later, the rest of the week. One minute, I swore he and I had some unearthly connection. And then there were moments like this one, where I questioned how well I really knew him.
He leaned his elbows onto his knees and spoke for my ears only. “We’re just going outside for a cigarette. That’s all.”
“You said you weren’t going to smoke at all.”
“No, I said I’d figure it out.” He cleared his throat. “You know how hard it is to go all day without one cigarette?”
“Would you quit if I asked you to?”
He blinked slowly, as if seeing me for the first time. “What?”
“If I asked you to quit, would you?”
“Why?”
“It’s not healthy.”
“I don’t do it in front of you.”
My mouth fell open. “Yes you do.”
“When? Name one time.”
I thought back to the day I’d met him and the night of the fair and the time I’d gone looking for him on the site. He’d held cigarettes, put them behind his ear, even stuck them in his lips. But he’d never lit one, or if he had, he’d put it out as soon as I’d gotten near. It hadn’t occurred to me that was on purpose. I could recall the smell of smoke being near him, though. I could almost taste the bitterness on his mouth.
“You can’t think of one because it didn’t happen,” he said.
I opened my eyes, not realizing I’d closed them. My mouth was watering. “You’re right. But I’m not asking you to quit for me. It’s because I care about you. I care enough that I want you to stop hurting yourself.”
I’d never seen him look speechless. Quiet? Yes. Stoic? Definitely. But not speechless. “I will quit. One day. Soon.” He swallowed. “I’m down to two or three a day.” It wasn’t good enough, so I didn’t respond. “But if you want me to . . . I’ll try harder.”
I wanted him to not go outside with Tiffany. Truthfully, I’d come to like the smell of cigarettes because it reminded me of him, and I’d cherish the coarse taste on his tongue, the stink, if it meant one kiss, but more than that, I’d spent my youth learning about how cigarettes turned your lungs black and killed you over time. I didn’t want that for him. “Try harder,” I said.