“Lake,” he warned, an edge to his voice.
“I know you told Tiffany about your sister,” I blurted. “Why not me? She doesn’t even care. I do.”
He inhaled a loud breath. “That was private.”
“Sisters tell each other everything.”
“Do you talk to her about me? Does she know you and I spend time together like this?”
I closed my mouth, scolded. Of course I hadn’t told Tiffany about us. She’d just ruin it by calling me childish or teasing me for having a crush. He’d made his point. “No.”
“Good, and don’t,” he said. “That’d put an end to our friendship.”
I looked up at him, panic tightening my chest. “You’d end our friendship if I told Tiffany?”
“Not me, no.”
Somehow, I knew instinctively who he meant. Everyone who wasn’t us. “You’re not closer to Tiffany than you are to me.”
“How do you know that?”
“I just do. You can’t be. It’s not possible.”
“Tiffany and I are friends in a different way than you and me, Lake. Our friendship—it progresses differently. It means something else.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Why not?” He waited, but I didn’t respond. “Would you rather I broke up with her?”
I opened my mouth to scream yes! But did I want that? Tiffany wouldn’t care too much—this was way more important to me than it was to her. That made it fair. “Would you?”
“Your sister’s more than meets the eye, but I think you know that. Maybe people don’t give her enough credit.”
I had thought the same thing more and more lately. As I got older, I began to wonder if Tiffany was as aimless and flighty as Dad made her out to be, or if she was that way because my parents didn’t understand how to push her. “I guess.” If Manning could see that, then he was getting to know a different Tiffany than most people. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “Are you saying you like her?”
He scratched behind his neck and responded slowly, as if choosing his words. “I like Tiffany for a lot of reasons. But maybe there’s one thing about her that brings it all together. Like glue.”
“What thing?”
“It’s not something I can really put into words . . .” He looked over my head and around. “Let’s say it’s because she makes me laugh. If I break up with her, then I’d miss laughing. You know?”
I frowned. “No. Surely she isn’t the only person who makes you laugh.”
“But let’s say she was. Let’s say, me laughing while Tiffany wasn’t around would be . . . people wouldn’t understand it.”
“So you wouldn’t laugh at all? Because of what other people thought?”
“Part of me doesn’t think it’s appropriate to laugh, either, Lake.”
Appropriate—I’d heard that word from him before. Laughing wasn’t appropriate the way our friendship wasn’t. “I think I understand.”
“I didn’t tell you about my sister because I won’t ever lie to you.”
“What do you mean?”
He stopped walking when we reached a wooden fence running the perimeter of the camp pool. We weren’t really by the cabins anymore, which made me wonder if he’d brought me here on purpose. He looked up, his feet apart, hands in his jean pockets, forearms tense. I could tell he was thinking, his eyes distant, but about what, I wasn’t sure. Maybe I’d asked too many questions, and he was about to send me back to my cabin.
“Can you hop it?” he asked.
I realized he wasn’t staring into the distance but at the pool. There were only two ways in—the gate on the other side, and through the locker room and showers. Both were locked at the end of each day. I had no idea if I could get over the enclosure, but I said, “Yes.”
Leaves crunched under Manning’s feet as he surveyed the area. He motioned me over to the fence and picked me up the way he’d hoisted me onto the wall the day we’d met. I straddled it, jumping over the side. Manning followed right after, landing heavily on the concrete deck. He brushed off his jeans. “No trees in here,” he said. “It’s one of the best places to see the stars.”
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d looked at the stars, really looked. There were too many to count, a paint-splatter of silver on indigo. At home, I barely noticed them anymore, but as kids, Mom had taught Tiffany and me the constellations. I pointed, drawing in the sky. “Little Dipper.”
“That’s the big one,” he said, moving closer to me. He stenciled out his own square. “It’s part of Ursa Major, which means Great Bear.”
I looked over at Manning, a bear of a man. My great bear. “Ursa Major,” I repeated.
He shifted his index finger over. “There’s the little one. You can tell by the North Star. My sister used to make the same mistake. Until she knew more than I did, that is.”