Total pages in book: 104
Estimated words: 98264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98264 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 491(@200wpm)___ 393(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Afternoon rain showers in Georgia were as much of a guarantee as death and taxes. On those days, Camden and I would huddle up under the canopy of trees with our towels held over our heads and talk about meaningless crap. He’d let it slip a few times that he was dreading going back to Alberton. His dad worked at the papermill in town, and he was already expecting his only child to follow in his footsteps—an idea Camden wasn’t sold on. But from what I could tell, his mom sounded okay. He might have just been hungry, but he spent an hour one afternoon telling me all about her famous banana pudding. His smile was so big when he promised to bring me some one day that I didn’t have the heart to tell him I hated bananas.
Shortly after that conversation, while fat drops of rain soaked us to the bone, he asked about my mom. I shut the question down quicker than she’d peeled out of our driveway the day she’d left.
Camden and I were close, and I was relatively sure my secrets would have been safe with him. But having a mother who’d not only abandoned you, but had also never once looked back wasn’t bragging material.
Thankfully, Camden never asked about my dad. Ramsey and Thea came up a lot though. They were the only family I had to be proud of, so I was all too happy to fill his ears with hilarious stories about the three of us.
That summer, Camden killed thirty-five bugs for me Thirty. Five. Most of which had never even gotten close to my body.
It worked out well, because come to find out, Camden was terrified of frogs and I had to rescue him a few times too. The first time one crossed his path, I was down at the other end of the creek and he screamed so loudly that it sounded like someone was torturing a cat. Being the good friend that I was, I never let him live it down and would occasionally just shriek at the top of my lungs mid-conversation to remind him what it sounded like. He glared at me a lot, but when he’d look away, a huge smile would break across his face.
I wasn’t sure why Camden enjoyed hanging out with me. But for me, it was the fact that I finally had something of my own.
A place I belonged.
A friend who was always waiting for me.
A boy I caught staring at me out of the corner of his eye more often than not.
Since we only “worked” Monday through Friday, the weekends were long without him. I did my best to keep busy and away from my dad by hanging out with my brother, but it wasn’t the same.
Mondays quickly became my favorite day of the week.
I laughed more that summer than I ever knew possible. It was usually at Camden’s expense, but he got his fair share of practical jokes in too. Like the time he pretended to be allergic to peanuts when I’d slipped a few in his Coke. I thought I’d killed him for sure until he couldn’t hold back his giggles. A few weeks later, he pulled the exact same peanut prank with a Snickers I’d brought us for dessert. He collapsed all dramatic, clutching his heart. He played dead for so long he fell asleep, and then when he didn’t give up the act after I pretended to leave, I panicked, questioning whether I really had killed him that time. He woke up when I poked him with a stick and then laughed about it for weeks. And because it was so ridiculous, watching him laugh made me laugh too.
After all the ham, pickle, and mustard sandwiches, Cokes, and gum for Ramsey every few days, I’d managed to save up over a hundred dollars. But learning how to truly laugh again might have been my greatest accomplishment that summer.
Camden made it easy though.
I knew it would end. Much like our job pretending to collect worms, my relationship with Camden was temporary. By the middle of August, I was painfully aware of how September would bring more than just cooler temperatures.
A few more weeks and Camden would be gone, leaving me alone all over again. School would help. Who knew? Maybe this would be the year I allowed someone to get close enough to be my friend.
But they wouldn’t know my favorite candy or come up with any genius money-making cons or even have his boisterous laugh and bright-blue eyes. Most of all, they simply wouldn’t be him.
I told myself it was okay. We’d spent the most incredible summer of my entire life under the trees at that creek. I should have just accepted it and been grateful I’d met him at all.