home with a new set of issues. Painting seems less dramatic and less of a hassle. I want those skills. I’ll trade you.”
“You live in a group home?” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “Right now, I’m technically a ward of the state. Unless I get adopted between now and the time I turn eighteen, which is doubtful. No one ever wants someone above the age of ten.”
Guilt worked its way into my thoughts, pulling my attention back to the canvas. Had I known this earlier, I could have been softer from the beginning. Had I been softer, though, we may not have made it this far.
“You don’t have to get all weird,” she said. “You can look at me. I’m not asking for your sympathy or anything.”
“No sympathy,” I said, nodding. “I just didn’t know. That caught me off guard.”
“Well it isn’t like I wore it around my neck on some flashing neon sign,” Jess said. “Most people find out and they look at you some kind of way, like they want to help you but they don’t know how, so they just avoid you instead.”
“I can’t avoid you. You’re stuck with me.”
“Exactly. You’re stuck with me either way.”
She went back to crisscrossing strings on the bracelet, making some sort of pattern as each of the strings worked together. After her fourth round of alternating, she looked at me.
“So, now that I’ve been all open and honest with you, do you feel like telling me what all that crying you were doing in your bed last night was about? I’m not here just to make a bracelet, Alex. If you’re out here to be my counselor, you need to make sure that trust is flowing both ways.”
“The last time I told y’all something, it ended up being passed around camp,” I said.
“The last time you told us something, Brie was around. You should’ve expected it to be passed around camp.”
I gave her the side-eye, focusing on my canvas instead of talking. She might understand, or she might not, but I wasn’t talking about it anymore. Period.
“Okay,” she said after a minute. “Talking isn’t on the table. Got it. How about we break some rules instead? You give me the chance to do something fun, and I give you the chance to get your mind off your issues. At least temporarily.”
“What do you want me to do? Sneak you out of camp?”
“Your suggestion. Not mine.”
“You and I both know if I got you out of camp, Loraine would get me a one-way ticket home. I have a reason for being out here that revolves around a large sum of money and a set of parents who are already positive I can’t make good choices. That’s like confirming it.”
“Your parents are that bad?”
“Well, they offered me an ultimatum to get me out here, then volunteered me for extra therapy sessions I never agreed to. At this point, I’m not even sure I want to go home. The longer I’m gone, the more I think I like being on my own.”
“No one is better on their own.”
“You haven’t met my parents.”
“At least you have parents.”
I ran my tongue across my teeth, my jaw jutting to the side. Jess’s expression was unflinching, her brown eyes squarely centered on mine. Leave it to a camper to attempt to put me in my place. Leave it to a camper to do the best job at it.
“Give me something real to go on here,” she said.
“I’m not giving you anything but the free string you’ve already got.”
“Then stand on your side of the counter and angrily draw something,” she said. “Staying silent never changes anything, but you do you, boo.”
“You’re getting on my nerves.”
“You always get on my nerves, but I never say anything to you,” she said. She started on her bracelet again. “So was that the issue between you and Grant? Your annoying personality?”
“My issue with Grant is that he deserves someone better than me,” I said, resting my hands on either side of the canvas. “And my current issue is that you won’t get off the subject. What is it with the people at this camp? Geez. You’re all nosy.”
“Um, we spend the majority of our time doing stupid team-building exercises and expressing how we feel with people we don’t really care to share it with,” Jess said. “Excuse me for thinking maybe for once you’d feel like sharing something too.”
“I have shared. Cop-car story. Remember?”
“Okay, and I just gave you deets on something personal.