strong you think you are. Give yourself permission to freak out a little, okay?”
Gabi had expected them to be obstinate, pissy, snarky—like they’d been since they’d gotten here. Instead, the prevailing emotion she saw in their eyes right now was … fear. And that’s what told her they hadn’t meant to hurt Sam—they really hadn’t known she couldn’t swim.
She took a deep breath, relieved. Throughout the night, she’d lain awake, eaten alive by the thought that maybe Madison had known … that maybe, in some convoluted, serious lapse in judgment, she’d engineered the scene on purpose, not really believing the worst could possibly happen.
Luke let the silence linger—on purpose, she knew. Age-old technique and all. But the girls didn’t say anything more. He wasn’t getting anything else out of them.
“I believe you,” he finally said, and he noticed their shoulders visibly relax. “I don’t think anybody here really meant to hurt anybody else. But here’s the thing. She knew she couldn’t swim. She knew why she’d been sitting on shore for a week now. She just didn’t choose to share that with anyone. And look what happened.”
“Oh, my God.” Sam’s eyes widened. “You’re pinning this on me?”
“I’m not pinning it on anybody. Every single one of you has some ownership of what happened, though.” He pointed at Sam. “You didn’t share something really, really important.” Then he swept his hand across the other three. “And you didn’t listen when your friend was clearly terrified.”
“Friend.” Sam snorted. “Yeah, that’s the word we use here.”
Gabi sighed, wishing Sam could drop the untouchable act just for a few minutes. But after what had happened, her walls were up higher than ever. No way was Luke going to get her to be cooperative this morning.
“I get it, Sam.” He nodded. “And if I was in your shoes, I’d be hard-pressed to use the word right now, too. What happened was scary. You’re not likely to get it out of your head for a long, long time.”
“Thank you, Dr. Freud.”
“Sam—” Gabi warned, but Luke put up a gentle hand to stop her.
“You know what? Maybe you guys will never be friends.” He shrugged. “And that’s okay. Totally fine. But you do have to figure out how to live together and work together … and not kill each other—literally or figuratively—so that’s what we’re going to work on, starting today.”
Eve narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”
Waverly giggled, then clapped her hand across her mouth. The poor girl was a nervous wreck.
“The first thing we’re going to do is start working as a team. A real team. Not the kind that snips and snipes and annoys the hell out of each other whenever possible.”
“But—” Eve piped up.
“No buts. You guys are exceptionally good at pissing each other off whenever possible. I imagine it’s your pattern at Briarwood, and I also imagine it’s a huge contributor to why you ended up here in the first place. But here’s the thing. If you don’t break this pattern, you’re going to go back to Briarwood doing the same thing, and from what I understand, every single one of you is one tiny step away from being expelled.” He stopped, scanning their faces. “Anybody anxious for that to happen?”
Gabi honestly figured a couple of them might raise their hands at this point, but nobody did. Huh.
“Good.” He rubbed his hands together. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, and the first thing we’re going to tackle is the very thing that got us into yesterday’s situation.”
Madison looked up suspiciously. “What do you mean?”
“I mean … Sam’s going to learn to swim.”
“What?” Sam looked like she might just flee the clearing and take her chances with the bears.
“You heard me. It’s camp policy, actually, so my hands are tied. If we discover that a camper isn’t confident in the water, it’s our job to make sure that gets fixed. What I do know, after all these years, is that it’s never the camper’s fault that he or she hasn’t been taught to swim. It’s their grown-ups’ fault for never making sure they got taught.”
Gabi cocked her head, listening to his words. She loved how he was taking the blame squarely off from Sam’s shoulders, but couldn’t tell if Sam was buying it yet.
He continued. “So, Sam, whether you were ever given the opportunity to learn or not, the fact is, somebody failed you. And I’m really pretty ticked off at that person right now. Or those persons—I don’t know who’s