I stuck my tongue out at him and rolled over. "Just be quick about it," I said.

He wasn't. He was gone forty-five minutes before I headed back to the house, loaded up with our towels and sunscreen and trash, breathing hard and sweating like a camel in the desert. He was in the living room, playing video games with the boys. They were all lying around in their swimming trunks. We pretty much stayed suited up all summer.

"Thanks for never coming back with my Kool-Aid," I said, tossing my beach bag onto the ground.

Cam looked up from his game guiltily. "Whoops! My bad. The guys asked me to play, so . . ." He trailed off.

"Don't apologize," Conrad advised him.

"Yeah, what are you, her slave? Now she's got you making her Kool-Aid?" Jeremiah said, jamming his thumb into the controller. He turned around and grinned at me to show me he was kidding, but I didn't grin back to show him it was okay.

Conrad didn't say anything, and I didn't even look at him. I could feel him looking at me, though. I wished he'd stop.

Why was it that even when I had my own friend I still felt left out of their club? It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that Cam was so grateful to be a part of it all. The day had been so good, too.

"Where's my mom and Susannah?" I snapped.

"They went off somewhere," Jeremiah said vaguely. "Shopping, maybe?"

My mother hated shopping. Susannah must have dragged her.

I stalked off to the kitchen for my Kool-Aid. Conrad got up and followed me. I didn't have to turn around to know it was him.

I went about my business, pouring myself a tall glass of grape Kool-Aid and pretending he wasn't standing there watching me. "Are you just going to ignore me?" he finally said.

"No," I said. "What do you want?"

He sighed and came closer. "Why do you have to be like that?" Then he leaned forward, close, too close. "Can I have some?"

I put the glass on the counter and started to walk away, but he grabbed my wrist. I think I might have gasped. He said, "Come on, Bells."

His fingers felt cool, the way he always was. Suddenly I felt hot and feverish. I snatched my hand away. "Leave me alone."

"Why are you mad at me?" He had the nerve to look genuinely confused and also anxious. Because for him, the two things were connected--if he was confused, he was anxious. And he was hardly ever confused, so then he was hardly ever anxious. He'd certainly never been anxious over me. I was inconsequential to him. Always had been.

"Do you honestly care?" I could feel my heart thudding hard in my chest. I felt prickly and strange, waiting for his answer.

"Yes." Conrad looked surprised, like he couldn't believe he cared either.

The problem was, I didn't entirely know. I guessed it was mostly the way he was making me feel all mixed-up inside. Being nice to me one minute and cold the next. He made me remember things I didn't want to remember. Not now. Things were really going well with Cam, but every time I thought I was sure about him, Conrad would look at me a certain way, or twirl me, or call me Bells, and it all went to crap.

"Oh, why don't you go smoke a cigarette," I said.

The muscle in his jaw twitched. "Okay," he said.

I felt a mixture of guilt and satisfaction that I had finally gotten to him. And then he said, "Why don't you go look at yourself in the mirror some more?"

It was like he had slapped me. It was mortifying, being caught out and having someone see the bad things about you. Had he caught me looking at myself in the mirror, checking myself out, admiring myself? Did everyone think I was vain and shallow now?

I closed my lips tight and backed away from him, shaking my head slowly.

"Belly--," he started. He was sorry. It was written all over his face.

I walked into the living room and left him standing there. Cam and Jeremiah stared at me like they knew something was up. Had they heard us? Did it even matter?

"I get next game," I said. I wondered if this was the way old crushes died, with a whimper, slowly, and then, just like that--gone.

Chapter thirty - two

Cam came over again, and he stayed till late. Around midnight I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk on the beach. So we did, and we held hands, too. The ocean looked silver and bottomless, like it was a million years old. Which I guessed it was. "Truth or dare?" he asked me.

I wasn't in the mood for real truths. An idea came to me, from out of nowhere. The idea was this: I wanted to go skinny-dipping. With Cam. That was what older kids did at the beach, just like hooking up at the drive-in. If we went skinny-dipping, it would be like proof. That I had grown up.

So I said, "Cam, let's play Would You Rather. Would you rather go skinny-dipping right this second, or ..." I was having trouble thinking of an "or."

"The first one, the first one," he said, grinning. "Or both, whatever the second one is."

Suddenly I felt giddy, almost drunk. I ran away from him, toward the water, and threw my sweatshirt into the sand. I had on my bikini underneath my clothes. "Here are the rules," I called out, unbuttoning my shorts. "No nakedness until we're fully submerged! And no peeking!"

"Wait," he said, running up to me, sand flying everywhere. "Are we really doing this?"

"Well, yeah. Don't you want to?"

"Yeah, but what if your mom sees us?" Cam glanced back toward the house.

"She won't. You can't see anything from the house; it's too dark."

He glanced at me and then back at the house again. "Maybe later," he said doubtfully.

I stared at him. Wasn't he the one who was supposed to be convincing me? "Are you serious?" What I really wanted to say was, Are you g*y?

"Yeah. It's not late enough. What if people are still awake?" He picked up my sweatshirt and handed it to me. "Maybe we can come back later."

I knew he didn't mean it.

Part of me was mad, and part of me was relieved. It was like craving a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich and then realizing two bites in that you didn't want it after all.

I snatched my sweatshirt from him and said, "Don't do me any favors, Cam." Then I walked away as fast as I could, and sand kicked up behind me. I thought he might follow me, but he didn't. I didn't look back to see what he was doing either. He was probably sitting in the sand writing one of his stupid poems by the light of the moon.

As soon as I got back inside, I stormed into the kitchen. There was one light on; Conrad was sitting at the table spooning into a watermelon. "Where's Cam Cameron?" he asked wryly.