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August 1978
It’s taking a lot for Ziggy not to flee the scene of the crime. It’s ridiculous to consider it a crime to begin with, but the longer she stares at Nick’s face, the more she feels like a villain.
“It wouldn’t work out,” she adds feebly, shifting in her stance as she folds her arms in front of her chest. “I mean – you’re the King of Sunnyvale and I’m just—I’m the weirdo from Shadyside.”
“I don’t care about that,” he says after a moment, looking at her desperately.
Ziggy resists the urge to shiver. Those eyes have looked at her in so many ways – gentleness, humour, sarcasm, love—
But no. Ziggy has made up her mind, and she can’t back down.
“You will,” she insists. “Come on, in a decade or so from now, you’ll be Sheriff, married with two kids, a dog, and a white picket fence—”
“You know I’m a cat person—”
“And you’ll forget about poor, helpless Shadysider me. I’ll be nothing more than the girl on the other side of the tracks you warn your kids about.”
“That’s not true,” Nick tells her. He tries to take her hand, but Ziggy dodges it, bites down on her lip to stop it from trembling. “Ziggy, I—I love you. I love you.”
They’d been doing this for about a month now. Camp ends tomorrow morning. They’ll gather on the bus, and go their separate ways, and their secret summer fun will fade into nothing. Still, his words hurt her, tug at her heartstrings. He’s never said it to her before. She looks down at his cheek, unable to bear looking in his eyes.
“It’ll pass,” she tells him. “It’ll pass.”
He jerks back like she slapped him. Ziggy ignores the stinging in her eyes as she heads for the door. They fell together here all those weeks ago. Shared their first kiss in here.
It only makes sense, really, for them to fall apart in here.
July 1979
It hadn’t been a part of Ziggy’s plan, really, to become a counsellor at Nightwing. Mostly, it had been a result of Cindy pestering her relentlessly over the phone as she called her from college.
And maybe because—
No, she tells herself. No. He isn’t on the list of counsellors. Besides, he’s graduated now anyway. On his way to the police academy. He won’t be there. Ziggy exhales shakily, double checks her bag. Most of her stuff has been moved in already in the week before, but Ziggy still has another small bag for essentials.
Jesus, fuck, what has she signed herself up for? Ziggy’s never thought of herself as an authoritarian sort of person. Or bossy. Not like Cindy. She sighs. Cindy will be joining them as the reserve counsellor in August because Sheila has to go on vacation. Ziggy can’t complain about having to spend less time with Sheila though, to be fair. It’d be nice to see Cindy too.
They’ve been slowly patching up the rift between them ever since Cindy left for college. Absence does make the heart grow fonder in a lot of ways. And besides – being at camp beat being around the shitty apartment they were forced to move into after their mom lost the house.
“Okay, Mom!” Ziggy calls out. “I’m heading out!”
Her mom is passed out on the couch, as per usual.
Ziggy sighs and heads out, jogging down the steps. Tommy is waiting for her in his truck. He’d taken an extra year before going off to college to save up money because he hadn’t managed to get a scholarship like Cindy had.
“Ready?” he asks as she jumps into the front seat.
“As I’ll ever be.”
“Hey, little Berman.”
“Jesus, fuck!” she swears, whirling around to look in the backseat. “Alice? What the fuck are you doing in here?”
“Well, ever since your sister and I came up with our little truce last summer, she seems to have instructed lover boy over here to keep an eye on me. Hence the free ride.”
“I hope you’re not planning on smelling like a skunk the entire time we share a cabin.”
She can practically hear Alice grin. “Careful, Ziggy, you’re starting to sound like you’re big sister.”
“Ha-ha, very funny.”
Tommy tells them to settle down before starting the thirty minute drive to Sunnyvale. They’ll get on the bus there and drive around both towns collecting the kids before they head back to camp.
“You know,” Alice comments when they finally pull into the parking lot. “It’s a miracle a kid hasn’t been killed during this camp’s tenure. Teenage counsellors and no adult supervision?”
“Jesus, Alice,” Tommy swears, turning off the engine. “Morbid, much?”
“There’s Nurse Lane,” Ziggy points out.
Alice snorts. “Yeah, like Sheila or Goode junior would listen to her.”
Well – she’s not wrong about that.
“Besides,” Alice adds. “Mary went on vacation this year, remember? She deserves to get out of this shithole.”
Mary had rented a van and decided to go on a roadtrip across the country. Ziggy will miss her, obviously, but it’d be a lie to say
They all climb out of the car. Ziggy heads to the bus as Tommy ensures his truck won’t get towed with the parking lot owner. Alice stays out to bum one more cigarette. Ziggy is—Well, she’s just eager for this to be over.
“Berman,” Kurt barks as she heads for the open bus door. “Don’t fuck this up, understood?”
“Yes, sir,” she drawls sarcastically, reaching into her bag for her book as she climbs onto the steps, head bowed as she smacks right into someone-
“Oof!”
She tumbles backwards, risking falling off the bus and right onto her ass before the person steadies her by gripping her shoulders. Ziggy freezes. She knows those hands. Warm, familiar, surprisingly soft. They’re slightly more calloused than she remembers. But—
No, that can’t be right. She can’t be right.
Ziggy looks up to find Nick Goode himself staring at her. He’s so close. Impossibly close. The warmth of his hands sinks beneath her skin right down to her bones. It’s embarrassing, really, how much she’s missed him. This.
God, if her younger, pre-Nightwing ’78 self could see her now, Ziggy knows she would be scoffing in disgust.
Nick just looks at her and she—
She can’t read his expression. That – that coldness, that impassiveness, is what snaps her out of it. This is exactly why she broke things off. One day his expression would turn cold, his phone calls would taper off, and next thing Ziggy would see is an announcement of his engagement to some stuck up Sunnyvale princess in the papers a day later. Maybe a week if she was lucky.
She takes a step back, careful not to tumble off the bus for good this time around.
“What – what are you doing here?”
It comes out a bit more defensive and accusing than she would like.
Nick stiffens as he shoves his hands in his back pockets.
“Will broke his leg doing a keg stand,” he replies. “So, I’m filling in for him.”
“Filling in – filling in? You mean as a counsellor?”
The horror in her voice is unmistakeable. A cloud passes over his face.
“Sorry to disappoint, Ziggy.”
“No, that’s not what—that’s not what I meant—”
“Okay!” Kurt announces, clapping loudly behind them. Ziggy almost jumps out of her skin. “We got to get this show on the road.”
He brushes past her, making her stumble closer to Nick, who steadies her yet again with a hand on her waist. Ziggy sucks in a deep breath as she glances at him. His hazel-green eyes are framed by extraordinarily long lashes, just like they’ve always been. For a split second she thinks his gaze darts to her lips but that can’t be right.
He is Nick Goode, and she is Ziggy Berman, and no doubt he’s forgotten the taste of her lips already.
Fuck, they’d only dated – in secret, no less – for a month. Less than month. It’s stupid to be so torn up about it – she’s stupid. And pathetic.
And yet, she still doesn’t want to move.
“Nicholas?”
Ziggy turns to look at Alice, who is now chewing a piece of gum obnoxiously loud.
“What are you doing here?” she asks.
Nicholas?
Since when did him and Alice get cozy?
“Alice,” he greets, taking a step away from her. “I’m taking over for Will this year as a counsellor. He broke his leg.”
“Ah, and you sure look heartbroken about it.”
Nick grits his teeth. “Nice to see you again, Alice.”
“Yeah, yeah, we all know it’s a pleasure.”
She plops down at a seat near the front. Tommy joins her at the same spot. Ziggy stands there stupidly as Sheila and her two same cronies from last year, Jessica and Amelia, climb onto the bus, their hair pulled up into high ponytails with ribbons. They snicker when they see her.
Great. Fucking fantastic.
It’s a miracle she even got this job, really, with them as co-counsellors. If her and Sheila manage not to rip each other’s throats out, that will be a fucking miracle.
She sits down and tries not to watch as Nick converses with Kurt up at the front, the sunlight glinting on his cheekbones. He’s grown more muscular in the past year, more broad around the shoulders. He has very light stubble.
He’s eighteen now. Freshly graduated before he starts police academy and Sunnyvale college. Before he becomes fully inaugurated as the King of Sunnyvale. Ziggy gulps and looks away, pulls out her book. The Stand by Stephen King. It came only a few months after—
No, she tells herself. No.
The bus starts and pulls out the parking lot after all the rest of the counsellors arrive, and Ziggy glances up only once to catch Amelia sliding into the seat next to Nick. She says something that makes him laugh. Laugh!
It takes Ziggy a moment to realizes she’s creased the page she’s on of her book because she’s holding it so tightly. Fuck. Fuck.
It’ll pass, she’d told him.
Now, if only she could take her own fucking advice.
August 1978
Nick doesn’t really mean to bump into Ziggy after the events of the night before. Mostly because he spent most of the past twelve hours walking around in a stupor, in some fragmented reality of sorts.
But he does.
It’s early out. He’d been unable to sleep all night, and the sound of Kurt snoring aggravated him more than usual. Ziggy’s words keep echoing in his ears. It’ll pass. It’ll pass. Five years of getting fucking butterflies whenever she was so much in a five mile radius wasn’t enough time for it to “pass”. Now that he’d kissed her and laughed with her and gotten to know her, it would only be even more difficult.
Impossible, really.
It is entirely feasible to Nick that he’ll spend the rest of his life loving Ziggy Berman.
But he bumps into her by the lake, just as the sun starts to creep up the sky. For a second, it looks like she’s been crying.
“Ziggy,” he says. “I just—I don’t want to be a dick and ask again—”
“Then why are you?”
He tries to reach for her hands but she dodges it.
“I don’t care about any Sunnyvale bullshit,” he says. “I don’t. I just want you.”
“Yeah, because your dad is dead.”
That - that makes him shut up. Her eyes soften with regret, but an apology doesn’t spill from her lips. And in a way, she isn’t wrong. His dad’s death, as horrible as it sounds, allowed him to feel free for the very first time in his life. Free to actually talk to Ziggy. To be his own person, or try to, anyway.
“If you really, really, don’t want to be with me,” he says. “I just – say it to me one last time, and I won’t ever bother or talk to you again. I promise. I’ll leave you alone.” Nick won’t ever try and force and pester her to be with him. He would never.
For a second, Ziggy just stands there, trembling in the wind like a leaf. Hope, traitorous and warm, almost blinding, bubbles in his throat until she looks at him with dull eyes.
“I don’t,” she says. “I don’t want to be with you.”
And she brushes past him. Nick watches her stalk back in the direction of her cabin. He feels rooted to this very spot. Life will move on, the sun will rise and fall, the leaves will change, snow will come, but Nick will remain here. Rooted to this spot.
His eyes sting, and he presses the heel of his wrists to them.
“Fuck,” he swears softly. “Fuck.”
“Fuck indeed. That was brutal.”
Nick straightens at once. From the trees, Alice of all people steps out, a cigarette or joint dangling from her lips. He resists the urge to gag as the smell washes over him. Definitely a joint then.
“That wasn’t—that wasn’t what it looked like—”
“Oh, no? So Little Berman didn’t just dump your ass?”
“I don’t—I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
He glances down at the ground. God, maybe he really is a naïve idiot. He’d even come up with a plan too, for them to visit each other. He’s the one with the car. As busy as his senior year is undoubtedly going to be, he has the weekends and Monday and Wednesday afternoon’s off. Provided Ziggy could or wanted to see him. He’d even started of thinking of ways to ask her to prom. Not that he’s particularly excited or desperate to go, but—
He would have wanted to go with her and he thought she wouldn’t have minded going with him too much, provided he took her out for fries, burgers and milkshakes afterwards.
And now, it’s just all gone.
“Shit, Goode,” Alice sighs, passing him her joint. “You have me feeling bad for a Sunnyvaler with those wounded puppy dog eyes of yours.”
“Uh, sorry?”
She urges for him to accept it. “Trust me, it helps when Berman’s turn their backs on you.”
Nick looks at her. He hasn’t really talked to Alice much. She hasn’t really been much of a hands on counsellor. But he has seen her with Cindy. How they bicker with each other constantly. The way Alice stares at her. The more hurtful arguments seem to have ebbed a bit recently, he’s not sure why. But still, Alice
He takes the joint, inhales quickly. It burns his throat, makes him cough up a lung.
“Jesus, fuck, take it slow!” Alice chastises. “Breathe in easy, easy now. Put your head between your legs and sit down.”
Nick does exactly that, lets her snatch the joint back. Now, in addition to feeling miserable, he feels like he’s about to lose a lung too. It’s great.
To his surprise, Alice plops down beside him. When he manages to calm down, she shows him how to inhale and exhale properly. Nick tries again, and even though his eyes water—
Well, it’s nice that he can blame it on the weed.
“Why are you sitting here?” Nick asks. “Why – why are you helping me?”
Alice shrugs. “Why not?”
“Fair enough.”
He hands her the joint back.
“It’ll pass, Goode,” Alice says.
He sighs frustratedly. “No offence, but I’m really fucking sick of people saying that.”
“Damn, who knew Nick Goode swore?”
He winces. Ziggy had said something similar all those weeks ago in the Science and Nature Cabin after they’d Carried Sheila. She’d asked him who he was, and in the wake of her smile, he’d felt like someone brand new.
That’s all gone now.
“Damn, Goode,” Alice whistles now. They’re busy guiding the campers to their cabins and helping them with their bags. It’s slightly chaotic, but obviously not chaotic enough for Alice not to hunt him down, even though they’re not assigned to be together. “Maybe you want to look a little less like a hawk? She’s right over there with Martin.”
Nick whirls around to where Alice is pointing. Ziggy is there with Martin, one of the fresh new counsellors. They’re chatting quietly as they direct campers to their assigned cabins and hand them their welcome bags. Something in his chest eases and tightens at the sight of her. God, she’s still so fucking beautiful. Her long red hair has been tired into two braids that end a little past her collarbone. She must have cut her hair at some point.
The blueness of her shirt brings out the colour in her eyes. He can still hear the horror in her voice from earlier. No doubt she’d been hoping never to see him again. Had probably wished for it, in fact.
“Tell me – did Will really accidentally break his leg just two days before camp was supposed to start, or did you give him a nice shove down the stairs? Not that I would blame you.”
Nick glances at her. “Believe it or not Alice, I’m not a bloodthirsty murderer.”
She shrugs dismissively. “Hey kid!” she exclaims, making him jump. “Cabin five is that way. That way.”
Once the kid is out of hearing shot, Alice mutters, “We need to include some compasses and braincells in these fucking welcome bags, I swear.”
Nick hums in agreement. A compass doesn’t sound like half a bad idea, actually.
She shoots him another sharp look. “Truth be told,” she says. “I wouldn’t blame you if you did. Your brother is a prick.”
“And I’m not? High praise.”
“Well, I didn’t say that, Goode. Don’t go flattering yourself.”
Nick chuckles. After biting down on his cheek the whole bus ride struggling not to look at Ziggy, it’s nice to have movement in it again.
“No,” he tells her after another kid comes for directions. “I didn’t try and murder my brother, thanks.”
In truth, it had all been a very fast process. Nick, as embarrassing as it is to admit, had been forced by his mom to go out to a party. You’ve been so quiet this year, Nicky, she’d told him. So studious. Go have fun. Well, maybe not force him, but definitely guilt trip. Truthfully, having a drink or two after having graduated didn’t sound like too horrible of an idea, so Nick went, with Will tagging along.
It took only one hour for his brother to somehow, somehow, find a way to break his leg doing a keg stand. That wasn’t the story his mother was telling others, obviously. It wouldn’t do for a Goode heir to be caught drinking foolishly in public.
Regardless, Nick had helped Will to the hospital along with Kurt. As his brother lay there pumped up on morphine, Kurt had rambled endlessly about how this little fiasco would derail the entire camp experience and schedule he’d poured months and months into.
Nick hadn’t volunteered to do another summer as counsellor. When anyone asked, he said he was preparing for the police academy and the start of his program at Sunnyvale college, that he was going to volunteer somewhere else instead.
“Jesus, now I got to call Cindy in early,” Kurt had huffed. “Both Bermans as counsellors—”
“Both?” Nick had snapped his head up so quickly. “What do you mean, both?”
Kurt had explained then that Ziggy had signed up to be a counsellor too, that Cindy was joining them later because of some other college commitments and Sheila going on vacation early.
“Don’t call her,” Nick had heard himself say. “I can do it. I’ll do it.”
Kurt had thanked him profusely for five minutes before Nick really realized what he’d done. What he’d signed up for. He’d been steadfast in his refusal up until that point to return to Nightwing.
If Nick is being honest, he couldn’t bear to go back and have her not be there.
“Hmm.”
“What?” he asks, glancing back at Ziggy. She laughs at something Martin says, and Nick aches to hear it. It’s still his favourite sound in the world. It’s still the same, which is somehow relieving.
The Ziggy he knew a year ago would never have volunteered to become a counsellor. Never.
She’s changed. A recognisable stranger. He has so much of her memorized, etched onto his skin, and yet—
She is lost to him.
He looks away.
Alice is still looking at him, a knowing look on her face.
“What?” he asks again.
She rolls her eyes. “Nothing. Just think it’s going to be a very entertaining summer.”
“Entertaining for who?”
She smirks. “Not you, I imagine.”
Alice starts to jog back to her post when Kurt comes into view.
“Wait!” he calls. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ll figure it out!”
He sighs and scrapes a hand over his mouth before he pinches the bridge of his nose. Great. Fucking fantastic.
Get a grip, Goode, he thinks to himself. Get a fucking grip.
For the first week or so of camp, it’s almost easy to avoid him. Kurt assigns them on different rotations for that week, and they’re both in charge of different age groups too. Thankfully, Ziggy is given the eleven-year-olds. They’re not as annoying as the freshly turned teenagers.
She only sees him in the mess hall. Mostly he’s surrounded by Kurt and Sheila and her cronies. Either way, it’s hard not to look at him. They barely even talk to each other when they’re with other counsellors divvying up work.
Ziggy is thankful, really, that she can hide behind her endless amount of chores as an excuse not to talk to him.
Until, of course, the first week is up. It’s July 19th, 1979. Ziggy’s heart beats uncomfortably the whole day. July 19th. July 19th.
She can still remember every single detail of that day last year. Huddled up together with him in the outhouse waiting for Sheila. The curve of his smile and the weight of his laugh and feeling for the first time in her life that she wasn’t alone. That someone saw her.
Kurt has very wisely decided not to pair her up with Sheila and the other Sunnyvalers – one of the few times he’s shown to have any brain cells – so usually she’s paired up with Alice, Tommy or Martin.
She’s expecting the very same thing when she wakes up that morning. She gets dressed, she eats, and then she goes to check the schedule posted at the announcement board in the centre of camp.
Except her name isn’t with Martin’s like it’s supposed to be.
It’s with Nick.
“What the fuck?” she whispers. “What in the actual fuck?”
Not today. Please not today.
And yet—
“Berman,” Kurt barks, appearing behind her. Ziggy almost jumps two feet in the air. “After breakfast, you and Nick will take your age groups to the archery and tie-dying stations. You have twenty minutes to get breakfast, understood?”
Nick, as it turns out, is behind Kurt. He’s staring at the schedule too. If it weren’t for his hands clenched into fists at his side, Ziggy wouldn’t tell he was bothered at all.
It hurts more than it should. More than she has any right for it to.
“Uh yeah, understood,” she mutters, jogging towards the mess hall. Running from her problems.
Over the past year, her temper may have dwindled a bit, but her running capabilities certainly have not. If she plays her cards right, she could maybe get out of here with Cindy. Maybe. It had been a miracle that she got this job anyway to begin with. It’s good money for savings. Ziggy is never going to college, that’s for certain, but—
Ugh. Cindy has gotten under her skin.
The mess hall is packed this morning, like it always is. Ziggy sits with the other Shadyside counsellors, listening to their mindless chatter. Right until—
“Alice,” Kurt says, sliding into one of the empty spots. “You can’t keep on being late to your duties or smelling like a skunk, understood?”
“You should try weed too, you know?” Alice says. “Something tells me if might loosen that stick up your ass—”
“Alice,” Nick interrupts.
Ziggy tenses as he slides into the seat beside her. His arm brushes against hers, and it’s like she’s back in the Science and Nature Cabin all over again asking would you ever kiss the weird girl?
She looks down at her plate.
“You’ve barely touched your food Ziggy,” Tommy comments. “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she says.
Kurt pins her with a look. “You’re not pregnant, right?”
Nick chokes on his water. They’d kissed and touched last summer, but they hadn’t—
“Jesus, man,” Tommy complains, looking ill.
“No, you fuckwad, I’m not pregnant, just not hungry.” Ziggy smiles sunnily. “Though I imagine since that was your first reaction you must have some experience in that area.”
Everyone else at the table chuckles, even Nick, and Ziggy—
It’s the first time she’s heard the sound in a year. Or, better yet, the first time she’s caused it. It makes something inside her warm. She drops her fork. Jesus, she should be over this. She should be over this.
Her thigh brushes against his, and her heartbeat skyrockets.
“Did you know you have freckles on your shoulder blades too?” Nick asks her. They’re crammed on one of the hammocks near the edge of camp.
It’s dead of the morning. Ziggy’s face is burrowed in his shoulder.
“What a revelation,” she mutters, her leg wedged between his thigh. His laughter stirs her hair. “Tell me something, how do you always smell like cinnamon?”
“I don’t know,” Nick says, “Want to tell me why your legs are always so cold?”
“Well, you’re here to keep me warm, so, shut it.”
He presses a kiss to the crown of her head.
Nick pulls his thigh away.
Within minutes, they’re forced to stand and gather their respective groups. Nick carefully avoids touching her as he blows on his whistle to get the kids attention, and soon enough they’re on their way. Her and Nick walk together, in sync, not looking at each other.
Just the past between them.
But it’s not just between them. It’s around. It’s by the lake and the mess hall and the outhouse and the treeline and everywhere and she aches with it. The memories.
I don’t want to be with you.
I don’t want to be with you.
She looks at Nick out of the corner of her eye. Maybe they were always meant to come together. To meet at Nightwing. To kiss in the Science and Nature cabin. Maybe that was all supposed to happen.
But just as they were meant to come together, they were also meant to fall apart. I did the right thing, Ziggy reminds herself, even as her heart pangs. I did the right thing. Nick glances at her, their gazes meeting, and Ziggy—
She looks away.
This is how things are supposed to be, even if it hurts. She calls her group over to her, takes them over to the archery station. When she glances over her shoulder, Nick is still staring at her, his hazel eyes glinting in the sunlight. She looks away again. Get a fucking grip, she thinks to herself. You didn’t used to be this pathetic.
But Nick snuck under her skin over a year ago, and Ziggy—
Ziggy doesn’t know how to get him out.
Truthfully, she’s not too sure she wants to.
Off in the distance, Alice puffs out a cigarette.
“I’m not the only one seeing little Berman and King of Sunnyvale making heart eyes at each other constantly, right?” she drawls. She’s known this piece of information for a year now, but still! When she said it would be an entertaining summer, she hadn’t imagined it would become unbearable to be around them. She can practically taste the angst and mutual pining.
From where he’s standing next to her, Tommy Slater’s jaw drops.
“You can see it too? Oh jeez, I thought I was imagining things.”
“Nope.”
Alice rolls her eyes as Nick Goode continues to stare at Ziggy unashamedly. The loser is probably not even aware that he’s doing it. Jesus Christ, she thinks. I thought a year would be enough for him to get a grip.
Tommy moves in front of her, blocking the star-crossed pining lovers (former lovers?) from view.
Then again, she of all people knows how much of an impact a Berman can leave.
“We can’t tell Cindy,” Tommy says. “She’ll lose her shit.”
Alice cackles. “Don’t worry, Slater,” she says, patting him on the shoulder. “Believe it or not, I don’t actually want Cindy to be arrested for murder.”
Tommy grimaces. “You really think it’ll be that bad?”
“I think,” Alice stresses, “that until they figure their shit out, we should maybe not mention it to her. Maybe.”
Tommy looks over his shoulder. This time, little Berman is staring at Nick as he explains something to his kids.
“You guys are talking about Ziggy and Nick Goode, right?” Martin asks, appearing from behind them.
Alice laughs. “You noticed it too, huh?”
“It’s hard not to. They’re, uh, a bit obvious.”
“Oh you mean with the whole they think it’s-not-obvious but it-painfully-is staring?” Alice questions.
Martin winces. “Don’t forget about how they both looked like a deer in headlights when their arms brushed at lunch today.”
Tommy winces. “Jesus, when Cindy comes—”
“We won’t even have to tell her anything,” Alice chimes in. “She’ll just seem them in all their glory.”
“Or not.”
Her and Tommy glance at Martin. “I mean I haven’t really met Cindy, but if it were me and my baby sister, I would be oblivious as fuck.”
Alice snorts. “That sounds like Cindy.”
Tommy makes a sound of agreement.
“Do you think he really likes her?” he asks. “I mean, he’s not just some asshole, right?”
“He doesn’t seem like a jerk like Kurt or his brother,” Martin says.
“He likes her.”
Both boys stare at her.
“How do you know that for certain, Alice?” Tommy asks. “I mean Nick was nice enough last year, but these feelings can’t have started just now. They’ve barely talked to each other.”
For a second, Alice is tempted to tell them about what she saw last summer. The way Nick almost cried. No offence, but I’m sick and tired of people saying that.
“Dunno.” She shrugs casually. “Just do. Call it a girl’s intuition.”
“I guess I’ll take that.”
“Damn straight, Slater,” Alice says. “I’m never wrong.”
Martin guffaws as one of Nick’s kids crashes into him because he isn’t paying attention, too busy staring at Ziggy and the paint staining her cheeks.
“Hey,” Martin says. “Should we, uh, help them out?”
Alice turns to Martin and grins.
“Franklin, you seem like a fun dude.”
Tommy, on the other hand, is visibly stressed.
“Oh come on, Slater, it’ll give us a chance to fuck with Kurt and his precious schedule and give us some high class entertainment.”
“I’m sure Ziggy would love to hear that—”
A sharp whistle blows through the air.
Alice turns to see Kurt jogging towards them, face red.
Oh fuck.
Their kids.
“Time to stop gossiping,” Alice sing-songs. “Let’s go find our kids before Kurt shits on us.”
“Oh fuck,” Tommy and Martin mutter.
Martin absconds in one direction, and Alice and Tommy run in the same way.
“You know,” Tommy comments as they run. “You’ve become a bit more of an attentive counsellor compared to last year.”
“You mean I smoke in front of the kids instead of disappearing, right?”
He laughs. There was a time Alice used to hate every single inch of him, but ever since her and Cindy cleared the air a little after camp ended—
“I guess I’ve mellowed a bit, Slater,” Alice offers. “Guess I’ve mellowed.”
Over the next few days, Ziggy isn’t paired up with Nick again, so she can finally fucking breathe. It’s too hard to think whenever he’s around.
A few days later, Ziggy finds herself up at the crack of dawn doing meal prep. Jessica has bailed, because of course Sheila and her cronies have to be assholes until the very end, so Ziggy is left to pack all the breakfasts on her own. At least there’s some from earlier.
Ziggy is busy cutting some melon when she hears the wood creak from outside the kitchen.
“Kids, no breakfast until nine, so head back—”
The words stop leaving her mouth when she spots Nick. He’s sweaty, hair matted down on his forehead as he crushes a bottle of water.
“Sorry,” he tells her, wiping at his neck with a towel. “Not a kid.”
“It’s uh, it’s fine.”
She turns on her heel to head back to cutting her melon. It takes her about a minute until she almost chops off her finger.
“Fuck,” she swears, rushing to put her finger under water. “Fuck.”
Before she realises what’s happening, Nick is beside her. He must have followed her into the kitchen.
“Jesus, Ziggy,” he says, watching the blood trickle from the wound. “Let me get a band aid.”
“It’s okay,” she says, looking over her shoulder as he pulls open the first aid box. “Really, it’s fine. I can take care of myself.”
“Well, you don’t have to,” he says, handing her a paper towel to dry her hands. “Let’s just clean the cut first and then I’ll put the gauze on, okay?”
“Nick, you don’t have to—ow!”
“Sorry,” he says, pressing the cotton pad he must have doused in rubbing alcohol around the wound. “Better to do it when someone is distracted.”
“Yeah, I know. I learned first aid too.”
“So now you can save me with CPR if I were to drown right?”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.”
His lips twist in a crooked smile as he wraps the gauze around her finger. She hisses through her teeth, forces herself to relax. “Thanks,” she offers. “For the help.”
“Wow, Ziggy Berman saying thank you? And I didn’t even need to ask this time.”
He’s still holding on her hand. He’s still holding onto her hand. Fuck.
“Oh yeah, you know me, still a poor, helpless Shadysider.”
He drops her hand.
Ziggy closes her eyes tightly. How does she always say the wrong fucking thing? How?
Nick walks away from her, but he doesn’t leave entirely. There are not enough footfalls for that. Instead he—
He starts chopping melon?
Ziggy opens her eyes to find him doing just that.
“You were massacring the melon,” he says. “Looks like you needed a little help.”
“Yeah, well Jessica ditched out on helping me, so.”
“Have they been giving you shit this summer?” Nick asks, head bowed as he continues to cut.
“No,” Ziggy says. “Well, they haven’t tried to burn me alive this year, so.”
“That would traumatize the kids.”
“Yeah, no shit. They’ve been snide as usual, but surprisingly tame compared to most years. Maybe Sheila has finally grown a heart.”
Nick stops his cutting to look at her.
“Probably not,” Ziggy muses. “Who am I kidding?”
“Honestly?”
She lifts her brows. The longer she stares at him, the more—
Well, the more worried she is that she’ll say something stupid like I miss you or I—
“Her parents caught her and Will having sex.”
Laughter spills from her lips. “Are you serious?”
He grins and nods. “I’ve never seen my mother so angry with Will. But yeah, Sheila is worried that she may be sent off to boarding school or a nunnery if she fucks up again.”
“Isn’t she going on vacation soon?”
He shrugs. “They don’t want her close to Will, I’m guessing.”
“I wouldn’t turn down a free trip to France or Italy or whatever other fancy place she’s going to.”
Nick lets out a chuckle. “Yeah, it does sound nice.”
His stubble is a bit more prominent now. Ziggy wants to reach out and touch his cheek, wants to feel it against her skin. He was clean shaven last summer.
“Anyway,” he says. “I can help you with the rest.”
“Oh, no, you don’t have to—”
“It’s fine,” he says. “I was up anyway.”
“Right, you always were an early riser.”
“And you always weren’t.”
“Well, when I put my mind to it or really want to I can make it.”
It takes her a second to realise just what she said. Just what it means. They hadn’t had many chances to actually just be together last summer. The night of Colour War was just a fluke. They spent the rest of the time sneaking around at night or in the morning when Nick had some free time.
Ziggy has always hated early mornings. Hated them. She would sleep to her heart’s content every day if she could.
But she always made it those mornings. Always.
“You look grumpy,” Nick comments, tugging at her hair.
“It’s literally five in the morning.” She scrutinizes him. “How are you not grumpy?”
“Oh, I don’t know, there’s the morning birds, quiet… you.”
“Ugh. Cheeseball.”
Nick cracks a smile, and it’s like the sun has come out. He reaches inside his back pocket and hands her—
“KitKat!” she exclaims, instantly snatching it out of his hand and ripping it open. She pauses only halfway through the bar before—
“Oh,” she says, cheeks reddening a little. “Do you uh, want some?”
Nick shakes his head, eyes dancing as he looks at her. “I’m alright, you little monster—”
“Hey!”
He pulls her into him by the belt loops of her shorts, and Ziggy—
“Don’t worry,” he tells her. “I brought it for you. I know you don’t like early mornings.”
“Oh yeah, by stalking me?”
“By being in the same group as you for the early morning canoe activity two years in a row—”
She pinches his forearm, not that it does much damage.
“Yeah, well, I made it now, okay?”
“I feel honoured to be considered worthy of such a sacrifice.”
He grins at her, and Ziggy – chocolate smudges on her lips be damned, she kisses him just because she can.
“Yeah,” Nick says now, clearing his throat as he pushes the melon peels into the trash. “I was uh, surprised when I heard you decided to become a counsellor.”
“I was surprised to hear that you didn’t sign up again.”
Nick pauses and looks at her. She used to be able to read his eyes so clearly, but now—
She’s scared of what she will find.
“Oh,” is all he says.
I don’t want to be with you. It’ll pass. It’ll pass.
Ziggy tugs at her shirt’s neckline, feels an awful lot like she’s suffocating.
“Yeah, Cindy convinced me it would be a good idea,” she says.
He raises his brows. “So you and Cindy are close now?”
“Uh, yeah, we buried the hatchet a bit I guess. I’m not such a dick to her now, so…” her voice trails off. I figure out how not to be a dick to my sister, and yet I can’t figure out how not to be one to you.
She looks away. At least she’s already made the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the day. Now there’s just time to make the oatmeal and stock up on the cereal bar. At least it isn’t pancake day.
“Well,” he says, offering her a thin but genuine smile. “I’m glad to hear you guys are close again.”
Again.
She’d told him so much, hadn’t she? All the scars on her heart left by other people always leaving.
“I figured Martin must have helped convince you too.”
“Martin?”
Her voice is a bit higher than she expected, but Nick doesn’t seem to notice. His head is bowed as he starts pulling out the oatmeal bags.
“Yeah, I, uh, I thought – you guys seem close.”
“We’re friends,” she says. “That’s all. I couldn’t, I haven’t—”
His head snaps towards her, and Ziggy’s words die on her tongue. He’s looking at her so intensely it’s like her heart is about to burst out of her chest like you idiot, it belongs to you. It’s ironic; she’s told him all about her scars from other people deciding she wasn’t good enough, and he is the first person she left before—
Before he could leave first.
“We’re just friends,” she repeats. “And I can take care of this. You don’t have to stay.”
“Ziggy, it’s not a crime to accept someone’s help—”
She’s about to retort when Jessica finally decides to stride through the kitchen doors, her makeup and hair immaculate. Seriously, Ziggy thinks viciously. We’re at fucking summer camp.
Nevermind that Ziggy can take a few guesses as to who, exactly, Jessica and Amelia are making all this effort for. But that’s not her business. It’s not. There’s a hint of frustration as Nick glances away from her, but soon a polite smile is on his lips as he greets Jessica.
“I’ll leave you two to it,” he says. “Gotta take a shower anyway.”
And then he leaves.
I know, she wants to call after him in response to his unfinished sentence. I let you help me last year, didn’t I?
Not that she let him in for long.
Ziggy pinches the skin of her throat. She’ll be fine. She is fine.
But a part of her can’t help but exhale with relief because if he asked about Martin then maybe that means—
He still cares.
It may be Nick’s imagination, but he’s paired with Ziggy an awful lot in the following weeks. Tommy mysteriously hurts his ankle so his age group is moved to a less strenuous activity other than hiking, forcing Ziggy to switch with him.
Other times Kurt’s precious schedule is randomly altered too so Nick and Ziggy’s schedules correlate. Being forced into close proximity with her doesn’t ease the tension or the pain that twinges in his chest whenever he so much as looks at her.
At least it’s nice to know she isn’t dating Martin.
He huffs out a sigh. Him and Ziggy are on lake supervision duty today. Some kids they’re teaching how to dive off from the dock, other kids are satisfied splashing in the shallows, and others are tanning on the lakebed.
Nick is just glad that it’s a requirement for the kids to be able to swim before they’re allowed to come to camp.
Ziggy is standing a little off to the side of him. Her hair is down, bright red against the cream colour of her tank top. He can spot the freckles on her shoulders. Her hair is shorter, so he was right before. She did get a haircut.
Nick swallows.
God, he just wants to—
But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. She doesn’t want him, she’s made that impossibly clear. Nick will just have to get used to it, even if it takes the rest of his life.
“Counsellor Berman,” Jeremy chirps, appearing beside Ziggy. “Can I give you my glasses so I don’t lose them when I jump in?”
“Of course,” Ziggy agrees, offering him a slight smile. “Here, hand them over.”
Nick isn’t entirely sure how it happens, but Jeremy slips as he reaches for his glasses, knocking into Ziggy. Nick dives forward to try and catch her, but all he succeeds in doing is holding her against him as they topple into the lake with a splash.
The cold water shocks his system even more than the water rushing up his nose. Ziggy accidentally – he thinks it’s accidental – elbows him as she tries to disentangle their limbs. Her hair is an even brighter red beneath the water, almost orange like. He’s not sure if her eyes are open too before she breaches the surface.
Nick sputters his way up there too, the sunlight blinding him. He coughs up what feels like the hole lake, pushes his hair back from his forehead. His jeans and shirt are soaked, clinging to his skin.
Ziggy is coughing up water too, her back to him.
“You okay?” he asks.
Ziggy turns to look at him and—
Fuck, she’s so beautiful. She’s so fucking beautiful.
Her blue eyes are framed by long, wet lashes. Her hair clings to the nape of her neck, and her tank top clings to her thin frame. Nick swallows painfully. Fuck. Fuck. He remembers the kisses they shared last summer, the chaste ones and the not so chaste ones. The times where it felt like he would never be able to remove his lips from hers.
He wants her. Nick will never not want her. It’s an intrinsic part of him.
To his surprise, Ziggy tilts her head back and laughs. It’s a musical sound, ever the more so considering how rare it is. And Nick – Nick can’t help but laugh too. For a moment it’s like he’s back in time to last summer, and they’re running away after pranking Sheila, shaking hands in the Science and Nature cabin.
By the time he’s finished though, Ziggy is looking at him. Right at him. God, he wishes he could read her mind. Her gaze flickers to his chin, then his arms, and then—
His lips?
His heart flips in his chest, but he’s right. She is looking at his lips. Her fingers graze against his in the water, and Nick—
He wants to pull her against him, wants to just kiss and talk to her and—
“What the hell are two doing?” Kurt yells out from the shore. “Are you guys okay?”
Jeremy is standing there next to him, his eyes blubbery as he apologizes ten times in one minute. When Nick glances back at Ziggy, the moment is gone.
“I’m gonna—”
“Yeah,” he says, trying not to stare at her lips. “Yeah.”
She glances at him again, expression indecipherable, and treads back to shore. Nick—
Nick muffles his yell by dunking himself under the water again. He screams there, grateful that no one else can hear.
The cold water doesn’t help. The fire is still in his lungs, in his blood, in every atom of his skin. He burns for Ziggy Berman, and no amount of water it seems can ever extinguish it.
A few days after the lake incident, Nick finds himself in the mess hall with all the other counsellors and campers.
The Sunnyvale board decided it was positively inhumane that Shadyside children never received any ballroom lessons – nevermind the fact that they’d probably have no use for formal dancing lessons to begin with – and decided to make it a mandatory activity.
All the campers are dressed in their Colour War clothing. Kurt had thought it would be a good idea to start with a calm, peaceful activity before letting the kids abscond out to play colour war.
“Soothing for the soul,” Nick had heard Kurt tell Alice when she’d complained of the timing.
Nick thought it was pretty stupid himself, but here they are. Since it’s early August now and Sheila has finally, finally, left, Kurt is using Amelia as an example. Nick watches from the sideline as Kurt states every movement he makes out loud above the soft music playing in the background. Most kids seem bored, eager to get outside and play colour war.
Nick resists the urge to roll his eyes too, right up until the next song plays on the JVC player. He glances at Ziggy as his breath catches.
At last, my love has come along—
And for a second, she glances at him too, and his love blooms for her in his chest all over again. It hasn’t passed, he wants to tell her. It hasn’t passed at all.
The other counsellors are called to pair up too, and Nick glances away from Ziggy, I don’t want to be with you ringing in his ears—
“You up to pair together?”
It’s Ziggy. He hopes he doesn’t look like a maniac as he tries to contain his smile. Behind Ziggy, he can see Jessica’s face fall. But Nick doesn’t care in that moment.
“Uh, sure,” he says, offering her his hand. “Sure.”
It’s a week before camp is supposed to end, and Ziggy finds herself sneaking into the mess hall. Nick asked her to meet him there after everyone in her cabin fell asleep.
“Nick?” she hisses, looking around. “Nick?”
“Right here!”
He’s crouched by the table leading to the kitchen, fiddling with the JVC player.
“What on earth are you doing?” she questions, folding her arms in front of her chest.
“One sec.” He bites down on his lip as his hair falls perfectly on his forehead. He’s so freaking perfect.
Camp ends in seven days. Seven days! Ziggy tries not to choke with her terror.
“Okay, found the song!”
To Ziggy’s confusion, “At Last” starts to play. Nick offers her his hand.
“You want to dance?” she demands incredulously.
“What were you expecting?”
Her stomach clenches. She’s been expecting a lot worse for the past few days. “I don’t know,” she replies. “Not this. I don’t dance.”
“Oh come on, Berman,” Nick says, flashing her with those dimples. She’s much, much too weak in the knees for them. “Live a little.”
She rolls her eyes but accepts it, and he pulls her into him, his one hand on her waist, the other intertwined with hers. He chuckles when she pokes fun at him for obviously having had dance lessons, but otherwise he’s quiet. Happy.
Content, even.
Ziggy’s stomach tightens into knots as she leans her head on his shoulder. It’s just them in here, the mess hall doors closed behind her, sealing them off from the world. Just her and him. Him and her.
Nick and Ziggy.
But for how long?
Seven more days? Six? How long until this all comes crumbling down? Until he stops whispering sweet nothings in her ear and holding her so tightly? One day, this will be him with some perfect Sunnyvale princess and Ziggy won’t even watch, she’ll hear about it on the radio as she goes to work at her trillionth job.
She can picture it so vividly too, even now. Now that he’s holding her. This will fall apart, just like everything in Shadyside always does.
“This is nice, right?” he murmurs into her hair.
Ziggy nods against his shoulder, even as her heart sinks to her stomach.
This can’t last. She has to end it. She has to. She can’t—
She can’t let herself love him. She can’t.
“Sorry,” Ziggy tells Nick as she steps on his toes for the fiftieth time in a minute.
He shoots her a soft, patient smile. “It’s no problem.”
“Last time we did this, there was a lot less moving,” she mutters under her breath.
Nick’s gaze lingers on her face; she can feel it even though she’s determinedly not looking at him. God, she hasn’t been able to get him out of her head ever since that day at the lake. She’d wanted to kiss him so badly. Desire and want still bubble in her gut, and something dangerously close to hope.
Maybe if she could fix things with Cindy, she can fix things with him too.
Maybe.
“Come on,” he says, his grip on her waist tightening a little as he pulls her closer so they’re almost flush against each other. “Just trust me.”
Trust me.
As if it were so simple.
But—
Maybe it is, a voice that sounds suspiciously like her sister whispers. Maybe it is.
Ziggy can barely hide her scowl. Even when Cindy isn’t around she’s still lecturing her.
“What’s wrong?” Nick asks, noticing Ziggy’s tightening expression.
“Nothing.”
“Ziggy,” he says. “Don’t lie to me.”
Her brows furrow. “I just—I was just thinking about Cindy.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Just something she would tell me.”
“And what’s that?”
Ziggy meets his gaze again.
“That I should be better at trusting people.”
His throat grows painfully dry. “That—that sounds like good advice.”
Ziggy lets out a bitter laugh. “Yeah, yeah, I guess so.”
He watches her closely, and his heart—
He wonders if she can hear it pounding away.
“It’s not too late, you know,” he hears himself say.
She stills. “What do you mean?”
“To follow her advice, I mean,” Nick says.
Ziggy looks all over his face. His eyes, his nose, his chin, his lips. “You think so?”
Nick nods. “It’s never too late,” he says. “Not for me.”
Deliriously, he hopes they’re on the same page because he’s not sure he can bare it if she walks away again.
“Nick,” Kurt says, clapping right beside his ear. “Switch with Jessica. You guys did dance together at Prom, right?”
Ziggy lets go of his hands so abruptly Nick stumbles. Her face is pale, the softness in her eyes having vanished as she looks at him and scoffs.
“I’m an idiot,” she states derisively. “A fucking idiot.”
Kurt lets out an outraged huff, but Ziggy brushes past the both of them, her shoulder knocking into his. And Nick—
No, he thinks, suddenly furious too. Oh fuck no. Not this time.
And he chases after her.
Ziggy barely makes it down the mess hall steps before Nick catches up with her. He yanks on her arm, whirling her around.
“What the fuck do you want?” she demands, trying very, very hard not to cry.
“Why are you upset?” he questions.
“I’m not upset.”
“Ziggy,” he snaps. “Stop lying to me!”
“I’m not lying.”
“Oh, then I must be blind, because you seem pretty fucking pissed off and for the life of me, I don’t know why.”
“You don’t know why?” Ziggy has to fight not to shove him. “Because you’re a liar, that’s why.”
“Me?” he exclaims. “What on earth have I lied to you about?”
She almost screams in his face. He’s really going to make her say it, isn’t he? Fine. Fuck him. She’ll say it.
“Of course you’d take one of Sheila’s cronies to Prom,” Ziggy says, folding her arms in front of her chest. “My mistake for believing when you said you hated them—”
“Wait, hold up, are you actually mad at me?” Nick asks. “Are you serious?”
Ziggy ignores the voice in her head screaming that she is very much being the unreasonable one in this situation.
“Tell me, was it fun?” she sneers, ignoring the hurt swelling in her chest. “Did everyone rave about how you found the perfect Sunnyvale princess? Better yet, don’t tell me – is it going to be a June wedding? Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to read about it in the papers—”
“Are you serious?” Nick repeats.
“Of course I’m fucking serious,” she says. “Really, I shouldn’t have expected anything different—"
“You ruined this!” Nick cries out, pointing at her. “You. You ruined us, not me. So don’t pin this on me—”
“And why do you think I did?” she demands. “Because sooner or later, whether you’d even tell me or not, you’d realize the same thing I did. That I’m not worth staying for, that some Shadysider isn’t worth the trouble—”
“I am not your dad!”
Anger flares in her chest at the accusation.
“This isn’t about him,” she hisses. “Don’t use my family as an excuse to avoid me pointing out the truth!”
“The truth,” Nick repeats. “You want to know the truth? The only person I wanted to take to prom was you. I went alone.”
All the rage inside her just burns out, like she’s been doused by water.
“What?” she whispers. “But she said—”
“I danced with her once because her date was a pig,” Nick says. “But I went alone.”
“Oh.”
“Oh.” He shakes his hand. “I wanted you so badly,” he says after a moment. “The only person I want to dance with is you, and be with is you, and—”
He laughs bitterly. Ziggy watches as he pinches the brow of his nose again. Shame curls in her gut.
“You know, I was planning on asking you,” Nick tells her. “I was going to convince you by taking you out to burgers, fries and shakes afterwards. Not that I wouldn’t be taking you out to dinner before that, obviously, but—I thought the image of me in a tux and you in a dress munching on fries and greasy food would be amusing enough for you to say yes.”
Ziggy bites down on her lip. It would have amused her. It does amuse her. The thought of them dancing together, just them, even in front of everyone. Ziggy has never really been a big establishment person, but for him—
She would have suffered through one night.
And because it’s him, she would have had fun.
“You know, maybe I am kind of a coward,” Nick says. “I didn’t apply to colleges outside Sunnyvale, and I may end up being Sheriff still even though I hate it, but I’ve always been honest about my feelings for you. I may be many things, but at least I know I was brave enough to want to try.”
He shakes his head, hazel eyes glassy.
“Be,” she hears herself say.
His eyes flicker towards her. “Excuse me?”
“You said be, just now,” she replies. “You said you want to be with me, present tense.”
“Damn, Berman,” he says, and for a second she’s convinced he hates her. “You really know how to twist the knife, don’t you?”
“No, that’s not what—”
She stops as she spots everyone staring at them. Even Kurt is standing there, gobsmacked. The whistle is pressed to his lips, but nothing comes out. But it’s not just him. It’s Alice and Tommy and Martin and the campers and—
Well, at least Sheila and Cindy weren’t here. I’d never hear the end of it.
But everyone else is still there. Everyone else heard.
“Fuck this,” Nick says, turning on his heel. “I’m out of here.”
He turns on his heel and stalks off in the other direction.
“Nick,” Kurt calls.
Nick flips him off and doesn’t, doesn’t, stop walking away.
And Ziggy—
How can she ask him to stay? How?
Tears pierce her eyes. She wasn’t even worth it for her dad to stay.
“Ziggy,” Tommy says. She hears him take a step towards her. “Ziggy, it’s okay—”
She shakes her head. “Stop,” she breathes. “Just stop.”
And just like she’s been so fucking good at over the years, she runs.
In the distance, Ziggy hears the beginnings of colour war. For now, though, she stays hidden behind a few bushes near the lake. Fuck. Fuck. Everyone knows.
But that’s not the worst part.
Of course it’s not.
She’s fucked everything up. Again. Ziggy is seemingly incapable of having more than one good thing in her life; she patches things up with Cindy, but she loses Nick.
But she already lost him. She already made herself lose him. She tried to let him go, but he’s back again.
Or maybe he never left.
Who is she kidding? She knows he never left. He’s stayed with her all this time, and she fucking ruined it even more than she had before.
“Somehow, I don’t think offering you a joint will help.”
“Go away, Alice,” Ziggy mumbles, wiping at her eyes.
“We promised Cindy we’d take care of you, little Berman,” Alice says. “And well, Martin is just invested in all the drama—”
“I’m your friend,” Martin says. “Friends are there for each other.”
They all sit around her.
“Shouldn’t you guys be at colour war?”
“Shouldn’t you?” Alice points out.
“Touché, I guess.”
“Besides,” Alice adds blithely. “The kids can look after themselves. They’re too busy chasing after each other, the little hellions.”
“Oh yeah,” Martin chimes in. “They’ve totally forgotten about uh…”
“Earlier,” Tommy provides helpfully.
Ziggy scoffs. “Right. I’m sure.”
She buries her face in her hands. Tommy pats her shoulder.
“Oh, Ziggy,” he murmurs. “Ziggy, it’s okay.”
“It’s not,” she grits out. “It’s not, and it’s all my fucking fault. He’s right. I ruined it. I ruined it because I was scared, and now it’s lost and he hates me—”
“Oh kid,” Alice interrupts. “We all saw his face. Nick doesn’t hate you. He couldn’t.”
Ziggy ignores her. “I’m a coward.”
“No,” Martin says. “You have shit in your past. All Shadysiders do. That doesn’t make you awful, Ziggy.”
“It did now,” she says. “Fuck, the things I said to him last year, how I acted just now….”
She shakes her head again.
“You can say sorry,” Tommy tells her. “Apologizing never hurt anybody.”
“But I don’t just want to say sorry,” Ziggy says, bursting with it. “I want him. I don’t think I ever won’t want him. And it would be selfish of me to try now. It would be.”
They’re all silent for a few minutes until Alice clears her throat.
“Sometimes, Berman,” Alice says thoughtfully, “Sometimes love means you have to brave and a little selfish. It means you have to say it, and say it loud, no matter what.”
“But—but what if he doesn’t want me?” Ziggy whispers, eyes stinging. “What if he doesn’t want to, despite what he said earlier? After everything that just happened, I wouldn’t blame him.”
Tommy pats her hand sympathetically.
“It’s your choice,” Alice says. “Are you willing to go the rest of your life knowing you never tried? That you were never honest about how you felt?”
Ziggy tries to make sense of any of this, but she can’t. She just—she doesn’t want to lose him again. She doesn’t.
“Or do you want to try?” Alice asks. “Trust me, Little Berman, not saying it is never worth it.”
Ziggy looks at her. She has a feeling Alice isn’t talking about Arnie. From the way Tommy is frowning at Alice, he might have the same suspicions.
“You’re right,” Ziggy whispers, clenching her eyes shut. “You’re right.”
“Atta girl,” Martin says, patting her on the shoulder. “Atta girl. Go get your man.”
Ziggy chuckles brokenly. “He could say no,” she reminds him.
“I doubt it,” Tommy chimes in.
“Now, where is Mr. Lover boy?” Alice asks. “Off brooding somewhere, no doubt.”
Ziggy sniffs and wipes at her cheeks, forcing herself to stand. The rest help steady her. “I have an idea,” she says.
“Oh yeah? Some creepy psychic bond you haven’t told us about yet?”
“Alice,” Tommy chastises.
“No,” Ziggy says. “I just – I just know him, that’s all.”
There’s a chance that she’s wrong, that he won’t be there. Ziggy braces herself for that possibility. But, as she pushes open the door to the Science and Nature cabin, she finds Nick sitting by one of the desks like she suspected, looking at spiders.
Spiders!
Even now, that fact still surprises her.
They’re just misunderstood, is all, Nick had told her in this very room almost a year ago. And harmless, mostly. They’re fascinating, really.
Yeah, okay, Spider boy, she’d told him.
He’d flushed delightfully, and admitted that he had the read the comics, too.
For a second, Ziggy just watches him until she feels like too much of a creep.
“Sorry,” she offers feebly, heart pounding as he jumps at the sound of her voice.
“Ziggy,” he says, standing abruptly. He’s even holding the spider. For a second, Ziggy almost reconsiders this whole thing.
For a second.
But—
Well, she loves him.
She loves him.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
Say something! She screams at herself. Say something, anything!
“Listen,” he starts, “about earlier—”
“I love you,” Ziggy blurts out. Nick drops the spider back in the cage. “I love you. And I know I have no right to say it based on how I treated you last year, all the things I said. But I love you. I miss you so much, it’s like I can’t breathe. I love you. I love you. I don’t think it’ll ever pass for me.”
Her hands fidget nervously at her sides. “And I know I said it would and that I didn’t want to be with you, but I lied. I was so scared of everything that I wasn’t even willing to try. I was a coward, and I’m sorry. But before camp finishes, I wanted you to know to that. I missed you every single day. I know I wasn’t brave enough to want to try last year, but I am now. I am now. If a part of you still wants to after everything I said and did, I just- I couldn’t risk losing that chance despite everything. I love you—
He kisses her.
Ziggy didn’t even realise he’d gotten so close to her. He kisses her for the first time in a year, and Ziggy drowns in it. She’s too stunned to do anything for a split second, but then her hands are latching onto his shirt, digging into his shoulders, pulling him closer, closer, closer—
“I think it’s about time I kissed you first,” he whispers against her lips.
Ziggy huffs a laugh, beaming, and kisses him again, just because she can.
“You were kind of right too, you know,” he says when they pull away again for air. “About what you said last year. About my dad. If he’d been alive, I would have been a lot more afraid to talk to you. But—I want to build something better with you now. Something that’s ours.”
“Even though everyone at camp knows now?”
He grins sheepishly. “No more secret love affair for us. But yes. Even if the rest of the world knows, this—” he gestures between them. “Is ours.”
He guides her hand to his chest, presses it just over his heart.
“This,” he emphasizes, “is yours.”
She feels the strong beat beneath her fingertips, pounding away. She smiles to wide her cheeks hurt.
“Fuck, you’re a sap,” she says. There are a million apologies and explanations for her to give, but for now—
For now, she kisses him again.
“Okay,” Martin says after a minute. “I am starting to feel mildly creepy watching them through this window.”
Alice and Tommy share a laugh and then duck away, content to let little Berman and Nick continue to suck each other’s faces.
They all trail down the stairs, smiling, happy that their mission for the summer has finally, finally been accomplished.
“Ughh, now they’re going to be making out and sneaking off all the time,” Alice comments, scrunching her nose.
“God,” Tommy says, pinching his nose. “Don’t remind me. Hopefully they’ll calm down by the time Cindy gets here.”
Alice stills. Cindy. She hasn’t seen her friend since winter break. She’s stopped from coming up with a response by the sound of one kid shrieking in the woods. Martin sighs.
“I’ll go check it out,” he says. “Y’all stay here if you want. Time one of us checked on the kids anyway.”
Alice doesn’t even have a chance to insist on her going instead before he’s running off into the woods, leaving her and Tommy behind.
“You were talking about Cindy earlier, weren’t you?” Tommy asks.
“Slater—”
“It’s fine,” he says. “Well, maybe a little awkward, I guess, but—”
He meets her gaze. “Cindy is Cindy and, well, for what it’s worth I think she—”
“You think I what?”
They both whirl around.
“Cindy?” they exclaim.
Cindy Berman, in all her glory, walks towards them, her signature messenger bag slung over her shoulder. She’s even wearing her polo shirt from last summer.
“Hey,” she greets, before she frowns at them. “You guys look panicked.”
“When—when did you get here?”
“Oh, like ten minutes ago or so, I forgot it was Colour War. Kurt said something about Ziggy running off or something? He looked a little queasy.”
“He would,” Alice grumbles.
Tommy elbows her in the shoulder. “We sorted it out,” he assures Cindy. “Really, Ziggy is fine. There was just uh, a bit of a misshap.”
“Oh.” Cindy blinks rapidly. “Is she in there?”
“No—”
“Yes—”
Alice and Tommy look at each other. “Maybe?”
“What’s going on with you two?” Cindy demands, tapping the ground impatiently. “I’m serious, you both are acting weird, and I want to see Ziggy—”
She’s interrupted by a loud, feminine shriek echoing from the cabin.
“Ziggy,” Cindy whispers, horrified. She rushes past them with Alice and Tommy on her heels, and they burst in to find Nick frantically extracting a spider from Ziggy’s hair, his lips red and swollen.
“I can’t believe you forgot to close the cage!” Ziggy exclaims as Nick hurries to put it back.
“I’m sorry, I was a little distracted!”
Ziggy is laughing though as he darts back to her.
“It’s okay,” she tells him, pulling him in for another kiss. “Your dimples make up for your weird taste in animals.”
Just before their lips touch, however, Cindy lets out a horrified squeak.
“What the hell is happening?” Cindy demands.
Ziggy and Nick jump away from each other, but they don’t stop holding hands.
“Cindy,” Ziggy says, eyes wide. “Cindy, I—”
“Can explain later,” Tommy cuts in, grabbing the elder Berman sister by the arm. “Alice?”
“Yup.” She grabs Cindy’s free arm and starts tugging her along. “Let’s give the love birds another minute.”
“Love birds? What the fuck is happening? Nick Goode and my sister—”
They manage to drag Cindy outside, but it’s hard enough to keep her from rushing towards the door. Alice listens as Tommy explains the situation, watches as Cindy’s face slackens a little in both shock and realisation.
“She never mentioned,” Cindy says. “I knew she was upset about something, but she wouldn’t say what. I didn’t want to push in case I ruined whatever progress we made…”
“It wasn’t exactly common knowledge,” Alice points out. “Well, not until like an hour ago anyway. It was quite entertaining watching Kurt about pass out.”
Tommy chuckles too at the memory.
“Okay, I don’t care about Kurt,” Cindy says, hands on her hips. “I care about Nick Goode. What if he’s some slimeball who wants to hurt my baby sister?”
Alice glances over her shoulder. The two lovers have finally emerged, both appropriately dishevelled and sporting shit eating grins. She watches as Nick bends down and plucks a yellow dandelion from the ground before handing it to Ziggy.
“Somehow, Berman,” Alice says, smiling a little herself. “I don’t think you’ll have a problem.”
End.