And that morning and afternoon, Stevie did see. They made samples of everything on Janelle’s chart while attending multiple assemblies, where names were learned and rules were read and everyone was welcomed. The kids were, Stevie had to admit, fairly cute. At least, most of them were. The oldest ones were eleven, and they clearly viewed the counselors not quite as equals, but certainly as peers of a sort. Stevie kept glancing at her phone, checking for updates, and the one she was waiting for finally came around four.

I’m here, David wrote.

“See you later,” Janelle said, smiling.

Even though Stevie had just been told not to leave, nothing was going to keep her away. She slipped away from one of the sessions, ducking between the cabins and hurrying across the fields, right on to the camp entrance, running over the road that split the camp from the park. She hustled down the paths until she reached the place where she could see the parking lot. There, standing by an old gray Nissan, was David.

David and Stevie had last been together at school every day in December. Fate (and a bunch of murders, and a senator) had separated them. There had been lots of video and endless pics, so they were constantly in each other’s lives. But she had not seen him in the flesh since that cold, snowy morning up on the mountain in Vermont when they had come to take him away. She knew every element of his face from every angle a camera screen and her memory had captured, but seeing him here, fully assembled, scrambled her brain for a second. Had he always been that tall, that wiry, with tight coils of muscle? Was the shirt big, or was he thinner? Had those always been his legs? And his hair—dark, loose curls that had grown ragged and free at Ellingham were clipped a bit shorter now. She had known that, had seen the images, but now nothing quite fit.

But her body knew what to do. She ran up to him, jumping, and he caught her clumsily. They fell back against the car door, and she kissed him through his smile.

Yes. It all made sense again. The picture reassembled itself. The feel of her face in the hollow of his neck. The way his arms wrapped around her back and they curved into one another. His breath. His heartbeat. David.

Also, she was on her toes and they were both sliding sideways down the side of the car, and they stumbled apart, laughing.

“Have we met?” he said.

She squeezed him around the middle.

“Want to help me set up?” he said. “It would be good to have a place to sleep before the sun goes down.”

Stevie and David removed a bunch of equipment from the back of the car—a tent, a cooler, a camp stove, two folding chairs, and a small folding table. They walked this to an empty area close to the lake edge.