I whip my head around, hoping my words sting him back. I don’t want to give him anything, but if he insists on pulling things out of me, tugging and tugging on the spool of thread, let him only yield disappointment. “I won’t.” I pause at the entrance to the tent. “If you find anything, write me.”

He laughs humorlessly. “I won’t.”

He doesn’t follow me out.

Oliver, Maxine, and Lena are standing in a row outside the tent, their faces in the same awful expression of disgust and confusion. Poor Pascal just looks confused. He’s off a ways from them, shuffling in the thistle.

I wonder how much of our conversation they overheard.

My feet carry me forward, not pausing for my friends or for a final look at Finn’s tent.

The grass behind me rustles as the others follow me. Together, we go in silence to the road, our footsteps crunching down the gravel in tandem.

The icy silence is heavy when compared to the joy that accompanied us as we walked into camp earlier today.

Oliver’s silence is the loudest. I want him to hold my hand and tell me he isn’t angry with me. But I won’t ask for it.

His face isn’t unkind. It’s just confused, which feels worse.

Spindly trees sway slightly in the breeze, watching our sad parade.

It’s as if I can hear my friends thinking. Lena is chewing on the inside of her cheek. Oliver’s brows are knit together. Pascal looks so lost; I almost pity him. Maxine is walking faster than the rest of us, marching ahead like she can’t wait for this day to be over.

But then she slows her steps until she’s at pace with the rest of us and asks, “What did Finn mean by ‘I see you got my letter’?”

Oliver and Lena turn to look at me. I look at the ground. Shame is a horrible feeling. I bite my bottom lip to stop the tears from coming. The feeling is made worse by knowing this is my own fault. I should have just told them.

“I received a letter from Finn last June. There was no return address. I burnt it like I could make it disappear.” I take a shaky breath. “I thought if I didn’t speak about it, perhaps I could pretend it never happened. I never intended to see him again. I wasn’t trying to be sneaky. I was just scared. You have to believe me.”

“What did the letter say?” Oliver asks, shoulders tense.

“He said he was in Europe, that he thought I’d be here with him soon. He said he was building something… building something for us.”

“Do you know what?” Lena asks.