''Arthur, can we talk before the kids and camp leader get back? It's important.''
A soft, but sweet voice full of nerves drifted from behind me while I waited for my food. I turned to find Anna, my girlfriend of five years, standing there, auburn hair catching the light coming from a nearby window, those striking green eyes fixed on me. I adored her, always had, but the quiet tension in her expression made my throat tighten.
I pushed that aside and turned to her. ''What's up, An?''
Anna had never been like this before; she was always bubbly and happy with a big smile. When I glanced past her, I saw her friends lingering nearby. They were watching us like they were waiting for a show. This puzzled me, as she finally began to speak after gathering her nerves.
Her voice was quieter than I'd ever heard it, almost swallowed by the hum of the other camp counsellors around us, gossiping about the current goings on. ''For the last few days, I've been thinking a lot,'' she went on, looking determined as her fingers twisted the strap of her bag. ''And I don't think this is working anymore. Us, I mean. I'm sorry, but… I want to break up.''
The words landed like a sudden drop in altitude; my ears started ringing, and the noise of the cafeteria rushed in, then pulled away all at once as my heart dropped in my chest. I felt my mouth fall open, but nothing came out. I searched her face for the joke, a hidden camera, anything that would make this make sense.
All I found was her looking set on her decision with a sad expression crossing her face for a split second before vanishing. ''What?'' I finally managed, the single word cracking. ''Anna, wait, did I do something? Talk to me, please.''
She shook her head, eyes glassy now. ''It's not one thing. It's just… I no longer feel anything between us. And it's not fair to keep pretending that I love you when that's wrong, it's best if we go our own ways.''
I was shocked at hearing that she didn't love me anymore. I never expected it. While stunned, all she did was give me an apologetic smile, as if that could soften anything, then turn and walk back to her friends, who were now waiting by the entrance. They closed around her immediately, one of them putting an arm over her shoulders, and guided her out.
Anna didn't look back. Not once. I stood there, mouth still half-open, staring at the space where she'd been. The noise rushed back in all at once: plates clattering, kids laughing, counsellors shouting reminders. But I had a job to do and wouldn't slack off. The doors swung open, and the first wave of campers poured in, shouting about who'd won capture-the-flag.
I forced a smile to act as if nothing had happened, waved them toward the serving line, and somehow made it through lunch without anyone asking why my eyes were red. Following that, the rest of that day blurred into a mess of work. Arts and crafts, swimming, evening campfire, I moved through it all on autopilot.
Every time I caught a flash of auburn hair or heard that soft laugh carried on the breeze, my stomach dropped all over again. She was everywhere and nowhere at the same time, always just far enough away, surrounded by her group like they were a shield. The next days were worse. We were both counsellors, so avoiding each other completely was impossible.
We passed on the trails, traded clipped updates during staff meetings, and handed off camper sign-in sheets without meeting my eyes. She looked fine. Tired, maybe, but composed. I got the impression that she'd already started healing. I hated her for it. Then hated myself for hating her.
I stopped sleeping. At night, I lay in my bunk listening to the loons on the lake and replayed every moment of the last five years, hunting for the exact second things had gone wrong. I came up empty every time. After that, the weeks dragged on. The campers rotated out, new ones arrived, and the routine ground forward.
I got better at pretending, coached soccer games with real enthusiasm, and led sing-alongs without missing a beat. But every evening when the sun dropped behind the pines and the camp grew quiet, the ache came rushing back. Then one night, three weeks later, the fire alarm ripped through the silence, scaring the shit out of me as it wasn't a regular thing.
It was the old-fashioned kind, a deafening mechanical shriek that rattled the windows of every cabin. I bolted upright in my bunk, heart hammering, and yanked on shorts and shoes in the dark.
Outside, the air was cool and sharp now that summer camp was ending, but it was still hot. Kids were already spilling onto the grass, counsellors shouting under the floodlights, trying to arrange the day for everyone. I scanned the crowd, the way you do when something goes wrong.
That's where I saw Anna, standing with her cabin group, her hair messy from sleep, her arms wrapped around a couple of the younger girls, who looked scared. For the first time since the cafeteria, our eyes met across the lawn, hers held some regret and pain, but it was too late to take anything back, as the damage was already done.
There was no anger, no avoidance, just a raw, shared alarm at the situation. For a second, it was like nothing had changed, like we were still the team we'd always been, ready to handle whatever came next. Then the camp director's voice boomed over the chaos. ''False alarm, someone had pulled the bell in the dining hall as a prank.''
Groans and laughter rippled through the crowd as everyone calmed down from the panic. The moment broke my stare with Anna, who looked away first, turning back to calm her campers. I stood there in the floodlit grass, adrenaline still pounding in my ears, watching her walk her group back toward their cabin.
The distance between us felt wider than ever, but I pushed the pain down, ignoring it. The false-alarm night faded into routine again; something had shifted in the air. By morning, whispers were already slithering through the staff lounge and the picnic tables behind the kitchens. I noticed it started small and quiet.
One of Anna's friends, Jess, the loudest of the trio, commented on breakfast prep loud enough for half the counsellors to hear. ''Yeah, she finally got the courage to end it. Good for her, she can thrive without the baggage.''
The way she said finally carried weight, like I'd been holding Anna hostage for years. By the next day, the story had teeth. I overheard it first from a junior counsellor who thought she was being helpful. ''Hey, Arthur, you okay? I heard An ended it because you were really controlling.''
Controlling.
Five years of sharing playlists, planning surprise dates, driving three hours to see her family on holidays, and now I was controlling. That afternoon, during free swim, two of the older campers asked me point-blank if it was true that I'd been yelling at her all summer. Their eyes were wide.
I laughed it off, told them rumours were dumb, but my face burned the rest of the day. The lies kept getting worse. By evening campfire the next night, the version going around was that I'd been emotionally manipulative, that I'd made her cry all the time. That she'd been scared to break up with me sooner because I might snap and hurt her, I was hearing a whole new story about myself.
It was only thanks to my family's reassurance over the phone that I stayed sane. Jess and the others didn't say it to my face, of course. They said it in small clusters, just loud enough for the words to drift over on the smoke. Anna never corrected them. I know because I watched it unfold and held my tongue; I didn't want to cause problems at work.
Every time someone leaned in to whisper, she'd give a tiny shake of her head or a sad half-smile, the kind that says, I don't want to talk about it, which everyone reads as confirmation, but I knew she was denying it. I started eating meals at off-hours, taking the long way around the lake to avoid the main paths.
Counsellors who'd been friendly all summer suddenly got busy when I walked into the staff lodge. A couple of them gave me sympathetic looks, like I was some fragile explosive they didn't want to set off and cause more drama. One night, I found PSYCHO scratched into the paint on my cabin door.
Shallow letters, done with a key, probably, but deep enough that I had to sand them off before anyone saw them. I never figured out who did it, but I saw Jess smirking the next morning when she walked past. The worst was the way Anna floated through it all, untouched.
She still led her hikes, still braided the little girls' hair by the campfire, still laughed that same soft laugh. People gravitated toward her like she was the wounded one who'd finally escaped a hellhole and had been getting all the support she could need, but there was something deep down that wasn't how she felt.
No one seemed to notice, or care, that I was the one losing sleep, losing whatever version of myself had existed before that cafeteria conversation. I kept waiting for her to say something. Anything to put a stop to it. A quiet that's not true slipped from my lips to one of her friends.
A glance across the dining hall indicated that she saw what was happening. But it never came. The camp kept spinning, with canoe trips, talent shows, and colour wars. I moved through it like a ghost, counting down the days until the summer ended and I could leave this place.
Afterwards, a few days before everyone was due to leave, I was on lifeguard duty, watching over twenty-odd children swimming in the lake. While sitting there, I noticed something in the distance as a flock of birds fled south. That's when I spotted the smoke creeping closer, causing my heart to drop.
''Fire!'' I screamed to warn the other counsellors.
I turned to the children and spoke calmly as I led them toward the car park. ''Come over here. We need to find the other adults to get on the buses.''
Moments later, I watched the smoke thicken so fast it felt like someone had flipped a switch, creating chaos all over the park. It was a dark column on the horizon; the next, the sky turned the colour of bruised copper, and ash started snowing down in hot grey flakes. Sirens screamed closer, fire trucks, probably, but the wind had shifted hard, pushing the flames straight toward us.
The camp director's voice cracked over the bullhorn. ''All campers to the parking lot for immediate evacuation!''
But even as the words left his mouth, orange light flared between the trees on the ridge, and a wall of heat rolled down the slope. Panic hit like a wave. Kids screamed. I noticed adults were panicking. Counsellors shouted conflicting orders. Buses were supposed to be waiting, but the road was already choked with smoke and branches that blocked our way forward.
Someone yelled that the fire had jumped onto the road. I looked at my group, twenty-three kids from the lake swim, still damp in their swimsuits and towels, eyes huge. Anna was there too, gripping the hands of two eight-year-olds, her face streaked with soot. No time to think. No time to feel the weight of the last month.
I looked all around us, only to realise that the national park was being eaten by the flames; it was like something from a movie. The wildfire was a force of nature that scared me to the core. Something primal welled up inside me, but I ignored it. Some buses had gotten out, but some were stuck.
I knew what had to be done and would save these children. ''Follow me!'' I yelled. ''Stay together, low to the ground!''
Following that, I led them away from the car park, away from the choking smoke pouring down the main path. We cut across the meadow back toward the lake, the only open space left, the only place without trees to feed the fire. The heat at our backs was already unbearable, like standing too close to a bonfire that kept growing.
Embers swirled around us, igniting dry grass in popping bursts. A pine torch exploded somewhere behind, and the kids shrieked. I glanced back: the dining hall roof was covered in fire, the flagpole a burning spear. We stumbled down the slope to the waterfront. The dock stretched out into deep water, the lake itself flat and dark under the smoke sky.
I herded them onto the floating platform at the end, farthest from shore. ''Sit down, backs to the centre, heads low!'' I ordered.
They obeyed instantly, clustering in a tight knot. Anna helped me count heads, twenty-three, all here. She met my eyes for a second, no words, just a nod that said thank you and I'm scared in the same breath. The fire roared now, a freight-train sound as it tore through the forest on both sides of the cove.