There was a strangely elaborate bridge that crossed the lake, reaching all the way to what I assumed was the entrance of the boy’s camp. It seemed dangerous to provide a way for two isolated opposites to discover what a hazardous concoction of hormones, boredom, and a lack of parental fear could do in the dramatic summer heat.

But I had no interest in losing my pants for a hard-breathing, sweaty-palmed boy in camp apparel, bridge or no bridge.

Sorry.

I sat alone, waiting for my eyes to become clear and focus in on what should’ve been the four walls of my bedroom, painted haphazardly in my favorite shade of red, solid and seemingly safe. The façade of foundation in an otherwise chaotic yet quiet house.

There should’ve been a bedside table covered in a slew of cards from supposed friends and distant family members expressing their sadness at my loss. You could almost hear the ensemble of a massive sigh of relief. “Better her than me. Better Glen than my son, my brother, my father.” Their grief was transparent and obvious. It couldn’t touch the depth of mine even as part of a gigantic multitude.

The house had been filled with flowers and covered casserole dishes and tears before the eerie silence of forgetting bounced off the walls and left me feeling used and discarded. Parents returned to work.

Extended family returned to the coast of Florida to replace sadness with sun and deep-sea fishing.

I returned to my room, closing the door on all that “moving forward” nonsense. I was prepared to make that room my only companion for as long as it took to find something I believed in.

But instead, there were unfamiliar trees as I looked out into the expanse of all that was before me. Hundreds of tall, intimidating trees that served as both a sign of my new and utterly different isolation and the impossibility of escape. Trapped in this forced nature with my last drop of sanity and a bag of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish my mother hid in a secret pocket of my suitcase.

Thanks, mom.

A regular 1950’s stereotype, that lady.

I had been sitting for several minutes—perhaps an hour—when I heard the obnoxious sound of leaves fracturing beneath entitled feet. I was being approached. God, how I abhorred being approached from behind.