(Author's note: I posted a youtube video above about a place in East Texas called Blue Hole that helped inspire the local swim hole Miss Park visits in this chapter. If you're a fan of country boys, fast forward to 01:04 ... you're welcome lol!!)

She lay on her back in the sun, feeling its heat envelope and slowly bake her in a way that was oddly pleasant, as though she were a Christmas ham, or a turkey carcass perhaps, popped into the oven and surrendering to its one purpose in life, which was to be cooked and eaten.

Scratch that, that was a terrible thought. She had come out here to the local creek to relax and, for a few hours at least, escape her morbid thoughts and the ominous peach walls of her bathroom, and as usual her mind's perverse take on things made that difficult. She took a deep breath and tried again, squeezing her eyes shut and trying to lose herself amidst the deafening chorus of cicadas and the distant cries of other swimmers and sunbathers farther upstream. She had never been here before, but she had long known of its existence thanks to the chattering of her students on Friday afternoons when they made plans to meet up at the spring fed "swim hole" where most of them congregated, usually, according to their Monday morning recaps, to drink beer, have furtive sex in the woods, and start fist fights.

She had also heard about the creek's clear, crystal beauty, and its cool, ice blue waters from the other teachers and staff, and had promised herself she would one day go and swim there. Her plan had always been to call in sick on a school day and head out there to minimize the chance of running into one of her students, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and sitting on that toilet with that pee stick in her hand, she knew she needed to go there. Immediately. That the sunlight and the trees and the crisp cold spring water being pumped up from deep beneath the earth's surface would provide her with something that she craved, perhaps an answer, perhaps not, but it would give her something. It was all she had.

So she threw the insolent pee stick into the little plastic trash can (also peach), read Cam's text message one last time before turning her phone off, and headed to her bedroom to put together something that might pass for a bathing suit. Because of course she didn't own one, or if she did she had no idea where in the world it might be. So after digging through piles of laundry both clean and dirty she pulled on a pair of running shorts and a black sports bra, slipped on her flip flops, and headed out with a towel, a New Yorker magazine she had swiped from her sister's coffee table before leaving for the airport, and an overwhelming desire to run, not walk to her car and get away from that damn pee stick and its terrifying announcement.

Of course when she pulled in to the small dirt parking lot it was jammed with cars and trucks, no doubt many of them driven there by former students, future students, or their families. She cringed, but refused to turn around. She had as much right to be there as anyone else, although she did hunt around for a path through the brush that might lead her farther down river and away from the crowds. A hand painted wooden sign that said "Satan's Hole" pointed toward the springs and the main swimming area, and she could hear the excited whoops and loud splashes of laughing, overgrown teenagers. Yup, she definitely needed to find that path.

Ten minutes later she found herself about 100 feet down river, and she carefully spread out her towel behind one of the enormous cedars that lined the creek and laid down on it. She tried reading her magazine for a few minutes, but even underneath the leafy cover of the cedar tree the sun's bright, early afternoon light made it almost impossible to see the words without squinting so much her face hurt. So she threw the magazine aside and closed her eyes, amusing herself with the way the tiny veins in her eyeballs etched themselves across the pink, sunlit insides of her eye lids.

But now she was really cooking in the sun, and though it really had been pleasant for awhile, the sweat trickling down her face was beginning to annoy her, and to make things worse a bunch of gnats had decided to give her trouble.

She sat up in a huff of frustration and once again wondered how people managed to lay out in the sun for hours; there was always some bug or itchy grass making things uncomfortable for her, or sand getting into all the wrong places when she was at the beach.

"Oh Courtney," she muttered out loud to herself, "You always have to make everything so difficult."

"Miss Park?" a familiar female voice piped up from God knows where. "Is that you?"

She whipped around, trying to locate the voice's owner, but all she saw were more trees, lots of bushes and overgrown grass, and the tiny footpath she had taken through the brush to get there. She even peered into the branches above her, but saw no sign of Madysen up there either. Was she imagining things? Had the pee stick finally pushed her over the edge? Was this her version of going nuts, hallucinating the disembodied voices of annoying students?

"Madysen?" she whispered, "Madysen where are you?"

She heard a chorus of giggles and knew herself to be now tormented by not just one but several teenaged girls. Where were they?

"Miss Park! Down here Miss Park! In the water!"

How had she missed them? They were right there, floating down the creek in giant inflatable inner tubes, a group of five, mostly blonde girls in very skimpy bikini tops, including Madysen and another one of her former students, Alexa, one of the earnestly sweet ones who had always tried her hardest. Alexa had never been particularly clever, but she had always been eager to learn and no teacher could resist that in a student. She hadn't seen them at first because they were still about 20 feet upriver and obscured by the trees and the tall, uncut grass she had nestled down into like a small, vulnerable animal trying to hide from predators.

She wouldn't have lasted long in the wild.

She didn't recognize the other three girls, though they looked a bit older, which meant she wasn't likely to have them in class next year. Small mercies.

"Hi there girls," she cried out, trying her best to appear nonchalant and pleased at their unwelcome intrusion. "How is your summer going?"

"You know, whatever and all," Madysen said, sounding more vapid than usual, and shrugged her lovely round shoulders. Her former student had on a neon pink bikini top that accentuated her rather large, full chest, and she caught herself wondering if that was what had drawn Cam to her. Because she doubted it had been Madysen's personality.

Stop it Courtney, she thought.

She turned her attention to Alexa, sweet Alexa, floating several feet behind Madysen, and was about to ask her if she had enrolled in the local community college to study business like they had once discussed. Instead she gasped and her heart dropped with a thud. Alexa was pregnant. At least five or six months along by the looks of it.

"Alexa," she said, then stopped, unsure whether she should mention the obvious. But Alexa, always polite and eager to please, made it easy for her.

"I'm pregnant Miss Park," she said bashfully. "I'm due in early December. My boyfriend and I are engaged."

Alexa sounded apologetic, afraid, no doubt, that she had disappointed her teacher.

"Oh congratulations Alexa, that's wonderful!" It took every last shred of insincere enthusiasm at her meager disposal to sound happy for her, but she pulled it off. At least she hoped she did. Alexa looked relieved and pleased by her response. Madysen, meanwhile, said nothing but continued to gaze at her with those expressionless blue eyes of hers.

She took a moment to appreciate how bizarre it was to be having these exchanges with a group of girls who were slowly floating by on a river. Then again, it always felt difficult to pin down her students, literally and metaphorically, even when they were firmly standing on land. They were always headed somewhere else, it seemed, or if they weren't, they wished they were. That restless energy that simultaneously got them excited about life and got them into trouble. Like Alexa and her boyfriend.

Like Cam and you, a nagging voice whispered inside her head. Except Cam is a student—or was—and you are definitely not.

The girls were whispering now amongst themselves.

"Hey Miss Park," Madysen said at last. "Have you heard from Cam lately?"

Could they see her turn red? Maybe she had gotten enough of a sunburn already to hide it since she had forgotten to bring sun block along with her shades.

"No Madysen, not since the last time I saw you at the restaurant." Such lies. Did she or did she not know about that night out at the Walker ranch?

Then, with a guilty start, she remembered the text she had gotten from Cam earlier that day, the first word she had received from him since saying goodbye in his truck six weeks earlier, covered in his scent, and that of his father's as well.

"Why, is everything okay?" she asked, trying to sound like a concerned teacher and nothing more. "Did something happen?"

Madysen only responded with another infuriating shrug and said nothing. She had drifted past at this point and all she could see of her irritating former student was her back, but now Alexa was right across from her, only a few feet away. She was a tiny girl, making her pregnant stomach look even larger by contrast

"Last we heard he went to go see his sister where she's staying, but he hasn't been back all summer, or at least none of us have seen him," Alexa said, trying to make up for her friend's rudeness. Alexa probably had to play that role a lot if she hung out with Madysen on a regular basis. To be honest, though, a part of her admired Madysen's inability to give two shits about other people's feelings or reactions. It was both annoying and refreshing at the same time, especially coming from a girl.

Then Alexa's words sunk in, and a familiar feeling of anxiety opened up in the pit of her stomach.

"No one's heard from him? Has his dad said anything?"

Alexa waited a moment to see if Madysen would respond and when it became clear she wouldn't—Madysen now had her head resting back on the rim of the inner tube and appeared to be sleeping—she continued:

"I'm not sure his dad has heard from him either. I don't know, it's only what we heard, so I can't say for sure. But I guess we were kind of hoping you might have heard something from him."

"I see," she said. Well, she had heard from him, but no way she was going to tell anyone about it, at least not right this moment. "I hope he's okay. I'll let his dad know for sure if I hear anything."

"Thanks Miss Park," Alexa chirped happily. "I sure miss you and your class. I told my friends who have you this year that they are really lucky. You're the first teacher who ever made Shakespeare even a little bit interesting."

This made her blush again, and tears pricked her eyes. She remembered what Cam had told her, how much the students had liked her, and how surprised she had been to hear that. How much it had moved her. And now here was one of those students he must have been talking about. Who cares if it looked like college wasn't in the cards for her anytime soon. Suddenly, she was imagining Alexa reading Shakespeare plays and sonnets to her newborn baby in the crib, maybe even naming it after one of his characters—Juliet for a girl perhaps? Definitely not Ophelia, she hoped Alexa knew better than to doom her daughter like that.

"Bye Miss Park! Good luck with the school year!" Alexa called out, twisting around in her innertube so she could wave goodbye. The other girls waved as well, except for Madysen, who remained steadfastly asleep.

"Goodbye girls," she waved back, waking up from her ridiculous daydream.

When all five of them were safely gone around a bend in the creek she fished her phone out of her bag, turned it back on, and reread Cam's text:

"I need to see you."

She sighed, gathered up her courage, remembered the worried look on Alexa's face, and dialed his father's number.

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