Read The Summer I Wasn't Me for Free Online

straight. I decide in this moment that I’m going to be just like her.
    “Now,” Mr. Martin says, “we are going to split you up into groups of four. Two boys, two girls. The group you are assigned to will be your group for the entire summer. Apart from the exercises that require the boys and girls to be separated, your group of four will spend every waking moment together. You will have meals together, participate in the majority of reparative therapy exercises together, and spend your leisure hours together.”
    “Why?” Matthew asks. He’s the first camper to speak since the counselors entered the room.
    Mr. Martin’s smile melts away. “To keep each other accountable. It’s easy to give in to the feelings and desires caused by your sickness. Your group members are there to make sure you don’t relapse.” He picks up the crumpled, blue New Horizons shirt and holds it pointedly out to Matthew. His demeanor emanates friendliness, kinship, but I can’t help but feel this is a challenge. Matthew crosses his arms and glares stubbornly back at him. But Mr. Martin isn’t going to budge. He stands there, shirt in hand, waiting.
    The thickening tension in the room makes the cabin even hotter. No one moves. No one says anything.
    I can’t stand this. “Take it,” I whisper to Matthew, and, finally, he does.
    “Remember,” Mr. Martin says, “there will always be eyes on you.”
    “Super,” Matthew mutters so low that I think I may be the only one who hears him. He slips the shirt over his head.
    Brianna steps in and begins dividing us up, seemingly at random. I sit very still in my chair and watch as she picks us out, one by one. I’m not in the first group. Neither is the blond girl. Brianna comes very close to her as she chooses people for group two, and I hold my breath, but she picks the girl sitting next to her instead. I exhale. I know I’m not supposed to, but I want to be in a group with her. There’s no harm in being friends, right? Maybe we can even help each other with the de-gayifying stuff.
    As they’re assigned their groups, the other campers start dragging their chairs over to their designated corners of the room.
    Brianna taps her sparkly fingernails against the corner of her mouth as she decides who should be in the next group. “Matthew…Daniel…” she says. She points at the girl. “Carolyn…”
    Carolyn. That’s her name.
    “…and…”
    Me! Pick me!
    “Alexis.”
    Yes!
    The four of us slide our chairs into a little cluster. Carolyn is right next to me, but she still doesn’t look at me. I’m trying to come up with something not stupid to say when counselor Deb joins us.
    “Hello,” she says. Even though the creepy “what is a woman” trials are over, she still has that distant look about her. I can’t tell if she’s acting like this on purpose, or if that’s just how her face is. “Please introduce yourselves to each other. Remember to state your age and where you’re from.” She gestures to Matthew to go first.
    “I’m Matthew,” he says. “I’m sixteen years old, and I don’t need a governess!”
    We all stare at him.
    “ The Sound of Music ? Liesl? No one?” He sighs, disappointed. “Okay, actually I’m seventeen, and I live in San Diego. Better?”
    “Much,” Deb says flatly. I grin at Matthew across the small circle.
    A skinny boy with rimless glasses goes next. “I’m Daniel. I’m fifteen.” His hands are shaking. “Um…what else am I supposed to say again?”
    “Where you’re from,” Deb says.
    “Oh yeah. West Virginia.”
    My turn. “Hi, I’m Lexi.” Deb, Matthew, and Daniel are all looking directly at me, but Carolyn’s hair has fallen forward in a sleek sheet, blocking her face. “I’m from South Carolina, and I’m seventeen.”
    Carolyn pushes her hair back. “I’m Carolyn.” God, even her voice is pretty. “I’m sixteen. And I’m from Connecticut.”
    Deb rattles down a list of camp rules.
    No touching a camper of the