Once again, the sixteen of us are forced into a riveting yoga and talk session, something almost everyone besides me has come to like.

I bend my knee forward into the warrior pose, trying to keep my arms steady in the air. Everyone has their eyes closed and is breathing in deeply, while I just stare them down without them noticing.

"Girls, let's move into the tree pose, pulling in our right leg and standing on our left," Cassidy instructs, leading the way.

"I feel like such an outsider because I hate yoga," Willow whispers from beside me. She adds in a grumble, "You'd think all those years of ballet would have made me more graceful."

"Imagine how I feel without the dance experience."

We share a laugh for the first time in history, and the situation only grows funnier when she switches legs and topples over onto her mat with a thud.

"Girls, settle down," Cassidy says, making everyone look our way. Adriana stares at us as if we've grown three heads—because maybe we have. After a few poses that end with me contorted into a pretzel, Cassidy grabs our attention again. "Alright, this is the last session of this kind we'll have before you all leave on Monday. In that regard, I'd like you all to split up into groups of three or four and talk to each other for a few minutes. For some conversation starters, you could share your favorite parts of this camp or maybe your goals upon leaving here."

We freeze in our places for a few seconds, before we begin to form small circles at random. Martina plops down next to me, while Willow never ends up getting up, making the three of us one group.

Martina speaks first. "Okay, guys, let's be real. We're not gonna get all sappy and talk about how much we loved being here."

I snort, trusting her to always speak the truth. "I mean, technically, do we have to talk at all? It's not like we're getting graded for this."

"I don't know," Willow mumbles, looking around. "Cassidy seems to be stopping by each group."

"Fine," Martina says, looking between the two of us. "Truth be told, I'm kind of freaking out about college. All the parties, alcohol, and independence... Sometimes I feel like I only thrive in places with a lot of structure, like this camp."

"I definitely get that," I say, "but I'm worried for different reasons. What if the classes are so difficult that I can't get straight As anymore? Or I have no free time and literally never step foot in a gym again? Why did I even come here, then?"

"Oh, come on, Whitney, I bet you'll be fine," Martina consoles and shoots me a warm smile. She turns to Willow sitting a few feet from us, eyes glued to the floor. "Are you excited for college, at least?"

Willow scowls and shakes her head. "God, no. I'm not going to the school of my dreams, that's for sure, and there are still so many things I haven't figured out yet. Like...how does therapy even work in college?"

I blink. Therapy? So, was my speculation valid?

"How is it going over here, you three?" Cassidy crouches down in between Martina and me. Willow mumbles something about leaving and stands up, appearing overwhelmed. Cassidy doesn't stop her as she hurries out of the gym, leaving Martina and I even more confused. "Okay, I will take that as 'not so good.' You might want to go check on your friend."

I wince at the use of "friend" but find myself feeling the worry of one for Willow's flustered self. I look at Martina for reassurance, but she just shrugs, eyes lingering on Aspen across the room. Cassidy's hopeful glance guilts me, and I finally pull myself up to my feet and to the door.

Luckily, I find an object of hers lying on the floor, a brown sweatband, and use it as an excuse to talk to her. I scoop it up and walk out the double doors, noticing the way one didn't close properly, meaning she must have taken this exit.

I narrow her fifteen-foot lead and call out her name. "You dropped your sweatband."

"Oh," she answers. She takes it from me and begins to walk again. She stops in her tracks a few feet into her journey to our dorm. "Wait, why did you leave?"

"Why did you?" I notice her eyes are slightly red, and her face bears the same expression from that day I ran into her at Sweet Treat, distressed and broken. "What's wrong, Willow?"

She blows out a breath and brushes her fingers over her eyes. "Sorry. It's just—shit whenever I think about my...my eating disorder, I get all flustered. I've been dealing it with for so long now, I almost forget who I was without it..."

I gasp. While I'd always surmised that something was wrong, it's a lot different to hear the truth from her mouth. "But you've been getting treatment, right? You mentioned a therapist."

"Yeah," she mumbles, tightening her arms over her chest. "My mom forced me to finally get professional help junior year, but that stuff—the behavior modifications, positive affirmations, the spilling your guts to a fucking stranger—only works if you want it to. And quite frankly, I'm a therapist's worst nightmare."

"I'm still glad you're getting help," I say softly, knowing there isn't much I can say to make her feel better. "Did your friends ever notice in high school? Or at least support you?"

She lets out an empty laugh, no trace of humor lacing the sound. "My friends used to tell me they were jealous of how skinny I was. I never knew what to say, not wanting to give them any ideas, but when it got too much after a while, and I had to quit dance and cross country and could no longer hang out every day after school because I was stuck in some office learning how to love myself, I told them the truth. Then suddenly, I was the sickly, unstable friend, the one my friends' mothers warned them not to become."

"Why did you still stay friends with them, then?" I ask. "They sound like the fakest people in the world."

"Does it look like I make good decisions, Whitney?" she snaps. "I came here so I could apologize to you, and here you are listening to me rant about my problems because I'm too much of a fucking chicken to tell you I'm sorry." She drops her hands to the side, looking away with a grimace. She makes eye contact again and continues, "But I really am, Whitney. I'm so, so sorry for every horrible word I said to you and stupid prank I played and the million-and-one times I made you feel bad about yourself. I don't even care if my words are meaningless to you. I just need to get this off my chest. The guilt has been eating me alive every night since we graduated."

Tears stream down her cheeks now, and she doesn't bother to wipe them away. I fish through my sweatshirt pocket and pull out a couple tissues from the travel pack I never ended up using when I was sick. She takes them gratefully and blows her nose.

"You were horrible in high school," I say. "You weren't kind. You made me feel worthless for years. I used to curse you out in my head whenever you did so much as walk down the same hallway at the same time as me. But, Willow..." I trail off and dig my hands into my pocket, swallowing a gulp. "You're not the only one who's tired. I'm so goddamn tired of hating you."

She glances up, dabbing her eyes. "I never wanted you to hate me, Whitney." I don't know how much I can believe that, but my heart sinks at her next words. "It took walking in on my father's lifeless body at fifteen to realize the person I was for the past year was going to screw me over one day. But I was in so deep, and the grief—God, I can't even describe it in words—it made me viler with each passing day. And you..." She looks away and drags her hand through her hair. "You, Whitney, were everything I couldn't be."

"That's not true—"

She cuts me off. "Maybe not to you, but I only saw what I wanted to see. You were so pure-hearted, naturally pretty, a thousand times smarter than I'd ever be, with a future that couldn't be anything but bright. My own mother sometimes used to ask me why I couldn't be more like you."

I suck in my cheeks and stare at the dirt, wishing this confrontation didn't take this long. I only wonder how many sleepless nights I could have spared myself. "Did you ever wonder, Willow," I say, making her head pop up, "if I ever wished we could have stayed friends? Do you know how much it hurt to see you go from someone I called friend...to a person I wished didn't even exist?"

She shakes her head, mouthing a no. "I didn't, Whitney."

For once, the silence suffocates me more than the spite, and I can't take rehashing our history anymore. I wipe the side of my eye and swallow again, my throat dry and tight.

"Look, I don't know—I don't know if we'll ever be friends, Willow. Or talk once we go back home. But it does mean something to me that you went of your way to give me a genuine apology. And I want..." I take a step forward, wrapping my hand around her thin wrist. "I want you to stop feeling so guilty. You need to focus on yourself for once. Because in a few months, I'll have a totally new life...and I want you to have one, too."

Eyes welling up with tears again, she scrunches up her face and looks away, choking back a sob. Without warning, she throws her arms around me and squeezes me into her chest. I feel like I'm hugging a small child, unsure where to even put my hands.

I just leave them floating in the air as she falls apart in my arms, while I, at last, feel whole again.