OW! Somehow I always manage to stub my toe on something at night. I can’t see anything and I probably look like a zombie walking across my cabin and into the haze of dawn. I quietly open the cabin door cause if I open it too quickly it creeks and ill wake everybody up. Ah, finally outside. I sneak across the gravel in my flip flops, pj shorts and tank top. I have to be quiet or ill wake everybody up. Usually I’m not this sneaky but I promised Nick id meet him by the picnic tables tonight since I fell asleep last night. Now, don’t get the wrong idea, me and nick aren’t dating. We have been best friends since we were in diapers and I never get to see him during camp. As I’m walking a spot somebody out of the corner of my eye coming outside. I duck behind a bush and try to make this person out. I see somebody putting a shirt on and coming outside of a cabin real quiet like. It’s definitely a girl but she’s coming out of the boy’s cabin. Wait, is that Erica? NO! Erica was with Jeremy last night. I never saw that coming. Teenage boys and girls are always sneaking around with each other at night so they won’t be alone during the night. But Erica and Jeremy. That’s different because she is so mean and Jeremy is so the opposite of mean. But whatever I better hurry before someone sees me. It’s about a ten minute walk uphill to the picnic tables and by the time I see Nick I am panting like a dog.
“Hey, did you wake anybody?” He asks looking around.
“This isn’t my first time, but I did see something interesting,” I reply, “I saw Erica come out of Jeremy’s cabin.”
“What? They were together last night? That’s unusual,” he says looking as stunned as I was.
“I know! That’s exactly what I thought. So how has your night been so far?”
“Pretty good so far, except I really need to tell you something,” he says looking like he is nauseas.
He pauses and just stares at me for what seems like forever.
“What? You are really starting to freak me out. We have been best friends since we were practically fetuses, you can tell me anything,” I say. This isn’t like him. He’s not serious, well usually not. He looks like he has finally worked up the courage to ask me when all of the sudden I hear something in the distance.
“Did you here that,” I ask.
“No, just forget about what you heard, I really need to tell you this.”
“No, wait, I think it’s somebody. We should really just go back to our cabins. We’ll talk tomorrow?”
“Uh. Sure we’ll talk tomorrow,” he replies. We hug and I walk very quietly back to my cabin. I wonder what I heard last night. I hope nobody saw us. We would be in major trouble is someone told Jill, the camp leader, they saw us.








~~~~~
The next morning I wake up earlier than everybody so I decide to walk to the cafeteria and make some coffee. When I go outside, I see Erica in the distance siting by the lake crying. I would’ve just kept walking but she saw me looking and she looks like she needs someone to talk to. I walk over to her and sit next to her.
“Hey, what’s wrong,” I ask.
“It’s not that big of a deal. Just girl stuff,” she replies. I can see the pain in her eyes but I’m not sure what happened. I want to make it better so I stay and figure out what happened.
“You can tell me. I won’t tell anybody. I promise.”
“Okay well last night I went with Jeremy to his cabin. Not much happened. We were just sitting there and all of the sudden he say ‘you’re nothing like I thought you were’ and I asked what he meant. He said, since my dad last year, he thought he would be my friend with benefits because I’m sad. I said I didn’t need one, that I was fine. He said it’s okay to admit it; he would’ve said yes cause how can you say no to someone with a deceased dad. He was basically just using me. I ran out of there as fast as I could. It was so embarrassing,” she then begins to start crying harder.
“I’m so sorry. Do you want to come to the cafeteria with me to get something to eat or some coffee,” I ask even though I was looking forward to having some alone time with my best friend.
“No thanks, I’ll just wait till Megan is awake so I can have some best friend time,” she says.

I leave and soon I am at a picnic table drinking coffee. It’s so warm and sunny during the summer in California. I just love being a camp counselor sometimes. Then I hear the piercing sound of the whistle come over the PA system outside and that signal for everybody to wake up. I quickly poor out the end of my coffee and hurry down to the pool house. That’s where all the counselors have their morning meetings. I spot Nick and walk over to him. He looks distracted.
“Hey, are you okay,” I ask trying to get his attention. I wave my hand in front of his face.
“Oh, yeah hey. I’m fine just tired,” he replies but I know he’s lying. Then I hear Jill’s voice on the microphone.
“Okay guys, today is the first day the kids are coming to camp. Get ready because we have to get all of them to the right place and it’s going to be hard.”
Oh great, this will be so hectic. Jill gives us our group paper with the group name and children’s name. I have 6 girls and 6 boys. All between the ages of 10-12. Am I going to have to have two different cabins?
“Okay, now I’ll name off the counselors that’ll be paired with each other. Erica and Jeremy…”
Omg, she did not put them together. I quickly look over at and she is frozen in her place.
“… Nick and Angie…” Yay, I’m with Nick I look over at him and he looks excited but nervous at the same time. What’s going on with him? I don’t know if anything is even wrong but why won’t he tell me why he’s acting so weird?
“Okay, so boys will be with the male counselors and girls will be with the female counselors. Go to the main area and greet everybody in your group.” We all walk out, peering down at our papers to see who we all have from last year. I have all kids that I have never heard of.


We make our way to the area and I see about 50-80 kids waiting to be called. This is going to be difficult. I start shouting names from the list,
“Suzie Hall. Kelly Smith. Olivia Walters…” that’s when I see three girls walk over, with locked arms. They are all giggling and keep looking back at Nick. They think he is cute, that’s adorable.
“Um, Sammi Brown, Leslie Taylor, and Hailey Vaughn.” I see two girls walk over chatting. They look like they know each other but aren’t exactly close friends. I then peer to the side of the girls and see I small, petite girl walking over to the group. She stops about one foot away from the group.
“Okay girls, I have name tags so I am going to call out and you come get your name tag. Okay Suzie and Kelly come up.” They skip up here. Suzie come stands up front. She has her head held high like she owns the world. I give her the name tag and she goes and stands by Olivia. Kelly comes next. Her blonde curls are bouncing and she looks so light on her feet. She stands and says her pleases and thank yous and goes and stands back with her friends. I call all the other girls up and I give them their name tags. When Hailey comes up she stands so far from me I have to take a few steps to give her the name tag. She fastens it on her shirt and stands with her head held down. Why is she so shy? I’m going to need to open her up.


Nick
“… Uh, Tim Gilligan, David Bush.” I see the last of the boys walking up. They all look like they know each other. I notice one boy and girl, from Angie's group, keeping looking over at each other. They look like they are talking to each other but are conversing with their eyes only, like best friends do. It reminds me of how Angie and I used to do that when we were young.
“Come get your name tags. Everybody get in a single file line and tell me what your name is when you come up.” As everybody comes up I notice the kid with they friend walking up,
“SO is that girl your friend?”
“Yeah we have been friends since we were babies. I’m just glad that we are in the same group over all,” he replies as he looks back at her giggling with her friends. I gaze over at Angie and see her talking with some girls. She is so great with kids. That’s what I love about her. I keep looking over at her and I suddenly stop because I realize I’ve been looking too long.


I lead all the boys to the lake and Angie meets us there.
“Okay, guys go into the pool house of the left and girls go to the house on right and get changed into your swim suits, we are going swimming!” Angie says this with such excitement it’s like she is seven again.
“Okay, you go change with and make sure the boys are okay and I’ll go change and make sure the girls are okay.”
“What, we are going to swim to, “I ask.
“Of course,” she says with a smile on her face. Her smile is so perfect. She is perfect. I always thought of us as just friends but this summer I realized I was in love with her. And she doesn’t even know it.


All the kids are gone now after swimming for hours. They were all hungry and left to go eat. Angie and I are now alone at the lake.
“We didn’t really get so swim much,” she says with a disappointed look on her face.
“We can change that. They don’t need us back until 8:00 and it’s only six thirty. ” as I say this I jump in the pool. I feel the warm water hit my body and it feels great. I pop my head up and out my hand out.
“Here, help me out and we’ll jump in together,” I say to her. As she grabs my hand I pull her in with me. She knew I was going to do that but she didn’t care. We both come out of the water and we start splashing water in each other’s faces.
“Hey, remember that game we used to play where we would jump in the lake and see who could make the biggest splash,” she asks. I nod and I know she wants to play the game again.
“I’ll jump in first then.” As I get in starting position, I brace myself and I cannon-ball into the lake off the dock. As I hit the water it seems like all my problems go away. I sink as far as I can into the water and then I spring up. I feel the warm water slide of my head and the sun hit my face.. I look at Angie and she looks impressed.
“It was a big splash but I’m going to beat you,” she says as I climb out of the lake.
“Don’t sink too far down or you won’t come back up,” I say in a joking tone.
She takes a running start and also cannon-balls into the pool. Her splash was big but I know mine was better. As I wait for her to come out of the lake, I notice that all I see is her fingers poking out of the lake and wiggling around.
“Angie…Angie, quit playing around…”as I wait for her I see her fingers disappear in the water and I know that she isn’t playing around. I dive into the pool and fortunately I can see with my eyes open. I see her dirty blonde hair flowing in the water. I quickly grab her and try to pull her out but her foot is caught to something. I swim lower to her ankle and I unravel the seaweed so her ankle is free. I swim so fast that I feel like I need to stop but I can’t because I need to get Angie out of the water. I finally get her out and I lay her down on the dock. She begins to cough and I sit her up because she has some water in her mouth. She spits out the water and is coughing frantically. She begins to stop coughing and I look at her and see the fear in her eyes. She looks at me and her eyes get glossy and she begins to cry. I lay her head on my chest and she wraps her arms around me.
“I tried Nick, I really tried to swim back up but I couldn’t and I couldn’t get ankle free. I was so scared and I could only get my fingers out of the water,” she whimpers.
“I know, I know. Shhh, shhh. You’re okay now. I got you,” I say as I’m reassuring her and rubbing her back. For a moment we are just quite. I feel her head look up at me and I look down at her. Her eyes are the prettiest shade of emerald green. They’re as pure and beautiful as the emerald castle in the Wizard of Oz. As I look into her eyes I see her begin to lean in and so does she. Her lips meet mine and it just feels so right for us to be kissing. It’s not an intense kiss just a normal first kiss. She begins to laugh and I pull back.
“What’s wrong,” I ask a little offended that she is laughing.
“Oh nothing. It’s just I never thought about us like this but now that this is happened it feels right and I think I like it.” I have replayed this scene in my head over and over again, but it feels even greater in person. We kiss again and this time it’s more intense. I feel her ease into my body and it feels so natural and calming with her. Our fingers interlock and we walk across the dock to the grass. I look down at the lake and see the sinking fish, flapping their fins to get to the bottom. This is going to be a great summer.