It was raining the entire four hour car ride to camp. All I saw were trees and trees, and roads and more roads. The sky was deep gray and dreary and it even looked like the raindrops on my window were in the shape of a frown. The closer we got to it, the bigger the butterflies in my stomach grew. It wasn’t excitement at all. I was scared, it was my first time going to sleepaway camp, and it was at some crappy place in upstate New York. To make it even worse, I’m staying for three weeks. That’s almost a month. I’m missing like three parties. And why am I going to camp? I had all C’s and my one A was in history. Apparently I need to be more connected with nature or disciplined and that will help my grades.

“Stop being such a mope. You’re going to like it once you get there.” my mom said.

“I won’t!” I yelled.

“You’re going to love it and be sad to leave. That’s what Mary-Jo’s daughter said.”

“Mary-Jo’s daughter is weird, mom!” I think my mom was going to reply, but my dad interrupted her.

“We’re almost there. Do you have all your bags?” He said. I looked around. I had my purse next to me, and my main suitcase was in the back.

We pulled through the gates, and saw a wide open road ahead of us. Wow, more road. The area was so big that you couldn’t see the main buildings, or even the cabins. I could smell wood burning, but not in a nice comforting way. My stomach dropped when I saw a huge rock climbing wall in a nearby field. I hated heights, and my last bit of hope faded.

Finally, I could see some cabins in the distance. They weren’t cute. I remembered my cabin number. 2c, bunk number 4. We pulled up to the building and I got out of the car. Next to us, a silver car pulled up and a boy my age got out. He was cute, he had medium skin and long brown hair (but not really long it was like two inches longer than normal. He seemed kind of shy by the way he walked up the steps in to the building.

“Come on,” said my dad, with bags in hand. I followed him into the building. Then I looked over at the boy. He was at the front desk and the receptionist lady was taking his name, to find out his cabin number, and all that stuff she’s supposed to do. I tried really hard to hear his name, but we were to far away. He had left by the time we got close enough.

The lady gave me directions to my cabin, and she had someone take my bags. On the bright side, no one else looked excited to be here either. I turned around and looked at the main building before we left, and there was one boy that stood out to me. He had lighter skin and dark brown curly hair. He was a little bit taller than the other boy, or maybe he was the same height. I couldn’t tell from a distance. They were both tall. I walked slowly to the cabins. This was going to be the worst.

I arrived at my cabin, and across the road there was the boys cabin. I saw the first boy walking in to it. He looked back and saw me staring. I turned away embarrassed.

There was a girl inside my cabin, sitting on her bed on her phone.

“Hey” she said.

“Hey” I mumbled. I really didn’t want to make friends with anyone here. Fast foward to the next day. There are a few girls in my cabin, and the first girl I met is named Chloe. I can’t remember the other girls names, I wasn’t paying attention. So I went to breakfast, and Chloe told me to sit with her.

The two boys that I saw were sitting together at a table on the other side of the room.

“What do we have after this?” Cabins were kind of like groups, so all of the things we did were together, so I asked Chloe.

“Rock climbing?” She looked over at one of the other girls.

“Yeah. One other cabin is doing it with us. I forget which one.” she said. I felt sick. I had a big fear of heights. This was not going to be okay. I didn’t like any of the people here, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself either. I felt the blood drain from my face.

“Are you okay Lacey?” Chloe said. “You look really pale.”

“No, it’s totally ok. I’m fine” We left the room and walked to the rock wall. The first cute boy’s group went with us. We were racing the other team. Everyone went and it was me and the cute boy last.

“I can’t do this.” I said to him.

“Yeah you can.” He looked at me.

Suddenly I had the confidence to do it. I ran toward the rock wall and I started climbing. Wait, I didn’t even know how to rock climb. I tried the best I could to get up the wall. I wasn’t going to make a fool of myself.

“My name’s Leo by the way.” I heard him say.

“Hey Leo, I’m Lacey.” I struggled to sound calm

“I’m gonna slow down so you can get ahead.” He said quickly.

“You don’t have to do that. Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know, I felt like being a good person today.” He smiled. “Also the kid that went before us likes you.”

“The one with the curly hair?” I gasped.

“That’s the one.”

I started to climb ahead. I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of two cute guys. I had a feeling I wouldn’t like the curly haired one as much as I liked Leo.

“We should talk more. After this”. He said.

Maybe camp wouldn’t be that bad after all. After that  we talked and talked every time we had an activity together. He helped me see that camp wasn’t that bad, and he helped me see the good in things. Sadly, I forgot to get his snap before we left camp, because he wasn’t allowed to bring his phone to camp. I never saw him again. If I had known him longer I think I would have been in love with him. But I guess the three weeks that I thought would be so long, were way too short.