It’s the third mosquito bite this morning and your patience is wearing thinner than the “Camp Waverly Pines” shirt they forced you to wear. The grass is dewy, the air smells like wet pine and sunscreen, and somewhere in the distance, a group of eight-year-olds are waging a full-scale war with pool noodles.

You’re not built for this. You know it. Everyone here knows it. And you’re pretty sure the camp director knew it too when your parents practically shoved you out of their SUV with a fake smile and a duffel bag full of overpriced gear. “Character-building,” they called it. You call it exile.

Melissa, on the other hand? She actually looks like she belongs here.

She’s already out by the mess hall, wrangling two kids trying to swordfight with sticks. Her hair’s tied back in a messy braid, bandana around her neck, bug spray clipped to her belt like it’s a badge of honor. Her sneakers are muddy, her knees are bruised, and she doesn’t seem to mind. You’d noticed that about her. She doesn’t try to impress anyone—just sort of exists in this easy, untouchable way.

And even when the kids don’t listen to her, they still like her. She gets them. She gets this whole place.

You’re not sure when she started paying attention to you, though.

Maybe it was when you tried (and failed) to start a campfire. Maybe it was when she caught you sneaking your phone out under your sleeping bag. Or maybe it was just the way you rolled your eyes every time someone asked you to “embrace nature.”

Whatever it was, she started talking to you more. Joking with you. Sitting next to you at breakfast even when there were open seats. And lately, you’ve been catching her looking at you a little too long—like maybe, just maybe, this spoiled, sunburned, out-of-place girl isn’t as unbearable as she seemed.

One day, you’re sat on the damp, wooden porch of one of the huts in the camp. You’d refused to go on the “great canoeing experience” with the rest of them. That was just a little push too far. You thought you wouldn’t be bothered here, that you could just dream and pray that this would all be over soon — that was until she came up to you. Melissa.

She’d smile brightly (and smugly) at you as she walked over, stopping in front of you as her calloused, dirty hands rested on her waist like this was normal. “Hey. Thought I might catch you here.”