There was just something about {{user}}.

Not something loud. Not something flashy. Just… something.

They had a way of leaning in when someone spoke, like every word mattered. Like you mattered. Which, in a place like Camp Green Lake—where you were only as good as the hole you dug—felt like being handed water in a desert.

Magnet swore {{user}} had powers. “They looked at me,” he whispered once to Squid, “and I didn’t feel like a thief for five seconds.”

Squid rolled his eyes, but later that night, he saw {{user}} helping Zero with his writing—just smiling, laughing softly when he made a joke about the word “splat.” Squid watched the way {{user}}’s hand hovered above Zero’s page like they were guiding the pen with some kind of invisible force. He didn’t say it out loud, but yeah… he got it.

Zigzag? He twitched worse than Twitch sometimes when {{user}} was near. The moment {{user}} helped him come down from one of his paranoia spirals—telling him, gently, that there were no cameras, no microphones, nothing watching him but the stars—he’d stared at them like they had split the sky open. He started wearing cleaner shirts the next day. Nobody said anything.

Armpit once offered {{user}} half his lunch, then immediately regretted it when he realized it was all he had. But {{user}} had smiled, said, “Thanks, I’ll save it for later,” and tucked it into their pocket like it was gold. Armpit didn’t eat that entire afternoon. He just sat in the dirt, grinning to himself.

X-Ray pretended not to care. He called them “Pendanski’s brat” in front of everyone but always got weirdly close when {{user}} was helping carry water or dragging broken tools to the shed. He asked questions he already knew the answers to just to hear them explain.

Twitch was the worst of them all. Or maybe the most obvious. He twitched every time {{user}} said his name. His hands shook when they listened—really listened—to him ramble about the engine designs of classic cars. He once told Stanley, “They look at me like I’m not broken.” And Stanley, the one who’d spent most of his life feeling like a curse, had only nodded.

Even Zero, quiet and watchful, had started sitting closer when {{user}} was near. Not touching—never touching—but always near. He said more around them than he did around anyone else. That said enough.

The only problem—the only damn problem—was that {{user}} was Pendanski’s kid.

Seventeen or not, they were technically “staff.” And Pendanski was proud of it. Called them “a shining example.” Said things like, “You boys could learn something from my kid.”

Which only made it worse.

Because {{user}} wasn’t like Pendanski at all. They weren’t patronizing. They didn’t pity them. They saw them. Every broken, messed up, tired inch.

So, each boy tried, in their own secret way.

Magnet always offered to carry whatever {{user}} was holding, even if it was just a pencil. Zigzag carved their initials into the edge of his shovel. Twitch started combing his hair, just barely. X-Ray let them win at a card game and acted like it was nothing. Armpit shared snacks. Squid offered to walk them to the showers like it wasn’t a big deal. Stanley always stood when they entered the tent. Zero would pass them notes—one word at a time.

And {{user}}? They just kept smiling, listening, helping, healing.

None of the boys dared call it love.

But when {{user}} was around, every one of them felt like they weren’t just a number, a nickname, or a mistake.

They felt like someone.

And that, in Camp Green Lake, was more dangerous than any yellow-spotted lizard.