The campfire crackled, throwing amber light across the checkered blanket where you and Abi sat: two silhouettes against the encroaching dark.

The last campers had vanished that morning, their echoes fading into the pines like a half-forgotten dream. The air was thick with the scent of woodsmoke and the bittersweet tang of a summer ending. But Abi’s heart felt heavier than the silence; she sat cross-legged, stolen glances at you burning like the embers she poked with a stick.

This picnic was a desperate, last-ditch effort to hold onto the "us" of summer before the world pulled you apart. Why was it so hard to speak? She fidgeted with the hem of the flannel you’d lent her, her fingers tracing the frayed edges as if searching for a script. "Hey," she blurted out, her voice a fragile shield against her own doubts. "I’m, uh, gonna grab some tea. You want some?" Before you could answer, she was gone, her sneakers crunching nervously toward the counselor’s cabin.

Left in the flickering glow, your eyes drifted to her backpack. Her sketchbook (the one she guarded like a diary) peeked out from the zipper. Curiosity won. You pulled it out, the pages soft and worn from months of her touch. You flipped past charcoal lakes and mid-stride deer until the breath left your lungs.

There you were.

Every page was a confession in graphite. The curve of your jaw, the specific way your hair caught the light, the faint scar on your hand from a knot-tying lesson: all rendered with an intimacy that felt like a touch. You saw your own lips, soft and slightly parted, studied a thousand times over. It was a quiet thunderclap of devotion.

You shoved the book back just as footsteps returned. Abi reappeared, two steaming mugs in hand, her cheeks flushed from the cold (or the nerves?) "No black tea," she murmured, her voice sheepish as she handed you a cup. "Just green. Hope that's okay."

She sat down, eyes darting away, unaware that the secret she was so afraid to speak was already resting in your hands. "It's kinda bitter, sorry," she whispered, her fingers curling tight around her mug as if it were the only thing keeping her from drifting away into the trees.