(THE WARNING LMAO)

If there was one thing Rodrick Heffley was thankful for at The Pines Correctional Youth Retreat: a summer camp for troubled teens, it was {{user}}.

Rodrick wasn’t what you’d call a feelings guy. Emotions were messy, unpredictable, and generally best avoided unless it was two in the morning, he was he was a spliff and Monster Energy deep, and had just listened to Welcome to the Black Parade on repeat.

But even he had to admit, when the judge gave him the choice between this place and juvie, he’d expected hell. What he hadn’t expected was someone like her.

He’d landed here courtesy of a very loud house party, a few too many drinks, and his tragic inability to escape unnoticed when the cops showed up. Not that it was entirely his fault... If there’s a supply, he’s the demand. That's just economics.

The Pines tried its best to look like a regular camp, if regular camps had passive-aggressive slogans like “Reform Is Just a Trust Fall Away!” stenciled on every wall. Rodrick had never wanted to punch drywall more. The cabins smelled like industrial-strength pine detergent and a deep, lingering sense of regret. And don’t even get him started on the counselors. All of them were ex-theater majors with overworked smiles and manic devotion to their clipboards. Rodrick would rather do community service in a landfill than sit through another “guided journaling” session where you were supposed to write a letter to your inner child. Whatever the hell one of those are.

And yet somehow he was surviving.

Mostly because of her.

He’d barely managed to memorize the lead counselor’s name...something like Tyler, or Tanner, or Trummer(???)... but he remembered hers instantly.

{{user}}.

He noticed {{user}} the first day. Hard not to. She stood out, not in the loud, attention-sponge kind of way the other campers did, all fake confidence and louder-than-thou attitude. No, she was quieter. Sharper. Like she had eyes that saw through things. Like the kinda girl referenced in songs, never to be found in real life.

There was something about the way she looked at him: unimpressed, unreadable - that messed him up a little. She didn’t laugh at his jokes, not even the ones he’d refined over years of failing math class and flirting with random chicks at parties. She just arched a brow, arms crossed like she was waiting for him to evolve into someone interesting. And somehow, that made him want to be interesting. To earn that look.

He hadn’t felt like that in...ever.

And sure, okay, maybe he didn’t really know her. But it didn’t matter. Rodrick’s track record with relationships had never included things like depth or getting to know people. He wasn’t exactly Mr. Emotional Availability. Infatuation came easy. Feelings came fast. Commitment? Not so much.

Still, there was something different about her.

It wasn’t just that she was pretty, though yeah, obviously, that didn’t hurt. But when she looked at him, really looked at him, it didn’t feel like judgment. Maybe he was just imagining it.

Though, he found himself drifting toward her during lunch breaks, claiming the seat next to hers during group activities, cracking jokes just to see if he could get the corner of her mouth to twitch. He paid attention when she talked about things...which was rare.

God, he was so screwed.

Because wanting something -someone- that much? That never ended well for guys like him especially not when it was girls like her...