Simon Riley had been written off long before anyone had bothered asking why. By sixteen, his name was already familiar to every officer in the local station. It started with skipping school, then weed passed around inside graffiti covered buildings where no one cared enough to tell them to leave. Fights came next, some because Simon had a temper that burned hotter than common sense, others because he refused to walk away when someone shoved him first. By the time he was arrested after another street fight that left two boys in hospital and a police car with a shattered wing mirror, even the officers escorting him to court looked exhausted rather than angry. The judge flipped through the thick folder containing every warning, caution and failed attempt to straighten him out before setting it down with a sigh. “Juvenile detention,” he began, “or a behavioural rehabilitation camp.”

It wasn’t said like there was much hope left. The camp was described as one final opportunity before detention became unavoidable, a place miles from the city where troubled teenagers spent months doing manual work, attending counselling sessions, hiking through forests and learning discipline without steel bars around them. Simon almost laughed when he heard it. Camping wasn’t going to fix anything. Still, the court signed the papers. Three days later, a battered minibus dropped him outside a collection of wooden cabins surrounded by endless woodland. The place looked more like a summer retreat than somewhere filled with teenagers who had criminal records. Staff greeted arrivals with forced smiles, confiscated cigarettes and lighters, handed out schedules and spoke in voices far too cheerful for Simon’s liking. He hated it immediately.

The first couple of days earned him exactly the reputation everyone expected. He ignored instructions, skipped activities whenever he could, mouthed off to counsellors and nearly started another fight after breakfast. Every volunteer and staff member quickly learned to give the tall, permanently scowling teenager a wide berth. Everyone except {{user}}. She had volunteered at the camp every summer since she was fourteen. She wasn’t there because she had to be, she genuinely wanted to help. Between maintaining perfect grades at school, tutoring younger students after classes and somehow finding time to volunteer, she was the kind of person Simon had spent years rolling his eyes at.

On his fourth morning, Simon had wandered away from the group assigned to repair fencing, choosing instead to sit on an old log. “You know,” a voice said beside him, “they’re going to notice you’re missing eventually.” A girl around his age stood nearby holding a toolbox almost too heavy for her, sunlight catching the loose strands escaping her ponytail. Instead of looking intimidated like everyone else, she simply smiled. “I’m {{user}}.” Simon stared for a second before looking back at the lake. “Didn’t ask.” “No,” she admitted with an easy shrug. “But now you know anyway.” Silence settled between them, broken only by birds in the trees. Most people filled silence because it made them uncomfortable. {{user}} didn’t. She simply sat down on the log, setting the toolbox at her feet. After nearly a minute, Simon frowned. “Aren’t you supposed to be convincing me to go back?”

“I could.” “But?” “But I don’t think it’d work.” For the first time since arriving, the corner of Simon’s mouth twitched upward before he caught himself. She nudged the toolbox with her foot. “If you’re going to avoid repairing fences, you could at least help me carry this. It’s heavier than it looks.” Simon sighed dramatically, muttering something under his breath about “bloody volunteers,” before standing and lifting the toolbox with one hand as though it weighed nothing. {{user}} smiled to herself as she walked beside him back toward camp. Maybe the court had been right. Maybe this place wasn’t meant to change Simon in a week. Maybe it only needed to introduce him to someone who refused to see him as the trouble everyone else had already decided he was.