7 Days of Camp

13

•Lincoln's POV•

After the session, which was amazing, we had a little time before lights out. "Does anyone wanna go to the snack shack?" I asked my friends.

Blake, Emily, Jordyn, and of course Rain were standing there with me.

"Sure," Rain replied. "But can we take some of our roommates along? They're new."

"Yeah, of course." I never wanted to exclude anyone. I knew how hard it was to be the new kid.

When I was a freshman in high school, we had just moved from California to Illinois. It was a long trip and I was away from all my friends. And as I mentioned earlier, I was just about to start high school! So I was really nervous. On the first day, no one talked to me, except the teachers. No one invited me to sit with them. I was all alone.

So when I met Blake, I vowed to myself that I would never exclude another person. I didn't want anyone to go through what I'd gone through.

"Let me go get them," Rain said, bringing me out of my thoughts. She and Emily disappeared to find their roommates.

When they returned, there were two girls with them. "This is Kaila, and this is Amber," said Emily.

"Hi," the brunette said.

"Thanks for letting us join you," the blonde added.

"No problem," I replied. Then we all walked to the snack shack.

On the way, we came across two of mine and Blake's roommates. "Yo, Hunter! Alex!" I called to them. "We're going to the snack shack. Wanna join?"

They looked at our group, their eyes fixed on Amber and Kaila, then at each other. "Coming!" Alex shouted back.

We all decided to get some soft serve ice cream. It was pretty cheap here, but tasted heavenly.

"Can I get a scoop of mint chocolate chip?" I asked the volunteer behind the counter.

"Sure thing!" She took everyone else's orders, and then we put our money together and paid for all the ice cream.

I found Rain in the crowd, and took her hand in mine. We walked outside to a wooden swing and sat down to eat.

"I don't believe I've said hi."

She giggled and said, "Hello."

"Did you like the message?"

"Yeah, it was great. Did you?"

"Yeah. I think I'm really gonna like this series."

Before I met Rain, I didn't trust anyone with my secret. Well, it wasn't really my secret. It was my older brother's. He was gay, and I was so ashamed of that. But when I met her, everything changed, and I began to trust her with all my secrets.

"Me too," she agreed.

We ate in a comfortable silence after that. The sun begin to dip low into the horizon, and the sky filled up with stars.

"Come on, lovebirds!" Emily called to us. "We're going back to the dorms."

"Okay," I replied.

"We're coming," Rain added. She looked at me as if she wanted to kiss me, and it killed me inside knowing we couldn't. Then she turned away and stood up, breaking the moment. "Come on." She reached for my hand to help me up, and I grasped it and let her pull me up off the swing.

When we reached the dorms, I said goodnight and went to my room with Blake, Hunter, and Alex.