Zach and Abby

Stormie - Prologue

Prologue - December 2009 - Sophomore Year

Samantha

I'd gone to Frank Wilson's Band Camp: "Where amateurs are transformed into the musicians of tomorrow," every summer and winter for one week since the seventh grade.

That first time, my mother had told me I had no say in the matter, even though I argued several times that band camp was the like the Olympics for dorks - to which my brother had to remind me that I'd fit in perfectly. Throughout the four hour plane ride and two hour drive from our home to this camp in the middle of the woods in Virginia, I continually told my mom that if she left me there I'd cut off both my arms.

Obviously she knew the threat was empty; for the moment I was out of the car with my bags by my side, she threw me a kiss and drove off. The only thought on my mind had been how far the nearest bus station was. I expected this place to be crawling with pimply, nerdy kids who all shared a common interest in online gaming and chess.

But five minutes after I arrived, someone running full speed ahead slammed into me, causing us both to fall to the ground. And that was how I met Austin Phillips, and how I came to love band camp.

I counted - he had apologized two hundred and thirteen times for running into me that first week at band camp. I left at the end of July with a smile on my face, surprising my mother when I jumped into the car, screaming how I wanted to go back in December when the camp was held for a week right before Christmas. However, I did leave out the cute boy with a nice smile who made the camp as great as it was.

That was eight years ago. Every summer and winter meant Austin; it meant a place where cell phone reception was nonexistent, where I got a break from reality two times a year. It meant I got to be a normal teen, playing guitar and writing music, passing time playing board games with kids from all over the country and it was where I fell in love.

My heart had always been cold, but like all the romance books say, love warmed it up. Even though all together Austin and I had only spent a total of sixteen weeks together over a span of eight years, there was something about him that I wanted to keep with me. His shy, lazy smile, the way he cared for people or the way he made me laugh even when my mother had managed to get a hold of me during camp, saying at least one thing that brought me to the edge of tears.

He had been a constant in my life from the time I was thirteen, which said a lot due to our lack of communication the other fifty weeks out of the year, even though we lived less than an hour apart.

But everything was ending. Once you turned twenty, you weren't allowed back to camp. Austin became too old in May, I followed in June, and so this band camp session in December; this moment was our last.

The Friday night concert had just ended; every instrument was packed up and loaded up with our luggage by the door and people milled about everywhere. The atmosphere was quiet, like it always was on the last night of camp. Most of the kids around me were all my age, something in each of us had brought us back to band camp even long after we graduated high school and had started college, and so we were all somewhat friends.

We were in the upstairs lounge which in reality was a bunch of couches covered in plastic wrapping up on the roof. Someone had snuck in beer claiming to have wanted to go out with a bang, so we all sat there carelessly, drinking and laughing about the numerous times Angus Lancaster had fallen into the lake and almost drowned.

I tried to listen and laugh but my mind was preoccupied. Austin had disappeared right after we got up here, taking a few beers with him, and hasn't returned since. Normally, I couldn't care less about what a member of the opposite gender was doing, but this was Austin. I knew Bridget had a thing for him, and I hadn't ever encountered a drunken Austin. I didn't know what he was doing, where he was, or who he was with.