At The Lake

Chapter One

"Emily! You're going to be late! The church van leaves in twenty minutes! Let's go!"

I shoot up and look straight at my alarm clock sitting on my night stand.

"Shoot!" I throw the blankets off and run to the shower. I shower in five minutes and I get dressed in two. It only takes me a couple of minutes to get the the church anyway, but I'm still behind.

This is the first time in two years that I will be back to the same campground where I had baby fat and braces, where I had huge glasses and tangled hair. Thank God for puberty. I know how to handle my curly hair, I got rid of my braces, I have contacts and my height shot up, so I lost all the baby fat. I went to my church camp every year for 12 years, from first grade to my senior year of high school. I loved it so much and I miss it. This is the first year I'll be a counselor and I can not be more excited. I'll have freshman and sophomore high school girls in my cabin and I can't wait to meet them. Some teens from my church will be going, but I honestly don't want them in my cabin. I want to meet new girls and grow friendships with them.

I text our Pastor and let him know I'll be five minutes late, thank goodness I packed last night. I threw in my hair brush, toothbrush, shower stuff and what little makeup I use, into my suitcase and run it to my car.

I hop up the few front porch steps of my house and give my parents a quick hug, "I'll see you in nine days, love ya!" I grab my purse from my moms arm and dig through it for my car keys.

"Good luck Em, have fun!" they yell as I shut my car door.

I drive up the road to my church and I get there earlier than I thought. I was right on the dot.

I pull into a parking spot and shut off my car. I grab my duffel bag and my huge suitcase out of the back of my Escape and roll it to the trailer.

"Hey guys!"

My pastor walks up and hugs me, "Hey Jake!"

"Hey, I thought you were going to be late!"

"...me too!"

"Alright, lets load up! We have two hours on the road! Let's go!"

All 46 of us (we have a big youth group and a lot of counselors) get into the vans and get on the road.

The trip consists of the typical radio blaring and the teens on their phones, because they're about to get them taken away. We, as counselors keep ours, but the teens are required to turn theirs in so they are involved and tuned in to what is spoken about at camp.

For once, the two hours seemed to fly by, thank goodness. I don't think I could take another 'eighth-grade-crush-doesn't-notice-me' conversation. I open the door and take a deep breath as if I was being strangled.

I look over at another counselor, who happened to be my best friend Erin, "whew...," we both rolled our eyes and laughed, we knew exactly how each other felt.

"Were we like that at that age?" I ask.

"Goodness, I hope not..." Erin laughs.

I follow Erin and Jake to the back of the trailer and start to help unload the suitcases with the other counselors. The campers were instructed to go to the tables with their last initial labeled on the folded piece of paper on the table.

After the trailer was emptied, I go to the 'counselor table' and get my key and list of girls who are in my cabin. I make my way to room 708 and unlock the door, the campers aren't allowed in until we've unlocked the rooms and met our co-counselors. I walk in and no one is in the cabin yet, so I pick my bed and wait. When I say cabin, I mean a big room that sits off a long hallway of a one-story building with four sets of bunkbeds, two full sized beds and one bathroom. I pull my suitcase over to a perfect spot on the floor and open it up. I decided to change my shirt since I was sitting in the van for hours with teenagers. I go into the bathroom to change and I hear the front door open. I finish getting dressed and walk out.