Camp Sunridge

And The Party Begins

"Where the fuck is the ladder?!" Aaliyah shrieked across the cabin, pushing herself from the tiny plastic table and beginning to pace around. Our plans were laid out across the plastic surface of a teeny coffee table, from cupcake icing to picking the perfect music, we had everything covered.

Except for the ladder.

It was currently 15:26 on a warm August afternoon- the 29th to be exact. And with less than three hours to finish up with our beach party, now was not the time to lose shit. Especially not fucking ladders.

"I'll call George," I ripped my phone from my back pocket beginning to punch in his number off of a scrap of paper he had given us, looking back at Aaliyah. "Y'know for someone who basically told Mrs. P to go fuck herself, you sure seem to have a lot of passion for this thing." I smirked at her as she stuck up one finger, beginning to fiddle with pink crepe paper just as George picked up.

"Hello?" Static muffled his voice gently.

Putting him on speaker, I set his voice down on the center of the table, all of us leaning in.

"Hey George, it's Vie." I nodded to the rest of my friends.

Ellie fiddled with a strand of hair, leaning closer to the phone. "And Ellie."

"Sadie here." My girlfriend smiled at me, lacing her fingers through mine.

"Aaliyah and Julia." Aaliyah spoke into the phone.

"Whats u-"

"George where the fuck is the ladder." Julia groaned, interrupting him, her hands stressfully fiddling with everything and anything she could reach.

"Why do you need a lad-"

Aaliyah's eyes popped out of her face, letting out a very frustrated sigh. "Tell me you did not just ask me that, George. Tell me you did not jus-"

He sighed over the line, interrupting her. "I was just asking it doesn't seem like something you need to lose your shit over why do you eve-"

"To hang up the fucking decorations dumbass!" She sighed angrilly. "Just get a ladder over her in ten."

"But I-"

The line disconnected as she hung up sliding my phone back to me. "Nice verbal abuse," Julia smirked at her, getting up from where we were sitting as Aaliyah rolled her eyes with a smile. "But uh we should probably clean up soon and head over to the sight to start doing what we can to decorate. Also, it's a fuckin pig sty in here."

She was right. Two weeks of undisturbed work had left a huge mess. We couldn't have been working with more than five square feet of space, and yet we had managed to completely trash our only work area. Random papers and notebooks chocked full with information and game plans were piled up like garbage, cafeteria coffee cups, old wrappers, plastic dishes, and pens and pencils mixing in and adding the finishing touch to The Mountain of Garbage.

Ya we named it.

We got bored ok?

I grabbed a handful of papers, sitting down on the bottom bunk and beginning to sift through the pile, separating worthless doodles from important info.

But sorting through all those seemingly "worthless" doodles, I realized they were exactly the opposite.

On our toughest days planning this thing, we had always turned to making fun of each other- drawing Ellie with a huge nose or Julia as an elephant. It always brought a smile to our face, and inspired us to keep working.

Holding one of the papers in my hand, I examined it.

Normally, I would think it garbage. But as I reminisced the memory that came with it, a smile was brought to my face, remembering the lifelong memories we had created this summer.

"What the fuck do we do now." I buried my head in my hands, sorting through half empty sheets of paper and taking a sip of coffee. It was almost midnight, and we had just started with the idea of trying to get a hold of fairy lights. We had run into some problems.

"Hey listen to this," Aaliyah smirked under the moon, her face illuminated with a flashlight balanced against one of the lawn chair legs. She held up a crumpled piece of lined paper, clearing her throat. "Ellie is So Smelly. By Aaliyah Kanaan."

We all let out a loud snicker as she whapped us one by one. "Silence!!" She took a deep breath, letting out a burp and lifting a Coors Light to her lips. "I will now begin. Ellie is So Smelly. Her hair smells like pink jelly. She likes to be all telly. Ellie is so smelly."

"How long did that take you?" I giggled, slipping the beer away from her nonchalantly.

"Åbout twenty minutes." She snorted again, laying her head down on Ellies lap as we all laughed, our worries drowning away into the night.

That night we had decided to do our work on the back patio of our cabin- just laying on the floor under the stars. Needless to say, it was definitely the right choice.

Jerked back to reality, I smiled again, tapping Aaliyah on the shoulder. "Remember this?"

She snorted as I held up the paper to her face. "How could I not?"

I nodded in agreement, moving over to my duffel bag and pulling out a small box. Folding up each of our many memories, I carefully placed them inside, tucking the box back into my front pocket of my bag.

"You guys ready to head on over?" I asked, standing up from the bed.

Everyone nodded.

Fistfulls of information in our hands, we made our way to the door, carefully stepping out and into the fresh air. Sadie chased her way after me at the front of the line, holding my hand with her free one and shifting the few notebooks in her hand.

"Are you excited for the party?" She smiled at me, fiddling with the back of my palm. I could feel her warmth against me, as she brushed her shoulder with mine.

"Super excited." I bit my lip, smiling. "Also kinda nervous. But mainly excited."

She laughed, squeezing the back of my hand. "I'm nervous too. But it'll be fine. It's all gonna be fine."

I nodded, walking along with her. We were both silent, just listening to the birds in the trees, and the crunches of sticks and leaves under our feet. That seemed to be a theme with us. Silence.

Just perfect, beautiful, easy silence.

I liked that. I really did. There was no pressure to talk all the time. There was no pressure to kill the silence, no pressure to make small talk. That made things much easier.

Interrupting me from my thoughts, however I noticed we were there.

The first thing that captivated me, was the music. A soft tune of "Kokomo" by The Beach Boys pulled me from reality into a beautiful life filled with beaches, and Pina Coladas. Echoing across the sight, "Aruba, Jamaica, ooo I wanna take ya." seemed to play with the huge trees, who's roots fought through sand, seemed to tickle the waved crashing against the shore line. Already, our small lake side camp looked like something you'd  find on a tropical island far far away, and we weren't even close to being done yet.

I smiled, turning around to face my friends.

"Let's do this thing."