Two Boys Healing (Book Two)

10. Camp

The bus drove over a pothole, making the people inside it jostle. Will nearly fell into the aisle.

He scowled. Couldn't the guy drive a little more carefully?

Sighed, he tried to tune out the constant chattering of the other kids his age. He'd downloaded several playlists, so he turned up the volume on his phone and tried to drown his thoughts in Twenty-one Pilots.

"Nobody thinks what I think, nobody dreams when they blink; think things on the brink of blasphemy, I'm my own shrink, think things are after me, my catastrophe..."

The bus bumped along.

Will stared out the window. They'd been on the road for hours, and he was losing track of where they were. What state are we in now?

He sighed, not really caring.

~ ~ ~

What seemed like hours but could have really only been minutes later, they were stopping in a wooded campsite area with a horseshoe of cabins surrounding them. A woman climbed into the bus and stood at the front, waiting until everyone had quieted down before speaking.

"Hi there, campers!" she said, her voice brighter than sun and painful to hear, in Will's opinion. "Welcome to Camp Quanos! We have a ton of super fun activities planned to fill up your summer. Please proceed of the bus single file, and we'll be sure to assign you your cabins as soon as we can."

Will sighed and pulled his earbuds out of his ears, shoving them in his pocket with his nearly dead phone. He'd brought a charger, but he doubted there were any outlets that he could use to regain any battery.

Not that he cared about that, either.

Everyone else on the bus stood and started filing out, and only when the last person had left did Will get up, grab his backpack, and follow. They headed to a squat little building, where several camp councilors were handing out little pieces of paper that apparently had their cabin numbers on them.

Two girls ahead of his squealed when they got the same cabin and ran off to find where they were staying for the next three months.

He sighed when he got to the front, and the young looking man sitting at the table looked up and smiled. "Hi there," he said pleasantly. "Name, please?"

Will exhaled. "William Kade."

The man nodded and looked down at his list. "William, William..." he mumbled. "Ahah! THere you are. You're in cabin 398."

Will nodded. "Thanks." He hoisted his backpack higher on his shoulder and started off in the direction he thought his cabin was in.

"Uh," the man called after him. "Your cabin is the other way."

Will tensed and spun. Of course it was. 

As he made his way in that direction, he heard a little yelp. 

"Will?"

Will looked up, confused, and then his eyes widened when he saw who'd called his name.

No way.

"Hey!" Tristan said, grinning hugely as he strode over to Will. "I didn't know you were coming!"

Will blinked. "I--didn't know you were coming either." He laughed slightly, running his hand through his hair. "What cabin are you in?"

"247," Tristan replied, stopping in front of him and sticking his hands in his pockets. "You?"

"398," Will answered, and he couldn't help but be disappointed that no one he knew would be in his cabin. But at least he did know someone. Maybe this summer won't be so bad anyway.

Tristan made a face. "Oh, oof. Well, I should probably go unpack. I'll catch up with you later, though, right?"

Will smiled. "Sure."

Tristan grinned and jogged off, and Will exhaled, his smile sliding off his face as he made his way to his cabin and pushed open the door.

There were two bunk beds, each pushed up to either side of the room, and four dressers on either side of the beds. So I'll be sleeping with three other guys, Will thought, his heart skipping a beat briefly. 

Then he exhaled, shaking his head. That doesn't matter. This is just for the summer.

He strode over to one of the bunks and slung his backpack up onto the top one, claiming it. He wasn't gonna unpack just, mainly because he was just too tired to right now.

The door opened behind him, and Will turned to see a tall man his age with sandy blonde hair and broad shoulders. He blinked, looking unsure, and ducked his head. "Um..." he said in a quiet voice. "I--I'm Jake."

Will's lips quirked up. "Hi, Jake," he said, slightly amused. "I'm Will."

Jake nodded, blushing, and headed over to the opposite bunk, quietly slinging his bag onto the bottom bunk and starting to unpack.

The door sprung open again, and a tall redhead boy who looked a few years younger than Will came in, grinning. "Hiya!" he said when he saw Will and Jake. "I'm Chaol. Spelled C-H-A-O-L, pronounced 'Cole'. It's weird, I know. Who're you?"

"I'm Will, that's Jake," Will said with a sigh, and Jake looked relieved that he didn't have to speak again. Chaol beamed.

"Awesome!" he said enthusiastically, then his eyes went to Will's bag sitting on the top bunk. "Aw, you got the top bunk? I love the top bunk. I always like to let my arms and legs swing down when I'm up there since the monsters under the bed are usually on the floor, so there's no danger of getting my arm eaten off, you know?"

"There are monsters?" Jake asked, suddenly looking fearful.

"There's another top bunk," Will said, totally unfazed. He'd dealt with lots of crazies.

Chaol looked over to Jake's bed. "Oh, yeah! That's great." He headed over and yeeted his bag up onto the mattress. "Hey, Jake, you wanna go swimming? On the way up here I saw a super cool looking lake that I wanna check out."

Jake flushed. "Um...sure...?"

Chaol glanced over to Will. "You wanna come too?"

"Absolutely not," Will said, deadpan as he climbed up into his bunk and pulled out a book he'd brought with him. "Have fun anyways."

Ten minutes later, a still-talking Chaol and a blushing Jake left the cabin in their swimsuits, and the air fell silent. It was sort of hot in the cabin, but Will didn't mind. It was a welcome change from back home, where even under a pile of blankets the cold still always seeped through.

The door opened again, but Will didn't look up, figuring it was just his fourth and final cabin mate.

The new person's soft footsteps padded to the bunk beneath him, and Will yawned, then realized he hadn't taken a piss in hours and had the bladder to go with it. He swung down from the bunk, and only glanced at the new boy before looking away, and then doing a double take. "What are you doing here?!?"

Ash whirled, his eyes wide and so perfectly him that Will nearly fell over.

"I'm sorry," Ash stammered. "Is this--this is cabin 398, right? This is where I'm staying, I think, unless the paper got it wrong--?"

Will stared at him, and only one thought ran through his mind.

This is going to be a long summer.

- - - - - - - - 

Hah.

Hahahah.

HEH.

I personally don't think I'm that evil, but I'll leave that up to you, I guess.

Nothing more to say, really. I'll update next Saturday :)

Please, please, please vote and comment! Thank you so much to all of you who have stuck with me since the beginning--I probably would have scrapped this book a loooong time ago if it weren't for all of the amazing feedback I get.

Q: Has school started for you?

A: My first day was today :) We actually had a lockdown. ON THE FIRST DAY.