I rummaged through my basket of old junk and as of present day have not been recently used. I found a rubber spider with a broken light inside. Weird though. The light still works when I toss it into the air to land back on the table again. It’s a flickering multicolored light, much like the person I got it from.
I was exhausted. I hadn’t touched a computer in two and half weeks and was struggling to maintain my peace of mind… or maybe my sanity. I never was quite sure which it was. As I crawled out of the white van with no windows1 I looked around at my environment.

When I arrived in Sullivan, Maine, I expected my trip to be interesting but all around the same as normal. After all, a bunch of my friends were going to be there. When I got off the plane I was greeted by Sam, a girl with a strong outward personality and beautifully colorful vocabulary, and possibly… no, definitely one of the most talented writers I’ve ever met. Following behind her were Mrs. B a teacher who truly cares for both her students and her campers, and a teacher I hold much respect for. Carlos, a long-time friend of mine was also in tow. If ever there was person who had the ability to put up with me at my worst, I have to say, he’d be one of them. That in mind, he is one the people whom I trust a great deal. 

For the first and, I think, only time in the two years I’ve gone to Maine for the Summer, we went to the Asian food shack on the road near the camp. The food was delicious. 

My friends tried to fool me into believing that one of the neighbor’s yards down the road was the camp we were headed to. I didn’t think so but I tried to play along. I arrived.

In the boy’s bunk I picked out my sleeping space. The room was packed so I got the spare (later I got the air mattress in the house instead of the bunk spot so that another camper could stay in the bunk). I sat down on the old couch beside my bunk.

As I got out of the car, I looked around and immediately beside the doorway was the face of girl who seemed familiar to me. It’s a wonder why I didn’t immediately recognize her as the sister of a girl I had seen around my high school, heck she was the sister of my band’s vocalist and not much younger than myself. But I was a coward and shyer than the burnt side of an egg cooked for too long; trust me, I know—I don’t want to see burnt and wasted eggs any more than anyone else does. 

She sat down beside me and can you guess what the first thing she asked was? As she stroked her nails through hairs on my arm, she asked me, how did I feel about it, it being what she was doing? I said it was nice. And still we conversed as we sat on the boy’s bunk couch near my bunk.

I indirectly asked her out later, after much thought and many experiences (what a coward I was).  She indirectly responded that she wanted to wait until college. Yet many a thing happened after that and I was back at that camp again the next year, and the odds seemed more favorable.

Over the course of that time skip, she gave unto me, three gifts (sounds like a fairy tale right? If only it were Christmas): first, she handmade, for me, a wish bracelet embroidered in my favorite colors at the time—green, red and black—which I wore for a year and a half until it finally broke and disappeared; second, she taught me to be more appreciative of nature and to truly enjoy hikes to their fullest (race, anyone?); and, finally,
Third. This glowing special treasured rubber spider.