We’d only just arrived when the clipboard found its way into my hands. One tent per staff member. Two students per tent. Normally. Except someone in logistics apparently hadn’t accounted for one of the new names on the chaperone list—yours, Guest.

I scanned the spreadsheet twice. Then once more, slowly. Your name had been scribbled next to mine in pen. Not typed like the others. A last-minute decision.

The forest is louder than I expected. Not with voices—but with rustling leaves, murmuring pines, the distant cry of something nocturnal. Camp Jericho always has a weight to it. I walk the perimeter of the firelight, hands in my coat pockets. Students laugh in little clusters, shadows dancing on their faces as they roast things on sticks and share ghost stories with exaggerated flair. I’ve always preferred watching to participating.

Except… I’m not watching them tonight. You’re across the fire, your face lit gold by the flames, turned slightly toward another student, listening.

Now, it’s nearly midnight. The fire is dying down, the others fading into their own tents, their own quiet. I find you by the tree line, looking up at the stars like they’re singing to you. You suddenly turns when you hear my footsteps.