Free Mine by Brett Battles

been good but not as good as Camp Cedar Woods.
    The director turned to Leah, the only one who hadn’t spoken. “And you?”
    She could feel everyone’s attention shift to her. She wanted to make up a name like she had in the past, but her mind was blank.
    “You don’t remember?” some kid said. A few of the others snickered.
    “Camp…Camp Red Hawk,” she finally said, not knowing what else to say.
    A hush fell over the pit area. Director Melk looked mortified, obviously having just remembered the particulars of her resume, and realizing why she hadn’t initially raised her hand.
    One of the veteran boys asked, “When were you there?”
    She didn’t mean to say it, but the truth…it just came out. “Two summers ago.”
    “Holy shit.”
    Another counselor said, “Were you there when—”
    “Okay,” the director said, “I think it’s time to see which one of you can make the best s’more.”
    While a few lingered in their seats, glancing at Leah, most were happy to move on to something else and headed over to where the dessert fixings waited.
    The director walked over to Leah and whispered, “I’m so sorry. I totally forgot.”
    “It’s fine,” she said, giving him a reassuring smile. “Not a problem.”
    He looked relieved. “Come on. Let’s melt some chocolate.”
    The next day, as the summer staff prepared the camp for the kids who would arrive in a few hours, Leah couldn’t help but notice that the other counselors were treating her extra nice. Thankfully, the busier they got, the less they seemed to care about her connection to Camp Red Hawk. Whatever lingering discomfort some of them might have felt disappeared when the buses arrived and the reality of wrangling a bunch of preteens set in. From that point forward, they treated Leah like any other member of the team.
    Each counselor was not only responsible for the six kids staying in his or her assigned cabin—which was different from the way things had run at Camp Red Hawk—but was also assigned to one of the daily activities the campers were shuttled through. Leah and three other counselors—Kelvin, Todd, and Maddie—ran the obstacle course. Their job was to familiarize the kids with the course and help them learn the skills they would need to complete it. This would culminate with a combination obstacle course/scavenger hunt pitting all the groups against one another at the end of the week.
    Though fun, the job was physically exhausting, and by the end of each day, Leah and her fellow obstacle-course counselors were usually asleep moments after they closed their eyes.
    Todd was the younger brother of Terry, the guy who’d driven his own vehicle up to camp. He was a teaser, quick with a joke, and always calling the campers by funny nicknames. Leah wasn’t sure about him at first, but he never crossed the line into being mean, and it wasn’t long before she was laughing with the others.
    It helped that he was kind of cute. Though not as cute as…as…as the boy with the green eyes.
    The one she’d held hands with.
    The one she’d felt good standing beside.
    Though she could picture his face, his name still escaped her, and she couldn’t remember a single thing they had said to each other.
    Todd was a nice distraction from these fractured memories. On their third day working together, she began to catch him looking in her direction when he thought he was being sly.
    “Geez, why don’t you two sneak into the woods for a while?” Maddie suggested to Leah one day between groups.
    The comment caught Leah off guard. “What are you talking about?”
    “The way you two stare at each other? Please.” Maddie laughed and walked over to straighten out the rope ladder.
    It was then that Leah admitted to herself she had been staring at Todd as much as he’d been staring at her. She tried to play it off as boredom, but that only lasted until she caught herself peeking at him again when he was goofing around on the pull-up bar.
    Maddie was