Camp Wakiki

With her hand wrapped tightly around Splash’s bridle, Chloe led the small horse out of the pasture and back into the stable. While most of the horses would head into their stalls on their own, Splash always needed a little coaxing. He was a finicky horse, but Chloe knew exactly how to handle him. It was her second year as a camp counselor, and being in charge of the horseback riding lessons forced her to spend a lot of time with the ponies. She knew them better than she knew most of the people back home.

Once Splash was packed comfortably into his stall, Chloe headed back to the dining hall, where the first staff meeting of the summer was going to be held. She’d been dreading this moment since she arrived back at Wakiki, but she knew she couldn’t put it off any longer. She was going to have to see him whether she liked it or not.

The walk from the barn to the dining hall was long, but Chloe took it in strides, taking several seconds to enjoy the scenery of the place she had come to call home. There was nothing better than the thick trees and rolling mountains of South Downs. There was no other place like it in the world.

When he had broken up with her during the school year, she debated not coming back to camp at all. The other counselors wouldn’t blame her if she didn’t. They knew how badly he had hurt her.

But every time she tried to call to put in her resignation, her thoughts would go back to those trees, that mountain, and the smiling faces of all the children, so she couldn’t bring herself to dial the phone.

So, just three short months after he’d broken her heart, she was back at the very place she had fallen in love with him. Nearly every spot was a reminder of what had been, but she put all those thoughts to the back of her mind. She couldn’t think about him, or there’d be no way she’d survive the summer.

The large dining hall held each member of the staff, about fifty in all. The room was crowded, but nearly as crowded as it would be when the children arrived. Camp Wakiki housed over three hundred children, with each counselor having roughly six in their group. It was a lot to handle, so Camp Wakiki staffed only the best.

Chloe took a seat towards the back, since she was one of the last to arrive. Even if she had gotten there early, she still would’ve avoided the front, just so she wouldn’t have to see him. She knew she couldn’t avoid him forever, but she could do it for as long as possible.

With her head full of determination, Chloe kept her gaze forward, willing herself not to look through the crowd. She would focus only on Doug Ellison, the camp’s owner, through the entire staff meeting. Her eyes would be locked on him through every word of his never ending rules speech.

Each staff member was forced to memorize the rules, but he still reiterated them during several staff meetings held throughout the summer.

At the front of the room, Doug cleared his voice, as he smiled out at his staff members. It was obvious he was eager to start the summer. The older man had a joy for this camp unlike anyone else.

Doug had only been speaking for a few moments when Chloe’s eyes began to wander, and it only took seconds for them to head to the corner of the room. It was there that they were met with that soft, feathery hair that got lighter as the summer progressed. She could see that hair in a mess after a rough night’s sleep and beaded with water from the time he spent at the lake. She could see that hair in every way he had ever worn it, and she hated that.

She hated that because she hated him. He’d made promises he had no intention of keeping, left her hanging on the edge of a cliff, and shattered her until she could no longer broken. He was a mess of a boy and she hated that. She hated that mostly because she hated him.

She hated Louis Tomlinson.