In My Eyes, You're Beautiful

As it turns out, the Rian kid actually isn’t that bad. I find him sitting on the top bunk of the bunk bed that takes up a wall of the cabin, leaving me to chose between the bottom bunk or one of the two roll away beds that are up against another wall. I take the bunk.
Counselor Judy smiles at the both of us before saying that the other two boys would be here soon, and that we should all get to know each other a bit better before dinner and the campfire that’s tonight. Campfire. Awesome.
As soon as she’s out of earshot, Rian grins at me. “What a load of bullshit, eh? I don’t want to go to no fucking campfire.” He ignores the ladder that’s attached to his bunk and chooses to jump down instead, landing on the ground with a dull thunk and holding out his hand for me to shake. “Rian Dawson.”
“Alex Gaskarth.” We take a second to eye each other’s burns. He’s got a long one running from his left elbow all the way down to his knuckles. Unlike mine, it’s patchy, different colors of skin mushed together to create new tissue for him to use. Luckily, I didn’t need major skin grafts on my shoulder or neck. My back though, that’s a different story. He’s got another one peeking out from the neckline of the v-neck shirt he’s wearing.
“House fire. When I was thirteen. I was sleeping over at my friend’s house. His mom was a smoker.” That’s all the explanation he gives me, and that’s all the explanation I need. I instantly feel remorse, though, when he says was instead of is. Past tense. I don’t ask about his friend. The sad look in his eyes tells me all I need to know.
“Sorry,” I mutter, letting go of his hand and ducking down to unzip my duffel bag. I instantly push the pack of cigarettes that are on top of all my clothes down to the bottom of the bag. I don’t know if Rian’s sensitive about that or not, but I err on the side of caution and decide not to find out. I pull out the pillow and blankets that my mom packed for me and start to make up my bed. I can still feel Rian’s gaze on my burns.
“What about you?” I knew that this question would come, but I didn’t think that it would be this early. “How’d you get yours?” I focus on smoothing the wrinkles out of my pillowcase.
“It’s a long story. One I don’t really want to tell right now, if you don’t mind.” I lay the blankets out over the mattress. I silently thank god that my mother packed me the blue one. It’s the non-flammable one that she bought for me on Ebay. Paid sixty bucks for it.
“That’s cool, don’t worry about it.” I let out a sigh of relief. Usually people press me about it so much that after a while I have no other choice but to leave the room. Then again, I bet Rian has gone though the exact same thing. He climbs back up the ladder to his own bunk, then idly drums his hands on his knees as he looks down at me. “Where are you from?”
“Towson. What about you?”
“DC. Hell of a drive out here, to the middle of fucking nowhere.” This makes me grin. I look up at him.
“I take it you’re not very fond of this whole burn camp thing either?”
“Not at all. Two weeks out of my fucking summer. I could be playing video games and listening to Blink right now! But no. I’m stuck here.” His words make my heart swell.
“You like Blink?” I make the executive decision to not wait for an invitation and instead just climb right up to his bunk, forcing him to scoot over a bit to make room for me. We dangle our feet over the edge.
“Of course I do! They’re like, my favorite band ever.” I grin and sling an arm around his shoulders, feeling more at home than I have for the past year. “Rian, we are gonna be such great friends.”
“Did I hear something about Blink-182?” Rian and I lean forward a bit so that we can see the figure standing in the doorway, wearing jeans so tight that he must have got them from the girl’s section of Hot Topic. He’s tall and skinny, with a streak of bleach in his otherwise black hair. He pulls a rolling suitcase fully inside the cabin, then leaves it by one of the remaining beds and comes to stand in front of the bunk, so that Rian and can see him fully.
“I’m Jack. Jack Barakat.” He smiles at us and jumps up and down a little, his eyes darting from me to Rian and back again. “And if you guys like Blink, then you are my new best friends. He pulls his hands out of the pocket of his hoodie, and I see the burn that covers his right one, the skin shriveled and blotchy, the result of a hell of a lot of skin grafts. Other than that, though, the rest of his skin that isn’t covered by clothing is clear. Jealously flashes through me for a minute, because it really isn’t fair that all he has for other people to see is a burn on his hand, until he puts his arms above his head and stretches, and I can see another burn that goes down into his jeans. Ouch.
“Alex Gaskarth.” I lean down and hold out a fist, and he reaches up and bumps it with his own, that same wide smile still spread across his face. He’s one of those kind of geeky looking kids, with a really fucking big nose and a skinny face and a big forehead.
“Rian Dawson” Rian puts out his own fist, and Jack bumps it. “So, you like Blink?”
“Blink, New Found Glory, Fall Out Boy, you name it.” Jack pulls off his hoodie and haphazardly throws it onto a bed, claiming it as his. “I also like Nirvana and old shit like that.” He turns back to his suitcase and unzips it, then plunges his hand into the mess of clothes and hair products to retrieve a portable boombox and a bunch of CDs.
“Sweet!” Rian exclaims, jumping down from his bunk and pulling the CDs out of Jack’s hands. “My mom wouldn’t let me bring mine.” He drops all the CDs but one, and hands it to Jack, who takes it with a big smile and puts it into the player. Soon enough, Feeling This blasts through the speakers and fills the cabin.
Jack is dancing wildly, his awkwardly long arms and legs flailing around and his hair falling into his eyes. Rian just takes a seat on my bunk and laughs, his inexplicably white teeth flashing.
“You know, I thought that this was gonna suck,” Jack yells over the music. “I’m fifteen, I don’t need summer camp. But I think that it’s going to be a lot more fun if I have you guys as roommates.” Jack sits on his bed, breathing heavily. “Do either of you drink?”
I stifle a laugh at Rian’s horrified face. “No. Of course not.”
“Well then we need to change that.” Jack looks devious. “What about you?”
“Yeah. Totally.”
“Well, I’ve got a bottle of tequila in my bag.” I smile, then jump down and sit next to Jack and clap him on the back.
“Well done, bro!” My eyes fall on the empty bed. “Hey, shouldn’t the other guy be here by now?” Jack shrugs and gets up to dance again.
“Whatever. Just come dance with me, Alex!” I roll my eyes, already starting to feel a friendship forming between me and the skunk boy, and stand up to dance.