It Had to be You

Chapter Six: To the Lake

Everyone put on your swimsuits and be back here in twenty minutes, okay?" David ordered the crowd. An affirmative yell came from the assembled campers, as they all began to disperse to their respective tents to change.

"I can't wait to go swimming!" Nikki crowed excitedly to Neil and Max, "I'm going to show you all my fabulous handstands!"

Neil sighed. "Can you even do handstands in the lake, Nikki? And is that water even clean enough to swim in? It doesn't seem up to standards. I should get my PH testing kit to be absolutely positive. And maybe some chemical samples." He started to wander off toward his "laboratory", mumbling about water acidity and various chemicals that could be present. After a minute, Nikki hopped off as well to change.

Max started to walk off toward his tent, his mind working a mile a minute. As soon as he made it back to his tent, he hopped up on the the wooden platform on which it stood and grabbed his suitcase. Rummaging through his stuff, a few shirts, two pairs of pants and a toothbrush, his suspicions were confirmed. He did not own a swimsuit. To be fair, Max didn't know by this surprised him. His parents had barely remembered to feed him. There was no way they had got him a swimsuit. In fact, now that he thought about it, he couldn't remember the last time he went swimming, period. After a certain point, people stop inviting you to pool parties. Max wasn't even sure he could swim.

Pulling his hoodie further up his wrists, he clenched the ends of the sleeves tightly in his hands. No one could make him swim. He knew that. So why did he feel so scared?

Sitting at steps of his tent, he watched as the group slowly came back together. Colorful towels dotted the crowd, and almost everyone was clad in some form of swimwear, and the rest appeared to have their swimsuits underneath their clothing.

Max walked slowly over to the crowd. It was moving now, headed toward the lake. Looking around, he couldn't see Nikki or Neil in all the hubbub, but he assumed they were somewhere in the crowd.

"Max!" The sudden voice in Max's ear caused him to jump. He turned his head and saw Nerris. She was wearing a purple Tankini and had a towel with some kind of weird die on it and the words "Taako's good out here". Max assumed it was from one of her role playing games. "Are you going swimming?" Nerris chirped excitingly. "You don't look like you're wearing a swimsuit."

Max just gave her a look. She looked at him confusedly until he gave up and said something. "No I'm not going fucking swimming!"

"Oh." She said. Nerris looked legitimately disappointed, even slouched her shoulders a little. "Why not?"

"I just don't like swimming, okay?" Max snapped. He regretted being so snappy almost as soon as the words left his mouth. Nerris looked crestfallen, and to be honest? Nerris was one of the few people he didn't hate at this dumb camp. She left him alone when he needed it and her weird role playing games weren't awful. Even her crazy rants about something called "The Adventure Zone" weren't entirely boring. Well, they were actually pretty boring. But she wasn't obsessed with space. And she wasn't a bully. So she was ahead most of the godawful people at this camp.

"Sorry," Max mumbled.

Nerris smiled at Max's apology. "S'ok. Touchy subject, I get it. Do you want to borrow a book? In case you get bored?" Nerris reached into the canvas bag she had slung over her shoulder and pulled out a graphic novel. It had a man with an axe on the cover, next to an wizard looking elf, and some kind of old man, all seated at some kind of bar table.

"Sure," Max said. He grabbed the book, giving it a quick glance over before letting his arms fall loosely to his sides, holding the book in one of them.

"Hope you like it!" Nerris said, smiling even wider at Max. "It just came out, my mom sent it to me."

Max stiffened for a moment, before forcing himself to relax. He couldn't get like this every time anyone mentioned parents. "It sounds pretty fucking weird Nerris, but since I have nothing better to do, I will read the fucking book."

Nerris seemed to recognize this as a thanks for the book and smiled wider than Max thought was possible. "No problem!" She chirped again.

Max watched as she ran up through the crowd towards Harrison.

Finally, the group made it to the lake. David desperately tried to control the crowd, but no one was listening. It was chaos. People were running around and screaming. Nikki was trying to imitate the platypus's swimming. Neil had retreated to a corner and was running some sort of test on the lake water.

Max sighed. Pulling out the book Nerris gave him, he went to sit by one of the trees on the edge of the forest. Opening to the first page he began to read. To be honest, the book wasn't half bad. A little confusing at times, but the characters were pretty funny.

As he read, he could hear the screams and laughter of the assembled children. Occasionally he glanced up to see what they were doing. Max almost expected someone to ask what he was doing, just sitting alone. But as time passed no one did.

Just as Max reached the halfway point in the book, he half heard someone call over his shoulder. Max was so sucked into his book he didn't really take notice. Well, he didn't notice until he felt his hoodie sliding off his shoulders.

Nurf had just tore off Max's hoodie.
An: I don't own The Adventure Zone, or any of the characters, that is the property of the fabulous McElroy brothers. I can't post for about a week, I'm soooo sorry about that, but I'm going on vacation and I will update as soon as I can afterwards. Thanks to everyone who has voted or commented. It means the world to me. Until next time!