Camp Counselor

Chapter 9: Hiking

~Demi~

"Ugh, my feet hurt!" Alena groans from behind me and I laugh at her.

"We've been hiking for a hour, are you already tired?" I say, amused by all her whining and complaning about hiking.

"Yes! I don't like hiking!" She says and I roll my eyes at her as Connor shakes his head at us from in front of me.

We were hiking and we invited Alena, Bronte, Connor and Aaron with us. We would only be gone for like two days and head back to camp. They came with us only because the kids wanted to go 'camping in the woods' with us. I didn't mind really, we had what we needed. We were up a moutain, close to the camp that we can just stop, turn around and look at the camp below us.

We came across some trees and some space in between, we stop and knew we could camp here.

"Let's camp here," Connor says and sets his backpack on the floor, we copy his movements and I shrug my shoulders, they hurt a little from carrying some weight for a hour.

"I'll get some firewood, wanna come with me Piper?" I say and she nods, bouncing over to me while they set up camp.

She grabs my hand as we walk away from them and I intertwine our fingers together. I smile down at her and she smiles up at me. She swings our hands back and forth and while we walk and search for some firewood, I ask her.

"How did you became a orphan babe?" I ask her, letting go of her hand to grab some branches. She grabs some twings and sticks as she tells me, not even hesistating about telling me why.

"Well daddy went to jail for something, I don't know why, Niel doesn't tell me why. He's my big brother, he's in college. Mommy, well I don't see her much, it's like she forgot me and Neil. She doesn't even talk to me anymore, always talking on the phone. So, some people all dressed up came and brought me to this place with a lot of kids. I didn't understand why though, I was fine with Neil but they said something that he need to gain custody first and go to court or something. I miss them..." She trails off and I look up from my stack of firewood. She lets go of her stack and sits on a rock, her head toward the ground.

I drop my stack of firewood when I heard sniffles from her and walk over to her. I softly pick her up and sat down on the rock, I set her down on my lap and wrap my arms around her waist, her arms wound around my neck and she buries her head into my neck.

"Aw, don't worry love, you'll see them soon. Your here with me now and that's all that matters," I whisper into her ear and kiss her cheek softly. Tears stream down her cheeks and I softly rub her back, comforting her.

She snuggles into me more, crying quietly into my neck and leaving a wet patch on my shirt. I hold her until she was done crying and look at her, I move her hair behind her ear and smile softly at her.

"You okay now?" I ask her quietly and she nods, giving me a small smile.

"Yeah, I'm okay. Thanks Demi," She says and I smile at her.

"For what?" I ask and her smile widens.

"For letting me cry on your shoulder,"  She says and I smile at her.

"You can cry on my shoulder whenever you feel like it kiddo," I tell her and she nods before wrapping her arms around my neck again, I hug her back and kiss her head softly. We got our firewood and walk back to camp, me mostly carrying the firewood while Piper just hold onto a few twigs.

"Okay, we got the firewood." I say as we appoarch our camp, three tents were set up, some rocks in the center, and a couple of stuff scattered around.

"Great, you can just start on the fire." Connor says as he emergues from the tries, he drags a log with him with Aiden trailing behind him.

"On it," I say and set the firewood on the rocks. I crouch down and grab some matches, I quickly lit the branches on fire. I smile to myself as I took a few steps away and sat on the log that Connor drag from beside the fire.