Summer Soundtrack

2- New Friends

After my awkward encounter with Luke, I couldn't get him out of my head. To avoid more awkwardness I had escaped to a quiet, shady spot on the beach and he was all I could think about. I was watching the sunset and I kept replaying what he had said to me in my head. His thick Australian accent intrigued me. Why did I keep thinking about him? I told myself that it was because my boyfriend and I had just broken up and I was in a weird, boy crazy mood, but for some reason I knew I was wrong. To avoid more thoughts about Luke I pulled out my notebook. Even though I tried to focus my attention on writing new scripts, I ended up writing my thoughts about Luke down. He was weirdly unescapable. Just as I was about to get up I could hear Jeff calling everyone back for dinner. I picked up my stuff and wandered my way back to camp. Jeff was standing by the fire pit ushering everyone over so we could walk to the dining hall. I quickly grabbed my backpack and met up with Ellie. She was standing at the back of the clump of campers.

"Hey." I walked up to where she was standing.

"Oh hi! Where were you this afternoon?"

"I was just hanging out at the beach." Not metioning my encounter with Luke.

"Ok well next time we should go together."

"Yeah. Sounds good." I was glad to be making new friends because I was even more awkward when I was alone. If that was even possible? We walked to the dining hall and I was glad to find that we were having good food instead of camp food. I put a salad, some speghetti and garlic bread on my plate. Ellie was already sitting down at a table in the corner. I joined her and we ate/talked until they people up for dessert. It was chocolate chip cookies and milk which I was more than happy to devour. When we were one of the last people still sitting in the dining hall Grace walked over to tell us we should probably walk back. She had heard that Jeff had some announcement for the group.

Ellie, Grace, and I walked back down the trail to our camp. Grace turned out to be really nice and I was glad I had a good person as my tent partner. As we walked into camp Jeff told us to gather around the fire that he had already made before we got there. Apparently we were the last ones in our group to arrive. The three of us sat down on the logs surrounding the fire and Jeff started talking.

"So the camp staff has decided on a new project we are doing this year. It's a partner challenge. Your going to have to meet someone new you don't know and do several different challenges together. After I assign you your partners I will tell you your first challenge. Okay here's the partners: Grace and Carter, Sara and Jack, Christine and Joey..." The list went on and I didn't really pay attention until I heard my name called "Hayden and Luke." This is going to be interesting.

"Can everybody get with their partner so I can assign your first challenge?"

I awkwardly found where Luke was standing and walked over.

"Hi." I said as I walked up.

He didn't respond so I said hi again. He completely igored me and wasn't even looking up. Just staring at his shoes which seemed to be more interesting that our "challenge". I tried one more time.

" Luke, ins't it? I kind of ran into you yesterday."

He then looked up and I noticed he had headphones in tucked behind his beanie. Now realizing I was there, he quickly took them out.

" Hi. Sorry about that. I couldn't hear you." He said this in a quiet and somewhat annoyed tone. Then he went right back to staring at his shoes again. Just then Jeff started to explain the challenge.

" So I know you all probably hate name games and get to know you stuff but for your first challenge learn just 1 things about your partner. The challenges after this will be more interesting but you barely know this person so we are starting with this. Tomorrow at lunch you should be finished with this and I will give you your next challenge."

"Ok our first challenge....um what do you want to do?" I asked Luke.

"I don't know." Luke didn't seem like he wanted to do this at all. Frankly, I didn't want to either but I knew we had to.

"Well let's go sit down and we can uh...get to know eachother?"

"Uh yeah. I guess. If you want."

Luke seemed to be more of a jerk than the attractive kind boy I ran into. I was hoping he just needed a little warming up to.

I walked over to a small patch of grass making sure Luke was behind me. When we both were sitting down I tried to start a conversation.

"So what's the most important thing I should know about you?"

"Um? I don't know."

"Well then I'll start. I really like filming."

"What do you mean?" Luke asked. At least he was showing some interest now.

"I have a video camera and I take it every where with me. I film as much as I can."

"What do you film?"

I was happy that Luke was talking a little more. "Anything that I find interesting I guess."

"Oh ok." Then Luke put head phones in and went back to staring off in space. I tried to tell him that we had to do our challenge but he just brushed me off.

After several minutes of trying to get Luke to come out of his own world I just told him I was going back to my tent. He just nodded and left too. I hoped he would open up a little more tomorrow.

When I reached the tent Grace was inside and already had all her stuff unpacked. I started to do the same. After just a couple minutes of unpacking I got really tired and crawled in my sleeping bag. Grace was already asleep and within a few minutes I was too.

-

The next morning I got up when I heard everyone heading to breakfast. I threw on jean shorts and a tank top and went up to breakfast too. After I got my food, I found Grace and Ellie sitting at a table. 

"Hi guys. How'd you sleep?" Ellie was really lively and energetic just like on the bus. I wondered if that was because she got a good night sleep or she was always like this. Grace on the other hand looked a little sleepy but contented and sweet as ususal. 

"Who's your partner for the project?" Ellie asked

"Uh Luke. Do you know him?"

"Luke?!?! Your with Luke?"

"Uh yeah.... why?" I was a little confused at why this excited Ellie.

"Luke has been going to camp a couple years now. All the girls obsess over him but when they try to get to know him he pushes everyone away. No one really knows why. He also always has headphones in and never talks to anyone. I don't even know why he comes to camp. He doesn't even surf."

Well that sort of explained how he acted yesterday. "Yeah! When I tried to talk to him he just kept his headphones in and didn't want to say anything."

At 10:00 Ellie brought up the idea of going swimming but I still hadn't got a word out of Luke so I told her I would join her in 30 minutes. While looking for Luke I started to hear a guitar playing but I didn't see where it was coming from. It wasn't Grace because she was reading in our tent so I followed the noise. As I got closer I noticed it was a guy and they were singing too. It was really really good. The music was so catchy I was kind of drawn to it. When I reached the spot where the guy was playing I stopped dead in my tracks. It was Luke.