✔ Aspen | Sherman Yang

[15.00]

When Sherman was twelve years old, his mother asked if he wanted to be enrolled in a summer camp. This camp involved spending a week without showers, running water, electricity, and a lot of camping. It didn't sound so appealing to him until he read about it more. It was said that the camp was competitive, and people who weren't interested in it shouldn't enroll because of parenting pressure, as they wanted to create a memorable, workable environment for everyone.

It was said to be one of the most bonding experiences you could find. It would challenge you to work together and would change you.

Intrigued, Sherman sat still for an hour, carefully revising his statement of interest letter until he couldn't fit any more into the 200-word limit. A few weeks after the deadline, Sherman's mother told him he was accepted. For some reason, 12-year-old Sherman kind of became weirdly excited and counted down the days until he would be at this camp.

When he was there, the leaders did not disappoint. He laughed every day, pushed himself, learned quickly, and came home with tan lines, mosquito bites, but most importantly, he was different. Something about that camp taught him something, and he was suddenly more helpful, happier, yet somehow sadder at the same time.

He barely ever saw his campmates again. For a while they texted each other, spilling their crushes, offering relationship advice towards each other and so forth. The closest friend to him was a girl a year older than him but happened to be extremely sweet. There were no limitations to what they said to each other. Everything was spilt. Yet being apart never worked out. Their friendship was very short-lived.

He and this girl were cut off from each other completely. They stopped talking. The scariest part of all, however, was a little before his mother died, Sherman actually saw her.

New York was terribly hard to find someone you knew on the streets or in the grocery store, but it happened. It had been two years since they last saw each other, and both looked right into each other's eyes, and that was it. When he had encounters with the guys from that camp, they would give a friendly wave or at least attempt to make awkward small-talk. Yet with her, even though he had known her better than anyone at some point, couldn't even bring themselves to give a small wave or nod.

That was his first heartbreak. When a person he loved even as a friend, turned into a stranger.

It was late August and almost September.

And for a reason he couldn't recall, every time he was bored, his eyes would land on the girl who was sitting beside the happy counsellor of Cabin 4. He kind of had a hard time figuring out why he had this weird nagging feeling every time he looked at her, but it was shortly after his birthday party when it first started happening.

Sherman had no idea of what had gone around during that party. He remembered being drunk, and he remembered drinking with Miranda. When he asked Katie and Paris and Silena what had happened, they never said anything. They just looked at him with a pitiful look and went on with their day.

He doubted it was anything important, so he let it go for a little while, yet his conscience kept on telling him something was up. Every time he looked at the girl with the auburn hair and clenched his fist at the thought that they would be apart for the semester, his throat closed up. There was this feeling about to come into his mouth, pushing up from inside of him, but every time he tried to swallow, he couldn't.

They still talked sometimes, and for fun, they would stare into each other's eyes for a very long time just to see who's death glare would be better or who would lose focus first. Miranda would always win at first, but a few days ago, he found himself realizing that he wouldn't be laughing with this girl he had learned to love as a sister, so he won the competitions. She didn't know what had hit him and he didn't either.