Jay Hudson loved his little brother, he really did, but not so much at six thirty a.m. when he was still so tired. It was one of the first days of the summer, too.

“Will you watch Finding Nemo with me, Jay?” he cried with excitement, pulling on Jay’s sleeve.

It was hard to stay mad at the little boy. “Sure, Kyle.” He only groaned a little as he got out of bed, his head already throbbing with a bad headache. He followed the five-year-old down the stairs and into the kitchen.

“Did you have any breakfast, pal?”

“Yeah, I had cheerios, ages ago.” Kyle exaggerated. Jay could tell; the bowl was still mostly full and starting to get soggy.

“When did Micah leave?”

“Just two or three or four minutes ago.”

Jay couldn’t help but chuckle.

“Maybe five.” Added Kyle thoughtfully. “Let’s watch the movie!” he exclaimed enthusiastically, hardly allowing Jay to take something for the pain before pulling him into the living room to watch the movie.

“So, kid.” Jay asked as he lowered himself to the floor to put the DVD in. “Are you excited about camp? We’re leaving in just two days.”

“Yeah! It’s going to be fun! But- we’re going- all summer?” Kyle asked, although he knew well enough that was the case.

“Yeah. For family bonding or something. It was Micah’s idea, but it should be pretty cool, if I say so myself. Anyway, there’s going to be a couple other kids around your age going too, so you won’t get bored.”

Kyle smiled a little and looked relieved. “Really? What’s their names?”

Jay was at loss for words. “I don’t know. We’ll find out soon enough. You are all packed, aren’t you?”

“Micah helped me do it ages ago.”

Jay knew for a fact it had been yesterday, but he chuckled and made his way to the couch next to Kyle.

“Does this hurt?” Kyle asked as he poked Jay’s leg brace. Jay winced ever so slightly and shook his head.

“Not too much.” That’s an understatement. Am I really going to be okay going up there with all these issues? He wondered to himself, trying to concentrate on Nemo and his dad instead. It didn’t quite work out that way. Within a couple minutes he could feel his eyelids starting to close, and after stealing a glance at his little brother, who was obviously very absorbed in the movie, he allowed them to do so and fell asleep easily.

“Wake up! Wake up! This is the best part!”

“Did I fall asleep?” Jay asked, bleary-eyed, gently trying to stop Kyle from shaking him any more. It was making his head hurt more.

“Yeah, you did, ages ago.” Jay looked at the TV screen, and realized that his brother had let him sleep for nearly the whole movie. It was nearly the end, where Nemo and his dad meet each other again, which Jay watched half-heartedly with his brother.

Once it was finished, Kyle jumped up. “Let’s play tag outside!”

“Bro, I can’t.” Jay answered softly. “I need crutches to get around, remember?”

Kyle was obviously disappointed. “But I’ll run real slow, so you can catch me sometimes.”

“I don’t think that’s such a great idea. Let’s find a game we can both enjoy, how about that?”

The little boy still looked downcast as he trudged towards their game cabinet. Jay followed with his crutches and took a look at the choices. Monopoly? Kyle was still too young. Dutch Blitz? Too young. Uno? Too young. Chess? Too young.

He finally pulled out a 50-piece puzzle, which Kyle dumped on the floor.

“We should do it at the table, you know.” Jay reminded, glancing exasperatedly at the leg brace that prevented him from doing so many things. Kyle ignored him and started to put it together, so Jay finally sank into the nearest seat to watch miserably. He was bored, and he was in pain.

“Did Micah mention when he was getting back?” he asked.

“He put a note somewhere.” Kyle answered vaguely. Jay got up to check the table by the front door, and sure enough, there it was.

Hey, Jay, I’ll be back for lunch, which I left in the fridge, all you have to do is stick it in the oven for 20 minutes. Remember not to tire yourself too much. If you need to, let Kyle watch TV for a while and pack your bags meanwhile. Call if you need anything. Later, Micah.

Good old responsible Micah was in control. He wrote notes the exact same way that their dad used to, not that long ago. This made Jay feel a little strange. Sad.

“Let’s go up to my room, Kyle.” Jay said, returning to the living room, where Micah was half done with the puzzle. He was a smart kid.

“Will you let me play with your computer if I do?”

Jay pretended to consider before giving a nod.

Kyle jumped up with a shriek of pure joy, as if Jay didn’t let him play on the computer practically every day. He was already sitting in front of the laptop, mesmerized, by the time Jay arrived. It was the bad thing about having an attic room. Sure, he had all the privacy he could ever want, but he also got exhausted, especially lately, in the last few months. But he didn’t want to think about that. Instead, he fished out a suitcase from the bottom of the closet and started piling clean clothes into it, to the best of his ability considering that he was balancing on one foot.

About two hours later, they heard Micah let himself in.

“Hi, guys!” he was obviously in a good mood. “I can’t smell the lasagna.” He commented.

Jay gulped to himself. He had completely forgotten to put their lunch in the oven. He started to work his way downstairs, one step at a time. His forehead was dripping with sweat by the time he had arrived downstairs, with a sheepish smile and an apology.

“I forgot. I’m sorry.”

Micah sighed heavily and did it himself. “I’m sorry I had to leave so early. If I could, I would have figured out a way to let you get more sleep without Kyle disturbing you.”

Jay tried to hide the yawn as he assured his brother that it hadn’t been any trouble. Anyway, considering tomorrow was his last day on the job, he really shouldn’t be missing more days of work. He had already been missing too many due to Jay’s leg issues.

“How’re you feeling?” Micah asked casually as he started unloading the dishwasher.

“Pretty good.” Jay answered just as casually. He thought of setting the table, but soon realized it was useless. With crutches, there was no way he could hold the three plates and not drop any onto the floor. So he settled for paper plates and silverware. That way, Micah could get a break, too. “Did you call the camp director?”

“Yeah, I did. He-“

“You didn’t tell him-“

“No. I told him to let you counsel for the first couple weeks, and do easier jobs the rest of the summer. I also told him I would probably not feel up to counseling late in the summer, either.”

“I see.” Jay answered, but he still felt a little tense. They could hear Kyle skipping down the stairs. “Do you really think it’s all going to work out?” he asked softly.

“I sure hope so. But it should.” Yet Micah also sounded nervous. Not for long, though. He pasted on a smile and bent down for a hug from Kyle. “How was your morning, kid?”

“It was fun! We watched Nemo and we did a puzzle and I played with the computer and Jay did his bags.” Kyle said, pretty much in one breath, before getting distracted with the paper that was on the kitchen counter, on which he began to color eagerly. Micah and Jay exchanged a look of amusement. They felt lucky that Kyle had not lost his playful, cheery spirit when their parents had died nearly ten months earlier.

The same could not be said for Jay. While an avid Christian before the accident, he had quickly felt his faith slipping away during those first few weeks by themselves. He became a cynic teenager, listening to depressing music and lying in bed most of the time, not really wanting to talk to anyone. He figured, if God really existed, he wouldn’t allow both his parents to die, especially when they had a little five year old son who would soon forget them. He would forget the way mom always made chocolate chip pancakes on Mondays and how his dad never forgot to go tuck him in. He would forget the way that they used to go to the library twice a month and how they all put Christmas ornaments on the tree together. He would never realize that his mom used to call his teacher once or twice a month to make sure that he was doing all right in school. He would never really get to know his mother, and Micah would become his new father.

In fact, on more than one occasion, he had made the mistake of called Micah ‘dad’, which Micah had corrected gently, although it was obvious it freaked him out a little. Who wants to be a nineteen-year-old dad? But Micah had accepted the challenge.

For this, Jay was glad. He didn’t think they could have handled anything different. Micah would have been on his own, of course, but Jay would have become a foster kid for a few months and Kyle would have probably been young enough to get adopted by a family. So, basically, they would have each gone their own way.

But they were together now. That was why they were going to camp in the first place. They wanted to spend time together, as a family. Jay had been to the camp before. In fact, it had been last year. But a lot had changed in this year.

He’d gone with his band ‘Every Moment Praise’. It had only been a week, but he had enjoyed being the worship team for a large group of middle-schoolers. Their band no longer existed, though- Jay had unofficially broken it up when his parents had died, and they never got back together. In fact, Jay wasn’t that sure they were friends anymore. They never spoke. He missed his friends, though, especially Samuel, who had been the oldest member and always a little protective of Jay, who had been the youngest. To be honest, Jay didn’t know what Ben, Daniel and Johnny were up to.

The rest of the day was the epitome of boredom. A short nap, an entire novel read and some computer time later, he finally had supper and went to bed. Maybe the next day would be better.

Two days later Jay found himself at church. It was not such an oddity, they always made a point of being there every Sunday without fail, but this time it was particularly important. He would be gone the whole summer, he needed some kind of closure, and curiously enough, the sermon was about serving the Lord actively, which was exactly what Jay planned to do for the next six weeks.

Six weeks was a lot, he realized, but there was a lot to do, too. There were so many kids who still didn’t know about the loving God who sent his only son, and Jay felt so strongly that he needed to help do something about it. He always had, though.

When he was a kid he would excitedly tell everyone about his plans to become a pilot and tell the gospel to lost tribes who still didn’t know anything about it. As he’d grown up, he’d become less forward and more logical about the plan. He’d gotten good grades at school, studied his airplane manuals carefully, and kept up his relationship with God.

Until the accident, that is. Whether it was that his parents’ deaths had brought his dreams back to the ground or destroyed them completely, nobody could really tell. And if the accident itself wasn’t enough to crush Jay’s dreams, the circumstances that followed sure did.

After the service, Jay felt a bit sad all of a sudden. He wasn’t quite sure why, but maybe it had to do with the fact that he was sitting down by himself, completely bored, just watching other people catch up on each other’s lives, as if they hadn’t seen each other just last week.

Kyle made an effort to entertain him, of course, and brought Jay lemonade when he asked for it, but it wasn’t long before he was off playing tag with his friends.

So Jay got bored, at least until he saw someone familiar making his way towards him.

“Ben!”

“Hi, Jay.” Ben gave him a pat in the back, motioning for him not to get up. “How are you? What happened?

“Skateboarding accident.” Jay nonchalantly lied.

“Wow, it must have been really bad! How long ago?”

“Last week. I needed shots in my leg to keep the swelling down, so they decided not to put a cast on.”

“Oh. I see.” Ben looked solemn for once. “Does it hurt?”

“Yeah, pretty bad. I need to keep this brace on for another six weeks.”

“That’s a long time. Bummer. All summer long.” He looked thoughtful. “But you’ll be okay after that?”

“Yeah, I should be.” Jay lied once again, and winced a little.

“Listen, I was thinking- we should get back together. Like obviously not now, because you’re hurt and it wouldn’t work out, but like in September or something. The other guys agree. I know we haven’t been together for a while but we’re all itching to make a new CD and get on the road again- like in the old times.” Ben stopped for his breath.

He looked so hopeful that it made Jay feel really bad about what he was about to do.

“Oh, so we can just pretend you didn’t ignore me for months after my parents died?”

The look on Ben’s face made Jay’s heart break. “I- we didn’t think you-“

“Oh, yeah, you didn’t think I might need my friends’ support through it, huh? Well, listen to this. I did. I wanted you guys to be around. But you weren’t, so I got myself some new friends. Ones that did care about me. I don’t want to have anything to do with you guys anymore.”

His acting was getting to be so much to him that he actually started to feel mad for real, so he grabbed his crutches and made his way to the door, leaving behind a very hurt and confused Ben.

“Hey, Micah, are we leaving soon?” He asked his brother, who was with William James, the guy who was going to ride with them, trying to figure out how to pack their bags into the small van.

“Yep, as soon as April gets back.”

“April?”

“William’s sister. She’s your age.” Micah became busy trying to stuff the enormous pink suitcase in.

Jay busied himself in trying to get in the van, a feat more difficult than you might imagine, considering he was using crutches and he had an enormous brace on that prevented him from bending his knee at all.

He got in the back, and then Kyle followed knocking his brother in the process. Jay managed to keep quiet instead of voicing his extreme pain. The pain was dull most of the time, only aggravated occasionally by touching it, taking the brace off, or sometimes for no apparent reason.

A girl got into the van next, about sixteen and a half by Jay’s guess.

“April?”

“Yep, that’s me.”

“I’m Jay. Hi. Nice to meet you.” He politely stuck out his hand.

They shook hands for barely a moment. “What happened to your leg?” April asked as she buckled her seatbelt, in the seat next to Jay.

“Skateboarding accident.” Jay said simply. He didn’t want to elaborate on a lie. Already he felt badly enough, he would hardly like to improvise some more information.

“When was that?”

“Last week.”

“Why didn’t you just get a cast?”

“My leg was all swollen- it wasn’t just a break, there was some ligament trouble too- the doctors expect that I’ll need to be off my feet for another 5 or 6 weeks, but since I needed daily shots to keep the swelling down and a doctor would have to take a look pretty often to make sure everything was healing properly, they decided it was better to go with this. It’s easier for me, too- I can take showers without any trouble, take it off to scratch an itch, whatever.” Jay was actually kind of surprised how seamlessly the lies were coming, one after the other. He didn’t have a clue whether showers were feasible. And although the itch thing was true, he really did not care that much about being able to scratch easily.

“But you decided to go work at camp, anyway?” April seemed amused. “You could have just taken the season off. Come next summer. Or even in the fall, you know there’s several camps then?”

“Yeah, I know, but we’d been planning on going to camp this summer for such a long time. I was really looking forward to it. And checking in with the director, we found out it wasn’t so much trouble after all. I can still counsel and everything, there’s just stuff I won’t be able to do.”

“Like what?”

“Well, sports things, mostly. Hikes. Capture the flag. But I can still participate in the bible studies, help kids memorize their verses, and everything else that’s important.” He smiled slightly. “It won’t be as much fun for me, but it’s all about the kids anyway. I think God called me to evangelize these kids, and a stupid messed up leg isn’t going to keep me from doing that.”

April seemed impressed. Jay pretended not to notice and instead, helped Kyle get buckled into his seat. Within a few moments, they were on their way.

“So, does it hurt?” April asked.

Jay debated internally what to say, before finally deciding on the truth- or close to it, anyway. “It hurts off and on and it seems worse at night, but I’ve got pain meds for that and it’s not really horrible or anything. Just bothersome.”

Well, other than an understatement, that much was true. Thought Jay, feeling guilty. He decided to change the subject in an effort to ease the voice in his head that was currently yelling at him.

“So why did you decide to work at Camp Berea?”

“William’s been coming for a couple of years now, and he finally convinced me to give it a try. But it’s not quite like that either- I just really felt it was what God wanted me to do this summer.”

“That’s cool.”

Kyle, who had been quietly running a couple toy cars and a taxi cab up and down the window next to him, spoke up. “Can we play Go Fish, Jay?”

Jay grinned. “Sure, bro.” He began shuffling the cards that Kyle handed him, and soon they were engrossed. April didn’t mind, though. She was having fun watching Kyle’s cute comments and Jay being sweet to his brother. You could tell that Jay was enjoying it every bit as much as Kyle was.

An hour and a half later they finally arrived to the camp. They were early, Jay could tell, since the last time they’d been late and the camp was bursting with activity, with campers everywhere and staff members busily trying to keep up. This time, though, it was the serene place that it had been in his mind this whole year. In fact, it had been one of the few places where he’d had no trouble listening to God.

Jay took in a breath of fresh air while climbing out of the car and accepting his crutches back from April. There were birds chirping happily, a squirrel in the distance, and an environment so peaceful and welcoming that it made Jay want to shout for joy. But realizing that would have been weird, he sank into the nearest bench instead, waiting for William and Micah to unload all their suitcases.

Funny how different his life had become in the short year he’d been away. In many ways he was still the same person, but he’d matured, he’d gone through trials that most teenagers would never understand, and he was not the cheerful person he’d once been known to be. Yet all these things had helped him grow closer to God, and this fact alone made it all worth it to Jay.

He gave a sigh and closed his eyes.

“Are you crying?” April’s eyes were wide, and Jay opened his as well. Hurriedly wiping the tear that had made its way down his cheek, he smiled instead. “Nah, just tired. Could you go to the office and see where we all are staying and what we’re supposed to do this week?” He shrugged and then joked. “I’d do it myself… but by the time I actually get to the office the week would be half over.”

April smiled and nodded. “Sure. Be right back.”

When she was back about ten minutes later, all the suitcases were unloaded and Kyle had already found another kid to play tag with.

“Okay, so we’re all counselors this week. I’m counseling in North Dorm 1, Jay’s counseling in West Dorm 3, William in West Dorm 4, and Micah, you’re counseling in South Dorm 4.”

“Sounds good, who am I counseling with?” William asked.

“Joel Whittaker. I’m counseling with Miriam Bennett, Micah’s with Samuel Evans, and Jay’s with Andrew Woods, who’s also your mentor.”

“Mentor?” Jay was confused.

“There’s this program at this camp, where if you work at least 3 weeks and are under 18 you have an older, more experienced staff member that meets up with you and prays with you and gives you advice about stuff. It’s really great. So for the rest of the summer, Andrew will be mentoring you.” April explained.

“Oh… okay. I didn’t do that last time.”

“That’s because you were only here one week.”

“I get it. So how far is West Dorm?”

“You’re lucky. It’s actually the one closest to the Lodge and to the Chapel, and while it’s the farthest away from the pool and the soccer and basketball courts, that really doesn’t matter to you. I’ll walk you to your cabin, if you like.” She offered.

Jay nodded. “Yeah, thanks. I was wondering how I was supposed to get this huge suitcase there, when my arms are occupied. It really stinks sometimes. Like, my room is in the attic, for example. And I have to get Kyle to take my stuff sometimes…”

“How old is Kyle, anyway?” April asked, dragging their suitcases down the path towards the South Dorm.

“Five. He’s turning six in August.”

“He’s cute.”

“Yeah, and he’s such a smart kid too.”

They both fell silent. Jay became acutely aware of the sound of the crutches rhythmically hitting the pathway and of the trudging of their suitcases on the rocks next to the path. It was oddly calming.

They chatted lightly until they finally arrived to the cabin. It was empty, so Jay quickly claimed the bed by the door and placed his suitcase next to it. He then sat and looked around.

There was an awkward moment before April turned to leave. “I guess I should find my cabin. Remember, the staff meeting is at the chapel at three.”

He nodded and she went on her way to her own cabin, as Jay began to thoughtfully sort through his luggage.