Although filled with awkward lies and stiff looks from Micah, Jay managed to get through the staff meeting. He met a few nice girls and saw that a couple of guys from his church were there. Awkwardly enough, Joshua, who had been in his band, was also there.

He also felt left out for the first time. The program directors had planned a staff game that involved running and jumping, so he couldn’t participate. Instead, he sat down and pretended not to mind.

And he really didn’t mind all that much. He’d known all along that there would be things that he couldn’t do, and he was okay with that.

Once Jay got past the explanations about his leg brace, though, he began to relax a little and came to find that he actually really liked this environment. The people were very nice, and although most of them knew each other already, he felt welcome and accepted.

He was selecting a T-shirt his size when a strong, young man came up.

“Hi, you said you were Jay, right? I’m Andrew Wood. We’re counseling together this week.” They shook hands and Jay nodded.

“Yeah, so I heard. How many kids have we got?”

“Small cabin. Just eight boys.”

“What ages?”

“Ten and eleven. Shouldn’t be too bad.” Andrew grinned. “Well, as they said, I’m supposed to be in the cabin to greet parents, and you’re supposed to be out directing people to the check-in, but obviously you can’t do that… so how about you… hmm, I’ll have to think about that. I’m sure there’s something you can do.” He paused thoughtfully.

They started towards their cabin, once Jay had picked a small T-shirt, and chattered easily all the way there.

They entered the cabin, where Andrew had also claimed a bed and had already neatly placed his sleeping bag and alarm clock in place.

“Oh, I know. I heard they needed help in the office. Stapling camper lists or something like that.”

“Okay, I’ll do that, just let me rest first.” He grinned, a little breathless, and sank onto his bed. At least his head wasn’t hurting, that much he was thankful for.

“Yeah, and I was thinking that you and I can really make a difference this week. Like- I think we should get together every day to pray- and not just this week. I’m your mentor, I think it would be a great idea to meet up every day of the entire summer. Not necessarily for long- maybe ten minutes or so- and we can chat about whatever’s on your mind and then we can pray about it together.”

“Wow, yeah, that totally sounds like a great idea!” Jay agreed, as he smoothed out the sheets and blanket that he’d laid out on his bed earlier. “We could probably do it in the morning before prayer meeting- how does that sound?”

“Great. At about 7:20, since the first meeting starts at half past.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll take the early meeting, if you want.” Andrew offered. “I like to get up early when I’m working at camp. It gives me a little time off with God, but without campers.”

“That sounds great. I love sleeping in.” Wow, this is actually looking good. It may actually be a great week, after all.

“And since it’s the first day, I guess we should get our time in now. Considering there’s no campers here and all.”

“Sure.” Jay sand back onto the bed and bowed his head. Andrew did the same and began.

They both prayed brief, yet heartfelt prayers asking God to make it a good week for both, to keep them healthy, to help them be good examples to their campers so that they may realize that they needed God in their lives too, and if they had done that already, to encourage them to give their whole life to him.

Once they were done, they slowly began to make their way towards the chapel, as per Andrew’s suggestion, since they still didn’t need to do anything in particular. The chapel was still looking quite empty, except for Joshua and another staff member whose name Jay could not remember.

“Hi.” Jay offered pathetically to his old friend. He was really confused about what was the deal between him and his band. They had disintegrated shortly after the summer, and Jay hadn’t spoken to any of them since, mostly because of his depression at first, and later on because none of them had bothered to call, so he figured they didn’t want to be his friends anymore.

“Hi, Jay.” If at all possible, Joshua looked even more awkward than Jay felt. “How are you? I see you got hurt.”

“It’s not too bad.” Jay mumbled.

“So, uh, I’m the band coordinator and director for the week. Would you like to join us?”

“Who else is playing?”

“Let’s see. This girl called April offered to sing, and also Jen- you know, from my church-, Carson offered to play the drums, Ben is going to play the bass-“

“Ben is coming?” Jay was surprised, and he wasn’t sure if it was in a good way or bad. Ben had been like a second dad to him, a friend he could trust for level-headed advice anytime. He had thought he could trust him, anyway, but when months started to go by and still nobody had contacted him to see how he was doing, he started to doubt that. The thought that he would see him again and spend the whole week with him made his stomach clench a little, to be honest.

“Yeah, he’s just going to be a little late cause he had a “previous engagement”, whatever that means.” Joshua said, while making quotation marks with his fingers.

“Typical of him.” Jay rolled his eyes and sank onto the steps leading up to the chapel. “So what are you going to be doing now? Since you don’t have campers, I mean.”

“Well, try and find out who plays instruments among the staff and bully a few into playing in my band.” Joshua joked.

“Well, I can do it, I guess. If I sit down.”

“Oh, great.” Joshua looked relieved. “You’re probably one of the best around.”

Not wanting to sound stuck up nor to put himself down, Jay said nothing.

“So you’re really in, then?” Joshua prodded, and Jay gave a nod. Hopefully it wouldn’t feel too weird, what with two of his ex-band members being there.

“We have practice right after supper, if that’s ok. At about six.”

“Sure.” Jay nodded. “I’ll be here. I should probably get going, though.”

“Oh, yeah. See you later.” Joshua called out as he diverted his attention back to the cables he was trying to sort out, as Jay started out the door. He was already feeling really tired- maybe this whole thing was a mistake.

“You know him?” asked Andrew, as they started down the steps.

“We used to be in a band together.” Jay explained, making it clear with his voice that he didn’t want to say anything else about it.

Andrew obviously got the point, since he asked nothing else. They parted ways, since Andrew had to stay in the cabin to greet their campers, and Jay wanted to see if they still needed help at the office.

They did, as he found out some 10 minutes later when he exhaustedly reached the office. He greeted Kelly, the secretary, warmly anyway. No need to let his own problems bother other people, as well.

“I heard you could use some help here, is that right?”

Kelly nodded cheerfully. “We need these camp lists stapled.”

“I’ll start right away. Andrew, my senior counselor, suggested it, since I haven’t really been to camp before, not for long anyway, so I wouldn’t be very helpful directing people, plus I’m not supposed to be on my feet for that long anyway.”

“Okay, here you go, and thank you! I was wondering when I was going to get that done.” Kelly handed him a large stack of brightly colored printed lists of the camper’s information so that they could write to their friends after camp was over.

Jay began to work diligently, but it was uninteresting work that soon lost its appeal. However, he continued, and as he did, he wondered what the summer had in store for him. Had he made a mistake? Was he soon going to have to stop working there? Or would he be reduced to performing these kinds of tedious tasks all the time, important but neither interesting nor relevant?

He made an effort to make small talk with Kelly, but since it was the beginning of the camp it was a particularly busy time for her, so he soon gave that up and just concentrated on finishing the work that needed to be done.

When he was done, he realized it was almost time for the introductory activity, so he left.

He greeted Andrew warmly, and noticed all the boys around. “Hi, I’m Jay, your junior counselor.”

They all chorused their hellos and soon began asking what had happened to his leg, to which Jay responded the mandatory made up explanation, to which he was coming up with more and more details as time went by.

With the bad luck, however, that every single boy in the cabin happened to have a skateboard and began asking questions.

“Can you do the-“

“Have you ever tried the-“

“What move were you doing when you had the accident?”

The questions all began at once, to which Jay help up his hands as a motion to stop. Andrew noticed the expression on his face and came to the rescue. “Hey, guys, no time for questions, let’s go line up in front of the chapel and he can tell you about it later, if he wants to.”

“Why wouldn’t he?”

“He got really badly hurt; he may not really feel like talking about it.”

Jay smiled to himself, what a perfect excuse.

He spent the next hour and a half helping the cabin come up with a new cabin name, and felt a part of things once more. After all, once the initial difficulty of sitting down on the floor was over, he was able to participate and gang up with Andrew to veto the options like “slimy worms” or other silly names. They finally settled on “Men of Christ” after Jay confided that that was the topic of the devotions he had prepared for the week.

Meanwhile, Jay chuckled at the overheard conversations of the nearest cabin.

“Pink Princesses!” one girl camper gleefully suggested. He smiled his encouragement to April, who managed to convince her that while being a princess was cool, it was way cooler to be God’s daughters, so in the end they chose the name “God’s princesses”, and April sat back, relieved and laughing along with Jay.

He was actually really enjoying himself until dinner just a short while later. He hadn’t had lunch- a conveniently timed nap had avoided so in the car- and he really didn’t feel all that hungry. He had to set a good example for his campers, though, a couple of which were already timidly picking at their food, so he took a huge bite and gulped down some water. Then he reminded them all to drink at least one glass each, they wouldn’t want to get dehydrated.

A torturously long forty minutes later, Jay stumbled out the door feeling sick. He had eaten much more than he wanted or even intended. It was just that every time Johnny, the ten year old who seemed to be shyest and pickiest, looked at him, Jay made sure to eat some more or comment on how delicious the food was. He even ended up taking extra watermelon pieces.

Jay turned to Andrew. “So when’s our next activity? And what is it?”

“Not for another fifteen minutes, it’s some weird variant of football.” He smirked and rolled his eyes. “Should be fun, though.”

“Cool.” Jay unenthusiastically muttered under his breath.

Maybe he heard this, or maybe he really noticed the look on his face, but Andrew turned to Jay and commented: “You don’t look all that great, maybe you should take advantage and take a nap.”

“That sounds great, actually.” Jay tried not to sound overly enthusiastic. “Are you sure I’m allowed to do that? You don’t mind watching the boys by yourself?”

“I should be fine. If I need to, I’ll ask the head counselor for help. You go ahead.”

Again Jay tried not to seem too eager to climb onto his bed, the one by the door, when they reached the cabin, but the truth was he had grown used to a couple long naps a day. He wasn’t really sure how he would deal with long days without them. But at least for one more day he wasn’t going to have to worry about that.

Taking a look at the schedule, Jay set his alarm clock for fifteen minutes until chapel time, which was right after the activity- not that the boys weren’t going to wake him up before that- took his brace off carefully, trying not to let his gaze wander too much on all the bruises, and laid down, all the while careful not to bump his leg.

He was asleep very soon afterwards, and slipped into a dreamless yet somehow also restless sleep. When he awoke he felt just as tired, and there was a dull ache running up and down his leg. He rubbed his eyes and stretched a little.

He realized he had somehow forgotten to turn his alarm on, he had barely five minutes to get to chapel, but he didn’t worry, since the campers weren’t here yet. He decided it was a good time as any for painkillers, took the small black bag from his suitcase and hopped to the bathroom, not wanting to put on the brace when it took so long to deal with all the Velcro and buckles and he wanted relief from the pain sooner rather than later.

There, the injection of morphine went quite smoothly, Jay was quite the expert by then. The real trouble came with disposing of the needle. There were so many troubles he had not thought of before coming to camp, Jay reflected regretfully. He finally wrapped it very carefully in a large wad of tissue and stuck it at the very bottom of the trash bag.

Then, hearing noise that told him the campers had finished the game and were running back to their cabins, he hopped back to the room, hoping to get his brace back on before anyone could see the state of his leg and ask questions, especially questions like ‘why don’t you have any stitches’.

Too late. Austin and Taylor, the two most rambunctious and undoubtedly the leaders of the whole cabin, had already burst open the door and were looking for their Bibles.

“Oh, hi, Jay.” Austin only lifted his head briefly before continuing to dig under his now extremely crumpled underwear. But Taylor narrowed his eyes.

“You’re allowed to take your brace off?” he asked.

“Only for sleeping.” Jay explained as casually as he could manage. “And for showers. Stuff like that.”

“Wow, your whole leg is covered in bruises- can I see?”

Jay had not real choice, he only gave a short nod and hoped that Taylor wasn’t one of the skaters who had had a skateboarding accident. He should have really thought of a more original excuse. Something that a bunch of ten or eleven years couldn’t see through.

Jay winced as Taylor ran his finger down the largest of the bruises, just under the knee.

“Does it hurt a lot?”

Jay tried to hide the pain and shook his head softly. “Not too bad. Now get your Bible, we have to be on time so you guys can get honor cabin one of these days.”

“How do you get points for that?”

“You’ve got to do everything the counselors tell you. Line up fast and well before activities. Keep the room clean. And get good scores at the Bible contest activity in the morning.”

“That must be hard.”

“No, it’s not too bad.”

“So what do honor cabins get to do?”

“Stay up for an extra hour, choose a candy bar the next day at Berea and Co.- that’s the candy store- sleep on hammocks, and, if you got an especially good score, a midnight swim at the camp swimming pool.”

All the campers in the cabin had their eyes wide with excitement. “That sounds so cool!”

Jay smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. Deep down, although he would be happy for the boys if they did win, he didn’t really want honor cabin.

After all, none of things on the list really appealed to him. Staying up an extra hour was practically impossible as it was, he didn’t care all that much for candy, sleeping on hammocks would be torturously uncomfortable for his tall frame even if he hadn’t been wearing the huge brace on his leg, and he wouldn’t really be able to swim with the boys- only dip his legs on the edge, and that was if they promised to be careful not to bump him, something Jay wouldn’t take his chances on considering most of them were ten years old.

They heard the bell summoning them to the chapel, and Jay quickly began velcroing and buckling the brace back on. He reached for his crutches, and then, with a bit of confusion as to what to do with his Bible, he finally stuck it in his pants pocket, where it stayed, somewhat precariously.

Indeed, he dropped it only halfway, but he was lucky- another counselor was just a few feet behind him and he took it for him.

“Hi, I’m Samuel Evans.”

“Hi. Thanks.” Jay nodded to his now dusty Bible in Samuel’s hand. “I’m Jay. Jay Hudson.”

“I know. You look exactly like your brother, who is my senior counselor. Only you are a whole lot thinner!” he laughed, and Jay chuckled. If only you knew.

“So do you know anything about the preacher this week?”

Jay shook his head.

“Well, I heard it was some guy called Brian. Brian Wilson if I remember correctly. Someone told me he was really great.”

“Now that I think of it, that does sound familiar.” Jay agreed as they were reaching the stairs. The boys and girls at either side of him respectfully allowed him a pathway up the stairs, which Jay climbed carefully and slowly.

The program director, Evan something-or-other, was leading the campers on a song, allowing the rest of the people some time to reach the chapel.

“If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.” Most of them sang, others were distracted or deliberately didn’t bother to sing along. Am I really happy? Jay wondered to himself. He certainly had enough reasons not to be. On the other hand, he also had more than enough reasons to be happy. He was at camp, for one, when so many things hadn’t worked in his favor. He was also alive. And he had been saved by God.

Jay smiled wider. Who cared about the pain- it was going away, anyway- or about the exhaustion he sometimes felt? Who cared about the moments when he felt left out? There were plenty of other people in the whole world who felt the same way. It was the way you dealt with those feelings that determined the rest of your existence.

And one thing was for sure, Jay wasn’t going to be wasting it.

He began going inside, as per Evan’s instruction, when he realized Micah was right next to him.

“Did you have it?”

“It?” Jay was clueless.

“The morphine.”

A short nod.

“Tell me if you get any overdose symptoms. And I mean it. No hiding anything from me.” Micah murmured quietly, then drifted back with his own cabin, the smallest group, the eight year olds and one seven year old whose parents had paid extra to be allowed to come although it was technically against camp rules.

After almost an hour and a half of worship and Bible study- although admittedly even Jay was interested, even if it was directed towards the grade schoolers- Jay was ready to crash again. Good thing that the evening activity was shorter than for middle schoolers, since the campers were younger and would go to bed earlier.

He said nothing of it to Andrew, however, already feeling he had been quite enough of an inconvenience, although the older guy seemed in high spirits. “You said you had a devotion planned?” he asked.

“Yes. I worked on a devotion for a while before I came, I thought it would be good for the campers to hear.”

“Tell me about it. Did you plan for every day?”

“Yes.” Jay answered, a bit breathless.

“You feeling okay?” Andrew asked, noticing immediately.

“Just a little light-headed.” Jay assured him. “I’m not used to the altitude.” He excused himself, knowing fully well that he could have overdosed on morphine. He changed subjects swiftly. “The devotions are called ‘Men of Christ’. I thought of several aspects of a man of Christ and decided to cover one every day. The first is the gospel, of course. You have to be saved to be a man of Christ. The next day I planned to explain why one would want to be a man of Christ.”

Andrew nodded and walked slowly besides Jay.

“The third is love, fourth is compassion. The fifth and the sixth are passion and ‘the right attitude’.”

“Wow! It sounds cool. I can’t wait.”

“Yeah, I’ve really worked hard on it, I hope it turns out okay. I’m really no good at public speaking, and although I know speaking in front of eight ten and eleven year olds and one twenty-one year old hardly amount to public speaking, it’s pretty much the same to me.” Jay laughed nervously.

“I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Andrew encouraged. “You don’t need my help for anything, then?”

“Well, not exactly. Not during the studies, anyway. But I would appreciate if you would help to answer questions- I kind of go blank- and just kind of help remind the boys of what they learned every day.”

“Any other things? Anything I should pray about?”

“Yeah- I’m still recovering from surgery last week. It’s not just that I can’t walk, it’s that I’m not always all that hungry and that I get tired easily. So I really would appreciate it if you would help me find moments in the day when I can rest- just like you did today- it really helped.”

“Sure. I understand.” Andrew’s eyes looked curious as they stepped into the cabin.

Taylor and Austin were fighting. Jay couldn’t quite make out the reason, but apparently a girl since he heard something about Jessi or some similar name. Andrew calmly broke up the fight and handed Jay his Bible, which he put away carefully.

With a sigh, he closed his eyes and gathered the strength to get through the next two hours. And they really weren’t all that bad. The activity was a lot quieter that they had been the rest of the day, and Bible study went well. Jay felt he had managed to be quite eloquent and he was even feeling a bit of a bond beginning to form between him and some of the campers, which he had known would be a little harder than for Andrew, considering that Jay couldn’t really participate in half of the activities.

All in all, thought Jay with a contended sigh, it wouldn’t be all that bad. The only worry in his mind as he drifted off to sleep once more was, could he keep up this rhythm for long? Would he be able to keep his secret for the rest of the summer? He sure hoped so.