'lina .ᐟ @iovebrini - Tumblr Blog

May 30

⋆˚ COOL FOR THE SUMMER ⋆˚࿔

pairing: macklin celebrini x fem!reader

one last summer at the camp that ruined your friendship forces you and macklin celebrini to confront everything you never said.

﹙ ⓘ ﹚ warnings: non nhl!au ( macklin and reader are camp counselors ), angst, slow burn romance, elements of humor. right person wrong time, second chance romance, happily ever after. 13.0k words

✶ author’s note 𑣲 okokok walk with me guys , do you see the vision ??? i hope i executed it well but !! i had such a fun time writing this that i seriously never wanna leave this world . the tension , the dynamics , the yearninggg between mack and y/n is just * chef's kiss * ... first mc71 fic bytheway ahhh !!!! totally not freaking tf out rn ... please do let me know your opinions and thoughts on this , i'd luvluvluv any sort of feedback !! thanks so much once again for all your support <3

BY THE TIME MACKLIN CELEBRINI WALKED INTO THE COUNSELOR MEETING WEARING A FADED CAMP HOODIE AND THAT SMUG, FAMILIAR SMILE, YOU ALREADY KNEW THIS SUMMER WAS GOING TO RUIN YOU.

Not because he looked different. That would’ve been easier.

If he’d grown colder somehow, sharper around the edges, maybe you could’ve convinced yourself the ache in your chest was just nostalgia mixed with resentment. Maybe you could’ve blamed the years apart. Maybe you could’ve sat through orientation without feeling like someone had reached into your ribcage and wrapped a fist around your lungs.

But Macklin looked exactly the same.

Same dark caramel curls tucked under a backwards cap, with the same lazy grin like he’d just gotten away with something. He still had those impossible, devastating eyes that always looked brighter when he was about to say something sarcastic.

And worst of all —

He had that same dimple. You hated that stupid dimple.

“Okay, counselors!” Grace clapped loudly from the front of the rec hall. “Settle down, settle down —”

Nobody listened. The room buzzed with reunion energy; old counselors hugging, someone nearly knocking over a stack of craft bins, two lifeguards arguing over who crashed the camp golf cart last August. You sat rigidly in your chair near the back, pretending to reread the orientation packet while your stomach folded itself into knots.

Three years had passed since Camp Hatchmark ruined your friendship, since you swore you’d never come back.

And yet.

Somehow, the first thing you saw when you walked through those ridiculous wrought-iron gates again was him. Macklin scanned the room absentmindedly, talking to another counselor beside him.

Then his eyes landed on you, everything stopping as though he forgot how to breathe for half a second.

You looked away first.

Coward.

“Oh my God,” whispered Elenie beside you, grabbing your arm hard enough to bruise. “That’s him?”

You kept your eyes on the packet. “Please don’t.”

“That’s Camp Boy?”

“Please.”

“The Camp Boy?”

“Elenie.”

She blows out a breath. “He’s, like, offensively attractive.”

You finally looked at her. “You are making this worse.”

“I’m making this accurate.”

Across the room, Macklin was still staring, and not in the weird oh-I-recognize-that-person way. No, this was direct eye contact. Intentional. Confused. Almost disbelieving. One of the guys beside him — Will, Grace’s younger brother — elbowed his shoulder and said something that made Macklin blink out of it.

He looked away. Your chest hurt instantly, which was nothing short of absolutely pathetic. Grace started assigning cabins, and you prayed — actually prayed — that the universe would give you one break this summer.

“One more thing,” Grace said brightly. “Since we’re short on senior staff this year, some counselors will be co-leading activity groups.”

No.

No no no.

You could feel it coming the way animals sense natural disasters. “Archery and waterfront — Macklin Celebrini and…” Grace checked the clipboard, unaware of the death stare you were giving her. “…Y/N L/N.”

The room erupted into a few teasing whistles. You closed your eyes in frustration. Somewhere across the room, someone muttered, “Good luck to them.”

“Oh, we’re cooked,” Macklin said, off-handedly.

The stupid thing was that his voice still affected you. Three years later and it still slid under your skin instantly, familiar enough to ache. You looked up slowly. Wow… Macklin even had the audacity to grin at you.

“You say that like I’m the problem,” you shot back.

His grin widened immediately. “There she is.”

That was the thing that had always ruined you where he was concerned. Because no matter how angry you were at him, no matter how much history sat jagged and unresolved between you, Macklin always talked to you like you were his favorite conversation.

Three summers ago, you and Macklin had been unbearable together. Everybody at camp knew it. You were attached at the hip from the moment you both got hired at seventeen. Late-night dock talks, shared earbuds during cleanup duty, competitive canoe races that usually ended with one of you shoved into the lake, inside jokes nobody else understood.

You fought constantly, too. About music, about directions, about whether cereal counted as soup.

“You’re genuinely the most irritating person I’ve ever met,” you informed him one July afternoon while you both restocked the arts-and-crafts shed.

Macklin tossed a friendship bracelet string at your forehead.

“And yet,” he said smugly, “you’re obsessed with me.”

You snorted. “In your dreams.”

“Sweetheart, you literally followed me in here.”

“You were carrying the inventory sheet!”

“You could’ve asked nicely,” he pointed out.

“I’d rather die.”

He grinned. “See? Obsessed.”

You threw a glue stick at him and he caught it one-handed without looking. Show-off.

The worst part was how easy it all felt, being around him. Like your brain recalibrated itself every time he walked into a room, everything sharpening as if by magic.

You laughed more around Macklin; you talked louder, you stayed up later. You somehow became someone brighter.

That should’ve scared you more than it did. Somewhere between campfire nights and counselor volleyball games and the way he always saved you the blue Gatorade without asking — you fell in love with him.

“Hey.”

Present day.

You looked up from organizing arrows to find Macklin leaning against the archery shed doorway. You hadn’t found yourself alone with him yet, and it was day three. A personal record, honestly. “What?”

“That’s kind of aggressive,” Macklin whistled lowly, green eyes crinkling.

“You opened with hey.”

“It’s a classic.”

“It’s lazy.”

He laughed softly. There it was again — that horrible flutter low in your stomach. You kept sorting arrows furiously. Macklin watched you for a second before speaking again. “You really almost didn’t come back?”

Your hands paused. Elenie had told people that. Of course she had. “Who told you that?”

“So it’s true.”

You shrugged without looking at him. “I had other options.”

“Right.”

Something in his tone made you glance up. He looked weirdly tense.

“You seem shocked,” you said carefully.

“I just…” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Didn’t think you’d actually stay away forever.”

You let out a quiet laugh. “Macklin, I literally did.”

Silence. Outside, campers screamed somewhere near the lake. A whistle blew in the distance. Macklin looked at you for a long moment. Then, quieter: “Yeah.”

God. That one word held too much.

You hated when he got soft-voiced like this. Hated when the edges disappeared and suddenly you could see every version of him you used to know.

You looked away first. Again.

“You still play guitar?” he asked suddenly.

Your head snapped back toward him. “What?”

“The guitar.” He shrugged lightly. “You used to bring it down to the dock every night.”

The memory hit instantly, pulling you in like Charybdis. Summer air. Lake water. Macklin sitting beside you with his knees pulled up while you played badly butchered versions of old songs. “You remember that?” you asked before you could stop yourself.

Macklin stared at you like the question itself offended him. “Of course I remember.”

Your chest tightened. God, this was dangerous. Dangerous territory. So naturally, you deflected. “You also used to insist you could sing.”

“I can sing.”

“You absolutely cannot.”

“That’s subjective.”

“You got threatened by a camper once,” you reminded him, smothering a laugh that threatened to bubble out.

Macklin waved a hand. “That kid was dramatic.”

“He cried.”

“He cried because I committed emotionally to the performance.”

You laughed before you could stop yourself. Macklin froze, his expression softening for half a second like hearing you laugh again physically affected him.

Which — no. Absolutely not. You cleared your throat immediately. “Don’t read into that.”

“Into what?”

“That laugh.”

“I wasn’t —” he started.

“You were.”

“I literally was not.”

You tilted your head to the side. “You looked smug.”

“I always look smug.”

“That’s true.”

His mouth twitched, the silence settling over you two. Yet it still wasn’t awkward. That was the problem: it never used to be awkward with him. Even now, after everything, being around Macklin still felt horrifyingly natural.

Like muscle memory. Like your heart had never learned the difference between before and after.

“You know,” he said eventually, “I used to think we’d end up married.”

You dropped an entire container of arrows, the clatter echoing through the shed. “What?”

Macklin looked equally startled, like the sentence had betrayed him before he could stop it. “I —”

“You what?”

“I was kidding.”

“You don’t sound like you’re kidding.”

“Well, now I wish I was.”

You stared at each other. The air shifted with the mention of the old thing between you two. That terrifying almost.

Then voices approached outside and the moment shattered instantly. Two campers burst into the shed arguing about sunscreen, and Macklin stepped back automatically. Distance restored, masks back on.

“Saved by the bell,” he muttered.

You bent to pick up arrows before he could see your hands shaking.

The thing nobody understood about what happened between you and Macklin was that technically, nothing happened. Not officially. That was the tragedy of the whole thing, because there was no dramatic breakup, no screaming fight. Just the agony of wrong timing.

You were eighteen years old and terrified and standing on opposite sides of the camp bonfire during the end-of-summer dance while something enormous sat unfinished between you.

You remembered that night too clearly. Macklin beside you on the dock after curfew. Both of you quiet. “You ever think about what’s going to happen after this?” he’d asked suddenly.

“All the time.”

“What if it changes things?”

You looked over. “What changes things?”

His eyes met yours. And there it was. Finally. After an entire summer of almosts. Your pulse thundered. “Mack…”

He looked nervous, something you’d never seen him be around you before. Then voices echoed from the trail behind you, other counselors coming back from the bonfire. Just like that, the moment disappeared. Macklin looked away first. “You know what,” he said lightly, standing up too fast, “never mind.”

You waited for him to try again, but he never did.

A week later, camp ended. You left for college in Boston. He left for California.

Calls turned into texts. Texts turned into silence. Eventually, losing him became one of those griefs you stopped explaining to people because there was nothing to explain.

You weren’t together. So why did it still feel like heartbreak?

“Okay,” Elenie said that night, dramatically dropping onto your bunk, “I need the lore.”

“There’s no lore.”

“There is devastating lore.”

“There’s medium lore at best.”

“You looked at him today like a Victorian widow staring at the sea.”

You buried your face in your pillow. “Oh my God.”

“I’m serious. It was insane,” she presses eagerly.

“We’re just friends.”

“You haven’t spoken in three years.”

“Exactly!”

“That is not helping your case.”

You groaned. Elenie rolled onto her stomach beside you. “So what actually happened?”

The question lodged somewhere deep under your ribs. What happened? Everything. Nothing. “That’s the problem,” you admitted quietly. “Nothing happened.” Elenie frowned as you stared at the wooden ceiling above your bunk. “We were best friends,” you said softly. “And then one day it got weird.”

“Weird how?”

You laughed once without humor. “The kind of weird where everybody else notices before you do.”

Because they had. Camp had noticed long before either of you admitted anything. The lingering looks, the jealousy, the gravitational pull of it all. You remembered one counselor asking if you and Macklin came as a package deal after you’d both shown up late to breakfast carrying iced coffees for each other. You remembered campfire nights where his knee stayed pressed against yours for hours. You remembered the unbearable tenderness of him. The way he’d automatically hand you the marshmallows before taking any for himself, how he knew your moods by the sound of your footsteps, how he looked at you sometimes like he forgot other people existed.

Maybe the cruelest part of all — you genuinely believed there would be time. Time to become whatever it was you were becoming together. But life kept moving anyway.

Suddenly you were nineteen and hurt and too proud to call him first. “You still love him,” Elenie said quietly.

You immediately sat up. “No, I don’t.”

“Girl.”

“I don’t.”

“You looked ready to pass out because he remembered you play guitar,” Elenie grins widely.

“That is not —”

“You’re cooked.”

You flopped backward dramatically. “I hate this place.”

From outside your cabin window came distant laughter from the counselors’ bonfire by the lake. Underneath it all, somewhere in the dark summer night: Macklin’s voice. Still familiar enough to destroy you.

Camp life at Hatchmark operated on a weird kind of time.

Days stretched forever under the heat — sticky sunscreen hands, lake water drying salty on your skin, whistles blowing every fifteen minutes — but somehow weeks vanished overnight. One second it was counselor orientation and the next there were friendship bracelets hanging from every cabin bedpost and campers crying because someone looked at them wrong during capture the flag.

Everything at camp felt heightened. Embarrassment. Joy. Loneliness. Love.

Especially love.

Probably because there was nowhere to hide here. No doors, no privacy, no distance. Only humid summer nights and shared routines and seeing the same people so often they became stitched into your daily existence before you even realized it.

Which explained why Macklin was suddenly everywhere again.

Everywhere.

You’d turn around and there he was, balancing six cafeteria trays because apparently he’d decided nobody else was capable of carrying juice boxes correctly. You’d hear laughter from across camp and instinctively know it was him before you even looked. The worst part? Your body remembered him before your brain did. The definition of muscle memory.

It was ridiculous how your entire nervous system still recognized Macklin Celebrini as home.

“Absolutely not.”

Macklin looked offended. “What do you mean absolutely not?”

“I mean,” you said slowly, “you are not teaching thirteen-year-olds how to flip off the dock.”

“It builds character.”

“It builds concussions.”

The campers sitting around the waterfront laughed immediately. Traitors. Macklin clutched his chest dramatically. “You wound me.”

“You deserve wounds.”

“See, this is why the campers think you’re scary.”

A girl named Emma gasped. “We do not!”

“You told me she stared someone into crying during canoe sign-ups.”

Emma pointed instantly. “That was Dylan’s fault.”

“He called me sweetheart,” you deadpanned.

Macklin burst out laughing so hard he nearly dropped the clipboard he was holding.

“Oh my God,” he wheezed. “You’re terrifying.”

“You knew this already.”

“I forgot how terrifying.”

You rolled your eyes, but your mouth betrayed you by twitching upward. Macklin noticed immediately, honing in on it like a bloodhound. “You smiled,” he said triumphantly.

“I did not.”

“Witnesses,” he informed the campers. “You all saw it.”

A chorus of agreement erupted instantly.

“Et tu, Emma?” you muttered.

She shrugged apologetically. Macklin grinned at you over the campers’ heads, sunlight catching against the lake behind him.

And for one awful second — you forgot. Forgot the years apart, the hurt. Forgot the way losing him had hollowed something out inside you.

Because this was easy.

The version of you that existed around Macklin slipped back into place so naturally it scared you. He looked at you for just a second too long, that unbearable thing settling underneath every interaction now.

Three summers ago, everyone at camp had a theory about you and Macklin. The lifeguards had a betting pool. Grace once banned the phrase sexual tension from counselor meetings because apparently hearing it every time you and Macklin argued was “creating a hostile work environment.”

Even the campers noticed.

“You guys act married,” one twelve-year-old informed you casually while you and Macklin fought over how to properly stack kayaks.

“We are literally not even dating,” you said.

Macklin, without missing a beat: “Yet.”

You dropped your side of the kayak directly onto his foot. He yelped loud enough for birds to scatter from nearby trees. Worth it.

The problem was that Macklin flirted like breathing came naturally to him. Effortlessly, constantly. Sometimes without even realizing it.

He’d sling an arm over your shoulders while talking. Steal bites of your food. Look at you during group conversations like your reactions mattered most. And every single time you started thinking maybe maybe maybe…

He’d act completely normal afterward, as though he didn’t realize what he was doing to you. Like it meant nothing.

That explained why things eventually fell apart.

You couldn’t survive in “almost” forever.

Present day, two weeks into camp, the rain started. Summer storms at Hatchmark were violent, sudden things. One second sunshine. The next, absolute chaos.

Campers shrieked as counselors herded everyone inside activity cabins while thunder cracked overhead. You sprinted across camp carrying three dodgeballs under one arm and a stack of board games under the other. Halfway to the rec hall, someone yelled your name.

You turned just in time for Macklin to appear beside you, equally soaked. “You run like an injured gazelle,” he informed you.

“You look terrible,” you shot back, a weak retort.

“I look heroic.”

“You look humid.”

Thunder cracked again. Macklin laughed. Then his hand wrapped around your wrist automatically as another group of campers sprinted past you through the mud. It was instinctive. Protective. Thoughtless. Your entire body short-circuited. His hand still fit exactly the same. Macklin seemed to realize what he’d done half a second later. His fingers loosened immediately, but not before both of you felt it.

That awful electric jolt. You swallowed hard. “Thanks,” you said quietly.

His eyes flicked to yours. “No problem.”

The rain hammered against the rooftops as you both stood there for one strange suspended second in the middle of camp.

“You’re still doing that thing,” he said suddenly.

“What thing?”

“That wrinkle between your eyebrows when you’re stressed.”

Your stomach dropped. That was such a Macklin thing to notice. Tiny, minute details. Things no one else would remember.

“You remember that?” you asked before you could stop yourself.

He looked confused. “Why wouldn’t I?”

God.

God, you hated him.

That night, the power went out. Camp erupted into chaos instantly. Campers screamed excitedly. Flashlights appeared everywhere. Someone started singing horribly from Cabin Six. You sat cross-legged in the dining hall helping kids make shadow puppets with lantern light while rain battered the windows.

Macklin dropped into the seat beside you carrying two mugs of hot chocolate. Your favorite, with extra marshmallows. You stared at the cup. “You remembered.”

Macklin looked down like he hadn’t even realized what he’d done. “Right,” he said softly. He remembered everything about you, which used to be your favorite thing in the world.

Now it just hurt.

The campers eventually got shuffled back to cabins once the storm calmed, leaving the dining hall mostly empty except for a few counselors cleaning up. You and Macklin stayed seated beside each other on top of one cafeteria table, lantern light flickering gold across the room. Comfortable silence settled between you, the kind that only exists between people who once knew each other too well.

“You know what I thought about a lot?” Macklin said suddenly.

A dangerous sentence.

“What?”

“The last night.”

Your grip tightened around the mug instantly. “Mack —”

“No, seriously.” His gaze stayed fixed ahead. “I think about it all the time.” Rain tapped softly against the windows now, dotting the silence between you two. “We were idiots,” he said quietly.

You laughed once under your breath. “True.”

“I kept waiting for you to say something.”

Your head snapped toward him. “What?”

Now he looked at you too. Eyes dark in the dim light. “I thought you didn’t want me like that,” he admitted.

Your stomach dropped so violently it almost hurt. “Macklin —”

“You never said anything.”

“Neither did you!”

“I tried.”

“When?”

“That night on the dock!”

You stared at him in disbelief.

“That was you trying?”

“Yes!” he exclaims.

“You said what if things change and then immediately left!”

“Because you looked terrified!”

“I was terrified!”

“Well, that’s not exactly encouraging!”

“Oh my God.”

Macklin ran a hand through his hair, laughing in genuine disbelief now. “We’re actually stupid.”

“You think?”

Three years.

Three entire years wasted because both of you were apparently emotionally constipated teenagers. You should’ve been angry. Instead, something sadder settled inside you. This revelation changed nothing.

You still left. He still let you.

Macklin said quietly: “I wrote you a letter once.”

Your breath caught. “What?”

“In college.” His gaze dropped to the mug in his hands. “Sophomore year.”

The room suddenly felt too small. “What did it say?”

He smiled faintly. “Not telling you.”

“Macklin,” you chastised him.

“Nope.”

“You brought it up!”

“I know.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Why would you say that and not elaborate?”

“Because watching you get annoyed is one of my favorite hobbies.”

You stared at him. He stared back. And there it was again, that unbearable gravity between you.

“You really broke my heart, you know,” he said quietly.

Every part of you went still. You opened your mouth. Closed it again. Because what could you even say to that?

Sorry?

You too?

I never figured out how to stop loving you either?

The lantern flickered between you. Outside, rainwater dripped steadily from the cabin roofs. Macklin looked at you for one long, impossible second. Then someone burst into the dining hall yelling about a flooded cabin bathroom, and the moment shattered before either of you could move.

Macklin stood immediately, rubbing a hand over his face. “Duty calls.”

You nodded numbly. He took two steps away, then stopped, turned back. And with that stupid soft look in his eyes that had ruined your life since you were seventeen, he said: “You know what the worst part is?”

Your throat tightened. “Hmm?”

Macklin smiled sadly. “Every girl I dated after you felt temporary.”

The next morning, camp woke up smelling like wet pine and mud.

Rainwater still clung to the rooftops of the cabins, dripping steadily into puddles that reflected the pale gold of sunrise, and the entire grounds felt softer somehow, quieter after the storm. Campers dragged themselves sleepily toward breakfast wrapped in oversized hoodies, counselors carried industrial coffee thermoses like lifelines, and somewhere near the arts-and-crafts shed someone was already arguing about whose turn it was to clean the llama pen.

You stood outside the dining hall tying your damp hair into a braid, trying very hard not to think about the conversation from the night before. Which, naturally, meant you thought about nothing else.

Every sentence replayed on a loop in your head. The last night. I thought you didn’t want me like that. You really broke my heart, you know.

And worst of all:

Every girl I dated after you felt temporary.

You had barely slept. Every time you closed your eyes, you saw the way Macklin had looked sitting across from you in lantern light — softer than you remembered, older somehow, but still painfully familiar. Like no matter how much time had passed, some part of him had stayed suspended back here at camp, waiting for a conversation the two of you never finished.

“You look petrified,” Elenie informed you, appearing beside you with a plate stacked aggressively high with pancakes.

“I am petrified.”

“That bad?”

You gave her a flat look.

She gasped dramatically. “Oh my God. Did you kiss?”

“No.”

“Did you almost kiss?”

“No,” you repeated.

“Did he confess his undying love?”

You hesitated just long enough for Elenie to lose her mind. “No way.”

“He did not,” you hissed. “Jesus Christ.”

“You hesitated!”

“That’s because I’m sleep deprived!”

Elenie narrowed her eyes knowingly. “That man said something devastating to you, didn’t he?”

Before you could answer, a familiar voice cut in behind you. “She always looks this miserable before coffee.”

You froze.

Macklin stepped around you casually, reaching for a stack of trays by the dining hall entrance like he hadn’t just detonated your emotional stability twelve hours earlier. His hair was still damp from a shower, the sleeves of his camp hoodie shoved up to his elbows, and there was something deeply unfair about the fact that he looked that good at eight in the morning while you felt like you’d been psychologically mauled by a bear. Elenie’s eyes widened with undisguised fascination. “Oh,” she said slowly. “Now I get it.”

You wanted the earth to open beneath you.

Macklin glanced between the two of you. “Should I be concerned?”

“Yes,” you said immediately.

“No,” Elenie said at the same time.

He grinned. That stupid grin had not gotten any easier to survive with age.

“You coming?” he asked you, nodding toward the dining hall. “Grace said we need to finalize waterfront teams before lunch.”

You stared at him for a second, suspicious of how normal he sounded. How easy. Like he hadn’t looked at you the night before and admitted you’d broken his heart. Then again, maybe this was how he coped with things. By smoothing them over into something manageable before they could become too real.

You remembered that about him too. Macklin hated vulnerability once it sat exposed for too long. He’d give you one honest moment and then immediately bury it under jokes before it could fully cut him open. The problem was that you understood him too well to let it fool you. “Sure,” you said quietly.

For half a second, something unreadable flickered across his face. Relief, maybe. Then it disappeared beneath his usual teasing expression. “Awesome. Try not to terrify any children before noon.”

“No promises.”

“That’s my girl —” He stopped instantly. The words hung in the air between you, your stomach dropping. Macklin’s expression changed almost imperceptibly, like he hadn’t even realized he’d said it until it was already too late to take back.

Elenie made a choking noise beside you. With the composure of someone actively being hunted for sport, Macklin cleared his throat and walked directly into the dining hall without another word.

Elenie slowly turned toward you. “Oh, you are both unbelievably down bad.”

You grabbed a pancake off her plate and walked away before she could say anything else.

Camp in late June was organized chaos. Every hour brought some new emergency: homesick campers, overturned canoes, mystery rashes, missing flashlights, a deeply concerning amount of glitter in places glitter should never exist. The days blurred together in sunburnt fragments, and before long, you slipped back into the rhythm of camp life so naturally it almost frightened you.

Wake up at seven. Breakfast duty. Waterfront rotation. Archery after lunch. Evening activities. Campfire. Lights out. Repeat.

Threaded through every second of it was Macklin. Always Macklin. He’d automatically handed you the blue Powerade during counselor breaks because he remembered it was your favorite. He’d saved you a seat during movie night without asking. His eyes found you instinctively in crowded spaces, like checking you were still there had become unconscious.

It would’ve been easier if he’d changed completely. Easier if the years apart had made him feel like someone you used to know instead of someone your heart still recognized instantly.

Instead, every day around him became its own kind of torture. You kept catching glimpses of the boy you fell in love with buried inside the man standing in front of you now. Worse than that — he kept catching glimpses of the girl he loved too.

You noticed it most at night. Camp nights had always belonged to the counselors. Once the campers were asleep, the entire grounds transformed. Flashlights bobbed through dark trails, music drifted softly from cabin porches, and everyone gathered by the lake like gravity pulled them there.

That had been your favorite part of camp once. Back when things with Macklin were still easy, before every glance between you carried years of unfinished history underneath it.

Tonight, the counselors sat scattered across the dock wrapped in hoodies and blankets while someone strummed badly on a guitar near the firepit. Elenie was in the middle of dramatically recounting how a camper tried to convince her that raccoons could understand English when laughter suddenly erupted beside you.

You looked over instinctively. Macklin sat at the edge of the dock with his feet dangling over the water, head tipped back as he laughed at something one of the lifeguards said. The firelight caught warm against his face, softening the sharpness of his features, and for one dangerous moment you forgot to breathe.

You knew that laugh. You knew the shape of his smile before it happened. You knew the exact way his shoulders shook when he laughed hard enough to lose composure.

You knew him. Even now. Your heart had preserved every version of him carefully over the years, terrified of losing the details.

“You’re staring,” Elenie whispered, cutting off the end of her story.

You nearly jumped. “I am literally not.”

“You look one second away from writing poetry.”

“I hate you.”

She snorted and nudged your shoulder. “Just talk to him.”

“We do talk.”

“No, you banter. There’s a difference.”

You looked back toward the lake. Macklin had gone quieter now, gaze drifting absentmindedly across the water. Then, almost like he felt you looking, his eyes lifted and landed directly on yours.

The world narrowed instantly. Neither of you looked away this time. The noise around the dock faded into background static. Campfire smoke curled through the summer air between you. Somewhere behind you, counselors were still laughing, someone was singing off-key, but all you could focus on was the expression slowly changing on Macklin’s face.

Not teasing, but soft. Achingly soft.

He looked like he was remembering something too.

One of the younger counselors flopped dramatically into his side, breaking the moment apart. Macklin blinked, looked away, and whatever had existed between you dissolved back into the night air before either of you could touch it.

You hated how often that happened. How every important moment between you seemed destined to remain unfinished.

Three summers ago, you and Macklin used to disappear during campfires. It just sort of happened. One minute you’d both be sitting with everyone else around the firepit, and the next you’d drift toward the docks together without discussing it, drawn away by the quiet and the lake water and the comfort of being alone with each other.

Those nights had ruined you more than anything else.

You remembered one night especially clearly. Late July. The air still warm enough that your legs dangled bare off the edge of the dock while Macklin lay beside you staring at the stars overhead. “You know what scares me?” he asked suddenly.

You turned your head toward him. “Besides spiders and emotional vulnerability?”

“I’m serious.”

“That was serious,” you said through a smothered laugh.

“Leaving here.”

Something in his tone made your chest tighten. “Why?”

“Because this doesn’t feel real.”

The lake rippled quietly beneath the dock. “What doesn’t?”

“This.” He gestured vaguely between the two of you. “Camp. You. Everything.”

Your pulse stumbled. “Mack…”

“I mean it.” He finally looked over at you then, eyes dark in the moonlight. “I think eventually we’re gonna leave this place and pretend none of this mattered as much as it did.”

You couldn’t breathe properly. He sounded sad, and also because some terrifying part of you knew he was right. “You think that’s what’ll happen?” you asked quietly.

Macklin stared at you for a long moment before answering. “No,” he admitted softly. “I think you’re gonna matter to me for a really long time.”

You had almost kissed him that night.

You remembered leaning toward each other slowly, nervously, like neither of you quite knew how to survive the tenderness of it. You remembered his eyes flicking down to your mouth. Remembered your heart beating so hard it physically hurt.

Then someone yelled your names from across camp and the moment shattered before it could become real.

Story of your lives.

Even now, years later, you still thought about how close he’d been. How warm his hand had looked resting beside yours on the dock wood. How badly you wanted him to kiss you first because you were terrified of what it would mean if he didn’t.

By July, summer had settled over Camp Hatchmark like a living thing.

The days turned syrupy, stretching lazily beneath cloudless skies while cicadas screamed from the trees loud enough to drown out conversation. Sunscreen and bug spray became permanent parts of your bloodstream. Every surface carried a thin layer of lake water or dirt or melted popsicle stickiness, and the campers moved through the grounds sunburnt and feral in packs, shrieking across fields with friendship bracelets tangled up their wrists.

Everything smelled like pine sap and smoke and chlorine. The perfect reflection of your childhood. This was the kind of summer people spent the rest of their lives trying to recreate.

Maybe that was the problem.

Camp made everything feel bigger than it was. Every feeling intensified here until it became impossible to ignore. Crushes became obsessions. Friendships became soul-deep attachments. Two months felt long enough to fall hopelessly in love.

You used to think that was because camp existed outside real life somehow, tucked away from the world in its own strange little universe where emotions didn’t know how to behave normally. Now you thought maybe camp just stripped people down to the versions of themselves they usually kept hidden.

And unfortunately for you, the version of yourself that existed at Camp Hatchmark had always belonged a little too much to Macklin Celebrini.

The realization settled slowly over the course of the summer, in tiny devastating details that accumulated until they became impossible to ignore.

One such example was the fact that every morning, no matter where you sat during breakfast, Macklin eventually ended up across from you somehow. Or, how he unconsciously matched your pace whenever you walked together between activities, his shoulder brushing yours every few steps like he physically couldn’t help drifting closer.

And the most suffocating part? It was still so easy, like sinking into warm lake water after a long day in the heat — familiar and dangerous and impossible not to crave.

It scared you sometimes, how little time seemed to matter where he was concerned. Three years apart should’ve changed more than this.

Instead, it felt like your friendship had simply been paused somewhere in the middle of a sentence.

“You’re cheating.”

Macklin looked up from the friendship bracelet currently looped around his fingers. “I’m literally not.”

“You absolutely are.”

The arts-and-crafts cabin buzzed with chaos around you as campers aggressively traded embroidery floss colors and argued over bead letters. Outside, the evening sun cast long golden streaks through the windows, painting everything amber and soft.

Macklin held up the bracelet defensively. “This knot is regulation.”

“There are no regulations.”

“Exactly. Which means I can innovate.”

“You’re making that up.”

He grinned lazily. “You have no proof.”

You rolled your eyes and reached across the table to fix the knot before he could ruin the entire bracelet pattern. The second your fingers brushed his, both of you stilled instinctively. Macklin’s expression shifted for half a heartbeat before smoothing itself back into something teasing.

“You still do that,” he said quietly.

You frowned. “Do what?”

“Fix things for me before I ask.”

You looked down quickly, focusing too hard on the bracelet string between your fingers. “Well,” you muttered, “you’re incapable of basic survival skills.”

“True.”

Your shoulders bumped lightly as he leaned closer to see what you were doing, and God, that shouldn’t have affected you as much as it did. It was barely anything. Just warmth against your arm. Just his voice low beside your ear while campers yelled around you. But camp had always made you hyperaware of him physically.

Long days together had a way of dissolving personal space until every accidental touch started meaning too much.

Especially because Macklin touched you constantly back then.

Always casually, naturally. A hand on your back guiding you through crowded dining halls. Fingers hooking briefly around your wrist to get your attention. Knees pressed together during campfire nights because neither of you bothered moving apart.

You could’ve survived it if he touched everyone that way, but he didn’t. You noticed that even at seventeen.

Macklin was warm with everybody, yes. Easygoing. Friendly. With you, though, there was always this extra layer underneath everything. Something softer, more attentive.

His attention settled differently on you than it did everyone else. At the time, you convinced yourself you imagined it. Now, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the arts-and-crafts cabin while sunset light spilled across the floorboards, you weren’t so sure anymore.

“Okay,” one of the campers interrupted dramatically, pointing between you both. “I have a question.”

You immediately narrowed your eyes. “That expression concerns me.”

“Were you guys dating before this?”

The entire table went silent instantly. You choked on absolutely nothing. Macklin nearly dropped the bracelet. “No,” you both said at the exact same time.

The camper blinked. “Really?”

“Yes,” you said.

“No,” Macklin said simultaneously.

You turned toward him slowly.

He looked equally betrayed. “You just said no!”

“You said yes!” you groaned loudly.

“I meant yes really!”

“Oh.”

The campers erupted into laughter. You buried your face in your hands. Macklin looked delighted now, which was deeply irritating considering he’d caused this. “You know,” he informed the campers smugly, “she used to threaten me with bodily harm at least twice a day.”

“Used to?” you shot back.

“Aw,” one of the girls sighed dramatically. “You guys are so cute.”

The entire cabin lost their minds. Macklin laughed so hard he folded forward against the table, and against your own will, you started laughing too. Real laughing.

The kind that made your stomach hurt.

For one terrifying second, it felt exactly like before.

That night was movie night for the younger campers, which meant every counselor got trapped in the rec hall watching an aggressively low-budget animated film while children hurled popcorn at each other like wild animals. You sat cross-legged on the floor near the back wall helping a homesick camper braid friendship bracelets while the movie played loudly overhead. Around you, sleeping bags and blankets covered the rec hall floor in messy rows, lantern light flickering softly against the wooden beams overhead.

Outside the windows, summer dusk deepened slowly over camp. You always forgot how beautiful Hatchmark looked at night. The lake turned silver beneath the moonlight. Fireflies blinked lazily through the trees. Music drifted faintly from older campers gathered around distant firepits while counselors carried flashlights between cabins like moving stars.

It felt suspended from reality somehow. The rest of the world ceased existing beyond the camp gates.

That must have been why losing Macklin had hurt so badly in the first place. Camp had never belonged entirely to you after him. Too much of this place carried his fingerprints.

“Hey.” You looked up. Macklin stood over you holding two juice pouches. You stared at them suspiciously. “Where did you get those?”

“I have connections.”

“You robbed a child.”

“That child was weak.” You accepted the juice pouch anyway.

Macklin sat beside you carefully, shoulder pressing against yours as he stretched his legs out across the floor. Neither of you moved apart. Onscreen, cartoon characters screamed through some sort of musical number while campers giggled around the room.

“You remember color war?” Macklin asked suddenly.

You groaned instantly. “Don’t.”

His grin widened. “You cried.”

“I did not cry.”

He nudged your shoulder. “You absolutely cried.”

“Because you cheated!”

“I strategized.”

“You bribed twelve-year-olds!”

“They were highly motivated.”

You laughed despite yourself, shaking your head. Color war had been infamous your second summer at camp. Counselors got divided into teams with campers for an entire week of competitions, and somehow you and Macklin ended up rival captains. It escalated immediately.

By day three, you’d both stopped speaking to each other entirely except through increasingly hostile sabotage attempts.

Macklin stole your team banner. You replaced all his cabin decorations with cutouts of Nicolas Cage. He retaliated by convincing your campers to perform an original diss track about you during talent night. You nearly drowned him in the lake afterward.

“You were unbearable,” you informed him now.

“You were obsessed with beating me.”

“You started it,” you said as you rolled your eyes.

“You loved it.”

You opened your mouth to argue. Then stopped. Damn, he was right.

You had loved it.

You had loved every second around him back then, even the fighting. Especially the fighting. Everything felt brighter around Macklin somehow, louder and sharper and more alive. He looked at you then like he was remembering the same thing.

The air between you shifted again. It happened so easily now. One second joking. The next — that. That impossible tension stretching quietly between you like a pulled thread.

Macklin’s gaze flicked briefly down toward your mouth before catching himself. Your pulse stumbled hard against your ribs. Around you, campers continued watching the movie completely oblivious while your entire nervous system betrayed you spectacularly. The homesick camper beside you fell asleep against your shoulder, breaking the moment before it could become something else. Macklin blinked first and leaned back against the wall with a quiet exhale. “Close one,” he muttered.

You stared at him. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.”

“That absolutely sounded like something.”

He looked suspiciously amused now. “You’re blushing.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

The awful thing was, he said it so confidently. Like he already knew, some part of him had always known how magnetic he was.

Color war started the next morning. Not gently, either.

You woke up at six-thirty to airhorns blaring outside your cabin and someone screaming, “WAKE UP LOSERS, IT’S WAR,” at a volume that should’ve violated several federal laws. Campers exploded out of cabins in mismatched pajamas and face paint while counselors sprinted through the grounds carrying team flags like medieval soldiers charging into battle.

Camp Hatchmark took color war disgustingly seriously.

It lasted four days every July and turned the entire camp into absolute chaos. Teams were divided by color — red, blue, green, yellow — and every activity became competitive. Canoe races, relay games, scavenger hunts, talent shows, water balloon ambushes. There were no rules anymore. Only violence and seventeen-year-olds on power trips. And somehow, despite the fact that the universe clearly hated you personally, Grace assigned you and Macklin Celebrini as co-captains for Team Blue.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” you said flatly.

Grace smiled serenely over her clipboard. “I think this is a wonderful opportunity for growth.”

Macklin snorted beside you. “Translation: she thinks we’re entertaining.”

“She’s not wrong,” Elenie whispered.

The campers, unfortunately, were thrilled. “We’re gonna dominate!” one of the boys yelled.

“That’s because I’m here,” Macklin informed them confidently.

You crossed your arms. “Interesting. I don’t remember asking for input from the weak link.”

The campers gasped dramatically. Macklin looked genuinely offended. “Weak link?”

“You once lost capture the flag to a twelve-year-old named Ethan.”

“He cheated.”

“He was nine.”

“He lacked honor.” The campers erupted into laughter again while Macklin pointed accusingly at you like this was somehow your fault.

God.

This was terrible. Not the fighting itself. The ease of it. The way you and Macklin slipped into old rhythms so naturally that sometimes you forgot there were years between then and now. Around him, you became seventeen again without meaning to. Sharper. Lighter. More alive somehow.

He seemed to feel it too. You recognized it in the way his eyes lingered on you now. Every day, this summer was peeling back another layer of restraint he’d spent years building.

Color war transformed camp into something feverish.

Everything became louder. Brighter. Messier.

The campers ran around with painted faces and glitter in their hair, screaming team chants across the lake while counselors staged elaborate sabotage attempts under the cover of darkness. Every cabin dripped with handmade banners and streamers. Music blasted from portable speakers all day long. The dining hall became a battlefield of flying mashed potatoes and aggressive spirit.

The days baked hot enough that the docks burned bare feet by noon, and every afternoon ended with counselors shoving laughing campers fully clothed into the lake just to cool off. Evenings smelled like citronella candles and bonfire smoke while fireflies blinked lazily through the trees. It should’ve been impossible to feel sad in a place like this.

Somehow, the happier the camp became around you, the more fragile something inside you started to feel. Every good moment with Macklin carried grief underneath it: grief for what you almost had, for the terrifying possibility that maybe you’d found the right person at the exact wrong stage of your lives.

You tried not to think about it.

The talent show rehearsal devolved into disaster almost immediately. “Absolutely not,” you said, staring at Macklin in horror.

He clutched the microphone dramatically. “The campers love my musical performances.”

“The campers also eat glue.”

“That feels unrelated.”

“You cannot perform Pony by Ginuwine with Will again.”

“First of all,” he said defensively, “it’s a classic.”

“You got booed offstage.”

“They lacked artistic vision.”

“You forgot the lyrics halfway through.”

“I was improvising emotionally.”

You rubbed your temples while campers dissolved into hysterics around you. The rec hall buzzed with pre-show chaos: counselors hanging decorations from the rafters, kids practicing dance routines in corners, someone aggressively hot-gluing sequins onto a team banner while Taylor Swift blasted through the speakers. Macklin hopped onto the edge of the stage beside you, bumping your shoulder with his. “You wound me,” he informed you solemnly.

“I’m trying to protect innocent civilians.”

“You used to support my dreams.”

You rubbed a spot on your temples. “I used to be naive.”

He laughed softly under his breath, looking down at you with that stupid warm expression again. The noise in the rec hall blurred around the edges suddenly.

You became hyperaware of how close he was sitting. The heat radiating from his arm against yours. The way his knee brushed yours every few seconds because neither of you moved away.

“Mack!”

A camper sprinted toward the stage breathlessly. “The green team stole our mascot!”

Macklin jumped up immediately. “Those little cowards.”

“You’re thirty percent responsible for escalating this,” you called after him.

He pointed at you while backing toward the door. “That’s a slanderous accusation.” Then, before you could argue with him, he vanished into the chaos outside with half the campers following him like loyal soldiers.

You watched him go longer than necessary. Elenie appeared beside you carrying poster paint. “You know,” she said casually, “I genuinely think that man would survive being shot as long as you looked impressed afterward.”

You nearly inhaled your own saliva. “What does that even mean?”

“It means he’s in love with you.”

You choked out a laugh. “No, he’s not.”

Elenie gave you a look. “Girl.”

You turned away before she could see your expression.

That night, the camp hosted its annual Fourth of July celebration. By sunset, the entire grounds glowed. String lights hung between trees around the lake, flickering against the darkening sky while campers ran barefoot through the grass waving sparklers dangerously close to each other’s faces. Music drifted from the dining hall patio. Someone burned hot dogs. The younger campers sat cross-legged on picnic blankets with red-white-and-blue face paint smeared across their cheeks. Everything looked soft and cinematic in the warm summer dusk.

A memory while it was still happening.

You stood near the waterfront helping set up lanterns along the dock when footsteps creaked against the wood behind you. “You missed one.”

You turned. Macklin held up an unlit lantern with a smug expression. “Oh no,” you deadpanned. “My greatest shame.”

“I knew you’d take it hard.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“And yet,” he crowed, stepping beside you at the edge of the dock, shoulders brushing lightly together while both of you stared out across the lake. The water reflected the string lights in shimmering streaks. Somewhere behind you, campers screamed excitedly as fireworks started getting set up near the far field.

For a while, neither of you spoke. It wasn’t awkward. That was the problem with Macklin: silence with him had always felt full instead of empty. He said quietly, “You remember our last Fourth of July here?”

Just like that, your stomach dropped. Of course you remembered.

God, you remembered everything.

Three summers ago, the fireworks show had ended with you and Macklin alone on the dock after everyone else wandered back toward the cabins. The air smelled like smoke afterward, thick with burned fireworks and lake water and summer heat. You remembered sitting shoulder-to-shoulder beneath the stars while distant laughter echoed across camp. Macklin had looked unusually quiet that night.

“What?” you’d asked eventually.

He shrugged without looking at you. “Nothing.”

“You’re doing the thing.”

“What thing?”

“The emotionally constipated thing where you pretend you’re fine while visibly having a crisis.”

He laughed softly at that.

Then he looked over at you. Terrifyingly open. “You ever think about how temporary this is?” he asked.

Your heart skipped a beat immediately. “All the time.”

He nodded slowly, gaze drifting back toward the lake. “I think that’s why I like being around you so much.”

Your pulse stumbled. “Mack…”

“Because when I’m with you,” he admitted quietly, “it doesn’t feel temporary anymore.”

You could still remember exactly how you felt in that moment. You’d wanted to kiss him so badly it physically hurt. Instead, you sat there frozen beside him because you were seventeen and terrified and convinced one wrong move would ruin everything between you forever.

The irony of that still made you sick sometimes, since you ruined each other anyway.

Present day. Fireworks exploding overhead in violent bursts of gold and blue, illuminating the lake beneath flashes of color. Campers screamed excitedly around the shoreline. You stood frozen beside Macklin on the dock, the memory still lodged painfully in your throat. “You remember that night?” you asked quietly.

Macklin looked at you instead of the fireworks. “Yeah,” he said softly. “I remember all of it.”

The fireworks reflected in his eyes. Your heartbeat felt uneven suddenly. Around you, camp erupted into cheers as another burst lit up the sky, but the world had narrowed again somehow, shrinking down to just this dock and the unbearable way Macklin was looking at you now.

There were still words sitting unsaid between you after all these years, and he was tired of swallowing them. “Mack —”

A firework exploded suddenly overhead so loud it startled you both. Instinctively, your hand grabbed his arm. Everything stopped: not the fireworks, just you two. His arm flexed automatically beneath your fingers and Macklin looked down at your hand gripping him like it meant something.

Slowly, he dragged his gaze back to yours. The fireworks painted shifting colors across his face. Gold. Red. Blue.

Your pulse thundered violently.

Neither of you moved. Neither of you let go.

For one terrifying suspended second, you thought he might finally kiss you.

Apparently the universe had decided long ago that the two of you were only allowed moments right up until the point they became real. The second stretched painfully between you on the dock, your hand still wrapped around his arm while fireworks burst overhead in blinding flashes of color. His eyes dropped briefly to your mouth again — unmistakably this time — and your entire body went warm with anticipation so sharp it almost hurt. Then… a camper somewhere behind you screamed, “THE SPARKLERS ARE ON FIRE,” and the moment shattered instantly into chaos.

Macklin blinked hard, stepping back automatically while three counselors sprinted across the field yelling conflicting instructions. You dropped your hand like you’d touched something dangerous. Reality rushed back all at once. The noise, the fireworks, the screaming campers.

“False alarm!” someone yelled eventually. “False alarm! They were supposed to be on fire!”

The camp erupted into relieved laughter. Beside you, Macklin rubbed a hand over his face slowly like he was trying to collect himself. You looked out across the lake instead because if you met his green eyes again right now, you thought you might actually combust.

The fireworks continued overhead in brilliant violent bursts, illuminating the water silver-blue beneath the summer sky. Campers sprawled across blankets near the shore while music drifted faintly from the dining hall patio. The entire night felt cinematic in that particular way camp nights always did — like something fleeting and magical happening too fast for you to hold onto properly.

Maybe that was why this hurt so much. Camp had always been a place of almosts for you and Macklin. Almost kissing, almost confessing, almost becoming something real. Somehow those unfinished moments haunted you worse than actual heartbreak ever could.

“You know what’s evil?” Macklin said suddenly beside you.

Your throat felt too tight. “What?”

“The timing of that.”

You let out a startled laugh before you could stop yourself. Macklin looked over at you then, smiling helplessly now, and the expression on his face made your chest ache. He looked wrecked too, like he was barely surviving this summer either. “That might actually be the most camp thing that’s ever happened to us,” you admitted.

“Seriously.” He laughed softly, shaking his head. “If we ever get married, I’m blaming those sparklers during the vows.”

Your stomach dropped so fast it felt like a cannonball had sunk to your feet. Macklin seemed to realize what he’d said at the exact same moment. His expression glitched in panic. “Well,” he said hoarsely, “that slipped out.”

You should say something funny. Deflect. Tease him. Do literally anything except stand there feeling your heart crack wide open. Rather, quietly: “You think about that?”

Macklin went completely still beside you. The fireworks overhead suddenly sounded very far away. When he looked back at you, tearing his eyes away from the lake, there was no teasing left in his expression at all.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I used to.”

Used to.

The word lodged somewhere painful beneath your ribs. Used to implied past tense.

Used to implied he stopped.

Perhaps he saw the hurt flicker across your face, because his own expression shifted instantly afterward — regretful, conflicted, almost frustrated with himself. “That came out wrong,” he said quickly.

You pushed him away before he could continue. “No, it’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

Another firework exploded overhead in shimmering colors. Around you, the camp cheered. Macklin stepped closer again carefully, like approaching something fragile. “You know what I meant.”

Unfortunately, you did. You understood him too well. He meant there was a point in his life where imagining a future with you had felt natural. Easy. Certain, even. What hurt wasn’t that he used to think about it, but it was realizing you never stopped.

You swallowed hard. “We should probably go help before the kids accidentally burn down the entire forest,” you said quietly.

Macklin looked like he wanted to say something else. After a long pause: “Yeah.”

The walk back across camp felt strange, the thing between you two shifting and evolving again and again with no true definition. The grass was cool beneath your sandals as you crossed the field together, fireflies blinking lazily around the cabins while campers darted through the dark carrying glowsticks and melted popsicles. Somewhere near the rec hall, older counselors had started singing loudly and badly to early 2010s songs while Grace pretended not to notice.

“Mack!” one of the campers yelled suddenly from the volleyball court. “We need another player!”

“You’re doomed,” Macklin informed them immediately. “I’m incredibly competitive.”

“You lost to a sixth grader at Gaga ball yesterday,” you reminded him.

“That child was bloodthirsty.”

He pointed at you while backing toward the court. “This isn’t over.”

You crossed your arms. “What isn’t?”

Macklin opened his mouth. For one brief second, something vulnerable flashed across his face before the usual grin slid back into place.

“You know,” he said lightly.

And then he jogged away before you could answer. Coward.

Your heart followed him anyway.

The next few days became unbearable in the way only summer camp could make things unbearable.

Color war escalated into complete anarchy. Campers launched surprise water balloon attacks from cabin rooftops. Team chants echoed constantly across the lake. Someone stole the opposing team’s mascot costume and held it hostage inside a canoe for six hours.

Through all of it, you and Macklin moved around each other with this growing, crackling awareness that made every interaction feel dangerous.

Neither of you had said the actual words yet. But you knew.

You knew because of the way his eyes lingered on you when he thought you weren’t looking. Because of how quiet he got whenever conversations drifted toward relationships or the future. Every joke between you suddenly carried this aching undercurrent of truth beneath it.

You started remembering things differently too.

Moments from years ago rearranged themselves in your mind under this new understanding, becoming almost unbearable in hindsight. Such as the summer Macklin taught you how to drive the camp boat even though junior counselors technically weren’t allowed to use it unsupervised. You remembered sitting beside him at sunset while he explained steering with one hand resting lightly over yours on the wheel.

“You’re overcorrecting,” he laughed.

“You’re distracting me.”

“How?”

“You keep looking at me.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

At the time, you thought it was flirting. Now you realized it was probably worse than flirting.

Or the memory of finding him asleep on the dock one afternoon after activity rotations ended early. You’d sat beside him quietly, watching lake sunlight flicker across his face while his head rested against your shoulder even in sleep, trusting and automatic.

You remembered thinking then, with terrifying clarity:

Oh.

Oh, I’m in love with him.

Some horrible, miserable part of you had always known he felt it too.

You were just both too young and too afraid to survive it properly.

Two nights later, the counselors organized a midnight capture-the-flag game for the older campers. Which was how you ended up sprinting through the woods at eleven-thirty at night with a flashlight in one hand and your team bandana tied around your wrist. The summer air felt thick and electric after sunset, buzzing with cicadas and distant laughter while flashlights darted between trees like fireflies. Campers shrieked somewhere near the soccer field. Someone had already fallen into the creek.

Typical.

You crouched behind one of the cabins trying to strategize with your team when suddenly a hand grabbed your wrist and yanked you backward into the shadows. You nearly screamed. “Macklin,” you hissed as he clamped a hand over your mouth.

“Shh.” His chest was pressed against your back to keep both of you hidden behind the cabin wall, and every functioning thought immediately evacuated your brain.

You could feel his heartbeat. Or maybe it was yours. “Mack,” you whispered once he moved his hand, “what the hell?”

He peeked around the corner dramatically. “Your campers are terrifying.”

“That’s because they learned from me.”

“I know. That’s why I’m afraid.”

You tried to focus on literally anything except the fact that his arm was still around your waist. The woods glowed dimly under flashlight beams and moonlight, shadows shifting through the trees while campers ran past screaming about stolen flags. “This feels unethical,” you muttered.

“You’re enjoying this.”

“I’m considering murder actually.”

Macklin laughed softly right beside your ear, and the sound slid down your spine like warm water.

This was getting bad.

It never just been attraction with you and Macklin. It was intimacy. The horrifying, effortless intimacy of him. He occupied your space like he belonged there, and being close to him still felt natural enough to ruin you.

Voices approached nearby. Instinctively, Macklin pulled you both farther behind the cabin.

Closer. Much closer.

Your back hit the wooden siding lightly as he steadied himself with one hand beside your head. And there it was again, that terrifying suspended almost.

The shouting campers faded into background noise as your eyes lifted to his automatically.

Macklin’s gaze flicked downward slowly. Your pulse became catastrophic. And this time — this time he didn’t look away.

The world narrowed down to fragments.

Moonlight through the trees, the rough wood of the cabin pressing cool against your back. The distant sounds of campers screaming somewhere across the field about a stolen flag.

And Macklin, so close you could feel the warmth radiating off him despite the cool night air, one hand braced beside your head while the other still rested unconsciously against your waist like he hadn’t realized he was touching you there at all.

Neither of you were pretending anymore.

“Mack,” you whispered, though you weren’t even sure what you meant by it. A warning. A plea. His name had always sounded different in your mouth when you were alone with him.

His eyes lifted back to yours slowly.

You watched his throat move as he swallowed. Then, very faintly, he murmured: “You have got to stop looking at me like that.”

Your heart nearly stuttered out. “How am I looking at you?”

“Like…” He exhaled shakily, almost laughing at himself. “Like you’re about to ruin my life.”

You could see it on his face now too — the realization that this thing between you had grown too big to joke around anymore. Too real. Every almost-moment this summer had been stacking on top of each other until neither of you could breathe properly around the weight of it.

“Macklin —”

All of a sudden, a flashlight beam swept across the cabin wall. “There they are!” someone yelled. The pent-up moment shattered instantly.

Macklin swore under his breath and grabbed your hand before you could react, dragging you around the side of the cabin as campers charged toward you through the trees. “Traitor!” you yelled breathlessly while running after him.

“You love me.”

“I literally hope you lose.”

“See? Mixed messages.”

Your hand stayed in his anyway. Warm and tight and familiar. You sprinted through the woods together laughing despite yourselves while flashlights bounced wildly around the trees behind you. The entire camp had dissolved into chaos now — campers diving behind picnic tables, counselors dramatically sacrificing themselves for team victories, someone blowing a whistle way too aggressively near the lake.

Summer camp at midnight always felt a little unreal.

Like freedom. Macklin finally ducked behind the arts-and-crafts cabin, still holding your hand as both of you tried catching your breath. “You are,” you gasped between breaths, “the worst teammate I’ve ever had.”

“That’s crazy,” he said, equally breathless. “Because I’m carrying this team emotionally.”

“You almost got us killed!”

“And yet,” he pointed out smugly, “we survived.”

Your laughter escaped before you could stop it.

Real laughter. The kind that left you dizzy.

Macklin stared at you immediately, something softening in his face so quickly it almost hurt to watch.

You forgot sometimes how much he loved making you laugh. Not in a cocky way. Not performatively. It genuinely mattered to him.

You noticed that even when you were younger — how his expression changed whenever he got you laughing hard enough to lose composure. Like he’d discovered something precious.

The realization hit you suddenly and painfully: you had spent years trying to find pieces of this feeling in other people.

None of them ever came close.

The night air buzzed softly around you, thick with pine and lake water and summer heat that still lingered even after midnight. Somewhere in the distance, counselors shouted directions through megaphones while campers screamed in triumph.

Here, tucked behind the cabin in the shadows, it suddenly felt very quiet. Macklin looked at you for one long moment before speaking again. “You know what sucks?” he asked softly.

Your heartbeat dipped immediately. “What?”

“I think if we kissed right now, I’d never recover.”

The air left your lungs. Raw and terrifying and sitting openly between you now. He looked equally wrecked by his own confession. “That’s not a normal thing to say to someone,” you whispered.

“I know.”

“Then why would you say it?”

Macklin laughed once quietly, but there was no humor in it. “Because I’m tired.”

“Tired of what?”

His gaze held yours. “Pretending this doesn’t still affect me.”

Every emotion you’d spent the summer trying to keep under control cracked open at once. The years apart, the unfinished conversations, the pain of losing him before you ever really had him. You thought about every almost between you. Every moment that got interrupted or swallowed down or mistimed. How many years you both wasted waiting for the other person to say something first.

Standing here now beneath the trees with his hand still wrapped around yours, you realized something devastating: it had never gone away for either of you.

Sure, it faded sometimes with distance blurring the edges, but it never disappeared.

You still saw every version of the boy you loved at seventeen. And, judging by the look on his face — he still saw you too.

“Mack…” Your voice came out quieter this time.

He stepped closer. You could barely think properly now. His hand loosened around yours only to slide carefully up your arm instead, fingertips grazing your elbow like he was trying very hard not to scare you away. The tenderness of it nearly destroyed you.

“Macklin!”

Both of you jumped apart instantly. Elenie appeared around the side of the cabin carrying a flashlight and immediately froze. Her eyes moved between you.

To your faces, then back again.

“Oh,” she said slowly. “Oh, this is catastrophic timing.”

You covered your face with your hands. Macklin looked one second away from walking directly into the lake. Elenie blinked. “Were you guys about to —”

“No,” you both said immediately.

She stared. “Wow,” she said after a beat. “That was the least convincing thing I’ve ever witnessed.”

Macklin rubbed both hands over his face in visible agony. “We hate this camp,” he muttered.

“You love this camp,” Elenie corrected. “You just hate emotional intimacy.”

“That’s not true,” he argued weakly.

She pointed between you both. “You’ve been in love with each other for, like, half a decade.”

Neither of you spoke. Elenie’s expression slowly shifted from smug to horrified. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “You haven’t actually said it yet.”

“Murder is legal in some states,” you informed her.

“This is insane.” She looked genuinely distressed now. “You guys are insane. This entire situation is psychologically concerning.”

Before either of you could stop her, she pointed dramatically toward the woods. “Anyway, Blue team is losing because both our captains disappeared to have yearning eye contact behind a cabin, so congratulations on that.”

And with that, she walked away shaking her head. Silence.

Macklin looked at you slowly. You looked back. Then simultaneously, helplessly — you both started laughing. Not because anything was funny, but because if you didn’t laugh, the enormity of this would crush you whole. Macklin leaned back against the cabin wall beside you, still laughing under his breath while running a hand through his hair. “We’re pathetic,” he said.

“Deeply.”

“We should probably talk about this.”

Your stomach flipped violently. “Probably.”

Neither of you moved.

Somewhere across camp, a whistle blew signaling the end of the game while campers erupted into exhausted cheers.

Camp was ending soon. You could feel it already in the shifting rhythm of things. The way campers started talking about school again. The way counselors counted remaining weeks under their breath. Summer at Hatchmark always vanished faster near the end, slipping through your fingers no matter how tightly you tried holding on.

And you were terrified. What happened after this?

What happened when the camp lights came down and the cabins emptied and you and Macklin had to return to real life again?

He must have been thinking the same thing, because his expression softened suddenly into something almost unbearably sad. “You know what scares me?” he asked quietly.

You already knew it wouldn’t just be spiders this time. “What?”

Macklin looked at you like the answer mattered too much. “That we finally figured this out at the worst possible time again.”

After that night behind the arts-and-crafts cabin, something between you and Macklin Celebrini finally gave out. Not dramatically, with a screaming fight or a grand confession beneath the stars.

It was the slow collapse of every wall the two of you had spent years pretending still existed, in glances that lasted too long, in conversations that drifted softer and more honest after midnight, in the way neither of you pulled away anymore whenever your hands brushed accidentally.

The rest of camp carried on around you in bright, chaotic summer fragments while something fragile and terrifying unfolded underneath it all. The campers still shrieked during morning lake jumps. The dining hall still smelled like syrup and burnt toast every breakfast. Counselors still stayed up too late singing badly by the docks while fireflies blinked through the trees like tiny falling stars.

Every moment with Macklin felt edged with urgency. Camp was ending, again. This time, neither of you could pretend not to know what was happening between you.

The last week of camp always felt haunted.

Everybody became gentler somehow. Campers clung to each other harder during activities. Friendship bracelets multiplied around wrists. People started taking pictures of things they normally overlooked — cabin doors, canoe docks, blurry sunsets over the lake — like proof the summer had really happened.

You hated the last week.

Always had. There was something unbearable about watching temporary things realize they were temporary.

Tonight, the counselors had dragged mattresses out onto the soccer field for stargazing with the older campers. The grass still held warmth from the day’s heat as everyone sprawled beneath blankets pointing lazily toward constellations they definitely identified wrong.

You lay near the edge of the field listening to campers whisper and laugh around you while summer air curled softly against your skin.

“Move over.”

You looked up. Macklin dropped onto the blanket beside you before you could answer, shoulder pressing instantly against yours. Neither of you commented on it anymore. The sky stretched endless overhead, dark velvet scattered with stars.

For a while, neither of you spoke. Then Macklin said softly, “You know what I realized this summer?”

You turned your head toward him.

“What?”

His gaze stayed fixed upward.

“That I never actually got over you.” He laughed once under his breath like he couldn’t believe he was saying it out loud. “I think I just got older around it.”

Every part of you went still. Around you, campers continued talking quietly, completely oblivious to the fact that your entire heart had just cracked open. “Mack…”

“No, seriously.” He finally looked over at you then, eyes dark beneath the starlight. “I tried. I really did.”

Your throat tightened painfully, making it hard for you to dislodge the words you desperately needed to say. “You don’t have to —”

“Yes, I do.” His voice softened. “Because I don’t think I’ve ever said any of this right. I think part of me has been waiting for you since I was eighteen years old.”

The world misted around the edges, tears pricking your eyes. “You can’t say things like that,” you whispered.

“Why not?”

“Because —” Your voice broke embarrassingly, upper lip wobbling as you forced back the tidal wave of emotions threatening to spill over. “Because I don’t know what to do with them.”

His expression shifted instantly at the sound. “You know what the worst part is?” he asked quietly. “I think if either of us had been a little braver back then, this would’ve been it for me.” You stared at him helplessly. “This,” he repeated, eyes holding yours. “You.”

All summer long, you’d been carrying this fear that maybe you imagined the intensity of what existed between you once. That time had romanticized it somehow. That maybe you were the only one still haunted by those summers.

But looking at Macklin now, hearing his voice crack around the edges beneath the stars, you realized something devastating. You had never been alone in this. Not once, or ever.

“I was in love with you too,” you admitted quietly.

Macklin closed his eyes briefly like the words actually wounded him. “Jesus,” he whispered.

“I just…” You laughed shakily, wiping quickly at your face before tears could fully embarrass you. “I thought you knew.”

“I didn’t.”

“You have to understand how impossible you were to read.”

He looked genuinely offended. “Impossible to read? I literally followed you around like a lost dog.”

“You flirted with everyone!”

“I flirted with you differently.”

“How was I supposed to know that?”

“Because I looked at you like you hung the moon!”

Your breath caught. The campers nearby dissolved into laughter over something unrelated, and the sound felt strangely far away now. Like you and Macklin existed in some separate orbit from the rest of the world.

He looked at you then with this awful heartbreaking fondness that made your chest cave inward. “You really didn’t know?” he asked softly.

“No,” you admitted.

Macklin laughed quietly to himself, almost disbelieving. “I think everyone else at camp knew before we did.”

“That’s humiliating.”

“Deeply.”

You both fell quiet again. The wind moved softly through the trees surrounding the field, carrying the smell of pine and lake water and distant bonfire smoke. Somewhere near the cabins, counselors were still singing off-key.

Summer sounds, camp sounds. Macklin rolled onto his side suddenly so he was facing you fully now, one arm tucked beneath his head. And God. You could survive almost anything except him looking at you like this. “You wanna know something pathetic?” he asked.

“Always.”

“That letter I told you about?”

Your pulse stumbled immediately. “What about it?”

“I never sent it because I thought hearing from me would make your life harder.”

Your eyes burned suddenly. “Mack…”

“I wrote the whole thing,” he continued quietly. “Like six pages. Absolute psychological warfare.”

Despite everything, you laughed weakly. “What did it say?”

He watched you for a long moment. “It said, amongst a lot of other really ridiculous things, that I thought I’d spend the rest of my life missing you.”

That did it. The tears came instantly after that, hot and humiliating and impossible to stop. “Oh no,” Macklin said immediately, sitting up. “No, no, sweetheart, don’t cry.”

Sweetheart.

The word nearly killed you.

You covered your face with both hands. “I hate you.”

“I know.” His voice gentled impossibly. “C’mere.” Before you could overthink it, Macklin pulled you against him. And the second his arms wrapped around you, something inside you broke completely.

There was an old story, about how humans used to have four arms and four legs, but were split in half after attempting to defy the gods. They were cursed to spend the rest of their lives wandering around, looking for the other missing part of themselves.

And that was the tragedy of it. After years apart and missed chances and growing older without each other, you still fit in the curves and slopes of his arms like your body remembered him before your mind could catch up.

You cried harder against his shoulder, half laughing through it because this was so absurdly overdue. Macklin held you carefully beneath the stars while campers whispered around you and summer wrapped warm around the field. “I think,” you managed eventually against his hoodie, “we might actually be idiots.”

Macklin laughed softly into your hair. “Oh, unquestionably.”

You pulled back just enough to look at him. His hands stayed warm against your arms. Neither of you looked away this time, no interruptions.

Just him, just you. Finally.

“You know what really sucks?” you whispered.

“What?”

“We’re still doing this at the wrong time.”

Macklin’s expression faltered slightly, because you were right. Camp ended in four days. You’d go back to Boston. He’d go back to California. And the old fear returned all at once — that this summer would become another unfinished thing between you. Another memory you carried around for years afterward wondering what would’ve happened if timing had loved you better.

Macklin must’ve seen the panic flicker across your face, because his hands tightened gently around your arms. “Hey,” he said softly. “Look at me.” You obeyed. “I don’t care about timing anymore.” Your heart cracked wide open. “I spent three years trying to convince myself losing you was the mature thing,” he admitted quietly. “And it was miserable. So I’m done being reasonable about this.”

A tear slipped down your cheek. Macklin brushed it away with his thumb carefully enough to undo you completely. “I think,” he said softly, “if we walk away from each other again after this, it’ll actually break me.”

The honesty of it stole every remaining breath from your lungs. You understood exactly what he meant.

Some loves leave quietly. This one never had. It stayed, through years and distance and other people and growing up separately. It stayed anyway.

That was the answer: the terrifying, undeniable fact that every road in your life somehow kept leading back to him.

Macklin looked at you one last time like he was done being afraid. And he kissed you, soft at first, disbelieving and reverent.

Both of you were still waiting for the universe to interrupt.

But when nothing did, his hand slid gently into your hair and the kiss deepened with years of unsaid things behind it — every almost, every missed chance, every summer night spent wanting each other too much and saying nothing at all.

And somewhere beyond the soccer field, hidden beneath the trees and the stars and the fading sounds of camp, the lake kept moving quietly against the docks the same way it always had, as if it had known long before either of you that some people were simply destined to find their way back to each other, no matter how many summers it took.