This one's about Gwen. Set before going on the camping trip.

_
Gwen looked at her wall.
Her great wall of accomplishments. With all the ribbons and medals she had won over the years.
One of them was new and gleamed brighter than the others.
Number one karate-champion, A-Grade-Student and gymnastic-extraordinare.
Gwen had so much to show for her young age, getting driven to one event after another and participating in various contests.
Her mother had taken good care of her and the teachers always congratulated her on her level of discipline and complimented her on her intellect.
One teacher even recommended that she might skip a class or two and go to a school better suited for someone like her with special classes for gifted kids.

The adults loved Gwen, 'How well behaved and so mature!', 'What a nice girl and so talented!', 'So disciplined and proper', that's what they kept saying about her. Yet, she felt misplaced.
But she was not very liked around people her own age.
They cut her, called her names: teacher's pet and geek and nerd, and they only ever gave her any attention when they needed help with their homework.
Gwen had even changed her clothes, no more prim and proper, look at me I am wearing jeans and t-shirts like you guys!
As if that was of any help.
You can change your look Gwen, but not the inside.
Maybe they thought she was stuck up.
They saw her good grades and the house she lived in, the clothes and expensive gadgets her parents bought her and all they saw was a bratty rich-kid who thought she was so much better than the losers she had to go to class with.
Gwen didn't think she was arrogant. She tried to be nice but it somehow always backfired.

There was a knock on her door and she opened, seeing her mother, pumps in her hands and bag under her arm, "Listen, I can't make it today but your aunt is going to drive you to karate-practice it's going to be a busy day at the office.".
Gwen smiled, "Yes, that's okay, mom."

Sandra Tennyson was nice, though she didn't like her cousin. He had the same opinion of her as the kids in school had.
A little buzz-kill who always reminds the teacher of their homework and never has any fun, always with her nose in a book and doesn't even watch TV.
Ben was very different from her, with his head in the clouds and never listening to anyone.
Yet that under-achiever had more friends than she had.
It wasn't fair, here she was with her busy schedule, various club-activities and competitions and a wall filled with ribbons and a line of trophies and- he was the one with the parents who always had time for him?
With the friends who played football with him and the mother who supported him unconditionally?

Ben was never alone and she was? Sitting in an empty home and waiting for her aunt to come up the drive-way to get her to practice?
Was she doing something wrong?
Her eyes fell on a picture on the wall, it was her on a gymnastic competition. Her coach had been so proud of her, first place and it had even been in a competition normally reserved for older teens.
But there she was and she'd beaten them all.
She had waited afterwards for her mom or dad to pick her up, or somebody who'd take her home.
It was a long time that she had waited, with that ribbon in her hand.
Her aunt finally showed up, only being there because Ben had told her.

Sandra was always nice to her and to everyone else too.
But she knew she wasn't her child. Ben was and he got all the love.
He got a healthy home-made dinner he didn't appreciate and she got the warmed up left-overs.
Like the one her baby-sitter made when her parents were gone working long hours at the office.
Well, they were lawyers and as such had to work such long hours.

If she'd get more time with her mother or father, at least one or two friends and a meal that didn't come out of the pressure cooker or the micro-wave, she'd give up her gadgets and all the trophies she had.
She wouldn't even mind if it came out of the microwave, now that she thought about it, she just didn't want to eat alone anymore.

Though, and this fear lingered on her mind, she didn't want to disappoint her parents either.
That would be worse than anything.