Dean POV:

"Aubrey, it's dinner time, you coming?" The only reply I got was deep breathing, so I decided to leave her be. She could have a big breakfast tomorrow to compensate. Remembering how skittish and scared she was of everything I wouldn't blame her for wanting an early night. She was probably nervous about camp, she'd get better in a few days. We all did. Although, then again, none of us had been as utterly mortified as her.

Truth be told, I wanted to crawl into my own bed and stay there for ever, but I signed up to this camp to stop myself from doing things like that, so I forced myself out the door and into the chilly air. Leaving the cabin quickly, I jogged up to the dining hall, 50 screaming children being my reception. They were all queueing up, shoving each other and stomping their feet. I scowled for a second, this was always the worst part of the day, but then strained the corners of my lips to tug up into an easy smile. Jumping up onto a table, I clapped five times, making a rhythm. When I'd been assigned this duty in my second year, it had been so much fun to watch them all clapping in unison in response, yet now it had lost its buzz, and I had to remind myself to keep going and not just scamper off to the bathrooms for some time alone.

The kids copied it almost immediately, staring at me with wide eyes. I made another beat, which they copied too. I went to jump, to make a rhythm with my feet, but was stopped by Grace, who glared me down. I gulped hard, thinking she was mad at me, but then I saw the smirk on her face and calmed down. I was constantly worried about her being pissed off at me, due to her having a personality that tended towards being a bit aggressive, so I had to control the urge to say sorry at least 20 times a day.

"Dean I swear to god if you jump on the table I'll hit you." Sighing, I stopped my movements, going back to what I'd previously wanted to do.

"Alright campers, I'm going to need you to form an orderly line so that we can serve you your food." As they all scrambled, I started talking again. That way they didn't have the time, nor the energy, to cause any trouble. I was good with kids, that's why the psychologist had suggested coming to this camp again to see if I could relight my old fire. The problem was that everyone here expected me to be my bubbly self from last year, when I had a gaping hole in my chest. "Now, who can guess what we're having?" They all responded at once, so I didn't get a single thing they said. At least one must've been right though. "That's right! Spaghetti and meatballs! Now come, let's go get some food!" I jumped off the table, opening the door to the cantine. Despite my efforts, they all ran in like a stampede, leaving the cook dumbfounded. Like every year. I sighed.

"Don't worry Dean, one year you'll manage to get them all to calm down." I looked at her in surprise, I couldn't believe she was actually being nice. I only saw Grace during the summer holidays, but I understood her personality well – she was rude until suddenly she wasn't. But the rudeness always came first. I needed someone like her near me though, to keep me rooted to the floor. If I had to hang out with people that constantly spared my feelings and tip-toed around me, I'd be constantly second-guessing their feelings towards me and whether they actually cared. Then again, I kept doubting Grace's feelings towards me too, so maybe that was just me trying to look at it with a positive outlook. "This year's just not it. Nor the next. Nor the next…" Ah, there was the Grace I knew and loved. I swatted at her, causing her to giggle as we watched the pandemonium in front of us. "So. This is what hell feels like."

"Oh come on, don't be so negative. The kids are great." I couldn't deny that it was something akin to hell, but it meant I got away from my house and my school and everything for a month, so I'd take it. It was better than what I'd do if I were at home, which would just be locking myself up in my room for the whole duration of the summer. The psychologist had said it would help me get better, and I needed to get better.

"Oh yeah, I forgot, you do this for fun." She was forced into this every year by her parents, in hopes it'd get her to 'bond with nature' or some other crap like that. She never let me live it down that I liked working in this camp. I guess the idea was just inconceivable to her. If she knew all the feelings I was running away from she wouldn't find it so hard to believe that I enjoyed wasting my summers here. "You know who this really must be hell for?"

"Who?"

"That new girl. She was practically quaking in her shoes." Thinking back to our conversation earlier, I couldn't help but agree. It was what had made me talk to her in the first place, I always felt sympathetic for people who looked scared and were unsure as to what to do. Although Aubrey was a new level of terrified. She reminded me of myself.

"Yeah. She was pretty though." I wasn't one to really hold back when I was talking to Grace, so she wasn't even surprised at my confession. She really was pretty, with her heart shaped face, and big brown eyes that seemed the colour of a sunset.

"Aw, you have a crush. Cute." She smirked at me, making me growl in response. I didn't really have a crush on her, Grace knew that, I knew that. We took jokes as far as they would go though, which included each other's interests, unfortunately. At least, we used to. I didn't know if this year I'd be able to make very many jokes. I'd gotten good at small talk whilst pretending to be happy, but being joyful enough to make jokes was way out of my league. "But I don't even know if she'd be good to date. She looks like blowing on her too hard might make her cry." I wondered if Aubrey looked like that, how I did. Did Grace think that I was fragile too? Or did how I used to behave in past years overshadow my image this year?

"I don't wanna date her."

"But you do want to be her friend."

"Well… yeah. She seems sweet."

"Which reminds me, where is she?" My stomach twisted uncomfortably as I pushed the spaghetti around my plate wistfully. I couldn't eat any more, despite only having eaten a few meatballs.

"She fell asleep. Must've been an exhausting day." Grace, just like me, didn't hold back on what she thought, so she immediately let a mask of disbelief cover her features.

"Yeah right, that bundle of nerves is totally gonna be able to fall asleep with two guys in the same room." Her words left me discomfited, the idea that she'd want to skip dinner simply to get away from us settling badly in my stomach. She probably hated me and wanted to be left alone. I did intrude when she'd been alone earlier. Perhaps she didn't want friends, just like I didn't when… the accident happened. My heart constricted in my chest at the thought of what happened last October, and I pushed my plate away, losing my appetite completely. The hole inside me made a reappearance, seeming to take all the happiness with it.

"Does she not like us?"

"Nah, I think she probably just wants to get away from people in general. Seems like the type."

"The type?" This was how most of our conversations went. Starting with some joking, and ending with a profound bit of knowledge revealed from wise Grace.

"Yeah, you know, social anxiety, the works."

"Social anxiety? No way." But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

"Well maybe not like a proper disorder, but she seemed pretty uncomfortable. I dunno."

Even after we got our meal, and started talking about something else, Aubrey's face never left my mind, that scared expression permeating her features. I didn't understand how someone could be so afraid of socialising. It was practically second nature to me. Yet, at the same time, I knew all about disorders that wrecked your life.

"Hey, Dean, you alright?" My drooping eyelids made it hard to concentrate on keeping a smile on my face, so I shook my head lightly.

"I'm ok. Just tired." Maybe Aubrey didn't have to be the only who used sleep as an excuse to get away from the world.

Hi :)

Dean's POV this chapter! Hope you all like him :) And who can guess what happened to him last October? I'll probably reveal it next chapter, cos I'm impatient haha

Your reviews are amazing, oh my gosh, thank you so much :D Especially considering how long I'm taking to update this story :/ Sorry about that, it's just that I'm still figuring out where I want it to go, so I'm having trouble writing it up. But worry not, that'll hopefully be sorted out soon enough, and I'll get right into regular updates :)

Bye bye xx