A/N: since this story already has a ton of chapters (most of which are very short, I am going to make this and future chapters a lot longer in an effort to save time.

I could hardly sleep that night. I mean seriously who could blame me? By the time 5:30am rolled around I'd given up all hope of even trying, therefore enduring yet another sleepless night. And the idea of eating breakfast was a joke. My stomach was so tied up in knots that whatever I ate definitely wasn't going to stay down very long.

I even contemplated skipping breakfast all together. But I knew that Henry would be there having breakfast in what we now affectionately called the "mess hall", so of course I had to at least make an appearance.

How else was I going to commence with my plan?

As quietly as possible, I climbed out of bed and snuck into the bathroom, snagging the shower before anyone else was even awake. I hated to turn on the light for fear of waking anyone up but I found that if I kept the door closed and barely made a sound, no one would notice.

In record time I had showered, washed my hair and picked out the perfect outfit. Instead of my usual boring faded shorts and Augusta t-shirt, I pulled out my dressiest pair of shorts (a vivid lime green) and a matching shirt (white with big triangles in majorly bright colors; neon yellow, hot pink and electric blue with zig zag stripes in the same lime green color as my shorts). I have no idea what possessed me to pack something that I usually only reserved for wearing around Brett to get his attention (a lot of good that did.) to take to a stupid summer camp, but it must have been fate.

By the time my cabin mates were just barely getting up, I was already dressed and in the bathroom curling my hair. I finished it off with tons of hairspray because the hot Maine sun could be brutal when it came to hairstyles.

And I was not about to walk into the mess hall looking anything less than... well... totally awesome!

The closer it got to breakfast, the more nervous I became and suddenly I felt sick.

Oh God, please don't let me hurl... not here...not now.

After a few minutes I felt better although my chest was still tight. Just a few finishing touches; some Bonnie Bell lip gloss (strawberry) and some carefully applied blue eye shadow and I was ready to go.

I ran as fast as I could to the mess hall, but not too fast. I didn't want anything to ruin my appearance. And before I knew it I had arrived. The place was practically empty, with only a few tables occupied. I searched the hall until I found "our table"; the one where Henry first sat with me, back when he annoyed me to no end.

My heart was pounding in my chest and I forced myself to breathe through my nose to keep from getting sick. As casually as possible I strolled over to a chair and waited... and waited... and waited...

I waited so long that I began to have a million irrational thoughts. What if he went home? Or worse, what if something happened to him? I was totally on the verge of tears when I saw him walk in and once more my insides turned to jelly.

I couldn't take my eyes off of him as he walked in and greeted a few of the other camp counselors and then made his way to the food line. His tray in his hands, he began searching the mess hall for a place to eat and I had a hard time sitting perfectly still, praying that he would notice me on his own. But when he didn't, I waved in a very lame and extremely desperate attempt to get him to notice me.

Thank God it worked.

With a smile on his face, he headed toward me and the closer he came the more nervous I was. This was worse than when Rick Springfield did a mini concert at our local mall. Of course Bianca and I were one of the first ones there and we were standing close to him, we could almost touch him. It didn't work, but believe me we tried.

My mind drifted back to the present and the next thing I knew, Henry was standing right in front of me.

In one fluid motion, I rose to my feet holding onto the edge of the table to keep from fainting.

"H-Hi..." I stammered; suddenly terrified at the thought of speaking to a man that I'd spoken to every day since I'd arrived. How lame was that?

His eyes widened and he looked me up and down.

"WOW! Look at you!"

I blushed so deeply that I was sure I had steam coming off my face.

"What about me?"

It was a tacky answer, but I didn't want to appear snobbish, even though I knew I looked awesome. I swallowed hard when I saw him looking me up and down once more.

"You look great! Not that you don't always... well, you know what I mean. But wow..."

Okay, now I was sure that I was going to faint. I hope he remembered how to do CPR the way he had when I almost drowned!

"Thanks..."

"You have a date or something?"

I laughed and touched my hair, a nervous gesture that used to do whenever I tried to talk to Brett.

"Um, no... I just..."

"Well, you look very pretty."

Oh God, any moment I was going to totally pass out! The man I loved was actually telling me that I was pretty?

"Thank you..."

He smiled and gestured to the chair across from me. "May I?"

"Of course."

Wow... that was a far, far cry from how I'd reacted to that question just a few weeks before.

He sat down and began eating his breakfast but after only two bites, laid his fork down and stared at me with concern.

"Are you all right?"

"I-I'm fine."

"Where's your breakfast?"

I looked at the empty table in front of me. "Oh... I... I'm not very hungry."

He rose from the table and walked over to where I sat, putting his hand on my back.

"It's not good to skip breakfast. Are you sure you're all right?"

I started to say something but then I felt his hand on my cheek and the look of concern in his eyes almost made me want to cry.

"Melissa, you're burning up!"

"I'm fine, really."

But he was already out of his chair heading out the door. What was going on?

Minutes later he returned with a glass of water and some aspirin... and a bagel, which he sat in front of me.

"What's this?"

"The aspirin will help with what appears to be a low-grade fever and the bagel... well, you shouldn't go without eating. You need your strength."

"Thank you."

I was so not hungry, but at his pleading look, I took the aspirin and then a bite of the bagel.

When we'd finished breakfast, he rose from the table.

"Well, hope you have a nice day. You might want to go lie down for a little while until you feel better. I'll get one of the counselors to check on you and-."

"Wait-."

"Yes, Melissa?"

"Um... Can I talk to you for a minute? It's pretty important."

In one very insane moment, I'd managed to paint myself into a corner, as my dad would say. I never understood what that meant but I'm guessing that it meant that now I had no choice but to tell him how I felt.

"Sure, what's on your mind?"

I looked around nervously. "Um... not here. Can we... go to... um... our bench?"

He smiled and put his arm around me, causing me to shiver and it took all the strength I had not to lean against him.

Within minutes we were in the same place where we'd been so many times before; where I'd confessed about Bianca and Brett and everything that was going wrong in my life.

But this was completely different. Because instead of talking about my problems with other people, I was going to tell him what was in my heart.