Every year in the spring, Schur High goes on a school-wide camping trip upstate. It's possibly Amy's favorite weekend of the year, and she's excited to be sharing a cabin with Rosa and Gina, and to be helping Charles and Terry with the meal they're sharing chef duties for (they showed her the menu, and it looks fantastic), and maybe to be spending some quality mentor time with Holt, who's chaperoning (his husband's coming, too, and she's going to see if she can finagle her way into a casual friendship with him so that he'll be so favorably impressed he'll ask Holt who the brilliant student with the shiny ponytail is)...she's looking forward to just about everything except spending time with her boyfriend.

Because she still hasn't broken up with Teddy, despite the resolutions she made the first day they kissed. She'd gone into school on Monday with every intention of calling things off with him, but when push came to shove she hadn't been able to do it.

She's endured-yes, that's the right word for it, dramatic as it may sound-two more kissing sessions. And, to be fair, it has gotten better. Teddy's initial sloppiness was due, it seems, to lack of practice, and she does find it sweet that he knows almost as little as she does about what they're doing. But he still sticks his tongue practically down her throat, far too violently for her taste, and she can't figure out how to tell him she doesn't like it.

He's given her the perfect opportunity-every time they've kissed, he's asked her afterward for her thoughts, for what he could be doing better, but she doesn't want to hurt his feelings so she tells him nothing, just says everything's fine.

It's definitely going to hurt his feelings when she breaks up with him, which is why she's been putting it off. But the prospect of spending an entire weekend with Teddy wanting to sneak around behind the trees or into his cabin in order to spend more time together...that's enough to make her disregard any consideration for his feelings and go for it.

She picks the worst possible time, of course. They're lining up for the bus, in an assembly line loading duffel bags and backpacks into the storage compartments, and Teddy's next to her, so she turns to him and says, "Hey, um, I wanted to say something."

"What's up?"

"I just-I think it might be a good idea if you and I took a break for a little while. Like, a break from our relationship."

"Like, break up?"

"Yeah."

He looks hurt, and she restrains an impulse to take it back.

"Well, if that's what you want I...I guess it's fine. But, uh, if you change your mind…"

"I'm not going to change my mind," she says firmly, because if she doesn't close the door completely she's going to relent, she knows it.

"Okay," he says, and then, "I'm going to go over there now," and he walks off, leaving a gap in the assembly line that's immediately filled by Gina.

"Did I just hear what I thought I heard?"

"Me breaking up with Teddy? Yeah."

"Need a hug?"

"Aw. Yes, please."

Amy reaches out her arms, but Gina turns away, saying, "Okay, I'll get Charles."

"I don't want a hug from Ch-" Amy starts, but Gina's already gone.

"Hey," says Rosa, from the other side of her-has she been there all along, or does she just have the ability to sneak up on people silently? "I'm not gonna hug you, but if you, like, want to talk about your feelings, or whatever you might be having, you can sit next to me on the bus and I'll not pay attention, but you can pretend I'm listening and I won't get mad at you."

"Thanks," says Amy, touched.

So she sits next to Rosa on the bus, and Charles and Gina are behind them, and Terry and his girlfriend are in front, and they play BS and reminisce about the trip from last year, and vow that this time it's gonna be even better. It's collegial and friendly and fun, and Amy spares nary a glance for Teddy, who's sitting with a few of his friends near the back of the bus (Amy has to sit near the front, because she gets motion sickness on long journeys), or for Jake, who's with Bernice a few seats away, his arm around her, saying something to make her laugh.

Okay, she spares maybe a glance or two or five for Jake. So many glances, in fact, that Rosa notices, and gives her a funny look, and asks, "Is there some reason you keep turning around? Is something going on?"

"What? Oh, no," Amy says. "Nope, just bein' weird."

"Okay," says Rosa. "Because if you're trying to look at Teddy, he looks miserable. If you were wondering."

"I wasn't," says Amy, "but great, now I feel bad."

"Don't. Just because he's upset you broke up doesn't mean you have to be. You wouldn't have done it if you were happy, so why feel bad now?"

"Because I don't like hurting other people's feelings?"

"Well, that'll never make sense to me," says Rosa, deadpan, and Amy cracks up, because of course Rosa's kidding, of course she doesn't like hurting people's feelings, she's known Rosa forever and though she may be gruff she's not truly cruel...but the way Rosa says things like that Amy's always left 99 percent sure that she's kidding and 1 percent worried that she's not.

So the rest of the bus ride passes in pleasantness, and when they get to the camp and unload everything, and Amy and Gina and Rosa bid goodbye to Charles and Terry and head off to their cabin to drop off their suitcases, it almost feels like everything's going to be normal. They settle in pretty quickly, and there's still a few hours before dinner with no scheduled activities, so Gina runs over to where some seniors she knows are staying and borrows a bunch of board and card games, and some people from the neighboring cabins come in and play with them, and it's everything Amy loves most about this trip.

But there's still that ache inside of her, the one that she's felt since the first time Jake stopped flirting with her and started flirting with Bernice, and all the Cards Against Humanity games in the world aren't going to make that feeling go away-even when she's not thinking about it, it's there.

She is happy, though, and she knows that if she just keeps on going, trying to focus on all the immensely positive stuff in her life and putting the thing she can't control out of her mind, eventually this ache might lessen, might disappear completely. She's sixteen years old, after all. She has an entire lifetime to find someone who loves her back.

Dinner, when it finally arrives, is spinach ravioli with a mixed greens salad, and chocolate cake for dessert. Jake and Bernice happen to sit at the same table as Amy does, and although she makes polite conversation with them, it's hard to really enjoy her food.

She actually really likes talking to Bernice, which is good, she figures. Bernice is cool and smart and nice, and for some reason that makes it both easier and harder that Jake is with her-easier, because it's nice knowing he's happy, that he has good taste, and harder, because it makes it impossible to dislike Bernice, which is what her gut wants her to do.

But then Bernice shares a piece of chocolate cake with Jake, eating it off a fork that he's holding, and Amy maybe throws up in her mouth a little bit. "I gotta go," she says, leaving behind her plate in blatant violation of meal cleanup policy, and goes outside, all the way past the lake and into the woods near her cabin.

Rosa's there, having run back to grab a coat, but she doesn't, luckily, talk to Amy, just looks at her funny before heading out.

Amy grabs her own coat from the cabin and heads back into the woods, pacing back and forth, trying to get the image of that cake-laden fork out of her head. She's angry, now, more than anything-angry that she can't control her own feelings, angry that she can force herself to excel at anything except, apparently, being cool with Jake and Bernice.

She tries taking deep breaths to calm herself down, and it kind of works, and she's been pacing more slowly for a few minutes when she hears footsteps behind her.

She turns around, and it's Jake.

"Rosa told me you were here," he says. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

She nods.

"I heard you broke up with Teddy," he says, matter-of-factly.

She nods again, not trusting herself to speak without giving anything away.

"Okay," he says, "good. Because there's some stuff I need to tell you, but I wasn't gonna do it when you were with Teddy, because I didn't wanna screw that up by saying this stuff, so I couldn't say it, and, now, well...now I can." He looks at her for a moment. "Unless you don't want me to. But I, uh, I think it's better for both of us if you hear this."

"Okay," she squeaks out. "What is it?"

"I'm in love with you. I have been for a while-but I didn't really get that I liked you, didn't realize it, I mean, until the beginning of the year. So I asked you to go to winter formal with me because I didn't want to make a big thing out of it, and i figured if you just wanted to be friends we could just go as friends, but I was planning on telling you how I felt that night. I guess I thought it would be dramatic, or whatever.

"But the night before, I was thinking about it-I was super-nervous, obviously...I was thinking about it, and I realized just how much I liked you. And I thought about how big a deal it was going to be for me to tell you, and how you might freak out or whatever, and I...well, I chickened out. As you know. I was scared, 'cause, well, we're so young, and winter formal is so tiny and stupid, and this thing-love, I guess-felt so big and important that I didn't feel like I was ready for it yet.

"So I stood you up. And I've said I'm sorry before and I'll say I'm sorry again, because that was a terrible thing for me to do, but I was freaked out by my own feelings and I couldn't handle it.

"So then I decided, well, what if I don't make a big deal out of it? What if I just, you know, try to sound Amy out and see if she likes me back, and hold off on the big revelations stuff until I'm sure she feels the same way? Cause, I don't know, I thought maybe there was a chance you did. I mean, it seemed im-freakin'-possible that you could have held hands with me all during English class that one time and not have been feeling anything. But I wasn't sure. So I asked you out for coffee that time, and I thought I was doing it so well, I thought I was being really casual, and you just shot me down and I figured, well, this is it, Amy doesn't like me. And I figured I'd better try getting over you.

"It didn't work. Knowing that you were with someone else, with that Teddy guy, it made me so jealous, and it made me think, what if she, I don't know, stays with Teddy forever and grows up and marries him and I never get a chance to tell her how I feel? Because I sure wasn't gonna say anything when you were with someone else. I wasn't gonna get in the way of that.

"But you broke up with him, and I have a chance to tell you now, and I'm telling you I love you because there's no time like the goddamn present, and if I don't say it now I might never get another chance."

He pauses before continuing. "And, uh, in conclusion, there was this poem that Holt had us read, and I memorized the end of it, 'cause it kinda sums up what I'm trying to say better than I ever could-

Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run."

He stops for breath. "So like I said, why not now? Anyway, this has gone on way too long and you haven't said anything so I'm just gonna say it one more time-Amy Santiago, I love you-and then I'm going to go."

He turns away.

"Wait!" she says, quietly. "I don't-I don't know what to say. But please don't go; I don't want you to leave."

Something lights up in his eyes. "Really?"

"Yeah," she says, again softly-why is she being so quiet, they're in the middle of the woods, the rational part of her brain points out.

"Cool," he says, and slowly, giving her every opportunity to tell him to stop, or move away, or whatever, he moves his face closer and closer to hers, and she doesn't move, just brings her own face up to meet his, and then, after a few seconds of just standing extremely near to each other, at last, with infinitesimal precision, he closes the gap between them and kisses her.