As soon as my uncle is finished giving the three of us his long, drawn out lecture about something I wasn't paying attention to, he walks out the room… leaving everyone in a bad mood. I'm suddenly feeling angry; Jason looks disappointed in himself as he slumps back towards his buck and Nate looks up at me as soon as all heads are turned away. He seems guilty, as I would have assumed, and almost regretful if I'm reading his face correctly. After that, the cabin is completely silent until its lights out and we all have to go to bed. This time I don't hear the door open and close as it usually would at this time.

The next morning, I wake up facing Nate's bed and see him with his baggy eyes wide open, staring straight at the ceiling. It looks as if he hasn't fallen asleep all night. Although I feel tired enough to fall back to sleep; I get up right away, pull a pair of jeans on and head for the door.

"Shane, wait!" Nate's sudden whisper stops me in my tracks. Looking at Jason – apparently making sure he's still sound asleep – he steps off of his bed. "I'm really sorry," he says softly.

"It's okay," I lie, "There's nothing to fuss over." It isn't completely false… There really isn't anything to fuss over as much as I feel like there is. It already happened and there's no way to take back Nate's mistakes in cheating on his girlfriend or mine in trying to make a move in the first place. "I'll, uh…" The atmosphere in the room is awkward and quiet as I try to speak, "…I'll see you later." And I walk out into the crisp morning air of the north.

At the moment, I don't know why but I want to see Daniel. Normally, I'd be embarrassed to show up at his cabin door in need of absolutely nothing in particular but this morning I find myself knocking on his screen door. As I don't hear anybodies footsteps coming, I'm tempted to turn around and leave telling myself that if I want someone to talk to I can talk to Tess or even Mitchie now. But soon after I see the door swing open, someone's standing in the way, looking confused.

"Hey, Shane," this guys says, even though I have no idea what his name is.

"Hi," I respond awkwardly, "Is Daniel here?"

Daniel immediately walks up from behind this guy like he had probably heard the conversation. "Shane," he utters smiling. After his cabin mate walks away, he steps outside to talk and we decide to go for a walk by the lake.

"I didn't wake anybody up, did I?" I ask while trying to make conversation.

"No, not at all," he reassures.

There's an awkward pause as we step onto the sandy level near the water. I stuff my hands in my pockets and feel my shoulders tense up to my ears. Uneasily, I sigh; thinking about last night and this morning before I left the cabin. "I've just had a lot on my mind lately and wanted to see you," I admittedly tell him, trying to explain why I'm doing what I'm doing.

We look at each other but I look away quickly and keep walking forward. "Do you want to talk about it?" He asks. Talking about it is exactly what I want to do but I don't know how or where to start. Should I just tell him what happened? I really want to bend the story to make it sound like all my disastrous problems involve a girl but I don't want to lie to Daniel.

"Remember what I told you? About my ex-girlfriend and how I kissed my friend… Well, the friend I was talking about was Nate. I liked him and even though he kissed me, he's straight." I feel more and more pathetic as I tell my story. "Now I…" I struggle to get the words out, "I just found out that he's had a girlfriend this entire time and he had cheated on her."

He looks a little bit shocked when he turns to directly face me, but I just keep walking to try and avoid looking back at him. "Does his girlfriend know?" He asks starting to walk by my side again.

"No," I tell him. "I just… I feel bad for Dana, his girlfriend. I mostly feel bad for myself, though, and I don't know why." I don't want Daniel to think I'm selfish but the words slip out. And he doesn't seem to think I am because he just talks to me like everything I'm saying makes perfect sense and soon, the subject changes. Than we just spend the next hour walking around camp, chatting about anything and everything.

We loop around and make our way back to Daniel's cabin and we stop at the top of his front steps. "Do you want to come inside?" Daniel says, "My roommates all have early classes that they've already gone to."

I pull my cell phone out of my pocket to check the time on it. The band and I have rehearsals in about twenty minutes but I can't resist. I think he's finally coming on to me! "Sure," I shrug, trying to sound indifferent. "I've only got about twenty minutes before I've got to leave for band practice."

We walk into his cabin and he sits on top of a table – rather than a chair – covered in scattered sheet music and playing cards, so I sit next to him. "Are you guys doing another performance soon?" He asks me, smiling a bit.

"We should be," I tell him, "With everything that happened last night, I think my uncles pretty mad at the three of us." And just like that we're talking about Nate again, and everything that's happen this summer. Although, instead of dwelling on all the terrible things going on right now; I like talking about it. Daniel speaks with a comforting tone and I don't feel so embarrassed about crushing on another guy… it finally feels normal.

"Didn't you say this happened to you too?" I ask him as I recall the time he was able to guess my entire summer story.

"I liked someone over this past school year," he explains, "We dated for about two days but everybody found out about it and it just about ruined my whole year. All this drama and gossip, you know what I mean, it wasn't pretty…"

Our stories weren't actually that similar. It makes me think that he knew my secrets this entire time because, although he left so many holes, I can't help but think that the obstacles causing the drama and gossip would be a closet door.

"I'm sorry," I tell him.

But he waves his hand and shrugs. "I'm over it now," he says, "I've only got one year left at that school anyway."

Watching him act so relaxed about everything that happened gives me hope. Hope that everything can be okay again, possibly even by the end of the summer. Before I liked him because I thought he was cute and sweet to me, now I like him because I can't find one flaw when I look into his radiant hazel eyes.

After a pause in the mood, I say something more. "Don't laugh at me," I utter, "but it bothers me that I had never kissed a boy before, now the only boy I've ever kissed is Nate. And I was the only one who really meant it." It wasn't until now that realized that this bothers me; I secretly wish that my first kiss would have been with someone more like Daniel.

And just like that, he slides his hand to the back of my neck and pulls our faces together. His soft, warm lips touch mine and they linger there as my eyes fall shut. My heart is pounding faster than a hummingbird's and a tingling sensation is sent to fingertips. After a second and a half, our faces brush away from each other.

"There," he mummers, "Now he's not the only guy you've kissed."

…

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