Prompt: While at summer camp ten years ago, five teenagers' lives became irrevocably intertwined. Now their paths have crossed again, and they must come to terms with what happened that summer.

Elise

The worst and best things about summers is that it seems like a dream, like some wild fantasy of swimsuits and sun and letting your hair loose, of convertibles with tops down and snowcone syrup dripping down your hands, and then you're back in a school desk again.

I wish last summer was a dream, and then maybe I'd forget it the morning after.

But I can't. Not today, not ever.

Damon

You ever hear the line, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times?" That was my summer.

Summer camp – Come on, Mom, it's like you didn't even try. But, hey, camp seemed cool. Shady Pines (is that not the most stereotypical camp name or what?) had a lake, a zipline course, and, from what the pamphlet showed, some pretty fine-looking girls. Was there a better way to waste a week?

So I packed my bags, unsuspecting, and kissed civilized life goodbye as I drove with my family all the way down to Nowhere, Arkansas, where my life would change forever.

Change isn't always a good thing.

In fact, it almost never is.

Kelsey

I thought summer camp would be a lighthearted thing – stand on the sidelines while my friends flirted mercilessly with the clueless camp boys, belt out the chorus to the dumb sing-alongs and get bitten by mosquitoes. Camp wasn't a new scene for me, been there, done that, I knew how things went around the cabins. Most of all I'd rather stay inside and read or watch TV, in all honesty, but every other girl would like to strip down into swimsuits that have about one square inch of fabric and ogle their new boyfriends who were 'sooo hawt.'

Life shouldn't be a tragedy, but I feel like Juliet... But she was responsible for Romeo's death.

Then again, so am I.

Quinn

I'm always the third wheel, the fifth wheel, heck, I'd probably even be the seventh wheel if push came to shove. Summer camp was no different. Ever since Haley and Jake, by two best friends in the world, got serious, I was beginning to feel more and more separated from them. They still thought everything was okay, like we were still the same people we had been last year before they started drowning in each others eyes. Seriously, someone get me a barf bag.

So when I found out the kids at my 'table group,' the lame student bonding thing the camp did to try to draw us together – whee – I expected the worst. Three guys and two girls, how else would things end up?

The first girl who introduced herself was Elise. I thought I knew her type: the long blonde hair, suntanned cheerleader girl, but she had her head on straight and seemed pretty cool. The other girl was Kelsey, and I for sure knew her type: the shy bookish kid who never really talks. Both seemed nice, though, and I thought, Hey, could be worse.

Damon and Hank were the two other guys, and we got along surprisingly well. Damon seemed like the kind of guy who could hang out with jocks and total nerds and not be considered a social outcast, and Hank seemed like that popular football player that all the girls like because he's so nice and polite. I could tell Damon had eyes for Elise instantly, and I could kind of see why – she wasn't lacking in the attractiveness department, that's for sure. Kelsey and Hank would take a little while longer, but I knew they would end up together too. Like a curse, it always happened, and I'm the one left out.

Like a curse... We all have a different kind of curse now. And people are starting to wonder about what happened that summer.

Elise

The first few days were normal, I guess, a lot of marshmallows and kayaking and listening to Quinn's dumb jokes. Kelsey and I had some whispered conversations after lights-out when all the other girls were asleep, and they mostly went like this:

"I think Damon likes me."

"Are you kidding, he totally does!"

"I'm going to ask him out."

"Out? Where is out? We're in the wilderness?"

"Not out out, just on a walk or something. And I think Hank might have the hots for you."

"In your dreams."

It kind of bugged me that our conversations were all about summer romance, but it seemed like a big thing at the time, memorizing Damon's smile, laughing at Quinn's obnoxiousness, trying to somehow get Hank and Kelsey together. It was summer, and we were carefree. The small wisps of our touches, the deep, knowing look in his eyes, it was time.

We got away during the sing-along, holding each other's' hands tightly so as not to get lost in the dark, but I knew the real reason why. Breathing hard, kicking up dust in the moonlight, until we came to the edge of the lake, right where the river pulled away, rushing and foaming, and when I looked up again he was there, and we were there, and I pressed my lips against his and kissed for all I was worth.

It was dumb, just a summer fling, but with the moonlight and the water in the background, it seemed like a palace fit for a king.

Damon

She was like no other girl I had ever met before, because she had fire inside. The way her eyes flashed during capture the flag, the indignant look on her face before she kissed me, and I forced myself not to notice that she had to stand on tiptoe... She was a being of beauty and wrath.

Our gentlest touches turned the air into pure charged heat, and I relished those moments when my heart would race like it did that night we shared our first kiss, our thirsty lungs hungry for air but our hearts hungry for more.

Camp turned into the background of our tale, our tapestry, the backdrop of our saga, and everything else faded with it, until it was only me and her and the rest of the world built for our pleasure.

We ziplined down the ropes course at breakneck speed, feeling the wind whip past our faces, and we were alive like we had never been alive before, never, our little paradise. Whenever the night was cold she was shining with heat, burning with brightness, as radiant as the sun.

It was fast, so fast I almost had whiplash every time I caught a glimpse of her, but wonderfully so.

Kelsey

Damon and Elise shot off like rockets, so Hank and I had a lot of time alone. As annoying as Quinn could be, he had a great sense of when to back off, so I actually got to know Hank as who he was, not just as another camp guy I'd text once and never again.

He was from Reno, way far off, and had a brother and a sister back at home. Everything else I knew about him was woven from the tiny bits and pieces of information I learned about him, weaving a quilt of the boy I know, or rather, knew.

His favorite color was blue, sky blue as well as navy blue, but not baby blue, because that was the color of his room and he despised it. He played baseball and football but never regaled me with legends of his amazing plays, and he had been taking guitar lessons for three years but could only pick out 'Ode to Joy.' His favorite class was Social Studies, because he loved how things worked and fit together, and you could almost see the clockwork playing across his face when he was puzzling things out. He was an old soul, that I could tell even before I knew him, by the look of quiet contemplation on his face that I so often mirrored.

While Elise was riding her wild roller-coaster of summer love, I sat in my cabin, which was always empty when the swimming pool was open because all the other girls needed to get their twelve hours of flirting in. Hank joined me more often than not, and we would talk about things – not smush my lips against his, just talk. As romance went, it was pretty pathetic, but I enjoyed our time together, when our minds could intertwine and spar. Hank was smart, very, very smart, and just by talking to him I knew he was going places. It sounds dumb, but sometimes when you meet someone they radiate a quiet aura of power, of the future. You just have to be silent to hear it.

We were a ragtag group – Damon and Elise, soaring through the sky, Quinn, joking and making us laugh so hard we sprayed milk out of our noses – specifically, it was Quinn who sprayed milk out of his nose, and Hank and Kelsey, the pair of us, quiet and insightful and perhaps connected in a way slightly more than friendship.

Maybe, in the face of Damon and Elise, I was being too hopeful. But maybe not.

Quinn

We were close, and maybe Shady Pines got one thing right with their 'table groups.' While everyone else was flirting and stuffing their faces and showing off their summer bodies, we were lounging on the decks, asking aloud who put the stars in the sky. I would ramble on about some poor old witch who had a jarful of stardust and her clumsy nephew dropped the jar and the stars spread far across the sky, and every morning the nephew had to collect all the stars he had dropped, only to drop them again at nightfall. Elise and Damon would laugh, shouting 'You missed a spot!' and sharing a quick kiss as if they couldn't resist PDA for one more second, but Kelsey and Hank would smile slightly and watch the revolving sky. The first time their fingertips brushed together my heart fell into my shoes. There they go again, and you're a fifth wheel this time. It was a curse.

While camp may seem like one all-inclusive program, we made it our own. Racing down the ziplines, seeing who could put the most marshmallows in their mouths and say 'chubby bunny,' and kayaking over the still surface of the lake, daring one another to ride the river rapids. It was our world, our town, the five of us – or maybe the two and two and one of us. At times like those, though, I hardly noticed. It was summer, and I probably wouldn't remember their names, but for a still moment in time, we had an unbreakable bond.

How did that even happen? We were five teenagers who barely even knew each other, but suddenly we were the five most important people in the universe. Life is weird like that, always throwing you curveballs. I didn't know the next one was going to slam me in the gut.

Elise

It was a last hurrah kind of thing, on the last day of camp. I had planned it with Damon, in between quick kisses behind the showers, and Kelsey and Hank were game. Quinn wouldn't care if we robbed a bank, he would still tag along.

The stars were brighter than I had ever seen them, shining like minuscule floodlights bathing us in light. The kayak storage barn was wide open, and it was easy to sneak five singles out and paddle onto the lake, which reflected the moonlight so perfectly it was like sailing through glass.

I teasingly splashed Damon with my paddle and he began to chase me, with Hank and Kelsey and Quinn paddling with all their might to keep up, until we reached the mouth of the rapids.

"Dare ya." I had taunted Damon, and he shook his head.

"No freaking way! Not for a million dollars!"

"Not for a trillion dollars!" Quinn chimed in, back-paddling slightly to keep away from the current.

"I'd do it for free." Hank said, smiling mischievously, and Kelsey laughed.

"You're actually going to do it?"

Hank shrugged, still smiling. "Life goes by too fast. Live a little!" And he paddled into the mouth of the stream.

I remember that moment as clearly as if it were yesterday, when we were giddy and silly and still so carefree, because it was summer, and we were alone and in love.

Until the glass surface of the lake shattered, and everything changed.

Kelsey

I remember his back, his black jacket to ward off the evening chill, and his strong arms as he paddled into the rapids. Whooping and hollering, he rode over the first few bumps with expert skill, and I cheered along. The water turned as white as snow, and Hank bobbed up and down like a toy boat in a bathtub, pumping one fist in the air.

The wind turned icy, the rocks sharper, and the kayak gave a dangerous wobble.

Every ounce of lightheartedness was gone, even though we couldn't have known what was going to happen next. A cry lodged in my throat, for Hank to come back, to get out of the water, but my voice was as quiet as the whispering breeze that rippled the lake's clear surface.

Hank was out of control, even though his kayak was only the size of a pencil from where I sat, safe from harm. The paddle flailed about in his hands as he tried to right himself, and the rocks battered his flimsy kayak back and forth, spinning him wildly like a whirlpool. I was frozen with fear and horror, unable to move or even blink, when the kayak flipped in the gushing river.

Hank was gone, and the kayak dashed against the rocks and split in two.

Elise screamed.

Damon swore.

And I was Juliet, ripped in two when her Romeo was gone forever. But unlike Juliet, I had no dagger, only the sharp and bitter regret of what I had done, that I had caused this.

And Hank, who was wonderful, who was going to change the world with his quiet and marvelous thoughts, was no more.

We had killed him. We knew it. And we were the only ones who would ever know.

Or so we thought.

Damon

The police found the body a few days later, washed up far downstream, soaked and shattered.

The guilt was like a poison or a knife wound, slowly leeching away all the life left in you until you're nothing, just a ghost.

Elise's fire was gone, and Kelsey was empty. Kelsey, who thought she had found him, who knew Hank the best, the boy we had befriended, whose laugh we had made fun of, who Quinn showed the stars to. Quinn was empty too, but not like Kelsey was, a different kind of empty, lonely. We were all lonely, now that Hank was gone.

It's been ten years now. Ten years of nightmares, guilt, and therapy, ten years of haunting loss. But when I step out of my professor's classroom and see four other students waiting for me in the hallway, I know who they are.

Elise, with her long, billowing blonde hair and defiant expression, hunched from the burden of the guilt we've shouldered for so long.

Quinn, somehow still smiling, looking cheerful but not cheerful enough to cover up the sorrow in his eyes.

And Kelsey, like a broken bird, strong and powerful and confident and wounded like the rest of us.

"Come on, Damon." Quinn says, dangling car keys from his index finger. "We're going to Reno."

And so, ten years later, we pay our respects in a chilly cemetery in Reno, Nevada, each holding a single rose to our chests as if it will keep out the cold inside of us. Hank's grave is a single marble block sunk into the ground, engraved with his name, birth and death dates, and a quote underneath that I try to read but my eyes glaze over. Hank, the boy who we lead to his death, is here. Everything has come full circle.

Elise clears her throat to speak, stepping forward. "I know you all blame yourself, but I think I take the blame. It was my idea to go kayaking. Because of me a great man died that day, and I will never for as long as I live forget it. Hank lives through me in my experiences, in the wonder of knowledge and the smell of a library the moment you step in. He was so wise, so full of knowledge. Hank would have changed the world – and yeah, people say that all the time without really meaning it, but you can't deny it's true. He simply would. You could feel it." She stops sharply, as if daring us to correct her. We don't. No one speaks.

"One last word." Kelsey says, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. "Hank, you were the first person I ever loved. I loved your smile, your laugh, and the way you thought about the world, not just watched it go by. Thank you for the brief time we spent together, and for the lives you have blessed and continue to bless today."

No one speaks.

Four college students walk out of the cemetery, reminiscing about the past, laughing through tears and holding hands, remembering that summer ten years ago.

Have we come to terms with what we did? Maybe we never will. But at least we know we have done all we can for Hank... And maybe, somehow, he can forgive us.