The dark blue Benz pulled up to the many awaiting cabins filled with anxious and excited children. Relieved to finally be out of their suffocating classes in their stuffy schools and step into the fresh summer air. The cabins also contained irresponsible young adults looking for nothing more than a summer job to supply them with a few bucks.

Koa and Kio sat close together in the back of their mother's car playing a game of cards. A game with no name and confusing rules that only the two of them understood. They hadn't bothered to look up from their game. It seemed like too much trouble to look out the window at the camp they were about to spend the rest of their summer imprisoned in.

After circling what the camp claimed to be a parking lot a good several times their mother finally found a parking spot that she determined was decent enough to hold her car. A spot that was covered with gravel, not dirt so there would be no dust to worry about. A spot that was far away from any trees that could drip sap or hold birds that would discard their droppings onto her perfectly polished windows.

Their mother pulled her key from the ignition the engine slowly fading away until the sound completely disappeared. Then she placed the keys inside her Gucci bag decorated to look like alligator skin. Of course, she would never use any real animals in her fashion. That was not Karen Dwyer's style. 

Karen loved animals and the environment like all reasonable people. They were two of her favorite things. If you made a list of Karen's favorite things you would have to put the environment and animals (especially the endangered kind) at the top and her twin sons near the bottom.

"We're here," she stated as if they didn't know where they were, the twins gave her no reply their eyes glued to the playing cards in their laps.

"I said we're here," she raised her voice trying not to lose her temper for the third time that morning.

It had been an absolutely hellish battle to get the twins dressed and into the car before noon. It was like wrestling two seventeen-year-old-sized toddlers into the back of her car.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Yes," they said in unison lifting their heads the identical set of hazel-green eyes staring back into hers.

"Are you excited?" she asked faking a smile. Ninety-nine percent of Karen's smiles were fake it was hard to fake a bubbly personality when the one you were born with was so painfully cynical.

"For what? Bug bites and sleeping bags," Koa spat.

"We changed our minds," Kio replied.

"We decided we'd rather stay home," they said.

That was how they normally spoke to their mother, Koa first, then Kio might say something, then together. Their voices spoke in perfect unison blending together as one. It used to get on Karen's nerves but now it was so normal she hardly noticed.

"I paid a lot of money for this camp and you're going whether you like it or not! Now get out of the car!" Karen barked throwing open her door and stepping one dark blue stiletto out of her matching car, she often colored-coded her things.

The twins stayed glued to their seats and went back to their card game as if nothing happened. They pretended that their mother's words had nothing to do with them a little game they always ended up playing with her. They called it 'ignore mom until she explodes.'

Karen grabbed her expensive purse and slammed the door hard enough to make the car shake. If they wanted to sit in the hot car while she talked to the camp advisor that was fine with her. It was probably better if the advisor didn't meet the twins beforehand. She strolled off angrily the sharp heels of her shoes leaving small dents in the dirt ground.

"Shall we steal the car?" Koa asked with a cheeky smile.

"I think she took the keys," Kio replied as he neatly stacked the cards slowly fitting them back in their box.

"Do you remember how to hotwire a car?"

"Of course I do, but mom will be mad if we destroy her car."

"Yeah you're right she might beat the shit out of us," Koa said with a sigh running a hand through his thick mop of hair.

"She'd probably use a tree branch," Kio joked as he fumbled around with the deck of cards trying to get the box to close.

"Or a rock."

"Camp can't be too bad," Kio said with a small smile as a pair of giggling girls walked past wearing unreasonably short shorts to show off their plump asses.

"It could be fun," Koa replied paying no attention to the girls with their jiggling asses.

"Do you want to go explore?" It was a hot summer day and Kio was eager to get out of the stuffy car even if it meant obeying their mother.

"More than I want to sit in this stuffy thing," Koa said reading Kio's mind like always, they often had the same ideas. 

Their minds seemed to work as one at least that's what Kio thought. Kio couldn't even begin to fathom what was going on in his brother's head right now as they sat in the back of the hundred-degree car. The sanctuary of their air conditioning disappeared with their mother's keys.

The boys left their mom's car carelessly leaving the doors unlocked. Slowly making their way through the dirt patch and toward the cabins. Kio found a pine cone laying underneath its mother tree and began kicking the spiky object as if it were a soccer ball. Koa joined in and they soon had a whole game going.

"It's sad that this is the most interesting thing that's happened all day," Koa said growing tired of the large seed and kicking it back to its forest home.

The boys watched as the pinecone bounced its way across the ground before coming to a stop, then they sighed in unison and continued on their way. Bored and grumpy as usual.

"Hello," a young girl with curly blonde hair and a clipboard shouted from across the way.

She was one of those girls who wore a sundress every day the sun was out. The dress was tight fitting and revealed her freckled shoulders. Lots of henna tattoos were painted across her exposed skin most likely from her many artistic friends. Her perfectly shaped nails decorated with little jewels, each one painted a different color.

"Hello and welcome to camp sunshine! Are you here with your parent and/or legal guardian?"

"Yes this is my father," Koa said gesturing to his twin brother.

"Nice to meet you, ma'am," Kio said with a smile his voice slightly lowered.

"Very funny," the girl said forgetting to laugh, "Are you here with your real parent and/or legal guardian?"

"We aren't deaf!"

"Yeah, we heard you the first time!"

Koa and Kio exchanged glances. This girl was getting on their bored nerves. Koa wiggled his eyebrow to signal Kio who instantly got on his hands and knees. Koa jumped behind the girl. Before she even knew what was happening Koa was pushing the girl over Kio who was placed conveniently at her feet. She hit the ground face-first and instantly started crying. Her nose started to bleed staining her bright yellow sundress.

The boys laughed at the horrible prank. It was their way of saying 'hello and fuck off.' They ran to the forest still laughing at the poor girl's misery. Kio's side hurt a little from having the girl pushed over him but he didn't mind. The little bit of pain was worth the huge smile on Koa's face.

They ran through the many pine trees stomping through the bushes and crushing pinecones underneath their feet. Eventually, they found their way through the forest and ended up near a cabin.

By pure unfortunate luck, they came upon the sign-up cabin where their mother was waiting. She was standing amongst the many other preppy parents who could afford to bring their children to such an expensive camp.

"Here they are now," Karen said with a forced smile as she gestured to her boys covered in sap and pine needles.

"Aren't they just lovely," one of the other mothers cooed as if she were talking about two infants and not two boys who were practically adults.

"Like two peas in a pod, how do you tell them apart."

"When they were little I would draw dots on their foreheads."

Karen had many creative ways of changing the way her twins looked so she could tell them apart. Once they got older she stopped caring who was who. Remembering proved to be too much of a hassle.

"Hello, boys my name is counselor Randy," a mildly fat middle-aged man with a thick blonde mustache proclaimed as he held out his stubby calloused hands for the boys to shake.

"Nice to meet you," they said each grabbing one hand and shaking it rather violently.

"Is you're name really Counselor?"

"Your parents must not have had high hopes for your future when they named you."

The man forced a laugh he was used to the rude behavior of the teenagers here. Many of them having to be dragged away from their mini-mansions. They would much rather spend their summer locked up in a dark room playing video games or watching television.

"Is that all you need from me?" Karen asked after signing the last piece of paper she needed to hand her sons over for the season.

"Yep see you at the end of August, oh and here's the address in case you need to send anything," Randy said pulling a little card out of his pants pocket.

Karen thanked the man making sure to write down the date she needed to pick up her sons knowing she would never remember on her own. She didn't need the address she knew how to drive here, and she would never send the boys any packages or letters. She gave them enough stuff already.

She threw the little card into the vast world of items she held in her purse to completely forget about until four years later. When she would be digging around for a Q-tip and randomly stumble upon it.

She would pull it out look at it for a few seconds then throw it away in a trash can outside a random coffee shop. Trying not to think about her sons any more than she had to. It pained her to think of what she raised. 

"Goodbye children," Karen said snapping her purse shut.

"Goodbye mother," they coldly chimed.

They made eye contact with their mother for a few seconds before she stormed off with no goodbye hug, no encouraging words, not even any heartwarming threats. After the two-hour drive, Karen was sick of her children and couldn't wait to spend two whole months happily away from them.

This past month of them being out of school had been absolute hell. At least this would be their last summer as children. As soon as June came around again they would graduate and then they would finally move out of her house. 

Though they turned eighteen in December she couldn't kick them out while they were still in school. What would her co-workers think about her throwing her children out of her house before they finished school?

Karen may seem like an evil bitch but she isn't all bad. Though she is a terrible mother it really was hard for her to raise two boys all on her own. She worked her way up in the world of law and became the best defense attorney in the county. 

 She provided for her boys making sure they had everything they could need, like clothes and food. But the cold and unforgiving woman unloved by her own parents. A mean girl with very few friends couldn't give her children the love they so desperately needed.

So the twins made an unknown compromise with their cold mother. What she couldn't give them they would give themselves. They loved each other more than any siblings could and that was enough for them. At least it had been so far.