“Percussion and starlets, bus 8.”

I picked up my bag and my cymbals and headed over to bus 8.

The bus ride to band camp was not particularly long.
When we arrived at Walsh University we got off the bus and had lunch in the shade.

I sat down with some fellow freshmen and watched some of the boys make fools of themselves.

Everyone was chitchatting and snapping pictures, and that’s when I noticed him.

I knew he would be here, I knew I would have to see him again. But that didn’t soften the blow of seeing him again for the first time since school let out in June.

Justin looked tanner than before. He looked fitter than before. His eyes glowed, as if they had secrets from all his great summer memories.

It angered me to see him so care free, so happy,
so perfect.

He saw me, smiled, waved, and walked over.

I wasn’t ready to talk to him, not yet.