camp edey (tw///mentions of self harm)

i called camp edey my home away from home. girl scout camp. i never did the whole cookie selling thing, just girl scout camp. the place where i spent so much of my time in the summer as a child. summer camp is a place where best friends last one week. summer camp is a series of

"what weeks will you be here for?"

"are you gonna be here next week?

"we need to hang out over the summer!"

"i'll see you next summer!"

i was best friends with a girl named melanie. she told me she has a dachshund. i have a dachshund too. melanie was really mean. a few years later, i learned that she wrote a bomb threat on a radiator in her school's bathroom and everybody had to evacuate.

i was best friends with a girl named kaylee. compulsive liar. blind in one eye (not a lie). she told me her grandma kicked her out of the car on the way home and she got chased by a man with a knife. that definitely didn't happen. we brought her on a family "vacation", more than once. when water touched her skin she would get hives. she faked asthma attacks for attention. she faked cutting herself with a spoon for attention. we were probably 12.

i was best friends with a girl named kailin. we had a pet rock together named kevin. 

i was best friends with faith. faith is older than me, cooler than me. not really that cool. but older means cooler. their friend group was called "the food group" and everybody had a food name. i am given the name chocolate chip because i am small. faith was cake. faith drew an "OC" for me. they drew OCs with powers for everybody (my power was summoning mailboxes with tentacle creatures in them). we still follow each other on instagram. cake had a habit of pulling their hair out. we listen to rhett and link songs on the bus ride to camp.

i was best friends with ethan. ethan was older than me. DEFINITELY cooler than me. ethan is tough-skinned, hot-headed. kaylee pretended to cut herself with a spoon for ethan's attention. ethan has evenly-placed white scars on his shin.

i was best friends with a girl named gianna. we talked about the sims together. she was kind.

i was best friends with a girl named rylee. one week total. rylee told me that during a sleep over with her friend last night, they cut themselves together. i bring band-aids and neosporin to camp the next day. we sit on a blanket on the sand volleyball court, where i bandage her scrapes. rylee has beautiful green eyes.

i was best friends with squirm. squirm's real name is lauren, but we call her squirm. squirm has shoulder-length knotted blond hair. we have pretend wizard fights together with sticks as wands. squirm always wears black and red plaid pajama pants. squirm is the one that tells me about melanie writing a bomb threat on the radiator at school (i was close with squirm a few years after melanie. we were at sleep away camp sharing camp stories about crazy friends. imagine my surprise when we find out we knew the same girl).

i was best friends with a girl named maggie. she got really homesick during sleep away camp. i held her as she cried in the cafeteria bathroom.

on my honor

i will try

to serve god and my country

to help people at all times

and to live by the girl scout law ("LAW!")