Chapter Text
It was August, a month before the eighth grade, when the fresh water from the lake perfectly cooled down sun kissed skin. It was summer, a time when everything felt brighter, photos showed more color, watermelons tasted much sweeter — but, just as cloudless blue skies are replaced each year with crisp autumn winds, for both Rodrick and Regina, this summer would go on to mark a monumental time that will define the course of their young adolescents.
Rodrick’s summer this year had begun with the birth of his baby brother, Manny, who had been the main reason for his parents’ ultimate decision to send both Greg and him to summer camp. Something about how they didn’t want the two to feel overwhelmed at home with the new baby and feel “ignored,” which didn’t make much sense to Rodrick when something like sending them to camp only guaranteed a month of no attention from either mom or dad. This wasn’t the first time they did something like this to him, though. Rodrick remembered when Greg was born, and they did something similar; that time they had signed him up for youth basketball down at the old rec center down the street where he spent most of his time after school every day, benched.
Other than his taller than average height for a five-year-old, Rodrick had no other qualities that would have made his parents to reasonably believe he’d be any good at the sport, but he knew now that they were really just doing anything to lessen the chaos of having two young boys at home, and it wasn’t any different this time around.
Any brotherly bonding their parents might have also hoped would happen while at camp fortunately did not happen. As soon as their parents lovingly dumped them and left them in the dust at the wooded entrance of the camp, Rodrick made it a point to separate himself from Greg as much as physically possible. This didn’t seem to bother his little brother much, probably because his friend, Rowley, had insisted and convinced his parents to let him attend camp with Greg last minute. I guess they didn’t want their son to be without his only friend all summer.
As for Rodrick, he didn’t have friends that would waste a summer away at camp for him, but recently, before school ended, he had made acquaintances with a few boys the grade above who had introduced him to the amazing world of punk rock. His MP3 player was stocked up with music by bands like Green Day and blink-182. His first few days at camp, Rodrick mostly kept to himself, headphones in, roaming around the campgrounds. On the third day, he was lucky enough to find an empty room full of all kinds of instruments, and right in the middle, with a stream of light shining on it from the outside, was a dusty old drum set, but to Rodrick’s eyes, she was beautiful.
So, that began Rodrick’s daily routine of sneaking away to spend his whole day learning and practicing the drums by ear. It was hard at first, but after a few failed attempts of trying to hear the drum lines of his favorite songs and replicating them, he eventually got it down. And it felt great. He had never really had anything that he had liked this much (other than maybe video games) that kept his attention for this long. He finally saw a clearer path for his future. It was for this reason, that when he overheard a sweet angelic voice pass by the music room, exclaim, “Do you hear that? — that sounds pretty good. I like it,” he felt butterflies for the first time. He’d never really been any good at anything before, not enough for a stranger to like it, at least. His heart pounded as he tried to peek out the window to see who the voice belonged to. But he was too late, the girl had gone. She had left, but her words stuck to Rodrick like honey, and became the fuel for his ambitious music dreams.
Of course, on the biggest night of the summer, Regina George had to get her period for the first time. Her mother had warned her about it, that it would one day happen to her like it did for all girls eventually, but nothing could have prepared her for just how straight up awful it would be, and just to top things off, she bled through her cutest swimsuit and white demon shorts.
It was the night of the bonfire, and that meant that everybody would be out of their cabins, making their way down to the “pit.” Not the best circumstances for a girl with stained bottoms to try to sneak back to her cabin, but Regina was determined to make it back unseen. If she just waited for the sun to set a little further, she could use the darkness to her advantage and seamlessly get to her room to change and still make it in time for the bonfire, but the longer she waited, the more people started to show up, so she had to time it perfectly.
When the sun reached just below the horizon, Regina took that as her cue to move. She quickly left the bathroom stall she was perched in and slipped between two trees onto the side of the building. She carefully scanned the crowds of people in front of her for an opening, the quickest route to the “circle” where all the campers’ cabins were located. As she cautiously navigated her way through the sea of campers, she naturally had a few people who noticed her and gave her friendly hey’s and waves, which she was obligated to reply towards in order to cause the least suspicion. Regina almost made it past the crowd when she remembered an old cabin in the secluded part of camp she came across the other day. It was on the way to her cabin and she knew it would be a perfect way to go unseen. She did hear someone in there the other day, it sounds like they were playing the drums, but it was dark, and she doubted anybody would miss the bonfire tonight.
The abandoned cabin came into view, and to her relief, it didn’t appear to have anybody in it as she approached it. Just as she thought she was out of the clear, three boys jumped out of the darkness, pointing large bright flashlights at her. Regina immediately went to cover her bottom half, but it was too late, the boys had seen and so began their teasing.
“Dude, what is that? Did she have an accident, or what?” The boy in the middle started.
“No way, let me see,” the second boy came up to see, “ew, she did!”
“No, you morons. I just bled through my pants, and you better not go telling anybody,” Regina threatened.
“Blood? Gross! Look, it’s all over her butt, dude,” one of them pointed and snickered.
That’s when the third boy took out his phone and took a picture. It was a generic flip phone, she’s seen so many of them at the phone kiosks at the mall; the picture quality on that thing couldn’t be better than her Blackberry, but still, grainy or not, a picture like that getting out would be the death of her. She’d end up having to eat lunch with the dorks and weirdos at school.
“Sweet, wait until I send this to everyone.”
“Don’t you dare!” She reached for the phone, but he stepped out of the way. The phone then got tossed around from boy to boy before it made it back to its owner, who began furiously typing, no doubt getting the photo ready to send to as many people as he knew.
“Please,” Regina felt defeated, “don’t.”
Just as she was about to accept defeat and let the boys send the text, a mysterious figure dressed in all black came out of the shadows from the direction of the old cabin. They had their hood up, making it difficult for Regina to see who it was, but from their height alone, she could tell it was another boy. He approached the boys from behind and pushed the one with the phone to the ground.
“Hey, what the hell, man?”
“She said, don’t,” the hooded stranger said firmly. His voice was very calm and collected compared to Regina’s racing heart.
She was surprised by how low his voice was. Yes, there were a few boys in their grade whose voices had dropped, but most still hadn’t gotten there yet, or were unfortunately stuck in the voice cracking phase. It made her want to see who this person was even more.
“And what if I did?”
Just as easily as he pushed the boy down, the hooded boy picked him up, “Do you really want to find out?”
“Dude, do you know who my dad i-” he didn't even have the chance to finish his sentence before a fist got him square in the jaw.
“Hey!” The boy’s remaining two friends went to pick him up from the dirt. While they checked up on him, the boy in the hoodie picked up the phone.
“I’ll be taking this.” That’s when he turned away from the boys and began heading back towards the old cabin, not before tossing the phone to Regina. “Here you go, do whatever you want with that.”
“Th-thanks?” Regina was still stunned by what had taken place. She looked up and was disappointed that she could only catch a glimpse of the mysterious boy’s face from the side. With a little smirk and quick solute, he disappeared back into the dark.
Regina tried to call out to him, ask him for his name, but he was too quick. She looked at the phone in her hand, quickly deleted the picture, threw in on the ground next to boys, and turned back in the direction her savior walked away in. That’s when she noticed something on the ground and went to go pick it up. It was a camp lanyard, the same yellow one Regina and the other campers were given to wear everywhere they went. Hanging on it was a name tag with a crudely written name scratched onto it with crayon. Most of the first name was illegible, but what Regina could decipher read, “R. Heffley.” She didn’t know anyone with that last name. She stuffed the lanyard into her pocket. She thought maybe she could try to find the person it belonged to the next day and thank him.
That night, Regina was able to attend the bonfire like normal, managing to keep her reputation intact. The next morning, the common area was buzzing with everyone talking about an apparent camper having to be sent home early for attacking another camper. When she tried to ask people if they knew who was sent home, nobody seemed to know who they were. “Just a nobody” they’d say. Regina found herself in the unusual position of feeling bad for this nobody. To all these people, he might have been a nobody, but to her, he wasn’t a nobody, he had been the kind stranger who saved her. And she would find him one of these days to thank him.