Only four days were left until the end of camp, and he'd resigned himself to his fate. He wasn't going to talk to the girl with the ponytail. He had run through the reasons why she would never see anything in common with him, and could almost recite it like a creed of self-defeat.

He saw her at the ridge, looking out over the farms in the valley below. Her headphones were plugged into her walkman, and she seemed completely at peace.

The tape player clunked to a stop. She sighed, took off the headphones and looked around. He realized that he'd been staring at her, but she didn't seem to notice, or at least, to mind.

"Hi" she said.

"Hi."