"Hello? I'm home!" My sister's voice rang through the room. My sister, who I had not seen for half a year. My sister, who was the best person in the world.

I ran.

"Ivy!" I screamed, throwing myself down the stairs and into the arms of my older sibling, who I was partly surprised to see with muscles almost larger than Dad's. Partly not, because every year she came back she had gotten stronger and tougher.

Ivy laughed as I barreled into her, barely stumbling back, and she wrapped her lean arms around me. Tousling my hair, I felt her grin as Mom came down behind me. "Oh! Ivy, I thought you were coming home later!" she shrieked.

Then, when we were all hugging each other, everything was almost perfect.

"Ivy, how was it? I missed you so much!" Mom pulled back to scan Ivy. Once she had come home with a small bird tattoo behind her ear, and Mom had freaked, even though it apparently had been 'just a fake temporary tattoo'.

Satisfied Ivy had not gotten any permanent tattoos or piercings, Mom turned to me. "Cal, when you get older, you're going, right?" And I shook my head, eyeing Ivy from the corner of my eye. "I don't wanna leave you guys for half a year." 14-year old me was more scared, though, of how this would affect my social life.

Tommy Parkinson had just asked me out last week, and I was ecstatic to have my first boyfriend, even if he was, maybe a jerk. I felt silly thinking about it, but surely anyone would understand why I was hesitant to have a long-distance relationship. No, I'd rather stay home with him.

As I followed Ivy up the stairs, and leaned on her doorway as she unpacked, I asked, "Ivy, why did you decide to go to camp? I mean, don't you miss your friends?" And boyfriends? I wanted to add, but waited for her answer.

Ivy sighed. "You know, I wanted to go to camp so I could forget about here. I was 16, the youngest age to be allowed, and things were hard. I lost all my friends, Dad and Mom were fighting a lot, then, and I just needed to go. When I came back, everyone was so surprised by how much I had changed." I frowned. I hadn't known that.

Ivy pursed her lips. "And, I think it was only for summer break, when I first went, so I was just like, "See ya!" She laughed. "I love it." she murmured, her hands paused over her backpack.

"And, Cal, when you get to know the people there, and you learn how they learn, and how they cope, and how they live, it'll be the hardest thing in the world to leave them." she added with a sad smile.

I quickly interrupted. "Show me what you learned."

My sister grinned and pulled me over to an empty corner of the room. "Okay. Pretend you're attacking me." I raised a brow at her. "Don't hurt me, 'kay?" The last time she tried one of her moves on me, I had a sore shoulder for a week.

Ivy bounced on her toes, smiling. "I'll try not to," she said.

I just charged at her, knowing what she was going to do. Before I hit her, I changed course and moved to the side, avoiding her arms coming around to trap me. From behind her, I jumped onto her back and she crumpled to the floor, rolling backwards and pinning me against the floor. "Gotcha," she muttered, and flipped over with her knees holding my arms down and her hand around my throat, not choking me, but reminding me once again, that my sister could easily kill someone in a second.

"You win." I said, and as she let go of me, I hooked my leg around her ankle. She fell to the ground with a surprised oof, and I landed on her stomach, my hands, clammy with sweat, on her shoulders.

"I win." I panted, while Ivy rolled her eyes. "Alright, now get outta my room."

She pushed me off of her and shoved me into the hallway. "Better luck next time!" I snickered as she slammed the door in my face.

I was never, ever going to go to camp, I thought.