There are some things that should be kept secret, and there are some things that are best being said. However, there are also things, that would make the world better if they just never happened. Sometimes, I wonder if what we're doing would have been better if we just stayed back and waited for this last year to be over. I didn't want to think like that, but I had to. It kept us safe, and it kept us alive.

"Hey." Hudson poked his head in through the door.

I looked up and smiled. "Hey." I finished folding the last of my clean t-shirts and put it up on the dresser.

He leaned up against the door and sighed. His olive green t-shirt had a muddy brown stain on the bottom right from when we've been working on the camp over by the spring.

"You going to say something or are you just going to stand there?" I asked him after about five minutes or so of silence.

He laughed at that. "No not really. I don't have something to say."

"Well how about you tell me what was going on between you and Oakley this morning?" For a moment he was silent, but then he spoke.

"She..." Hudson bit his lip, "Found something?"

I raised my eyebrows and turned to face him, "Well what did she find?"

He mumbled something under his breath. I wasn't sure if I had heard him right so I asked him again, "She found what now?"

"Nothing!" He shouted, "She just found something that I was hoping she wouldn't."

"Did you say a bear?" I could feel my stomach twisting from trying not to laugh. I didn't want to embarrass him but he seemed to have done that for himself already. 

He crossed his arms over his green and gray checkered flannel, "Yes. Okay?" He seemed to shout.

I couldn't contain my laughter anymore. I was hunched over and clutching my stomach. So Hudson had a secret stuffed bear running around the house. "I'm sorry man. You just never struck me as the stuffed animal type."

He threw his arms in the air, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do Noah!" He stared at me, his green eyes were clouded with frustration. "I came to you for help but if you aren't going to I can go somewhere else!"

"Woah woah woah calm down." I sat up and placed a hand on his shoulder. "I'll help. But right now, we have bigger problems on our hands. We need to finish the camp."

He dipped his head, "You know what? You're right. We have larger issues than girl trouble." He walked towards the door with his hands in his jeans.

The floor boards creaked as we walked down the steps of the old farm house. Oakley watched us leave but we never got a good bye. I couldn't help but wonder what the significance of that stuffed bear was, but I didn't dare ask while I was in the line of fire from her laser eyes.

The wind blew in the trees and I'd be lying if I didn't say that I was cold. Hudson must have been thinking the same thing but he would never admit it.

"So what was the deal with the bear?" I asked. I took careful steps as I crushed every dandelion in sight.

"There was a message." He didn't slow down to talk, but instead he sped up. "It's embarrassing, I don't want to talk about it."

I stopped. "What kind of message? Was it dirty?"

That made him stop as well. "No! It was just something I said back in November, that I was hoping she wouldn't find."

"Well are you going to tell me what it was because you know I'm not going to let it go." I demanded.

He sighed reluctantly. When he realized that I wouldn't give up he spilled "I told her I loved her."

"Hudson!" I playfully punched his arm. "Attah boy! There's your move! How'd she take it?"

"Not well." He continued. "She was all angry about the fact that I had been lying to her all these months."

"Well have you?" I started walking again, we were only about a hundred feet away from the entrance to the camp.

Hudson paused, "Not necessarily."

I laughed, "As a guy with a girlfriend, I can assure you that girls don't care about technicalities. As far as she's aware, you lied. If you ever want to get with that I suggest you apologize."

"But that's the thing!" He told me, "I don't want to get with that. She's a person. She just happens to see me as a massive douchebag now."

He pushed aside the remaining twigs and branches between us and the camp. When I saw what was in front of us I gasped.

"Damnit!" I threw my towel onto the dirt below me. I knew it had rained last night but the spring had risen and wiped away all of our progress. Our frames of tents had been destroyed and had missing parts, and the trench we had dug to prevent this from happening was full.

"I think we're going to need a bigger trench." He mumbled.

I started picking up the debris of our nearly finished camp and tried to rebuild. "You think?"

We worked hours into the night, it couldn't have been later than six when we left, but by the time we were finished, it had to have been three in the morning and we were exhausted. So we slept. Our tents held up, they smelled that's for sure. But I had to admit, they were pretty good for mud and leaves.

"Hey bud, we should probably get back, it's around noon and I'm starving." Hudson was shaking me awake.

I groggily sat up and rubbed my eyes, which was a mistake considering I still had dirt on them. "Yeah, okay." I said. "Last time I did this I came back to a fire."

"What?" He asked.

I stood up and stretched, sighing at the satisfying pop of my back. "I took Ashley away from the barn one night because it was our anniversary. We ended up staying the night out there." I sighed.

"Oh." He sang, "Spent the night huh?"

"No not like that, she still isn't ready." I rolled my eyes.

He laughed as we walked out of the camp, "I would not be able to do that."

"Oh believe me, it's hard." I told him. He laughed we walked in silence for about thirty minutes. The spring air had finally come in and the sunlight was tanning our pasty skin. I personally loved the sun, and so did Ashley considering her tan skin could never burn. It just absorbed the glow and held on tight, causing her to radiate the sun's warmth herself.

Hudson took a detour towards the peach orchard, and I followed in confusion. The full trees had multiple beads of coral spheres dangling from the branches. Unlike when we first discovered the farm, these peaches were bright and full instead of bruised and on the dirt.

"Oh my god." Hudson jumped up and hooked his left arm on one of the branches and used his other to lift him onto another. Once his position was secured, he reached up and grabbed one of the juicy fruits and tossed it down to me, I immediately sunk my teeth into its deliciousness and moaned as I savored the wonderful flavor.

"That good huh?" Hudson questioned as he bit into a peach of his own. "Oh my god, I know we have been eating nothing but peaches for the last month, but this is an entirely different food. I refuse to believe that this," He waved his free hand over the peach, "is anywhere related to that."

I laughed as I reached for another peach above me. I had to agree with him, I had never tasted anything like it before. "We better take some of these back to Oak-," I stopped mid-sentence as I realized what I had just said, "Sorry, man. I forgot, honest."

He shrugged, "It's alright, I haven't stopped thinking about her. You haven't done any damage."

"Well maybe I can do something to take your mind off of it?" I joked with a wink. I tossed him a small water bottle.

He quietly laughed and played along, "Why if I didn't know any better I would have thought you were trying to get me drunk!" He accused me.

"Maybe I am." He laughed at my fake seduction attempt. "No homo."

He hopped down from the tree with a few of the fruits in his shirt and tossed me a second one. "I don't know man, I might have to tell your girlfriend you tried to cheat on her with a man."

"Man? Please." I joked back.

Hudson playfully glared at me, "You're going to regret that Garland." He picked up one of the peaches in his pocket and threw one at me.

"Ow!" I yelped as I reached to the ground to toss a poor excuse for a peach at him. This resulted in a full on war with each of us owning a side of the orchard. We chased each other around the orchard and continued to hurl fruit at one another, we continued until it was too dark to see which direction a peach was flying from. We soon took our camping flashlights out and slowly walked back to the house, we were careful to keep ourselves hidden from any hormonal teenagers looking for a place their parents wouldn't find them. Unfortunately for them, this spot was already being used for hiding.

All of the candles in the house were lit which illuminated the windows with a yellow golden glow. It was pitch black outside with the only lighting being the half moon and the infinite amount of stars.

I walked up the steps and slowly opened the front door, careful to not wake anyone who might had been sleeping. Hudson had stopped on the porch to try and There was dead silence as we walked through the old house. Ashley, Elliot and Ravyn were waiting up in the living room. Ashley had her head in her hands and Elliot was simply staring into space as Ravyn paced.

"Where the Hell have you been?" Ravyn turned to me and yelled, her chocolate eyes were filled with both fear and anger. The other two in the room stood immediately and stared at me in disbelief.

"We got caught up-," I couldn't finish my sentence because I was interrupted again, this time by Ashley.

"We thought you were dead," She wiped a tear from her cheek. "I walked to her side and tried to hug her but she pushed me away, "Don't touch me."

"Ash," I begged. "Please." 

This time, she didn't wipe them off of her face. "I thought you were dead, I thought they had caught you, I thought I would never see you again!" It broke my heart to see her in so much pain. "I prayed so hard that you would come back, but now, I can't even stand to look at you." She pushed past me and ran up the stairs. Now, it was my turn to be in tears.

Oakley hurried down the stairs and stopped in her tracks when she saw me. She looked around the room and then back to me. "Hudson?" Her eyes were starting to fill with tears as she immediately assumed the worst.

"I'm right here." He stepped into the house, peach free.

She sighed in relief and ran up to him. She pulled him in for a hug and held him for the longest time. "Is it really you?" She pulled away.

"Yes," He held her tight, "Oakley I'm so-," He was cut short, She pressed her lips against his and wouldn't pull apart.

"You should have come back the first night." Ravyn scolded me, "None of this would have happened if you had. It's been three days since we had last seen you, and it's not like we could have gone to the police."

"I know, I'm sorry." I apologized.

At that point, I had lost the trust of my friends and maybe even my girlfriend. I wish she hadn't said the things she had said, but somethings need to be said. Just like somethings are better off not being said. Although, somethings never would have been said, if other things had never happened. And this was one of those things.v