A/N: And here I was thinking I wouldn’t do any of these this summer... Anyway, names changed as usual.

So from the 18th through the 25th of July, I was in Mexico at a place called NPH with a group of 40 from my church. We did a vacation bible school for the 11-14 year old children there. We arrived late Friday, and the VBS started Monday, so we had time to get to know the kids first. Each night we got together in a big circle with a bunch of candles in the middle that we could give to people who helped “share the light of god.”

I was kinda the odd kid out; most everybody came with a sibling or friends- not me. Yay for being the recluse. I did have cousins within our group but they were all brothers and way interested in each other.

However, on Saturday my cousin Antony had brought his guitar, and he was serenading a bunch of us girls with really pretty songs he wrote, one of which a girl, Tess, called the perfect Jacob Black theme song, which sent me down Riley and Max memory lane quite a bit, but I eventually got over it when he started playing Beatles tunes. I had kinda tuned out by the time he and my other cousin, Donny, started playing Weird Al songs (notably ‘The Saga Begins’, which led to an interesting attempt to explain to one of the kids the concept of Star Wars without using English.)

Soon after, this guy from our group (I could not for the life of me remember his name) came down and stood by me listening to the music. I remembered him from earlier when he called himself “El hombre del dulce” when he gave tic tacs to the little kids.

“I’m sorry; I can’t for the life of me remember your name,” I said. Quickly, I added “I’m Carrie.”

“Wade,” he said, offering his hand for the Mexican equivalent to the handshake which we’d gotten used to.

After a moment of silence between Wade and me, Donny had insisted on singing “The Saga Begins” again, and this time me, Antony, Donny, and Wade all sang as Antony played the guitar.

And man, could Wade not sing.

I was starting to sense a pattern.

We finished the song, and Wade looked over at me. “I can’t believe that there are four people here who know that song.”

“Well,” I explained, “Donny is a Weird Al fanatic, Antony does whatever Donny does, and I’m just a Star Wars geek.”

“Really?”

“I’ve strangely never lost at Star Wars Trivial Pursuit.” This was fact.

He laughed softly, a laugh that simultaneously made my heart jump and yet made me feel as though he was mocking me. “I bet you could beat me. I’m kinda just a casual watcher. Love the movies, though.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you go to the exhibit they have back in the states?”

“Not yet. I kinda want to, though.”

“I haven’t gotten there, either.”

Antony yelled out “Any requests?”

I was just minding my own business, thinking how cool it would be if Antony knew how to play ‘Hallelujah’, that one song from Shrek, on his guitar, when Wade said:

“Hey, Antony, do you want to do that song we were working on earlier?”

I looked over at him. He was kinda hoodlum looking, actually. Scruffy black hair with a scruffy, teenage beard to match, words in Spanish written all over his forearm. Strangely, he was the only one in our group to be wearing pants and not shorts. Didn’t seem like the type of guy to play acoustic guitar.

“Sure,” Antony said, passing the instrument over. Wade sat down and plucked for a bit before setting his fingers up for a chord. I expected strumming.

Nope. Finger picking.

To a song that was oddly familiar.

He was playing, I’m not even joking, ‘Hallelujah’.

Loser read my mind.

I practically squealed. “Oh my god, you’re playing—”

He cut me off. “You know?” I nodded. He laughed, the same quiet, half-mocking laugh. “Shh, it’s a secret.” Starting over, he played through the opening riff once, twice, and then...

Antony and I began to sing. I’m not even kidding, the audience doubled during this song. Despite the fact that we had forgotten some lyrics, between the two of us we got the first three verses done without messing up.

“Hallelu-ooh ooh ooh-ujah,” we finished in harmony. There was applause, and he handed back the guitar to Antony, who proceeded to start playing ‘Hey Jude’ which, I believe, no one knew all the words to.

“Nice quitar playing,” I offered.

“Nice singing,” Wade responded.

“I’m not gonna lie, my favorite version of ‘Hallelujah’ is the Vitamin String Quartet,” I muttered.

“Vitamin String Quartet is pretty cool. I like how they do songs by less well known bands.”

This floored me. I didn’t have to explain the concept of the Vitamin String Quartet? This was a first. (Which occurs to me I should explain: VSQ is a string quartet- no kidding- that plays popular music, rock music, pop music, etc.)

“I’ve got them on my little cruddy MP3 player right now,” I said.

“Really?” Was that like his catch phrase or something?

“Yeah, I decided not to deal with my iPod on this trip.”

“Huh. What grade are you in?”

“I’m gonna be a junior.”

“I’ll be a senior. Are you already looking at colleges?”

“Yeah.”

Our conversation continued on like that for a good five minutes, before I wrestled the guitar away from Antony (with him protesting with such phrases as, “Do you even play the guitar?” and “You’d better not drop the pick in.”) I played for a bit and said goodbye to everyone as I went back to my bunk.

Wade was one cool dude.

When we came in the circle for the candle ceremony, Wade gave me a candle.

“This is for Carrie,” he said, picking up a lit candle and bringing it over to me, “for having an intelligent conversation with me about Star Wars and the Vitamin String Quartet.”

Janet called out, “You can have an intelligent conversation about Star Wars?”

I rolled my eyes.

It was the first candle I had received the whole trip.

Tuesday. Midday. I threw up and was in bed the rest of the day. Thank you, mom, for making me pack Pepto-Bismol. By around 9 pm, I was feeling better and I went off to the soccer court.

I didn’t just get up to see Wade. How dare you think that? (Yeah, I’m guilty.)

Anyway, I got there just in time for the NPH vs. Us game. Donny had started singing the US national anthem really loudly (the loser) considering we were losing (not shocking).

I rolled my eyes and leaned on the outside of the fence.

“Hey.”

Wade walked up to me. I gave a little wave.

“Weren’t you not feeling well?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m doing better.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

“That’s good.”

At that moment, three kids practically mauled Wade, yelling “Lucecitas! Lucecitas!” (Spanish: Little lights.)

“Lucecitas?” I asked.

“Glow sticks. You know, the little ones you make bracelets with?” He said, pulling a small box out of his pocket and distributing them, demonstrating how to bend them to get them to light.

The kids ran off with their treasures, lighting them up and showing the other kids.

“So you’re not just the candy man anymore, eh?” I joked.

“Yeah, now I’m the glow stick man, too,” he laughed. I love that laugh.

I smiled. “I’m gonna go get some water,” I said, backing away.

“I’m glad you’re doing better,” he called over.

“Me, too,” I said.

Way later on in the trip. The last day. Throughout the week there was a competition. In secret, the boys and the girls had to secretly build a piñata for the kids. We had made the coolest monkey ever. The guys made a pretty cruddy looking Spongebob and a pretty awesome treasure chest. (There were more guy kids, so they needed more piñatas)

The setup was this: The piñatas would be hung from the bell tower inside the chapel. The mission group would stand in a circle and hold hands so that the kids couldn’t go directly after the candy until the piñatas were well and truly broken.

The girl piñata was first.

I stood and grasped hands with Rachel, a pretty amazing girl I’d gotten to know on the trip. I reached to grab hands with Janet, on my other side, but before I reached her, Wade had slid in and took my hand.

My heart about stopped.

Then my little friend that I had met down there, Gabrielle, grabbed onto both our arms and asked if she could hit the piñata first. I quickly composed myself and told her to wait until Miguel (the mission group leader) said that she could.

Our piñata took about seven kids to get to break even a little, but once the eighth kid (Gabrielle) had taken one swing, the head popped off and Miguel was forced to dump the candy. Very unwillingly, I pulled my hand away from Wade’s.

He went off with a few guys to grab their Spongebob piñata and I walked over and talked with Gabrielle for a while as they hung it up. Once they were ready, I grabbed Kat’s hand this time, and on my other side, Jane’s. Kat and I were using our feet to keep the boys away from the inside of our circle, and we were actually pretty spread out. Enough room for another person.

I hadn’t noticed that Wade was one of the seven or so people who were floating about separate from the circle for whatever reason.

“Need another person?” He shooed the boys away and grabbed my hand again, afterward grabbing Kat’s.

Heart stopped again.

Was he determined to put me back into my bedridden phase? I thought I was over that.

He didn’t let go of my hand until after the final piñata, either.

Granted, he also didn’t let go of Kat’s. But I can dream, can’t I?

The next morning we were off to the airport. Well, we went to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe or whatever it’s called (basilica, shrine, I can’t remember...) first and we were scheduled for a 3:00 flight out of Mexico City. We got to the airport at around 1:30, and found our flight had been delayed to 5:30. Wonderful.

Our second flight was scheduled for 6:30, so considering that we needed to be there and through customs by then, it seemed highly unlikely we’d get home on time.

For our trouble, they gave us 60 pesos (roughly 6) at Chili’s, which most of us took advantage of. By the time we got back from eating, the flight had been pushed back to 6:06 (what was up with the :06?) and we had no chance of making the second flight whatsoever. Wonderful.

When we finally got on the plane, we ended up sitting- yes, sitting in an unmoving plane- for an additional 30 minutes. Argh. Donny’s brother, Tom, had already started complaining about our airline; at the risk of sounding cliché, ‘the natives were getting restless’; and the flight attendants weren’t being friendly. They didn’t even apologize for the delay or anything. Best part of the flight was when they announced final descent and the entire group of 40 started getting really antsy. “The wave” was involved.

We landed in Houston at around 9:00, finished customs by 9:30 (when our connecting flight was to land back home), and proceeded to sit around just outside of baggage claim while Miguel and Tanya (two of the four adult coordinators) tried to figure out what we were to do.

While sitting around, Antony broke out his guitar and started playing our VBS songs, which eventually morphed into Beatles songs again. I was kinda sick and tired of the Beatles, so I just kinda sat against my suitcases humming ‘Hallelujah’, because my romantic mind was already considering that me and Wade’s song.

Oddly enough, Wade just happened to walk by at that moment. He didn’t seem to notice me, and he was just floating about back and forth, so I didn’t pay any mind.

Miguel came back and we sorted out flights. There were three separate ones we could take. I kinda wanted to take the latest one, cause I didn’t really care, plus a few of the guys were thinking about seeing The Dark Knight and I really wanted to. But then Wade raised his hand for the earlier flight, and Miguel said we needed more for the early one and, well, what else could I do, right?

He went back to sort it out with the airline workers and the guys proceeded to get into an oh-bo-shin-aten-toten (or however you spell it) tournament. I hovered for a while, and Wade asked if I wanted in, but I declined.

By the time that Donny had been declared the winner, Miguel and Tanya had finished discussing with the travel agents our overnight plans. Everyone picked their roommates (obviously same-sex) and we went to the outer doors to wait for the shuttles.

I was assigned to the third shuttle with my roommate, Marilyn. Wade was on the fourth.

While waiting, Ian brought out his guitar and they played ‘Hey Jude’ again. With the guys hooking their arms around each other’s shoulders in a circle around him, swaying side to side like some sort of 70’s hippie group. I started laughing and, once more, Wade looked over at me, took his hand off of Mark’s shoulder, and asked “Do you want in?”

“Sure,” I said (heart fluttering again). He draped his arm across my shoulders.

Again, with the heart stopping bit.

The first group left, and the second group waited outside. Wade decided to pilfer Ian’s guitar and I decided to be brave.

“Bored?” I asked, walking over and sitting next to him.

“Yeah.” He double checked the tuning on the guitar and started to play.

‘Hallelujah’.

At that point, I was seriously considering jumping on him, I was so happy. Then my common sense took over and I just started singing.

Unfortunately, at the exact second we finished, Rachel came over and went all fangirl over the song, which totally wrecked any moment that might have happened.

That and my shuttle had arrived.

Darn it all.

The next day, when we finally got home, I practically tackled my mom and the other 14 of us that ended up on the early flight all found their parents or whoever was picking them up... except Wade, whose parents were apparently not yet there.

As I got my bags, everyone was giving their heartfelt goodbyes to each other- Wade was hugging a few of the other people on the flight- and I decided that I’d wait for him to approach this time, cause I mostly did the approaching other times.

He didn’t come over.

My mom finished her chat with the other adults and motioned for me to come with her. I began to walk away.

That’s when he decided to say something.

“Hey, see you around,” he said, giving me a Mexican handshake- not a hug.

“You too,” I replied.

As me and my mom walked away, my mom asked “Who was that boy?”

“That would be Wade,” I replied, pushing ahead with my luggage.

“Wade...?”

“Wade Bertram.”

“Would he be your new crush?”

“...I hate you.”