Chapter Text
Sammy Gutierrez is about as Texan as a girl could get- loud, proud, and loves her family. Her country-isms are are sometimes hard for her own family to decipher, and she takes pride in being the one they all rely on at the ranch. Everything she does, she does with 110% effort and a smile on her face. Honestly, it's kind of exhausting being her.
Maybe her family noticed this, because one day, they announce she's going away for the summer.
Well, not exactly. Sammy has been given a chance to attend a state of the art summer camp, and her parents are insisting she goes.
She knows how stressed out her parents have been as of late. The ranch isn’t doing too bad as far as she knows, but she’d found her father pouring over documents in his office late at night several times. She may not know much about money or business, but the exhausted and rueful glances he’d give her and her mother when he thinks they aren’t looking tells Sammy that things might get worse sooner rather than later. She can’t leave if that’s the case! She had never really left the ranch before, but suddenly she’d be gone for two months. Two months!
Worse yet, if she leaves, her cousins would have to pick up the slack. Granted, they don’t do all that much to begin with, but still. She shouldn’t leave if it means others will have to work harder.
But, the day her parents let her know she would be attending, Sammy could hardly say no. They looked at her with wide eyed enthusiasm, like they wouldn’t take no for an answer. The thing would be paid for in full, with flights included even- Her family’s ranch supplies the meat for the camp and other venues owned by Hammond Enterprises, so this was a way to offer additional thanks. Thinking about it, maybe her parents were so insistent because they wouldn’t be able to send her otherwise. They assured her that being gone for a couple of months wouldn’t be too much of a strain on everyone else, and insisted she go and enjoy herself.
So even though she had reservations about the whole thing, she got on the plane, and went to Camp Cretaceous for the summer.
The moment those huge gates appeared before her, opening to a massive complex the size of which rivaled that of her family’s ranch, Sammy had taken a shine to this place. She honestly had very little expectations, since her only exposure to this kind of thing was what movies made camp out to be. This place makes those movie camps look positively underwhelming.
This place had everything under the sun- you name it. Horseback riding, kayaking, ziplining, interactive computer programs; An endless supply of entertainment for months.
But what she likes the most is the fact that there are so many other kids here. Not only that, but they somehow had the means of getting twelve of them into one cabin. Having a bunch of people around all the time reminded her of home.
By the end of the second week, she’d made friends with a bunch of others. The counselors also seemed to have taken a liking to her, saying she’s ‘friendly’ and ‘charming.’ There was one girl who didn’t seem to like her for whatever reason. Jules, or something. Said she was ‘quaint,’ whatever that means.
So, except for that one girl, Sammy’s doing great on the friends front.
Then, on her birthday of all days, she met her match.
Sammy’s birthday happened to be during the summer, though she didn’t tell anyone at camp that. She had new friends to celebrate with, but as this would be the first birthday away from her family, she didn’t feel much like celebrating. She put up a facade of her normal jovialness and no one saw through it. Sammy was really good at hiding how she felt, having to put up brave faces for her parents quite often.
Still, forced enthusiasm is tiring. By dinner, she’s exhausted, and instead searches for a quiet place to have some alone time. Despite her loving having other people around, just like home, she also needs a few moments to herself.
She had found a nice spot behind an equipment shed one day and went straight there. When she arrived, she found the spot already occupied by a pretty girl sketching away on a drawing pad.
Sammy was going to leave and find somewhere else to brood, but recognition clicked and remembered seeing her before. She'd noticed the girl typically did things alone. During team games, she either takes on all the responsibility or sits out. She seemed to always excel at individual activities. Sammy has never seen her with anyone else before, not at meals and not during free-periods.
No matter how tired she is, Sammy is a friendly person by nature, and this girl, she decides, needs a friend.
“Howdy! I’m Sammy.” Howdy? HOWDY? She has never said that before in her life. If the other girl couldn’t already tell she was from Texas, that certainly gave it away. Why was she so nervous anyway? Why are her palms getting sweaty, and why is her heart pounding against her ribcage?? Maybe she should just run away.
The other girl cocks an eyebrow, looks Sammy over, then tilts her chin at her.
“Sup.” Hmm. Direct. Nothing she can’t handle.
“What’s your name?”
“Why?”
“Your name is ‘Why?’” The girl lets out a dry laugh.
“I mean, why do you want to know?”
“Well, I like to know all my friends' names!”
“Since when were we friends?”
“Since the moment I sat down.” Sammy drops herself onto the ground, smiling at the girl who still looks very confused by all this. Her hands are still sweaty, but as they talk, she finds her heart calming down some.
“Whatever.” The girl goes back to drawing on her pad. Sammy glances over and to look, and sees a few dinosaurs and flowers before the girl flips the cover closed.
“Do you mind?”
“Sorry, just curious.”
“I can tell.” She says flatly.
“Well, I wouldn’t be so curious if you told me your name.”
“Ugh, if I tell you, would you leave me alone?” Got her.
“Sure. But, only if you promise to have breakfast with me tomorrow.” Sammy puts on her biggest smile and practically bats her eyes at the other.
“You’re kind of a weirdo, huh?” Sammy simply shrugs. The girl looks away for a moment, as if silently weighing her options. She looks back at Sammy.
“Okay, fine.” Sammy makes an obnoxious victory pose, noting the slight shift in demeanor from the other. The Texan then holds her hand out, ready to reintroduce herself.
“Let's try this again. Howd-- Hi! My name is Sammy!” The girl looks down at her hand worriedly, as if debating whether or not she’s made a mistake. Hesitantly, she takes her hand and shakes it.
“My name is Yasmina.”
--
Despite her earlier hesitancy to befriend Sammy, Yasmina has since opened up to her. Well, relatively speaking. She still doesn’t know too much about her new friend other than the fact she draws well and aspires to be a nationally ranked track star one day. Still, she convinced the girl to have breakfast every day for the past three weeks. The agreement was only one day, but every morning when Sammy walked up to her table, Yasmina never turned her away.
Conversation and food goes hand in hand, and their morning meetings are no exception. Sorta. It’s actually Sammy that does most of the talking, but Yasmina is a great listener. She’s attempted to get her new friend to talk more about herself, but she likes giving Sammy fake answers half the time. For example, when asked what her favorite color, favorite food, and favorite color of food is, Yasmina replied, “Orange, Orange, Orange.” Sammy couldn’t help but laugh at that. As a joke, she’s brought the girl an orange from the salad bar every morning since.
Another development is that they now hang out during group activities they both happen to be in. Yasmina, as Sammy had previously noted, can be very competitive, but not much of a team player. She’ll absolutely crush the relay race but then sit out the entire team tennis tourney. Whew, try saying that five times fast. In any case, Sammy always hangs around the other.
“You can call me ‘Yaz.’ Y’know, if you want.” Yaz casually tells her as she peels her orange one breakfast.
“Oooh, nicknames!”
“I mean, is it? It’s just my name but shorter.”
“Hmm, you’re right. Oh, what about ‘track star?’” Yaz smirks up at her, and nods her head approvingly.
“I like it.”
“I knew you would! Oh, oh! What should mine be?”
“I don't know. Maybe… Sam? I guess?”
“Ugh, no. I have a cousin named Sam. It'd be weird to be called that.”
“But it’s literally your-- Y’know what? Fine. How about…” She gives Sammy a staredown as she thinks of a name, and for some reason, Sammy feels her face heat up.
“Texas.”
“Huh?”
“That’ll be my nickname for you. Texas.”
“Really? Not even like ‘cowgirl’ or something?”
“Nope. Texas.”
They don’t use those nicknames for the rest of summer, unless it’s to annoy the other.
Yasmina, however, is now firmly 'Yaz' in Sammy's mind.
--
Camp is in it’s last few days and Sammy is feeling particularly distraught at the idea. She misses her family and can’t wait to be with them again, but now she has a friend that she’ll miss just as much. Still, she doesn’t like others knowing when she’s upset, so she puts on a smile and goes on everyday like nothing is wrong.
This particular morning’s activity is something Sammy’s been looking forward to- Horseback riding. They’ve done that before, but this would be the first as a joint activity with Yaz’s cabin. She’s excited to finally do something she’s good at and show off for Yaz, who has taken many an opportunity to show off for her.
Yaz, unsurprisingly at this point, is sitting out. Sammy hardly minds, since it means Yaz can watch her undistracted. She gets a nice trot going, but being on a horse always brings something out in her and she starts going at full gallop. The instructors know she knows what she’s doing, but as she’s whooping and hollering, they still yell at her to be careful.
When she looks back at Yaz to see if she’s watching, Sammy sees the other girl sketching in her pad as she talks with a very tall boy from another cabin. She doesn’t know why, but seeing her friend talk to someone else, not even paying attention to her, makes Sammy’s chest tight. She slows down and trots around until the instructor tells them their time is up.
By the time she makes it back to Yaz, the tall boy is gone.
“Hey, you looked good out there.”
“You weren’t even watching...” Sammy says somewhat indignantly.
“What are you talking about? I did, look.” Yaz opens her sketchpad and Sammy’s eyes go wide. There are beautifully rendered sketches of her on horseback, many capturing the joy she felt while riding.
As she stares at the drawings, she feels Yaz’s gaze on her.
“Hey, you okay Sammy?”
“Huh? Why?”
“I’ve noticed the past few days you’ve been kind of… off . Like, you joke and play around like normal, but there’s something almost forced about it. And just now, you were putting on a fake smile when you came over, but you immediately dropped it when you were looking through my stuff. Just- what’s up?”
Yaz can tell when she’s not okay? She can tell when she’s faking being okay?
“You- you can see all that?”
“I mean, yeah? You’re my friend. I should be able to tell when something’s wrong.”
No one. Not her new camp friends, not her cousins, not even her parents can tell. They all accept what she puts out, what she wants them to see. But Yaz, who was reluctant to even want to be Sammy’s friend, can see through her and whatever facade she puts on.
She sees Sammy.
Without thinking about it, Sammy pulls Yaz into a big hug, practically lifting her off the ground. The other immediately protests. She stops after a moment, and looks Yaz right in the eye.
“Thank you.” Yaz stares at her confused.
“For what?”
“Everything. Nothing. Don’t worry about it. And yeah, I’m okay.”
Yaz looks unconvinced, but she and Sammy head to lunch all the same.
--
On the last day of camp, Sammy only gives Yaz her number out of all her new friends. She has an old hand me down flip phone, but it gets the job done so they shouldn’t have any problems. That day, Sammy holds back her tears, but Yaz sees through that and assures Sammy that they’ll keep in touch.
The first few weeks home were kind of surreal, like she almost forgot how her life used to be before camp. But, as she fell back into the rhythm, and with school starting again, life returned to normal.
Except now, she has a new friend she can’t stop texting.
They talk about all kinds of things- how Yaz’s training is going, the new baby calves that Sammy helped her mom deliver, memes they found that reminded them of each other. But they sometimes call each other, typically when things aren’t going great. Yaz has called in the middle of the night, upset about her progress (or lack thereof), while Sammy’s called to vent out what she can’t to her family. They always answer and they always listen.
One day, Yaz gives Sammy the number of the guy she was talking to at camp, the two apparently have formed a friendship over the summer as well. Yaz says the guy, Kenji, is pretty funny and chill, which puts a bit of a twist in Sammy’s stomach for reasons she doesn’t understand. Kenji, it turns out, is one of the funniest people ever. Eventually, the two of them start talking almost as much as she and Yaz do.
The three of them text each other enough to where they start a group chat, which Sammy affectionately named ‘Camp Buds’
As Summer quickly approaches again, the topic of camp is discussed in the chat.
King_Kon : Bruh, I cannot wait for camp this year.
Yazzz1 : You mean you can’t wait to look for that boy again, huh?
King_Kon : ...shut up. home just kinda sucks rn, yknow
Sammy_I_Ammy : aw, your dad giving you a hard time again?
King_Kon : yeah, he just won’t let up about my grades >;((
Yazzz1 : maybe if you did better he’d stop
King_Kon : HEY TAKE MY SIdE, TRAITER
Sammy_I_Ammy : *traitor
King_Kon : DONT YOU START TO, SAMMEE
Yazzz1 : Dude. Yikes.
King_Kon : ANYWAY, I’m seeing you guys at camp this year right?
Yazzz1 : for sure.
Sammy doesn’t know what to reply. She wants nothing more than to attend- to see Yaz again and properly meet Kenji. But, that summer camp deal was only for that one time. She knows her parents can’t afford to send her there this year.
King_Kon : Sammy? Hello??
Yazzz1 : Maybe she fell asleep
King_Kon : It’s barely 11 over here. it can’t be that late there!
Yazzz1 : She’s only an hour behind you. You should go to bed too, dude.
King_Kon : ugh fine ttyl :\
Sammy is relieved that Yaz got him to drop it. Surprisingly, Yaz’s number flashes across the screen, the other girl calling her. Without thinking she picks up, and accidentally puts the conversation on speaker.
“Hello?”
“Sammy, you okay?”
“What? Yeah! Why wouldn’t I be?” The line is quiet for a second.
“Are we going to see you at camp this year?” Shoot. Why is Yaz asking? Even when she’s hundreds of miles away and communicating through text, the other can tell when something’s up.
“Because if for whatever reason you can’t, it’ll be okay. We can still call and text.”
“Not while you guys are at camp. They take your phones the whole summer.”
“Sure, but just because you don’t see us in person this year doesn’t mean we’ll stop being friends. You know that right?” It’s Sammy’s that goes quiet this time. She knows Yaz means it, but really, can such a friendship last? And then next year, they’ll be too old, and what are the odds they’ll all attend as junior counselors or whatever?
Still, Sammy has never kicked the habit of putting on a brave face, so she lies to Yaz.
“Yup. Friends for life! Listen, I gotta go. Talk later, okay?”
“Samm-” She hangs up. If the phone rang again, she doesn't hear it, only curling in on herself, trying to forget everything so she can sleep.
--
Two days have passed, and Sammy has been pointedly avoiding reading any texts from Yaz or Kenji, and has more missed calls too.
Just as she’s eating breakfast before heading to school, her mom comes in and sits across from her, putting a piece of paper on the table. Sammy looks down and is surprised to see a CC welcome pamphlet.
“Mama-”
“Before you say anything, just know you’re already signed up.”
“But-”
“Sammy, we can survive without you for a couple of months. Go have fun.”
“But the cost--”
“Is nothing for you to worry about. We’re not so broke we can’t send you to camp, you know.” Sammy looks down and furrows her brows. How did she know she wanted to go?
“I heard you talking to your friend the other night. Sounds like she knows you pretty well.”
“You were listening??”
“It’s my house, Chiquita. I hear everything.” Sammy grimaces at that.
Unlike last year, she really has a desire to go. But just like last year, going would make her feel bad.
“Sammy?”
“Yes, mama?”
“You’re young. You should be having fun. And I know you really want to meet with your friends.” She smiles at Sammy. Sammy can’t help but smile back.
“Thank you, mama.”
“Hmm, if you really want to thank me you can clean the barn and fill the chicken feed silos.” Sammy laughs.
“Sure.”
--
She had some idea of what to expect since she’s seen him in photos and that one brief time the previous year, but meeting Kenji in person is kind of shocking. The guy must 5’11, towering over most of the campers. At only fifteen, he’ll probably be well over six feet as an adult. Kenji, all smiles, immediately finds her as she gets off the shuttle.
“Sammy! It’s great to finally meet you in person!” He hugs her and she returns it with just as much enthusiasm. A loud, fake cough breaks them apart, the two looking over and finding Yaz, arms crossed. At least, Sammy thinks it’s Yaz. The girl she met last year was pretty, but the one standing in front of her now is straight up gorgeous. Her cheeks light up against her will.
“Yaz!” Kenji exclaims, going in for a hug which Yaz dodges. Sammy laughs as the two bicker, the warmth in her face persisting.
--
By the second week, Sammy is at her limit. Her heart races, her face lights up, she’s having cryptic dreams. She’s never felt this way before, so she has no reference as to what’s going on with her. Her first instinct is to tell the nurse, thinking it was some kind of illness. The nurse told her it might be heat stroke, but Sammy isn't convinced.
When she explains everything to Kenji, hoping he can help her, he smirks knowingly.
“It’s only around Yaz, isn’t it?”
“Yeah? I think.”
“Sammy. It means you like her.”
“Of course I like her. We’re bffs.” Kenji rolls his eyes at her.
“I mean, you LIKE her. As more than a friend.”
“MORE than a friend? What does that mean?”
“Sammy, are you serious?” She nods, and he groans. “Okay. Uh, you know how people have girlfriends and boyfriends?”
“Yeah?”
“You want Yaz to be your girlfriend.”
Oh.
OH.
Shoot. She does, doesn’t she? She likes her like that .
Oh no. Yaz is her friend . She can’t have these kinds of feelings. That would just ruin everything between them. Oh, what should she do-
“You should tell her.”
“What?? I can’t do that.”
“Why not? It might turn out okay! If anything, I don’t think she’ll be mad or whatever.” Kenji says this so confidently, she almost believes him.
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
“Hey, suit yourself. I still think you should though.”
She doesn’t bring it up the rest of summer, but Sammy finds she can’t stop thinking about it. Almost every night, she imagines every possible scenario. Many of them end poorly, but sometimes, her brain gives her a break and she imagines she and Yaz actually getting together. Even with those dreams, she feels bad- thinking she's taking advantage of her friend.
What is she going to do?