Leap Year (✔)

August 15

~ 198 Days till Leap Day ~

At two in the morning, Rosie was sitting on the dock alone. It had taken a miracle for her to sneak out her cabin without waking anyone, but it was worth it for the serenity the moonlit lake offered.  The moonlight illuminated the swarms of mosquitoes fluttering in the stuffy air.  Rosie dipped her feet in the cool water and sighed.

That was when the girl appeared.

"Hey," she said, plopping down beside Rosie. So simple, so sweet. Why had it caused a hitch in Rosie's breath?

"Hey," Rosie repeated. She tried to sound confident, but after sitting outside for over an hour, her voice sounded like her grandma's after fifty years of smoking.

"What are you doing out here?" The girl turned so she had one leg off the dock. She swished it  around the murky water, like Rosie, with the other tucked up to her chest.  The girl looked around Rosie's age.  Hispanic, with tan skin and long curly hair.

"I could ask you the same thing," Rosie said. Normally she would have been a little more intimidated and a little less brash, but it was the last day of the summer program and she didn't care.

The girl was amused. "I see. And I thought we could get to know each other." Get to know each other? Rosie couldn't navigate her way past small talk. How had she never noticed this girl before? For five weeks, the same two hundred teenagers had been shunted from the dining hall, to the classrooms, to the cabins. Where had this girl come from?

Eventually Rosie found her voice. "I don't even know your name."

"Brie." The girl smiled. The wind wasn't as strong as it had been during the day, but the breeze still caught the girl's scent. The smell of Downy and Dove rolled off Brie's sweatshirt and floated over Rosie. It felt familiar. Safe.

"I'm Rosie."

"Well, Rosie, judging by your mystifying choice of time and location, I think you're planning something."

"Planning something?" Rosie scoffed. Maybe how to stay in the lush, mosquito-filled forests of Wisconsin's Harold J. Teeter College Prep Program forever and avoid going back to high school next week.

"Yeah..." Brie continued. "I think you're plotting world domination." She beamed. Ah, those dimples.

"You caught me!" Rosie confessed, grinning. "I'm figuring out how to overthrow the counselors and turn Teeter Dining Hall into a factory for my minions."

"Those are some Tom Riddle level ambitions right there."

"You like Harry Potter?"

Brie flashed a grin. "Always."

Rosie would have broken off a piece of her heart and handed it to her right there. In that moment, Rosie wanted to marry her. If Brie had proposed, Rosie would have said yes.  Well... she would have considered it, at least.

Instead Brie asked, "What's your Hogwarts house?"

"Slytherin." Rosie didn't even have to think about it. "You?"

"Hufflepuff." She turned to Rosie with a massive grin-- that's what struck Rosie first. The dimples around that perfect smile. Her one front tooth slightly protruding. Then her attention fixed on Brie's hair-- loose chocolatey curls flapping in the wind, but somehow still glossy and immaculate. 

Rosie didn't even want to think about what her own blob of frizzy blond hair was doing. How it had probably inflated to twice the puffiness in the humid night air. How the split ends--damaged from dying it too many times-- were probably flying everywhere. When was the last time Rosie had washed her hair? Had it been two days? Three?