come celebrate at camp :) august 1-3, 2025

It was a beautiful day at Pacifica State Beach, and Brandon was doing his usual - surfing with more enthusiasm than ability. The waves were decent, but he was mainly there for the post-surf lot loitering with friends outside the most iconic Taco Bell on earth, complete with ocean views and kooks dripping sewage run-off onto their Crunchwrap Supremes. While Brandon was shredding 3 foot close-outs Lex was already at Taco Bell, enjoying a much-deserved break from the hospital having just wrapped up a long week of saving tiny humans. What better way to unwind than with tacos, coffee, and the sounds of waves crashing? That’s when she saw him—Brandon, floundering next to his board about fifty feet from shore. Most others would have looked past the signs but Lex spotted something was off. Maybe it was the awkward flail of his arm, or perhaps it was the thrash of grey behind him—but she knew. She worked past her repulsion for cold water, dropped her double decker-triple-layer bean burrito and 9 dollar Baja Blast latte, and sprinted across the beach. As fate would have it, Lex caught a shark-bite in the wild. She commandeered a random surfer’s board on the beach like a badass, and paddled out to Brandon as he exsanguinated almost his entire body’s worth of blood and guts. In the time it took her to reach him, he had already mentally resigned to becoming a YouTube special about an unfortunate Bay Area local taken out by the Pacific’s deadliest landlord. But no! Lex arrived in a blaze of glory, cool-headed and calm, barking orders at the bystanders still ogling their inspiring-quote hot sauce packets and posing for their social media accounts. “We need a tourniquet! Someone find me fabric!” Someone handed over their Patagonia flannel, another person sacrificed a yoga mat strap. Meanwhile, Lex was assessing Brandon’s bleeding leg with the same precision she’d used on her pediatric patients too constipated to lay still or focus their beady little eyes, telling him to breathe deeply, to feel the seabreeze on his face, all while reassuring him in the calmest voice that everything would be fine while she stuffed back in his intestines. The paramedics arrived after that, but truth be told Lex had already done the hard work. While Brandon was being whisked away to get stitched, he kept thinking, “Who was that lil darling who just saved me from becoming sushi?” Brandon couldn’t get her off his mind, wanting to thank this stranger and know who she was. He learned that coincidentally she worked at the hospital where he was being stitched up, and that she too wanted to see how he was doing after such a traumatic attack. They started talking, and it turned out they were practically neighbors, both living around Lake Merritt in Oakland—how had they not crossed paths before? A few weeks later once Brandon was back on his feet, they finally met up for that walk around Lake Merritt—no shark bites, no heroic rescues, sadly no TBell—just the two of them on dry land, strolling along and laughing about the usual existential absurdities. It was peaceful, quiet, and perfectly normal … just the way they’ve liked it ever since.