⌚ 4:30 AM

El knows for a fact that if a person's day starts before 7 o'clock, it isn't going to be a good one.

So when her mother comes bursting into her room at the break of dawn, yielding a pamphlet and a smile, El tries her best to fall back asleep because she deserves this much doesn't she? It's barely been a week of summer, meaning it's barely been a week that she's been able to sleep in every morning. Then why, why is her mother sitting at the edge of her bed fanning a pamphlet at El's face and beaming as bright as the sun? (Which isn't even out yet.)

"Wake up wake up wake up!" she sings. "It's going to be a big, big day!"

El groans, burying her face deeper into her pillows. Maybe if she ignores her mother she won't have to -

"Elizabeth!" her mother says. "Wake up; I need to tell you something."

"Can't it wait?" El's voice is muffled.

"No. Now get up, or you'll be late!"

El springs up at the word 'late'. As much as she loves to sleep, she hates being late to anything. "What is it?" she asks, throwing her duvet off her body and crossing her arms.

"Well, I don't know how to say this..." her mother trails off, "but you're going to be a counselor at Camp Ashwood!"

El nearly falls off her bed. "What."

"It's your fault," her mother continues in an even cheerier tone and hands El the pamphlet. "If you'd have just passed your classes, then your professor wouldn't have had to give you work for extra credit. And since you're majoring in Psychology, he suggested community service. So I signed you up at Camp. It's gonna be fun, Elizabeth."

El cringes at the use of that dreaded name. "I don't care if it's for extra credit, mom! What makes you think I'm going?"

"You loved it there," El's mother looks slightly crestfallen now, her voice softer. El feels sorry, but that doesn't change the fact that she's pissed. "I just thought you'd want to have fun this summer -"

El can see in her mother's eyes that there's more to it. She doesn't pry, deciding instead to take one for the team and accept her fate. She's going to summer camp this year.

⌚ 7:00 AM

El inspects what she's packed, which is just underwear, female necessities, three pairs of shorts, five tee shirts, and flip flops. That's going to last a whole summer right? "If I do the laundry every fucking day," she mutters under her breath, zipping the duffel bag up and slinging it over her shoulder. Her hiking boots clunk on the steps as she goes down the stairs, continuing to mutter profanity at herself. She kisses her mother and father goodbye (her mother's smiling again, but she keeps on casting furtive glances at her father, who's grunting into his cellphone; but this has become normal now, as they're basically fighting 24/7).

"I hate myself," she grits her teeth, inserting her key into the ignition of her car. "What did I do to deserve this?" She turns the key, expecting her car to roar to life so she can just drive to camp and cry some more, but it merely sputters before dying out. "The hell," she turns it again, this time with more force. The same thing happens. "Shit," she turns it once more; this time the engine doesn't even make a single sound. But El does. "Fuck!"

She's about to cry when she trudges back into her house and throws her car keys onto the coffee table in the living room.

Her mother pops her head out of the kitchen. "Back so soon?"

El resists the urge to roll her eyes. "My car won't work. Can you get dad to jump the car or something?"

"Your uh - your dad left for work already," El's mother's voice is rushed. "And I don't know shit about cars," she mutters to herself, and somehow realizing her daughter's still there watching her, she beams. "We can figure something out!"

"Dad left already?" El asks. "Why is his car still outside? He was just here a few minutes ago."

"He - he commuted today."

"Okay," El nods slowly, suspecting something is very wrong with her mother. "Then what can we do?"

El's mother thinks for a moment. El glances at her phone, because it's already 7:08 and she's supposed to be there by eight o'clock and she might be late. Her mother's face lights up, finally, with an idea. "I can call Rob! Grace could drive you to camp, since she's going, too."

El groans for what might as well be the sixtieth time today; that may not even be an exaggeration. Rob Upland, famed for being the richest man in town, is the father of Grace Upland, who's like, a total bitch. Apart from being the daughter of the richest man in town, she was the most popular girl in high school, who's just perfectly perfect. (El almost published that as her description in their yearbook, believe it or not.) It's only a wonder how El's mother and Rob are such close friends but Grace didn't even spare El a second glance in high school.

"Mom," she whines, forgetting that she's supposed to be a cold nineteen year old. "Grace? Why is she coming to camp? Can't you jump my car? Mom -"

El's mom brings a finger to her lips, a look on her face reading 'shut up, Elizabeth'. Her other hand is holding her cellphone up to her ear, which she speaks into. "Hi Rob! Yeah, it's Lisa...I was just wondering - oh really! Wow, yes, anyway, Elizabeth's kind of gotten herself into a pickle..."

El wonders when the last time she heard someone use the phrase 'in a pickle' was. Probably in third grade.

"Okay," El's mother proclaims, hanging up. "Grace will be here in fifteen minutes."

⌚ 8:13 AM

Grace is in fact, not yet here, despite it being twenty three minutes after the time she's supposed to be.

And then El sees the car from the window looking out from their living room, and she immediately crawls to her mother. "Mom I changed my mind I don't want to go to camp anymore I'll get extra credit another way I'll clean up the neighbor's dog's crap, please mom, I'll do anything -"

Grace honks her horn, probably waking up all the teenagers catching up on sleep within a mile radius.

"Elizabeth," her mother steers her towards the door, handing her the duffel bag, "it'll just be a month. And you'll be back here, okay?"

Grace honks her horn again, louder this time.

"Mom, her car is pink."

El's mother smiles brightly at her daughter and kisses her on the cheek, shoving her out the door. El blows a strand of hair that's gone onto her face, manages to turn her expression neutral then gets into Grace's pink BMW.

"Duffel bag in the back, please," Grace takes a sip of her latte. (El's guessing it's some non-fat thing with extra foam, skim milk, whatever else girls like Grace request at Starbucks.)

El obliges, getting out of Grace's car. She opens the trunk and practically dies at the amount of luggage already in the back, and somehow manages to squeeze her (now looking very ugly and dirty) duffel bag in between two Louis Vuitton travel bags. She climbs back into the passenger's seat, after shutting the trunk.

Grace gives her a once over, still sipping at her latte. She purses her glossy lips and starts driving. El notices Grace's strawberry blonde hair has grown since they graduated high school (that really shouldn't have come as much of a surprise), not to mention her pale skin is glowing, and her all-pink ensemble makes El very dizzy. Or that might be Grace's very rough driving. Take your pick.

Soon, the houses start having larger gaps between them, get smaller and smaller. Eventually, they disappear altogether and are replaced by a wide array of fields and farmland, dotted with various hooved animals.

"So," Grace starts, keeping her eyes on the road, "why did I pick you up?"

El stares at Grace's perfectly manicured fingers gripping the wheel. "Er - my car had a problem."

"That disgusting old Dodge Dynasty? Emphasis on the nasty," then Grace laughs at her own joke, throwing her head back.

"Yeah," El says uneasily. "You were late, actually."

"Oh?" Grace's eyebrows raise.

El nods, then remembering that Grace isn't looking at her, she says, "Yep. You were over twenty minutes late."

"Well, I'm sorry," Grace retorts, slamming the brakes in the middle of the highway. "But I don't really care."

⌚ 10:19 AM

Grace turns wordlessly onto a narrow dirt road, driving considerably slower, since there is shrubbery on either side of the road that would "totally wreck my car" as she put it. A mile down the road, there's a rickety sign that reads: "CAMP ASHWOOD: ALLOW THE SHIMMERING LIGHTS OF SUMMER TO REFRESH AND ILLUMINATE YOUR FERTILE YOUNG MINDS!" and El almost snorts, because she forgot how stupid Camp Ashwood's tag line is (if one can even call it a tag line). Grace parks her car beside a few other (equally very fancy) cars, which El figures are owned by the other counselors and whatnot, before turning it off and getting out. El follows her.

She finds Grace waiting behind her car, arms crossed, eyes trained at the pink trunk. El stands around awkwardly until Grace rolls her eyes demanding, "Well? Aren't you opening it? I thought we were late."

El tried to be polite; to grow up, but Grace seems to have other ideas. She gulps, "it's your car...?"

"Yeah, well, the least you can do for offending me on our way here is taking my luggage up to my cabin, right?" Grace asks in a sickeningly sweet voice.

El doesn't buy it. Enough of trying to be nice if Grace is going to act like a child. "I didn't mean to offend you, madame," she drawls. "I was just stating a fact. If you would just kindly pull that stick out your ass and see that -"

"Excuse me?" Grace's eyes widen, but she still somehow looks frighteningly beautiful, and that's a real thing with her. "Maybe you could extract that stick out of your ass, since you're getting so butthurt -"

Someone clears their throat from behind them, so Grace falls silent. El peers over Grace's shoulder to see a very familiar face.

"Elizabeth Thropp!" the camp director Lionel proclaims in a hearty voice. "Well I'll be, you've grown."

"El," she corrects, holding out her hand for him to shake. "It's been six years; I'd be worried if I haven't grown."

"Lionel!" Grace says brightly, waving frantically at Lionel. "Nice to see you again." (Something tells El that Grace doesn't think it's nice to see him at all.)

"Hello, Grace," he says pleasantly, consequently ignoring El's hand.

"Sorry we're late," El huffs. "Somebody -" she glares at Grace "- took too much time making sure her latte wouldn't have anything wrong with it."

Grace might as well burn through El's face with her stare.

Lionel glances between the two of them, clearly sensing the tension. "Right, girls, since you're the last counselors to arrive, you're going to have to share a cabin."

"What?" they say at the same time.

"I'm afraid so," he looks like a deer trapped in headlights. "Grace, would you like some help with your bags?"

"Thanks," Grace grimaces. "At least someone has the decency to."

⌚ 10:50 AM

"Lionel," Grace says sweetly. "Why is there a bunk bed in my cabin?"

"Our cabin," El hisses, making sure she doesn't hear.

"Well," Lionel sets the last two of Grace's bags down and wiping the sweat from his forehead. (Isn't it a crime against humanity to make a fifty something year old man carry nine bags up a hill?) "We knew that El was coming, so we knew that you'd have to share your cabin with someone else. We decided to downsize your California King so there could be room."

El wonders who 'we' are, and even more how Grace gets everything she wants, well except for now.

"Oh," Grace nods simply. "Okay. Thanks again, Lionel."

Lionel smiles at Grace then turns to El. "There's four Camp Ashwood shirts and a sweatshirt in the closet for you. And I really appreciate that you came back, El. Camp Ashwood missed you."

"I highly doubt that," El suddenly finds her old hiking boots very interesting. "But thank you."

Lionel grins before letting himself out and swinging the door shut behind him. Grace pounces once again, cornering El against the wall and glaring up at her. "Ground rules," her breath smells of latte and mint. "I use the bathroom first. No touching my stuff. No snoring. Don't you dare put up any pictures on the wall. I decorate this place -"

"As long as it isn't pink," El scowls.

"- fine. Whatever. Keep your shit in one corner. If I see so much as a single candy wrapper on the floor, I will push you into the lake. Keep interactions to a minimum. I take top bunk."

"Okay," El says tiredly, not wanting any more conflict for now. "I don't want to fall flat on my face in the middle of the night, anyway."

"Glad we understand each other," Grace strides to the bathroom, her Prada sneakers squeaking against the hardwood floor. "And I won't fall flat on my face. Only someone as boneheaded as you would do that."

⌚ 12:17 PM

"So you're the new counselor, I'm guessing?" a (very aesthetically pleasing) blonde / slightly brunette boy approaches the lunch table El's chosen. This one in particular, is the farthest possible one from the group of camp counselors. El isn't very good with people her age. Or people in general. Except when it came to camp, then she fucking owned the place.

She looks up from her sandwich and nods, still chewing.

"Why don't you sit with us?"

"I -" El swallows her under-chewed chunk of tuna sandwich and coughs "- no thanks."

"Aw come on," the boy teases.

El rolls her eyes, because fine, this boy is very cute. Not like she'd have any sort of chance with him, oh no, not at all. Grace, as much as she hates to admit, is much better at this whole people thing. "Okay," El says, standing up and following the boy to the other side of the Campfeteria (Camp Ashwood thinks it's punny).

"Sorry, I didn't catch your name," the boy smiles at her, and El may or may not be about to puke whatever of the tuna sandwich she's eaten.

"El," she replies.

"El? Is that your full name?"

She sighs. "No, it's Elizabeth, but if you call me that, I might kill you."

To her surprise, the boy chuckles. "I'm Finn. Short for Finnegan. Same applies to you."

El decides she's going to like Finn.

"Hey guys," Finn sits beside two other guys, one tall and lanky, the other quite lean. "This is El."

El can spot Grace murmuring to the three other girls, not even bothering to cover her mouth, but doing so indistinctly enough that El has no idea how much shit she's talking. It doesn't help that every person sitting around the table is fit. Finn introduces each of them to El; Jason, Luke, Isaac, Will, Sky, Mari (short for Mariko) and Louise. As if she'd remember any of them. She doesn't really have any plans to, seeing as she'll only be interacting with the children and going straight to her and Grace's cabin whenever she has time off. Or at least that's what she hopes to do.

The other nine are staring at her intently, the girls like she's a piece of trash (thanks to Grace, no doubt) and the guys critically. Like she's an accident waiting to happen.

"So," she starts. "Where are the kids?" is what she asks, seeing as there is no one under the age of seventeen in the vicinity of the camp.

Mari and Louise (El isn't sure if she's remembered them right) snigger to themselves, while Sky smiles genuinely to El. "Honey," and this is when El knows that the smile isn't genuine at all, "the little rascals don't come until tomorrow. We're here early so we can get used to it a bit and like, not die tomorrow. Didn't you already know that?"

At this, Grace high-fives Sky, smiling slyly. Jesus, El thought that this teasing would stop once she graduated high school. Of course Grace flounces along and ruins that for her.

Finn beckons her to sit between him and Luke, the lanky one. "Yeah," he says, giving El a reassuring smile. "All of us were new last year, too. I'd show you around, if you'd like."

Grace glares at the two of them, choosing now to laugh and flip her (goddamn gorgeous) hair. "There's no need for that, now," she says looking straight at Finn. "Elizabeth's a Camp Ashwood graduate."

El fights the flush that's creeping up her neck. "El," she corrects on impulse.

"That's pretty cool," Jason (god El is awful with names; is he Jason?) pipes up. "So I'm guessing you know the ropes?"

"I'm a little rusty," El admits and Grace is back to glaring at her, murmuring to the other girls.

"That's fine," the guy on Finn's left (Isaac?) shrugs. "At least you know something."

"I do," El nods, but what she doesn't know, is why Grace is so fucking mean to her. She decides to take another bite of her tuna sandwich and keeps her head down while the rest of them talk about how they're so excited for camp to be in session and how they're hoping that their favorite kids are coming back and how this year, everything is going to be intense. Especially with the Ashes/Woods thing, which El remembers very clearly being the competition between the girls and the boys in the camp.

El is not looking forward to it.

⌚ 4:30 PM

"A couple of years ago, they added a rock climbing wall," Finn gestures to the thirty foot tall slab of concrete with rocks jutting out of it. "Bet ya didn't know that."

El shakes her head, dislodging a few droplets of sweat from her scalp. It really doesn't help that it's possibly the hottest summer she's ever experienced (which is saying a lot, since she lives in California). Not to mention Finn himself offered to show her around the, according to him, "new and improved" Camp Ashwood. El admits, it has improved in terms of facilities, now with a rock climbing wall, two more cabins, a decent pier by the lake that doesn't look like stepping on it will kill you, three more outhouses (very necessary), and a path that Finn said leads up a hill and that they'd occasionally hike. But El notices that among these new additions, the older facilities look a lot, well, older. And El feels older. She doesn't like how older feels.

"Pretty sure the dodgeball arena was here when you were," Finn's eyebrows knit in thought and okay, so that is also cute.

"It was here way before that," El takes a dodgeball out of the crate full of them and raises it above her head, aiming at Finn.

He thrusts his arms in front of his face for protection, "El, don't -"

El chortles, tossing the red ball back into the crate and joins Finn again as he strolls to the bonfire pit. "I was just messing with you," she grins. (That is a treat in itself, seeing as El doesn't smile. Ever.)

"Hi Finn!"

Oh dear god, no.

"Hey, Grace."

No.

"Elizabeth."

No no no no no.

"Please for the love of god call me El," the same-named girl says through gritted teeth.

Grace ignores her, but El's learned that this is what's best for them. Instead, Grace turns to Finn, a dazzling smile on her face. "So we were just about to set everything up for tomorrow's opening ceremonies. I think we could use your help, seeing that Jason and Luke can't work for shit."

Finn laughs of course, and follows Grace to the bonfire pit. El sighs, knowing that she has nothing better to do and she might as well help out because her grades depend on it, walks a little way behind them. Before she knows it, El has a bunch of streamers in her arms and Grace and Finn are painting a banner together.

"I don't see why I deserve this," El grunts as she weaves the streamers through the poles set around the bonfire pit. About halfway through, the whole thing turns into a tangled mess, El's arms included. "Uh," she glances around, spotting a girl with bright turquoise hair, "Louise! A little help here?"

Louise turns around from sweeping up the fallen leaves, sees El and smiles apologetically, completely genuine, which is a huge contrast to how she treated El during lunch. "It seems like you're in a bit of a pickle -" there's that phrase again "-but sorry! I'm kinda busy; I'm sure you can manage?"

El resists the urge to roll her eyes (sweeping up leaves does not equal busy) and grimaces, "Yeah. Yeah, okay." She manages to pull her left arm free and is set to work on her right arm when she suddenly feels hands working their way around the streamers. She whirls around, ready to dropkick whoever was practically groping her when she sees Grace, face cold and emotionless.

"I was hoping you would hold still," Grace says, continuing to somehow unravel the colorful strips of paper around El, not ruining them; even just a little bit, "so this could go by quicker."

El keeps her arms at her sides, holding her breath while Grace moves around her with surprising coordination until the last of the streamers are off her body and back in a bundle in her arms. She wonders why Grace is doing this; Grace is meant to hate El and the other way around, right? Right. Then El is seething with rage. Burning with anger. Very mad. Right.

Grace starts to stalk off toward Finn, who's still painting the "WELCOME CAMPERS!" banner. And El feels something clawing in her chest because even if she totally hates Grace, she feels like she's such an uncultured swine; can't she be polite? (Though Grace wasn't polite to her at all but then again, who gave her a lift to camp and just now saved her from suffocating to death by streamers? Thought so.)

"G-grace!" El chokes out, her voice not even above a whisper. "Grace!" she says louder this time. "Th-thanks."

Grace's frown deepens. She turns to El for only a split second to say, "Maybe next time you should learn that your arms and streamers are very different things, even though they're practically the same width."

El only gapes at her when she smirks to herself and flounces away.

⌚ 9:04 PM

Having ten people decorate and clean up the bonfire pit makes it sound like it's a quick job.

It isn't.

In fact, with just seven of them working - Grace was right about Luke and Jason and Mari basically quit stringing up fairy lights a quarter of the way - it's a lot harder than it seems. El ends up doing the most, as the rest of the counselors are able to exploit her and she hates herself for it. She ends up dusting the makeshift benches, arranging the firewood, and doing a second round of streamers because "it's kinda bland," according to Finnegan.

El likes Finn a little less after that.

She also feels like death when she goes to bed at nine o'clock. Is that even socially acceptable; for a teenager to sleep at an hour any earlier than ten? El figures it isn't but she really doesn't give a shit as she's turning twenty in five months, hence her body clock getting messed up. Her limbs are heavy when she changes out of her sweat-soaked clothes and into a tee shirt that's way too large for her abnormally skinny frame. She crawls into her covers (bottom bunk) and is about to fall asleep when Grace enters the cabin.

And Grace makes an entrance; door slamming, Prada sneakers squeaking, humming excessively. Then halfway through humming what sounds vaguely like a Taylor Swift song, she stops.

El sits up groggily to find that she's completely kicked the blanket off her bed and her shirt has hiked its way up to the point that its hem is at her belly button. Leaving her underwear exposed. To Grace. So it's like, totally embarrassing, since the skimpy thing is printed with little red hearts.

Grace clears her throat, jutting her nose in the air. "I'd have thought you'd have more decency than this, Elizabeth."

El flushes, pulling her shirt down to her thighs and reaching for the blanket. "Sorry," she manages in an equally indifferent tone. But the heat in her cheeks says that she is anything but. Whatever. She doesn't care.

Grace gives her another once-over, just like the one at the start of the day, when they were about to head to Camp Ashwood. Her eyes linger in a place where they aren't supposed to be in the first place, and she raises and eyebrow and El pulls the blanket over herself.

"Hm," Grace hums, a smirk playing on her (still somehow very glossy) lips, striding to the bathroom.

El lets out a breath she doesn't even know she's holding. She collapses back onto her pillows, the weight of sleep pulling down on her eyelids again and she falls immediately asleep.

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a/n: woo for first chapters (iT'S FINALLY HERE and yes i wrote this before camp nano)!! dedicated to pathfinders bc it's her challenge yeah? also whoever spots the hsm reference deserves a prize js