⌚ 6:00 AM ON THE DOT

El barely hears the horn - she almost wakes up on her own accord. Funny, even Grace is silent this morning, just purring as she sleeps. El stretches and gets out of bed. As she slips into her flip-flops, her eyes wander to the sight of Grace knocked-out on top bunk. Hair in her mouth, eyes pried open slightly, chest heaving up and down, arm thrown carelessly off the side of her mattress. El marvels at how someone can be both stupid-looking and elegant simultaneously. While sleeping. In a skimpy nightgown.

Meanwhile, El probably resembles a rabid, muddy poodle. On stilts.

El would go on deprecating herself, but Grace rolling off top bunk interrupts this. El has never moved so quickly. She thrusts her arms out and fortunately, Grace lands in them with ease. Startled with the sudden weight in her arms, El falls over onto her bed, nearly letting Grace's head hit against the edge of the top bunk.

At their impact, Grace yelps. Her eyes pop open and land on El's. The latter is currently perched on top of Grace, hands on either side of her. "What just happened?" Grace asks, wide awake.

"You," El says breathlessly, getting off Grace, "fell off the bunk." Why is her chest thudding so violently? It's not like Grace hasn't fallen off the bunk before.

"Was I crying?" Grace picks a lock of hair from her mouth.

"No," El replies. Weird. She usually would be crying in her sleep and thrashing around before falling. Today, she just...rolled off.

"Hm." Grace's eyebrows knit, just as confused as El."Well." She sits up. "Sorry about that." She smooths her nightgown and rises.

"Don't worry about it," El says.

Grace is halfway to the bathroom when she pauses and tells El, "Thanks."

El lets herself smile. "I'm used to it."

She thinks Grace meant to scowl at her, but there's a smile tugging on her lips, too. "Don't even talk about that."

⌚ 7:00 AM ON THE DOT

They're about to head out for breakfast when El's phone rings. Without thinking - stupidly - El answers the call.

"Hello?" she says into the phone.

"Elizabeth." Her mother's voice. She doesn't sound like she's been crying, just that she's tired.

Grace peers at her curiously. El probably has the most comical expression on her face. She waves toward the door, letting Grace know that she'll catch up. Grace nods in understanding and shuts the door behind her.

"I have to go, mom." El tries to sound gentle, she really does. "I'm late for breakfast."

"Just a minute, Eliz - "

"El," she huffs into the phone.

"El," her mother begs. "Give me one minute. Please."

It would be a better option to hang up. That won't stop her mother from calling again, though. El won't win either way. So she listens. "One minute."

"Thank you," El's mother replies. The static that El hears means she's taken a deep breath. "I called you yesterday."

"I know." El finds it increasingly difficult to stay calm.

"Why didn't you answer?"

"What's up with you and Lionel?" El asks suddenly, tired of the questions at her when her mother really needed to answer to her.

"L-lionel?" A stutter.

"He talked to me two days ago. You called him?"

"Yes," El's mother replies. She realizes she's trapped, El can tell through her fuzzy voice. "I called him."

"Why?"

"You didn't answer me when I called you then, either!"

"So you called him? And he knew about you and dad. How the fuck did he know all this time and I just found out last week?"

"Don't use that tone with me, now - "

"I am going to use this tone on you!" The tone in question is one an angry three year old would use when they are deprived of their favorite toy. "I deserve to use this tone on you because you fucking lied to me about my entire existence - "

"That's stretching it - "

"It's not!" El throws her arms up, barely holding onto her phone. "How the hell would you feel if you find out your dad isn't actually your dad and you don't even know who your real dad is?"

"I understand - "

"And you have to deal with the stress of your mom constantly bombarding you and clueless children and sexist counselors? Don't you think that would make you scream at your own mom?" El shrinks after her outburst. Maybe it was too much.

Her mother sniffs. Shit. "How many times do I have to tell you I'm sorry? I regret what I did - "

"You regret what you did?" El snarls. No stopping her now. "You regret conceiving me? Is that what you're saying?"

"No, god no!" her mother wheezes. "No! I'm so so so sorry I didn't tell you when I should have..."

"When were you planning to tell me anyway?" El swallows back the tears threatening to come out.

No reply from the other side of the line.

"Okay," El says coldly. "So you weren't."

All El hears is that quiet buzzing from the phone and her mother sobbing silently.

El takes a deep breath. Her cheek is wet. "Can you at least tell me who my dad really is?" She at least needs to know that.

"Y-you mean he d-didn't tell you?"

"Who?"

"L-lionel."

"What does he have to do with this?"

"My god, so he didn't. E-even if I told him to. He p-promised me!"

"I don't understand, mom." Dread settles in El's stomach. That's a lie. It took her awhile, but she's beginning to piece this together.

"He's your dad, El. Lionel is your father."

All at once, El's stomach swirls, her head spins, her knees buckle, and her eyes leak. It would probably look comical if everything didn't hurt so much. "You're kidding, right?" Of course she isn't, El screams at herself. What do you think, she'd kid about a thing like this? You think mom would come out and say April fucking Fools? You're an idiot.

No, El tells herself. I'm just desperate.

"I'm sorry!" her mother wails.

El's phone is so close to getting crushed in El's hand. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"There was no reason to know," her mother says. "And it's not like he wasn't there for you all these years."

"Yeah, totally!" El thunders. "He was here for me every summer for a few years! How very fucking involved."

"He offered to take you as a counselor," her mother insists. "For your extra credit."

"And that totally makes up for ditching me."

"I can't speak for him. But I - I can speak for myself. I just really want you to know...I care about you. I love you El." She chokes. "So much. Remember that."

In a fraction of a second, frightening images flash in El's mind. A gun. Blood streaming from her mother's eyes. A loud BANG. "I love you, too," El whispers. She isn't risking her pride for her mother's life. (She realizes that's a stupid and morbid way of seeing things, but based on Grace's experience, it isn't very far off.)

"Talk to him, El." Her mother has significantly calmed down. "Forgive him."

El draws a hand across her cheek. It comes off soaked. "This is longer than a minute."

Almost chuckling, El's mother says, "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"Bye, mom," El says, trying to sound harsh but somehow she doesn't have it in her.

"I love you."

⌚ 7:35 AM

"Oh my god." Upon El's entrance to the Campfeteria, Grace immediately has her scooped up in an embrace. "I knew I shouldn't have left you."

"It's okay," El heaves. How fucking pathetic is she that she comes into a hall full of people, crying? "I'm...I'm okay."

"Like hell you are," Isaac says. Grace growls at him.

"Jesus, do you want to - to talk about it?" The panic in Grace's tone only makes El feel worse.

El nods wordlessly. She feels Grace's hands clutch her shoulders. They end up outside, near the kitchen where no one can hear them and the stench of whatever today's breakfast is overwhelming. At once, El breaks down - finally - her head landing on Grace's low shoulder. She uses it to muffle her wailing. Grace's strawberry scent overpowers the stench of breakfast. El takes a deep breath to calm herself.

Grace holds onto her, tutting and humming and swearing. "What did she tell you?" she asks once El quiets.

It shocks El how relieved she is when she divulges to Grace. Everything. Grace's frown deepens further and further the more El tells her, nearly tearing her face when she hears the words Lionel and dad in the same sentence. "Wow. I...wow," is all she can reply but her reassuring arms around El convey more than her mouth can. That sucks, they say when they wind around her. Don't let it get to you, when they tighten. I'm here for you, as they hold El up.

El sniffles, willing herself to toughen up and stop crying. "I'm stupid," she says into Grace's hair. "This is stupid."

"It's not. You're not," Grace promises. "It's totally understandable why you're acting like this."

El hiccups. Her tears have run out for now. "I should be h-happy," she says. "I know who my dad is. Why aren't I?"

"Maybe it's because your dad's Lionel." The words sound even stranger coming from Grace. "You know, the ignorant old man who excuses boys because they're boys. That guy." She's joking.

El finds herself grinning goofily. "True."

But El's more rational side reminds herself of how Lionel lugged Grace's bags to their cabin when they first arrived at Camp Ashwood (it seems like forever ago). How he sends El reassuring smiles. How he clutches his clipboard and blows his whistle with practiced ease. How he congratulates whoever wins an activity. How he was so softspoken towards El when they talked about her mother. How loudly he screamed at the counselors when he found them all hungover in Finn's cabin. "He's not just that, though," El ponders.

"I know. He's a cool guy. There are worse dads, honestly," Grace says. She stumbles over the last sentence. This is what makes El pry herself from Grace and hold her this time. She hopes she's reassuring enough.

"I can't believe he didn't tell me," El says after Grace escapes her embrace. They're now slowly heading back towards the entrance of the Campfeteria.

"Are you kidding me? You would freak out, like, I mean..." Grace gestures to the wreck that is El Thropp.

"I get it." El rolls her swollen eyes.

"It's so hard to believe," Grace says. "He's your dad."

"That doesn't change anything. It's not like I'm going to go around calling him daddy everywhere."

"That could be interpreted very differently."

El pushes Grace slightly. "Ew. Don't even go there."

They stop a few feet from the entrance. People are starting to file out of the Campfeteria. Grace grins at her. Takes both her hands. El doesn't even glance at them. Grace's determined eyes are the only thing El can look at. "You got this, okay?"

A pep talk. El nods. Her smile wavers. "I got this."

⌚ 11:10 AM

The colors blur together as El aims. Black, blue, red, and yellow meld together in a mess of color and El can't focus. She draws the arrow back, wincing at the strain her arm feels (we've already established she's very out of shape, plus the bow is most likely twice her age). She focuses on the yellow - that faint little smudge of it - and lets the arrow fly.

Her nose feels damp, she realizes when she releases her grip and lets the bow settle at her side. No wonder she couldn't see the damn target. She's crying. Again.

El blinks the tears in her eyes away and rubs at her nose. She glances around quickly to see if someone noticed that. Will catches her eye and raises an eyebrow. El tries to grin.

"So you see, that's how you shoot an arrow," El turns to Cabin A. All fourteen jaws have dropped to the grass at their feet. "What?" El asks.

It's Bianca who slowly raises a finger towards the target. El follows it.

Bullseye. Well, at the

El's jaw is about to drop as well (pure luck is all this was, like she'd never be able to do this again). Still, she is't letting Cabin A know that. "Your turn," she tells them smugly. She doesn't say, "I totally meant to do that," because, duh, that would be stupid of her.

El hands Bianca the bow, and when she plants her feet firmly on the grass and aims an arrow, El can already see she possesses more prowess than El does at this. Her grip doesn't falter and her arrow cuts through the air, landing at the center of the yellow circle twenty meters away.

If Cabin A's jaws were on the ground, they're six feet under now.

"I trust you'll be able to teach your fellow cabinmates, then, Bianca." El gives her a Lionel-esque beam - then again, she might've inherited that from him in the first place. (Fuck.)

Bianca flushes. "I...no - "

Laura throws an arm around Bianca. "Katniss Everdeen here can teach us." As Bianca turns an even deeper red, Laura gives El a reassuring smile. El's eyes start welling up again.

"Thanks," she mutters before running away. Her legs carry her to the shack with all the sports supplies, suitably named the Sports Shack.

The floodgates open again as she crouches behind it, wheezing and shaking. The door opens and Will comes out with an armful of bows. El attempts (and fails) to quiet down. She hears him tell someone to grab the bows and meet him at the archery ranges in a few minutes.

El tries to make herself as small as possible.

"Hey, stranger." Will crouches beside her.

El yelps.

"How you doin'?"

Really, El tells him with an eyebrow raise. Her wet cheeks should he an indication of how she's doin'.

Will puts his hands up. "Is this about Finn and Grace?" He smirks.

"No," El says into her hands. "But now y-you reminded me of that, t-too, and god f-fuck!" She howls in the most embarrassing way on the face of the earth.

Will's hands are on her back now, and for the first time his circular strokes do next to nothing to calm her. "Oh, sorry, god I'm stupid."

"Yeah, y-you are!" El's shoulders are shaking now. She chooses now to let everything out, with Will watching her. What impeccable timing.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" His voice is the most comforting she's heard today. Even more than Grace's, funnily, enough, but Will has always had that air to him. He's the good guy in every situation. The one El can lean on. And god knows how many times she's leant on him for a multitude of reasons.

"No," she says shakily. Not yet. Letting one person know is enough for today.

"Okay," Will slows his rubbing, "then I don't know if this helps or anything, but there's nothing to worry about. You know, between Grace and Finn."

El looks up at him. "What?"

His eyes are dancing with mischief. "Just saying." He shrugs.

"Okay..." El trails off, jaw quivering. "What a-about Grace and L-louise?" The question exits her mouth even before it registers in her mind.

Will raises questioning eyebrows, his smirk wider. "There's nothing happening in that department, either. Not recently, anyway."

El's howling has quieted down to the occasional hiccup and whimper. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He doesn't reply to her question and changes the subject with less subtlety than Jason expressing his sexuality."Seriously, though, you're sure you don't want to tell me about what's really screwing you over?" Will doesn't sound even vaguely pushy. His hands stop massaging El, now just resting on her upper back.

She shakes her head. "Not...now."

Will nods and stands up. He holds out a hand. "I'm just saying. Don't stress yourself out too much."

El nods and takes his hand. He helps her stand, then they both head to the archery ranges. "I'll try," she says, blinking fervently, praying that tears won't spill.

⌚ 1:19 PM

Lionel arrives exactly nineteen minutes late to judge their activity and El was grateful for those nineteen extra minutes to get her shit together. When the camp director finally waddles over, whistle in mouth, El doesn't even look at him.

Jolly as ever, he explains the mechanics of the activity (every camper gets fifteen arrows to shoot - whichever cabin gets the most points collectively wins). El risks a glance at him to see bloodshot eyes and purple circles around them. His dark skin - only slightly darker than El's - is pale. Still, that crooked smile under that almost-white moustache doesn't waver.

El and Will stand off beside him, and El is using Will as a shield. Lionel then tells both cabins to divide themselves into four groups each and line up across all eight targets. "Archers, take your positions!" he announces.

El is sure that isn't even close to what an official would say, but she recalls Lionel saying that even when she was eleven years old. Even then. Bianca, Laura, Jana, and Maxine are the first ones in Cabin A. El can see that Bianca has taught them well (she found out earlier that Bianca actually did this for fun during the schoolyear).

Lionel blows his whistle. El jumps.

And he's off.

"I'll be back later," Lionel tells them, even if he doesn't have to. El keeps her eyes on Bianca, who is doing exceptionally.

"Got it," Will says brightly.

Hesitation. Then, "Elizabeth?"

"El," Will mutters. El is grateful.

"El? Did you hear me?"

"Yessir," El hisses, still not looking at him. "Clear as day."

Lionel sighs. "Good...good," is his feeble response. El sees from the corner of her eye a look she's seen way too many times on Lionel: disappointment.

El rolls her eyes. "At least you're coming back now." Too far, she weighs in her head.

A wrinkly hand on her forearm. "I'm sorry," Lionel whispers.

El thrusts her arm away. "Aren't you late for something? Like you always are?" More bitter than dark chocolate is what she is right now.

Lionel sighs. And he's gone.

El exhales slowly, trembling.

Will's hand is on her back again. He rubs circles. He says nothing.

El doesn't either.

⌚ 4:02 PM

Cabin A loses. She doesn't care when Lionel tells them they did a great job anyway.

He can't speak about something he wasn't there for.

⌚ 9:06 PM

Grace raises a shot glass when El steps through the door of Cabin 5. She's already in a powdery pink nightgown on El's bunk, cradling a bottle of marshmallow vodka in her lap, another shot glass already with some vodka in her other hand. El's eyes widen and okay, that hurts. Way too swollen for that.

El resists the urge to grab the shot glass immediately so she can change into her pajama shirt. She might as well be comfortable whilst getting drunk and moping about life, right? El changes quickly in the bathroom, whipping her tee shirt and shorts off and unclasping her bra, throwing all three articles of clothing into the laundry bag Grace has provided for her. She pulls the oversized Star Wars shirt over her head and suddenly the shot glass is in her hand.

Grace pours enough marshmallow vodka to fill the shot glass.

El starts to have second thoughts (really, now?). "Won't Lionel - ?" Because though she does hate his guts, her extra credit rests in his calloused old hands.

"Lionel, schmionel!" Grace waves her hand carelessly. "We're doing this to forget about him."

El nods, they toast, and they down the contents of their shot glasses. Already Grace is pouring her another. El gags.

"Something tells me you won't do too well with real vodka," Grace says.

El sticks her tongue out. "I can't even fucking stand beer."

Grace laughs, genuinely, and El's heard this laugh only a few times. Not even close to her cackles, Grace's laugh trickles slowly out of her, it sounds like molasses would...if it were a sound. Slow and sweet. Very dark. Overwhelming.

Once they've had three shots each, Grace nudges El. "You know, Lionel talked to me awhile ago, about you."

El raises an eyebrow (well, she tries to. It's getting hard to do small movements like that). "What did my father say?" she spits. That one just slipped right out of her - she didn't even think anything of it. Is that a good sign?

"Weird." Grace scrunches her face up. El's noticed when she's tipsy, Grace tends to act a lot more immature...a lot more recklessly. "But he wanted to see if you're okay."

El snorts as she empties the contents of yet another shot and this causes catastrophic things to her nose. There's probably a whole teaspoon of vodka up in her brains. "What'd you tell him?"

"Told him to fuck off."

"You did not."

"I totally did!"

"What'd he say?"

"He was really nice about it actually?" Grace frowns, forehead creasing. "He didn't even care that I swore in front of the kids."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

Another two shots.

El sighs. "I don't know...it's crazy," she says, mostly to herself. "I feel fucking stupid for one."

"Why?" Grace rests her head on El's shoulder.

"I didn't even think it was weird that both my parents were white and I was black. How could I not have noticed that? I'm so fucking stupid what the fuck." El pours a shot for herself.

"That's kinda stupid. But like, it's cool, you know? You didn't know any better." She downs her fifth shot. El pours.

"I guess." El shrugs. The movement is slow. "And now I'm moping like an idiot when I should be happy! I know who my dad is! He's the camp director! He can be a dick a lot of the time! But he's cool, too!" El bites the inside of her cheek to keep her tears in. She never really pegged herself as an emotional drunk (they aren't even that drunk yet, she hasn't even begun to slur, which is strange, since she considers herself a lightweight), but here she is.

Grace sighs. "No, El. All of this," she gestures at El lazily, "all of this is justified."

"And I'm being such a bitch." El whimpers. There's the first tear, whoops. "I'm spilling all this shit on you when really, you have so much more issues to deal with than this mess."

Grace springs up and almost flings the shot glass across the room. "No, I don't. We're dealing with you right now, got it?"

El sniffs for the hundredth time today. Her tears come slowly, laying first at their ducts before slowly cascading down her hollow cheeks. "Uh-huh," she bleats.

"Good." Grace nods, that familiar, fierce determination in her stormy eyes burning through El's skull. Suddenly she feels very sober. "Anything else on your chest?"

El takes a deep breath and lets it out gradually. "A-actually, I wanted to ask you something?"

"Sure thing." Grace holds up the bottle of marshmallow vodka (nearly halfway empty), offering her more. El shakes her head. Her throat starts to close up. Grace however, pours herself yet another shot.

"I was just wondering, uh...you...well....I - "

"Anytime this year, El?"

"Right. Yeah. I was just wondering. Is there something between, uh, you and F-finn?" Why is she nervous? Alcohol. It's the alcohol, El says to herself.

Grace looks utterly lost. She closes the bottle and sets it and the two shot glasses on the floor beneath El's bed. "Didn't I tell you the answer to that yesterday?"

"Yeah, but I, uh, ha ha, it's still bothering me. I guess."

"No," Grace says firmly. "That's the answer. It was a one time thing. Well, I mean, we dated last summer but that didn't end well."

Now this is news to El. "Y-yeah?"

"I didn't have those feelings for him, you know?" Grace eyes the bottle on the floor. "I mean, I love him to death, sure, but I wasn't attracted to him or anything."

El pictures Finn's bright grin. His brown-flecked blue eyes that shine whenever El makes him laugh. His blonde hair that reflects sunlight. His tan, taut skin. His abs, Christ. The way his mouth wraps around the single syllable of her name. For sure, she's attracted to him. But she thinks about how he kisses her and how she feels nothing when he does. Maybe she's just attracted to the idea of him. That perfect, windswept idea of him.

"You're blushing," Grace notes.

"What?" El gets snapped out of her (wet) dream. "No."

Grace eyes her suspiciously. "Yeah, sure...but does that answer your question?"

"Yes." El nods violently - headache. Swirling. Spinning. Throbbing.

"Okay. Anything else on your chest?"

Lionel pushes his way back into El's thoughts. She kicks him in his figurative balls and he flies back out. No. Not now. "No," El says. "Not now."

"Alright. How are you?"

"I can tell you've gone through therapy. Are you my therapist right now?"

"Well, when your mom killed herself, that requires a lot of therapy to recover from the trauma." At El's horrified expression, Grace chuckles. "I'm kidding. It's fine. Seriously, though. Are you okay?" Her voice has dropped to a whisper. El grows drowsier and drowsier.

"Yeah, now," El whispers, too for some reason. It feels more appropriate. "I'm kinda just pushing everything down."

"That's fine. You should forget about everything for a bit."

"Oh, I have." El grins and nods towards the bottle on the floor. "Thanks to you."

Grace's lips quirk up. She keeps her eyes on her hands. "No problem."

El smiles, too. It's almost foreign to her.

⌚ 11:30 PM

They talk a lot more after that. About Lionel. Finn. Isaac (and their plot to convert him). El tells Grace about Bianca and Laura. Grace tells El about Gwen Upland, her mother. They tell each other random stories, skipping from one to another and sure, El cries every few minutes, but Grace hands her a fresh Kleenex every time. Grace takes the occasional shot - El refuses any more she offers, fearing another horrible hangover.

El doesn't even remember that she could feel like this. She doesn't even know if she's ever felt like this. Listened to. Like someone cares about what she has to say. Like she actually has a friend.

The topic is on Grace's lipgloss when El notices Grace gazing at her, eyes glazed over. "What?" she asks, self-conscious.

"I'm drunk," Grace says, sounding upset. Her freshly-glossed lips pout.

"You are." El yawns.

"You're not drunk," Grace observes.

"That's right."

Grace inches closer, slowly closing the space between them. "I'm so fucking drunk, Jesus."

"I can tell," El inches backward. Grace continues moving forward. El continues moving backward. Then she feels her pillows behind her. Grace is still closing in on her. "Uh, w-what are you doing?"

"Remember when you asked me why Finn and I bet on you a whole lot?" Her voice goes low, a sudden change from her confused one.

"That," El gulps, "happened a few minutes ago, yeah."

"That's because Finn likes to tease me." Closer.

"About what?"

"You, of course." Grace's eyes are filled with that intensity again, not even blinking.

El can't help but maintain eye contact and keep still. "Why?"

"I have this huge crush on you." Grace says the words swiftly, unwarily.

El's heart beats in her ears. She can't reply. Her dizziness returns and so does all the vodka she drank, wanting to come up her throat.

"Finn thinks I'm too scared to tell you," Grace is practically straddling El now, "but I'm not. I just wanted to wait it out."

Breathe. That's all El is telling herself to do. Grace is so close. She can smell the sour vodka in her breath.

"Maybe it was just a tiny crush. Ha. Nope." Their noses touch.

"Grace - "

With a sigh, Grace lets her lips land on El's.

All forms of panic rush into El's mind, screaming abort mission, retreat, get out while you can. But Grace's lips are soft and she smells of strawberries and marshmallow vodka. Before she can think, El's mouth opens under Grace, and there's tongue and teeth and strawberry-flavored lipgloss. Grace kisses like one thinks she would - all fire and force and experience. El kisses back, only slightly conscious of how she actually kind of sucks at this, concentrating on how Grace tastes of stale alcohol and mint.

Grace doesn't seem to mind, pressing harder and harder, desperate noises getting swallowed by El. El threads her hands through Grace's silky hair (that she's been jealous of since forever) and Grace smiles against El's lips. Soon, neither know where one body ends and another begins, pale limbs tangled with dark ones, mouths melding into each other. Grace runs her hands up El's sides under her shirt, sending shivers down her spine.

Then El realizes: she doesn't have a bra on.

El stops. She doesn't know why she stops now, but she drops her hands from Grace's scalp, lets her lips lie still. Grace stops eventually and pulls away. "What's wrong?"she asks, an edge to her voice.

"I - " El's throat tightens in on itself, keeping her from speaking. Her heart's threatens to break out of its cage. "I just - " She feels exposed, naked. A blush is already making its way up to her cheeks.

"What?" Grace demands. "Spit it out!"

El jumps at the sudden outburst. "I - I can't...do this."

Grace crawls off El, biting her lips. "What do you mean?"

"Th-this," is all El can say.

"You kissed me back," Grace says, as if she's convincing herself. "You kissed me back."

El shuts her eyes. "I did. But I shouldn't have."

"Why not?" Grace growls.

Tears prickle El's eyes yet again. "I don't think I'm ready for this." Liar! a voice accuses her.

"That's okay," desperation, "we can build up to it."

"It's not that," El says weakly. Then what is it? she asks herself. She finds out that she doesn't know. But what she does know is she can't kiss Grace.

Grace shakes her head. If she bites her lip any harder, she would pierce it.

"I'm sorry." El, however, can't feel her lips. All she knows is they're covered in Grace's lipgloss and her mouth is full of Grace's spit. The thought makes her woozy.

"Save it," Grace says coldly. She gets off El's mattress and climbs to top bunk. Her tone reminds El of high school Grace, the one who hated her guts. The Grace now probably hates her guts, too. (El would, if she was in the same situation.)

El tries not to stare through her see-through powdery pink nightgown. She swallows her confusion. El swipes at her eyes, slips into her flip flops. Grace is sobbing silently into her pillow above her. El pretends not to hear as she walks to the door and exits the cabin.

Then she runs.

____________________________________

a/n: :-) that :-) kiss :-) was :-) horrible :-) i'm :-) sorry :-)

((i drew that fanart up there #noshame and dedic goes to drew bc she has exposed me to a gay camping comic which i will read soon and i love her dearly)) (((also i watched camp takota again to get back into this))) ((((it backfired)))) (((((comment pls)))))