⌚ 6:00 AM ON THE DOT

El wakes up (very unpleasantly for one) to the smell of strawberries wafting out of the bathroom. Funny, she thinks to herself, how Grace uses strawberry body wash but her vanilla lotion is what she always smells. The sweetness makes her want to gag.

Grace is still humming when she steps out of the bathroom, dressed in a pink Camp Ashwood tank top, which El is sure that she had made for her, and white shorts; an unfortunate choice for the counselor of a cabin who's going to have a water balloon fight.

Wordlessly, Grace stalks to the door, Prada sneakers squeaking against the hardwood floor.

"Good luck," El says, if a little sarcastically.

Grace smirks on her way out. "You're gonna need it."

⌚ 6:39 AM

"And what are you doing back?"

"Why are you wearing those shorts with those hideous boots?"

"I'm not answering that. Why are you back?"

"I forgot to curl my hair."

"Is that really necessary?"

"Is the sky blue?"

⌚ 7:17 AM

Seeing as breakfast really isn't a good option, (sorry, turkey bacon? I'd rather stick to real bacon, thanks.) El decides it's a good time to do her laundry while everyone else is. She's in desperate need to do it anyway; she wore this same pair of underwear yesterday and she isn't very proud of that.

While everyone else is gorging on the turkey bacon, El heads to her cabin and then to the laundry shed. It's extremely hard for her to admit, but she's actually grateful that Grace designated laundry bags for each of them because it makes everything so much easier. Literally just turn a few knobs on the washing machine (El doesn't really know how to work a washing machine), wait a few moments, then dump her clothes (which aren't even a lot) in.

Or at least, that's what she expects. It's been obvious that whatever El's been expecting this entire summer has not been what's turning up, so she's not even surprised that Sky and Mari are chatting animatedly in the laundry shed; the former sat on top of a washing machine that's already going, the latter folding up a whole bunch of clothes in different shades of pink. They both stop upon El's entry, giving her small smiles. (El's still slightly cautious around them; she still hasn't completely let go of their oh-look-new-trash looks when she first met them.)

"Hey," she says, nodding slightly.

"How's it going?" Sky asks brightly.

El shrugs, dumping her load (don't) into the washing machine, trying to shield her patterned underwear from Sky and Mari's curious stares. At Sky's tone, she feels almost obligated to answer "great. Everything is going great." So she answers just that.

Mari snorts, hopping off the washing machine and approaching the one near El. She reaches around El and adjusts the knobs - looks like she knows how to work a washing machine. "From what I've heard, nothing is going great for you," Mari says.

El groans, slamming the washing machine closed. "Who told you?"

"Grace, duh," Sky replies.

"Of course," El sighs.

"It's gonna get better," Sky assures her. "It just doesn't seem like it now."

"Thanks, but I've heard enough of that."

"It's your fault for not listening." Mari's back at folding the pink clothes.

"Those are Grace's clothes, right?" 

"Why would you say that? For all you know, they could be mine." Not only is Mari's voice just mocking El, but judging by her all-blue ensemble (like Grace, she's dyed her Camp Ashwood tee shirt), Mari isn't very into pink things. Especially bright pink short shorts.

"Those are Grace's," El insists. "So, why are you folding her clothes?"

"She's doing the easy part," Sky pipes up. "I had to wash her clothes."

It's tempting to tell Sky off like no, all you have to do is dump the clothes in and turn knobs and take them out and put them in the dryer while Mari should fold them all perfectly or Grace might have an aneurysm. Instead, she presses on with her questions. "Why? Is she like forcing you to do this? I mean, I know Grace is a bitch but I'd never think she'd be the treat other people like servants type."

"Oh, no," Mari finishes folding a pink tank top and she's done with Grace's clothes. "It's just our turn to do laundry this week. Grace is doing it the next."

"Grace...does laundry?"

Sky nods. "Ours and her own. It's actually pretty cool that she does it alone."

"Wait. She does all your laundry? Like with no help whatsoever?"

"That's literally what I just said," Sky snickers.

"I know, I know, you think it's weird," Mari says, "considering how you perceive her and all..."

"She isn't really a bitch," Sky agrees.

"She's just a bitch to you."

"Why?" El frowns.

Mari and Sky glance at each other and giggle like Brittany and Tiffany would. Mari mutters something in Japanese, her smirk just about tearing her face apart. and El's gut twists in suspicion. Sky's silent giggles turn into loud chortles.

"I'm 'fraid I can't tell ya, ma'am," Sky says, putting on a strong Southern accent (it sounds way too authentic to be fake, though).

"You'll find out soon enough." Mari winks at El, just in time for the washing machine to ding, meaning El's load is nice and clean.

El sighs in defeat as she transfers her clothes to the dryer. If Grace is mean only to her, so be it. El has been doing the same, anyway.

⌚ 9:00 AM

El is taking Cabin A to the lake when Mari catches up to her, panting. "El - El! Tawagoto...you have a phone - phonecall!" The phone exchanges hands.

"Thanks," El says. "Wait, how did you know that I have a phonecall?"

"I - I," still panting. "Grace told me to get her sunscreen from y-your cabin and I heard your phone..."

El looks at the screen of the buzzing thing in her hand that shows the words MAMMA MIA along with her mother's face and wonders how Mari could've heard it (ringtones are for people who are just asking to be embarrassed). "Thanks," she says again.

With a slight dip of the head (force of habit perhaps), Mari smiles and retreats back up the path calling a "don't mention it!" behind her.

"Shouldn't you answer that?" Bianca points to the phone.

"Watch it, young lady." El is surprised that she can keep from busting out laughing when saying that. Bianca can barely keep a grin from her face as well. She sticks her tongue out at El, like the "young lady" that she is. I just crack myself up sometimes, El thinks to herself. She holds up a finger to silence Cabin A and presses the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

"El?" And this is when she knows something is wrong. It isn't how her mother exhales her name as if she's been holding her breath for years. Not how El can practically hear the tears flowing out of her eyes. (But those did help.) It's that her mother called her "El." The last time that happened - two weeks ago - it was messy.

"Hi, Mom," El finds that her voice has gone cold. She doesn't mean for it to, but after hearing and seeing her mother like this so many times, she's just sick of it.

"El, El, your dad and - and I had a fight..." What's new?

"And?" El nods to the group of girls, this time holding up her whole hand to them, inadvertedly telling them to give her five minutes. She doesn't give them time to answer as she walks far enough to be out of their earshot.

"And I have no clue what's happening - "

"So?"

"So your dad and I might get a divorce..."

Divorce. Hearing that word multiple times does nothing to soften the blow. El's eyebrow starts to throb. "Why this time?"

Even if she's a sobbing wreck, El's mother is still abke to find time to scold her daughter. "I don't appreciate that tone of voice, El."

The daughter rips a leaf off a tree and goes on to turn it into a pulp in her fist. "Does it matter? You always fight."

"This is different."

"Different how?"

"I can't tell you."

"That's it, isn't it?" El's eyes don't start watering. They don't. "You can't tell me? You never tell me."

"El - "

"Sorry," she sniffs. Don't lose it. "Thanks for the call, mom. I'd have thought you'd be the one checking up on me, not the other way around."

"Hey - "

"Bye, mom. Love you."

⌚ 2:33 PM

"So," Finn grins at El. "Boats."

There isn't a better remedy to a messy situation than a cute boy. El feels a surge of affection for Finn as she looks distastefully at the kayaks floating lazily on the glassy surface of the lake. "Boats."

"You know that I'm the kayak master," Finn wiggles his eyebrows.

"I know."

"So that's basically a zero percent chance for you to win."

"Ouch, Finn," El clutches her chest in mock offense (and maybe a sliver of real offense). "I thought you wanted me to win."

"I do, I do," Finn says sympathetically. "Just not against me."

"Shut up."

"El!" Bianca yells from the dock; El and Finn are still by the trees. "Come here!"

Finn gingerly pushes El from the s,all of her back (El ignores the warmth of his touch). "Good luck, Elizabeth."

"You can stick that good luck, Finnegan."

Cabin A are giggling uncontrollably when El makes it to the dock, but they're always giggling anyway. She's at least hoping they're not giggling for the same reason that El is doing so internally. El is just about dying internally.

"So, Cabin A," her voice takes on the same playful tone as Finn's. "Boats."

Surprisingly, Cabin A all in all is pretty good on kayaks. That means no thrashing around, no tipping the boat over, no colliding into each other. And in the back of El's mind, the prospect of winning against Finn crosses. Winning one out of four activities won't really look good on her extra credit report.

Now El is contented with sitting on the dock strung across with fairy lights (by El because Mari skimped on the job) and watching Cabin A row around, making them do the drills that El very much knows she hated with a passion. While she drones on about gripping the oar with your palms and making sure it glides across the water and doesn't splash, the static sobs of her mother try to weasel their way out of the back of El's mind. She makes sure to keep them there.

And then Finn comes along on S.S. Taylor with that goofy grin of his. That helps a lot. (And that sounds very pathetic.)

"Now what kind of counselor would you be if you're not getting on a boat to watch your cabin?" he splashes a little water at El's feet for emphasis.

"One that wants to stay dry," El drawls. If I get into a boat with you, I will get wet very fast, El's inner sexually-deprived self adds. She slaps that self.

"C'mon," Finn winks, holding out a hand. "You'll be fine."

El starts lifting her hand like she's about to take his but immediately drops it to her lap when she hears a very cheery "Hi, Finn!" from behind her.

"Hi, Grace," he smirks, eyes flitting back and forth between the girl in the hiking boots and the girl in pink.

El turns around to find Grace postitively soaking wet, her underwear showing beneath her tank top and  white shorts. Her hair is still dripping, with small pieces of balloons lodged in between strands but even that looks chic on her (when does anything not look chic on Grace?). Basically every male within a fifty foot radius is ogling at her. El can't help but feel a tinge of annoyance towards Grace as she rolls her eyes.

"Guess what, Elizabeth," Grace is beaming yet her eyes look like a lion's as they eye their prey. "We won. Water balloon fight. Piece of cake, really."

"That's...nice."

"Oh! Damn," Grace eyes her Rolex. "Gotta go freshen up. Toodles!"

When Grace flounces away, El is sure she is swaying her hips extra hard on purpose. She feels blood rushing to her ears as she watches her disappear and then turns back to Finn.

"El, you okay - ?"

"Fine."

"Really? Because - "

"I said I'm fine," El grits her teeth. It doesn't seem possible to be able to have this amount of loathing concetrated on one person; but well, here she is. "Jesus, help me into that godforsaken boat."

Finn grips her hand, then grabs her by the hip when she missteps and almost falls into the water. When El is finally sitting across from him, her heartbeat quickens, her brain is throbbing with a "shit shit shit shit shit" at the thought of falling out of the boat. Splinters threaten to lodge themselves into her hands as El grips her seat with as much force as a garbage compactor.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Finn starts rowing.

El gives him a glare like Grace would give to El. He flinches.

"I guess not," Finn shrugs, rowing even faster.

⌚ 7:29 PM

"That took longer than expected," Lionel shakes his head slightly. "But we have a winner!"

El wasn't keeping track of what was happenin, merely staring ahead of her and feelig the boat rock beneath her feet. Sometimes, she'd snap out of her sobbing-mom and/or staring-at-Finn induced trance and see that a group of Cabin A girls won against their Cabin J counterparts (two laps around the lake isn't the most fun thing to watch). Other times, they'd lose and El would relapse back into her trance.

Lionel taps his clipboard now, while everyone else is waiting in anticipation for the results. Finn grins wickedly at El from behind Lionel.

"Cabin A!"

El blames Lionel for the hypothermia that will result from her falling into the lake.

⌚ 9:18 PM

Finn leans against the doorframe of Cabin E. "So, uh, are you in a hurry to sleep?"

The sobs of El's mother surface from he back of El's mind. She mentally stomps them down, already aware that they won't stay down for long. "I don't think I'll be sleeping at all."

"Cool," there's Finn's grin again. "Then you wanna come over to my cabin?"

"Yes," she says a little too quickly; clears her throat. "I mean, yeah. Yeah."

"Cool," he repeats. "Would you mind calling Grace? Then we can go."

"Grace? Grace is - is..."

Hints of a smirk (that's all he's been doing today, really. Smirking.) creep onto Finn's lips. "Yeah, she is. Do you mind?"

And El knows Finn is taunting her with Grace's presence but she'd much rather be tormented by Grace in Finn's cabin than be crying alone in her bed. (That isn't even a euphemism. El constantly has to blink the tears out of her eyes and she hates her parents for it.)

To answer Finn's question, El grits her teeth and borderline kicks the cabin's door open. She calls, "Yo, Grace! You, me, Finn's cabin. Now."

Finn whistles low from behind her.

"You're coming, too?" Grace climbs down from the top bunk in a tank top and bright pink sweatpants. The tone of her voice, however, not very bright.

"I think Finn and I just settled that a few seconds ago, yeah," El says.

Grace narrows her eyes at him. "Fine," she says. "I won't like it, though."

"This, my friends," even Finn's voice is smirking, "is going to be a long night."

Once Finn leads them to his cabin, El can't help but feel a twinge of jealousy towards him. To have his own cabin in the corner of the woods must be pure and utter bliss.

"It gets lonely," he says, holding the door open for them. "Ladies first."

Pure and utter bliss.

Grace happily strides inside, elbowing Finn on her way in for good measure. El stops a foot from the doorframe.

"Ladies first," Finn repeats.

"Go ahead," El retorts.

Finn rolls his eyes but the smile on his lips betrays him. "You're a feisty one, aren't ya?" He steps into the cabin first. El merely hums before following him in. She finds that Grace has already made herself at home, sprawled across Finn's bed, a beer bottle in her hand.

"You want one?" Finn says, reaching into his mini-fridge. (He has a mini-fridge? His cabin has a mini-fridge? Does Cabin 5 have one? El needs to find that mini-fridge.)

"B-beer?" El croaks out, eyeing the glistening bottle suspiciously.

Grace burps. Grace Upland is actually capable of releasing gas from her mouth. "Yes! Beer!"

Finn holds up a bottle, pointing it in El's direction.

"Is this even legal?" El asks.

"Nope!" Grace says happily. She gulps down a whole lot of beer. "But tell me, Elizabeth. How old are you?"

"We went to high school together," El mutters.

"Do I look like the kind of person who'd care about your age?"

"Please," Finn says, popping the p in time with popping the cap off the bottle.

El sighs. Maturity would be lost on these two. "I'm nineteen."

"Nineteen!" Grace raises her beer, a bit sloshing onto her hand. "That's two years from twenty one. You're basically legal."

Finn murmurs something but when El asks, he doesn't elaborate on it. Instead, he rises and approaches her, beer in his hand and hopeful smile on his face. "C'mon. You only live once."

It's probably because El has heard that alcohol makes one forget and there's a whole lot she wants to forget and Grace is totally judging her right now, that she takes the beer and brings it to her lips. She tries not to think as she tips the bottle back and lets the bitter liquid slither down her throat. It doesn't taste very good but at least it isn't as bad as she thought it would be

"How does freedom taste?" Finn asks, toasting with her.

"By the look on her face, not so good," Grace says into her bottle.

⌚ 11:03 PM

"I don't know, Finn, your abs really aren't as chiseled as Zac Efron's," El giggles. El is drunk. El doesn't giggle. So she must be drunk.

"Why are you so mean, El?" Finn pulls his shirt back on, much to her dismay. "Someday, I'll be living in a big ol' city / And all you're ever gonna be is mean!"

Grace joins in, her voice melding perfectly with his (it's sickening, aside from that her and Finn's legs are tangled together on the bed), "Someday, I'll be big enough so you can't hit me / And all you're ever gonna be is mean!"

El gasps a little too audibly, a figurative light bulb flashing above her head. "Taylor!"

Grace stops singing to give El a very dramatic eye roll. "It is indeed Taylor Swift. Congratulations, Elizabeth, you don't live under a rock!"

"No!" El is too stunned by her revelation to throw an insult back at Grace. "Your boat!"

This is when Finn's eyes widen in standard "oh shit" fashion as he moves away from Grace and joins El on the floor. If El didn't know any better, she'd think Finn is sober. "Don't tell anyone," he whispers.

And of course, El being El, and being very drunk, laughs so hard she has to lay on her stomach. "You - you...Taylor S-swift..."

"Yeah, yeah," Finn says, attempting to roll his eyes but miserably failing.

"Taylor Swift's cool, man!" To call what Grace is doing with her mouth slurring is too much of an understatement. "Your boat's cool!"

El ignores her. "Why Taylor Swift?" She, on the other hand, is definitely slurring.

"She," Finn yawns, "two years - two...ago, I was - going - hard. Going hard... ha ha ha."

From the corner of her eye, El can see Grace toss her beer into the trashcan (missing by a whole foot) and stumble to the mini fridge to get a new one.

"Hard time...real hard," Finn chuckles again. "Tay - she helped me, I guess...her m-music," yawns," helped. A lot. A whole...lot."

And Finn is asleep on his floor. Her limbs feeling heavy, El pulls a pillow from his bed and tucks it under his blonde head.

"Fuck," Grace gulps. "Oh no. Oh no..." She falls flat on her face, drags herself back up and into the bathroom. She dry-heaves a few times. Something splatters against something else.

El grabs the trashcan and feels almost obligated to do the same. Then she does.

Beer is just as bad as she thought it would be.

At least she did what she set out to do in the first place; forget. Mostly.

______________________________________

a/n: tHIS IS LONG OVERDUE AND SHORT AND SHITTY I KNOW AND IM SORRY IM HORRIBLE even though i clearly dont deserve them pls shower me with comments i need to feel motivated to write this again (blame my superhero story in the works) still love el and grace tho

also dedication goes to blacklies_ bc she made me the cover/banner on the side!!

ps i tried to edit this but i honestly cba so