Chapter 3 #2
‘I’m not mad,’ Briar said, cocking her head in an infuriating way.
‘What would I have to be mad about? We had a fight a billion years ago and, honestly, I don’t even remember what it was about.
It’s irrelevant now.’ She paused, looking Alice up and down.
‘There’s just the one cabin, so you can stay or you can go.
It doesn’t matter to me. I’m gonna go check on Sierra, so I’ll see you later.
Or not.’ She turned on her heel and headed in the direction of the lake, leaving Alice alone.
If Briar thought she could drive Alice away with some passive aggressive comments, she was wrong.
Alice knew that what she’d done had earned her a million more passive aggressive comments, or worse, but it wouldn’t be enough to get her to give up on helping Briar.
And now that she was here, breathing in the same humid air, remembering waking up to the sounds of birdsong, sleeping to the sounds of a cricket chorus, and everything in between, she didn’t want to leave.
These woods had always had an addictive quality – that was why she’d come back every summer.
Before Alice had left for good, camp and Briar had been the two most constant things in her life.
Alice opened the door to the cabin, half expecting a booby trap of some kind, but it was only the dusty hallway from her memory.
At the end of the hall was the camp’s sole landline, where campers and counselors could call home.
The door to the right led to the director’s office, where Alice had spent hours mediating conflicts between campers or catching up with Susan over tea.
The door to the left led to the director’s bedroom, which Alice had never been in.
Opening the door, she found a cozy room with, mercifully, two beds.
Alice put her bag next to the smaller one, an action which seemed to unlock a latent exhaustion in her.
She collapsed on the bed, thinking she’d just rest her eyes for a moment.
She hadn’t slept well in her childhood home, maybe because it was where her insomnia had developed in the first place.
But here at camp, after a car ride with the late afternoon sun streaming through the windows, her eyelids were heavy.
‘Hey, wake up.’ A voice cut through what was shaping up to be a beautiful dream about the forest floor.
‘Wha…’ she groaned, blinking and finding Briar looming over her. ‘Where am I?’
‘In my bed,’ Briar said drily.
‘Oh,’ Alice said, squeezing her eyes closed again as she sat up. ‘Sorry… I thought you’d want the bigger bed.’
‘This was always my bed,’ Briar said, in a tone that made Alice feel stupid.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Right. The other one’s Susan’s?
’ Alice knew that Briar had spent a considerable amount of time at camp in the years since she’d left.
Susan had mentioned it in her emails to Alice, always praising Briar’s work ethic.
Briar didn’t respond, just stared down at her until she stood and moved away from the bed.
It was then that Alice noticed the waning light outside. ‘What time is it?’
‘Eight,’ Briar said. ‘I just came in to grab my flashlight. I’m gonna go make sure Freddie and Sierra have everything they need before the counselors get here tomorrow.’ She left before Alice could respond.
Weeks of not talking to anyone other than the well-meaning but completely oblivious Freddie, her absent-minded mother and her ex-best friend whose personal mission was to torture her was taking its toll. Alice needed to talk to someone who knew about Briar, and for that, there was only one person.
She rubbed her eyes as she made her way to the phone, dialing Tess’s number into the landline.
‘Hi,’ Tess greeted her through a yawn. ‘Have you come to your senses and booked a flight home?’
‘Not yet.’
‘Then what are you calling me at one in the morning for?’ Tess demanded.
‘Oh, just wanted to hear your sanguine tones,’ Alice deadpanned. ‘How I’ve missed them.’
‘Fine, flatter me, just don’t call me from a random number at this time of night again. Nearly gave me a heart attack.’ She paused. ‘Are you at camp, then?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
Alice sighed. ‘I already want to leave. And I want to stay forever. It’s complicated.’
‘You love complicated,’ Tess said, encouraging. ‘You thrive on complicated. Those mushrooms don’t classify themselves.’
‘Right,’ Alice said, twirling the phone wire around her finger. ‘But I’ve avoided this particular… brand of complicated for a long time.’
Tess snorted. ‘And how’s that been? There’s no denying that this drama is still holding you back, even if you’re not crying about it every time you get drunk anymore.’
‘That was one time!’ Alice protested. ‘And I was eighteen!’
‘Well, since it’s the only time I’ve seen you cry, you can’t expect me to forget it.’ Tess paused, clearing her throat meaningfully. ‘But speaking of it holding you back, I mean, when was the last time you went on a date?’
Alice suspected Tess knew the answer to that question better than she did. ‘I don’t exactly see how that’s related.’
‘Oh,’ Tess said, sounding disappointed. ‘You don’t? You’ll get there, I suppose. You remember why we broke up, yeah?’
‘Because you’re so bloody annoying?’ Alice tried.
‘No,’ Tess said, drawing the word out. ‘It was because you were in love with someone else, you slag.’
‘I wasn’t—’ Alice stopped herself, taking a deep breath.
She didn’t like revisiting her first semester, those early weeks of not talking to Briar.
She’d been a mess. It had taken her longer than she would have liked to regain control over her emotions, and dating Tess had been integral to the process.
Tess had given her an outlet to channel those messy feelings into, until she’d found out exactly what Alice was avoiding back in the States and had sympathetically dumped her.
‘Honestly, I was just a dramatic teenager with no idea what I was talking about. You should forget whatever I said back then. I certainly have.’
The door creaked open behind her and she nearly jumped, not sure why the phone call suddenly felt clandestine. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Briar standing there, her flashlight temporarily blinding Alice.
‘Those two are impossible,’ she announced, and then seemed to notice the phone in Alice’s hand. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.’ She turned into the bedroom.
‘Was that Briar? Don’t let me keep you.’ Tess yawned again. ‘It’s late.’
‘I’ll ring off and let you sleep,’ Alice said, knowing there was nothing else productive that could come from the conversation. ‘Thanks for answering the phone past a reasonable hour.’
‘I didn’t know it was you,’ Tess reminded her. ‘Love you, good night.’
When Alice went back into the bedroom, Briar was laying her pajamas out. Alice dragged her duffel over to the larger bed, unzipping it and staring at the meticulously organized but random contents within.
She had flown to the US with a nightgown, a change of clothes and toiletries. She’d ended up with a strange mix of clothing for camp: some thrifted, a few picked up from the nearby mall, and some she’d found in her closet that she hadn’t worn since high school.
‘I didn’t mean to interrupt,’ Briar said, breaking the silence.
‘You already said that,’ Alice pointed out. She took out her nightgown, unfolded it, and then hastily re-folded it, feeling self-conscious.
‘Who were you talking to?’ Briar asked, just as Alice had decided that their attempt at conversation was probably over.
She looked over her shoulder. ‘My friend Tess.’
Briar nodded, still staring at her sheets intently. ‘Weren’t you two…? I mean, um, I remember from Instagram.’
Alice hadn’t expected Briar to remember their short-lived fling, especially when, for years, Alice has only thought of Tess as a friend.
Their friendship had bloomed in the months after Tess had ended things, when she’d proved to be one of the most loyal people Alice had ever met.
And even though she’d kept expecting Tess to realize her mistake and ditch her, she never had.
‘We dated for a semester, but we were better off as friends,’ Alice explained.
It was strange, unfamiliar, explaining herself to Briar.
A decade had passed, yet she still expected Briar to know everything about her life.
‘It felt like the thing to do, you know, come out and then date the first lesbian I met.’
‘Okay,’ Briar said, her tone still stilted.
‘What? You don’t believe me?’ Alice asked.
‘No, I believe you,’ Briar said, pushing her pajamas to the side and sitting on her bed. She looked at Alice. ‘I just thought…’
‘You thought what?’ Alice asked, raising her eyebrows.
‘I thought, you know, with this whole insistence on helping with camp thing… I just assumed you were running away from something.’
Of all the petty comments Alice had put up with from Briar so far, that was the one that hurt the most.
‘Well, I’m not,’ she said flatly. ‘I don’t have any secret motives.’ She didn’t know why it felt like a lie.
Briar didn’t respond, grabbing her toiletries bag and pajamas off the bed and heading for the bathroom. Alice abandoned her nightgown, stuffing it to the bottom of her bag, and instead reached for a T-shirt, a relic of her time as a mathlete that read STEMINIST in hot pink cursive.
Alice took her turn in the bathroom after Briar, changing into the T-shirt and her middle school gym shorts before starting on her nighttime skincare routine.
She massaged various oils and serums into her face, already feeling more like the competent version of herself she had left in London.
If she treated camp like she did her daily to-do list, maybe she would be able to bring that version of herself back and stop caring so much what Briar thought of her.
It was perfectly natural that being back in this particular place with this particular person was heightening her emotions, making her feel like a teenager again.
Regression was a psychological phenomenon corroborated by years of research.
Alice might be able to submit her case study of overcoming it to a publication once the summer was done. It was a comforting thought.
By the time she returned to the bedroom, she had steeled herself for eight whole hours in the same room as Briar Elwood, something that a month ago would have only occurred in a nightmare.
She methodically swapped the cotton pillowcases out for the silk ones she had bought, spraying them with lavender before settling in with her book.
‘Achoo.’
Alice looked over to where Briar was curled up, watching her with wide eyes.
Something about it brought an acute image of their childhood sleepovers to the front of Alice’s mind.
She hadn’t thought about Briar’s typical sleeping position in years – because, of course, that was something that only an insane person would fixate on.
‘Did you just fake sneeze?’
‘I’m allergic to lavender. My doctor says it could be deadly,’ Briar said solemnly.
‘You’re allergic to sesame,’ Alice said. ‘I’m fairly certain allergies don’t develop after the age of eighteen.’
Briar scoffed. ‘You don’t know everything, Alice.’
‘Actually, I basically do,’ Alice argued, realizing the moment it was out of her mouth that it was exactly how she would have responded to Briar when they were kids.
Briar rolled her eyes. ‘What’s the deal with the whole nighttime song and dance? Trying to scare away the insomnia demons?’
Alice swallowed, surprised that Briar had remembered. But of course she did; Briar had been there for so many of Alice’s sleepless nights.
‘Um, yeah,’ Alice admitted. ‘It got worse at uni, so I doubled down. Never met a problem I couldn’t create a three-step solution to fix.’
‘Are you going to read that’ – Briar gestured dismissively to the book Alice was holding, Marvelous Mycology by Herman Fjord – ‘to put you to sleep?’
‘It’s good to have consistency, like reading the same book every night. So, essentially, yes. But not because it’s boring. It’s quite fascinating.’
‘Sure,’ Briar said, rolling over so that she was facing the wall.
‘Don’t pretend you think mushrooms are boring, because then I’ll know you’re lying to get a reaction out of me.’
‘Good night, Alice,’ Briar mumbled.