Chapter 18
Alice
Alice woke up in a tangle of limbs. It took her a full minute to figure out where she was and who she was curled around. She was used to waking up in the same bed, in the same flat, alone. Since Tess, she hadn’t slept in the same bed as another person.
Then everything came back to her, and heat crept up her neck as she suddenly felt every place where Briar’s body was touching hers. She turned her head, keeping her body as still as she could, to look at Briar’s face.
Her lips were slightly parted, her bangs messy and her legs curled up to her chest in the same way that they always were.
The idea that her brain had stored all of this useless information was either alarming or impressive – she wasn’t sure which.
She didn’t remember anything from her senior year biology project, but she remembered the exact rhythm and cadence of breathing that marked her sleeping in the same bed as Briar.
The worst part was that it didn’t feel strange at all.
It felt comforting, like no time had passed at all. It felt, in a way, like she was home.
She shook the feeling off, gently removing Briar’s arm from around her. This wasn’t meant to be that kind of sleepover, just one borne of necessity when Noah had showed up. Briar had made it clear after the last night they’d spent together how much she’d regretted it, and Alice couldn’t blame her.
She had known as soon as she’d seen Briar afraid to come back to bed that sleeping together had been a mistake.
Like always, Alice had only been thinking of herself, what she wanted, and had ignored that Briar was in a vulnerable state.
So, she’d done what she’d failed to do when they were eighteen: she’d owned up to her mistake and apologized.
It had seemed to result in a positive turn in their relationship.
They had easily slipped into something resembling friendship – not what they’d had before, but definitely progress.
Alice’s tested hypothesis had yielded promising results.
If only she didn’t want to throw away the whole experiment to be able to touch Briar, really touch her, again.
Briar stirred beside her, slowly opening her eyes. ‘Hi,’ she croaked.
‘Hi,’ Alice said, smiling despite herself. It should have been awkward, after everything, but instead it felt normal, like they’d done this hundreds of times before – because they had. Then Noah let out a loud snore from the other bed and Alice tensed. ‘Breakfast?’ she whispered.
Briar nodded eagerly.
‘Hey,’ Freddie greeted them before they had made it past the flagpole. ‘We have a situation.’
Immediately, Alice’s stomach dropped. ‘Is it Robin?’
‘No, Cook’s sick.’
‘Cook doesn’t get sick,’ Briar said, echoing Alice’s thoughts. She had always assumed that Cook had some sort of deal with the devil that granted him constant good health. She’d never so much as heard him sneeze before.
‘Which is why it’s a situation,’ Freddie said grimly. ‘He won’t let me touch him, threatened to cut off my fingers if I tried, but he definitely has a fever. Still, he’s insisting no one else can make a passable meal for the campers arriving today.’
Alice and Briar exchanged a worried look. This situation might require an actual medical professional, showing the gaps in their staffing situation once again.
‘What’s up?’ Noah’s voice came from the director’s cabin, and Alice turned to see him on the porch.
‘Cook’s sick,’ Briar said, and it hurt Alice to hear her sound so deflated after things had seemed to be improving.
She couldn’t believe she’d been optimistic about the session up until this moment, that she’d thought her tentative friendship with Briar could fix the problems from the first session.
‘Give me a sec,’ Noah said, going back inside.
‘I’ll deal with corralling Cook back into his room,’ Alice said. ‘Unless you think we should bring him to urgent care?’
‘Couldn’t get a good enough look at him to say,’ Freddie said.
‘Damn,’ Briar said. ‘Usually he’d have sous chefs, but I couldn’t find anyone to replace them. He swore he’d be fine on his own.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Alice said. ‘And I’m sure he’ll be fine, he just needs some time to rest.’
The lines in Briar’s forehead eased slightly. ‘And I can cook dinner tonight.’
‘We can cook,’ Alice corrected her. ‘We know Cook’s system, where he hides everything.’
‘That leaves me and Sierra to handle the check-in,’ Freddie said, sounding uncertain.
‘You’ve got this,’ Alice said to Freddie. ‘We’ll go over the cabin assignments again tonight.’
Just as she said it, Noah emerged again. ‘Harper’s coming,’ he announced, walking down the steps.
Briar’s eyes went wide. ‘Oh, Noah, you didn’t ask her to drive all the way here on her time off, did you?’
‘No,’ Noah said. ‘I told her what’s going on and she volunteered to come. She is the only nurse we know.’
‘Thank you,’ Briar said quietly.
Noah hugged her. ‘Anything for you.’
‘Okay,’ Alice said, clearing her throat. ‘We have opening duties to go over. You can’t just rely on your fiancée; we’re putting you to work too.’
Alice and Briar spent the morning in the kitchen prepping dinner.
They were making mac and cheese, and cooking for such a large group involved more chopping and cheese grating than Alice could’ve imagined.
Her arms were sore by the time noon rolled around and the campers came into the dining room for a buffet of Uncrustables, pretzels, carrots and bananas.
Sierra popped her head in the kitchen. ‘There’s some girl here, says she’s Alice’s sworn enemy.’ Alice whirled around to see Harper standing in the doorway.
‘I didn’t say that,’ she clarified, her cheeks reddening.
Sierra nodded. ‘It’s true, I made it up because I thought it would be funny to see Alice’s reaction. And I was right, it was.’ She disappeared back into the dining room.
Briar, who had just settled with a plate of food, stood. ‘Thanks for coming.’
‘I’ve got it,’ Alice said, gesturing for Briar to sit.
Alice guided Harper up the steps to Cook’s room.
‘How’s Briar?’ Harper asked, after a moment.
‘Oh, you know,’ Alice said. ‘Can’t really say she’s doing well, but I hope she’s a bit better than she was last week, at least. I’ve been trying to not be a total bitch, which seems to be helping.’
Harper huffed out some air, and Alice couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or trying not to laugh. ‘And how are you?’
Alice frowned. ‘Me? I’m fine.’
Harper’s eyes cut sideways towards her. ‘I know you were close with Briar’s mom.’
‘I was,’ Alice said, surprised both that Harper had noticed and cared enough to ask. ‘But being here is keeping me busy. It makes it easier, when I feel like I’m being useful.’
She had no idea how she would feel if she was back home, but she suspected Tess was right, that she would be sad no matter what.
At least this way she wasn’t avoiding it but living through it.
She’d never felt closer to Susan or missed her more, but she was doing everything she could to carry on her legacy.
Alice opened the door to Cook’s room. ‘Cook,’ she called out into the darkness. He’d pulled the blinds over his skylight. ‘I’ve brought my friend Harper. She’s just going to make sure you’re already on the mend, as you’ve told me several times you are. Not that I don’t trust you, of course.’
She heard some grumbling that sounded like bloody buggers.
‘You should get back to cooking,’ Harper murmured. ‘I’ll be fine.’
Alice eyed the lump in the bed dubiously. ‘Are you sure?’
Harper put a hand on her hip. ‘I’m a nurse. I’ve dealt with difficult patients before.’
‘If he threatens you, you should know that he doesn’t actually have any knives up here. I confiscated them.’
Harper nodded as though this were par for the course, and Alice returned to the kitchen. She found Briar staring sleepily into the distance, a half-eaten Uncrustable in one hand.
‘Coffee?’ Alice offered. She started on the French press, packing the ground coffee into the bottom and putting the kettle on. ‘Harper seems utterly unfazed by Cook,’ she said after another minute of silence.
Briar smiled. ‘Yeah, she’s a real force. She reminds me a lot of you in that way.’
Alice tried not to be offended, reminding herself that Briar liked Harper and had probably meant it as a compliment. ‘How did you two become so close, anyway?’
‘We ran into each other at a party a couple months into freshman year. Noah and I had the same Intro to Education class, but I hadn’t seen Harper at all.
’ She paused and Alice looked over at her, but she was staring at the wall in front of her, expressionless.
‘She said she wanted her own friends, that she was feeling sick of being the person she was in high school.’
‘Doesn’t everyone?’ Alice asked, pouring the boiling water into the French press. ‘That’s what college is for.’
Briar frowned. ‘I didn’t mind who I was in high school.’
‘Well, of course you didn’t,’ Alice said. ‘You were always the coolest person in the room. You never cared what anyone thought of you.’
Alice had always envied that about Briar.
Everything Alice did was carefully calibrated to the reactions of her peers and her parents.
She suspected that was a large part of why it had taken her so long to figure out she was a lesbian.
She had never taken a moment to investigate who she wanted to be, separate from the constant need for acceptance.
She’d been jealous when Briar had come out in their junior year of high school, and at the time she’d had no clear explanation for the feeling. She had ended up attributing it to the fact that Briar was so fearlessly herself. And with a mother like Susan, how could she have been anything else?
Briar didn’t respond for a minute. ‘Well, I’m definitely more of a mess now than I was then. So maybe I’m one of those shitty people that peaked in high school.’