Top Bunk

DAY 17

El almost hisses and shields her eyes, as she imagines a vampire would.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" The voice is angry and deep. If El squints, she sees a rotund, balding figure holding the front door of Finn's cabin wide open. The figure holds a clipboard. It can't be.

"L-Lionel?" a voice squeaks from the depths of the cabin (is it possible for something to have depths when it's literally a twenty five by twenty five foot structure made of hardwood?).

That man just swore. That can't be Lionel.

"You did this same thing last year!" he fumes, whipping the curtains open and ugh, more light. "And you promised me that you wouldn't do it this year!"

"C'mon, man!" Isaac's voice is far more annoying when he is hungover. "Let us have some fun!"

Clearly, that's the wrong thing to say. Lionel is livid - the door nearly shatters when he slams it. "Fun? You can have as much goddamn," he just...again, "fun as you want as long as it doesn't involve alcohol! The kids aren't allowed to have any, so what gives you the right to drink the fucking night away?"

El has heard this much swearing before. Hell, she'd sworn even more than this in less than ten seconds once (see: senior prom). But not from Lionel, the advocate of don't-swear-in-front-of-kids-but-teaching-them-to-be-misogynistic-is-totally-fine mentality.

"Our age," Isaac replies defiantly and El just wants to strangle him and tell him to shut up already.

"But that's only you and Jason, Isaac! The rest of them aren't of legal drinking age. So that's not an excuse you should be making." Lionel rubs at his temple; El has never seen him so angry and tired. "I just don't understand why you had to do this."

"For fun!" Isaac thunders. El whirls around at the sudden outburst to see the rest of the counselors huddled together a little way from Isaac. She suddenly feels extremely alone, crouching between Lionel and Isaac.

Lionel's gaze narrows, warning Isaac to shut up or else.

Unsurprisingly, Isaac cannot take a hint (as usual). "These kids are having fun - well, some of them - so why can't we? They have fun by making friendship bracelets and roasting marshmallows. We have fun by drinking! What's the difference?"

"The difference is I can't have the ten other people who are running this camp to be risking their lives!"

If El wasn't so hungover, she would've tackled Isaac to the ground and hit him upside the head. She knows Isaac is wrong, and apparently, so do the eight other hungover counselors. Is he really this stubborn?

"We aren't risking our lives!" Yes. Yes, he his. "It's just drinking!"

Lionel looks just about as done as El feels usually when trying to reason with Isaac. "Have you heard of alcohol poisoning, Isaac?"

"Yeah, but - "

"Liver cancer?"

"That isn't even - "

"DUI?"

"There aren't fucking cars - "

"I know there aren't fucking cars!" Lionel's breaths are short and ragged, and El watches his every move, trying to push the image of him collapsing on the spot out of her mind. "I'm just saying... I know this might not be your ideal summer vacation, but you at least owe it to these kids to be responsible adults. Just imagine what they'd think if they saw you like this! Oh, they're drinking underage and I'm underage, too so it's completely fine to get inebriated and risk my life!"