⌚ 2:46 AM
El reaches blindly towards where her phone is ringing incessantly. She already knows it's her mother calling because she doesnt have any friends who care about her outside of college and if she had any friends, they wouldn't be calling her before seven in the morning because they'd know about El's vendetta against that sort of thing.
When she finally presses IGNORE and the ringing stops, El has every intention to sleep. But that's where it ends: at the intention. Something keeps her from falling back asleep. El would like to think she's restless because the thoughts of her mother are like caffeine, agitating her, but that's not it.
It's the sound of two people making out that's keeping her awake. Grunts and moans and lips against lips is all she hears and she is disgusted. And maybe a bit bitter. But mostly disgusted. Ew.
"Grace?" her voice comes out hoarse. "Please tell me you aren't making out with someone underage." Amazing. Even at three in the morning, El has a sense of humor.
A giggle. Shushing. "Way to cockblock, El." Grace says, sounding absolutely wrecked. It catches El off-guard. Grace Upland is supposed to be a confident, strong being, not a pile of ragged breaths and whispers.
El squints into the darkness, trying to look for two figures (since she's sure they aren't making out above her; at least Grace has enough courtesy not to rock the entire bunk). "Who's that?" she asks.
El spots them (Grace and her seductee), a bunch of entangled limbs at the foot of her bed. Okay, so not as much courtesy as she thought. Grace's seductee - El made that word up in sixth grade when all her friends started getting boyfriends; even then she was a bitter little ray of sunshine - is built, and with cropped hair so it is a man, El assumes. Her head wraps around this. There are only three possibilities of who he could be, since obciously, Luke and Jason are out of the picture. Isaac, but Grace would never. Will, slightly more likely, but El doubts it. Finn. Dread floods into El's chest.
It could be that cute boy who delivers the meat and vegetables every other day, El tries to reassure herself. Very cute. Very unlikely. Fuck.
"Who's that?" she repeats, now more awake.
More giggling. Sloppy kisses. "C'mon, El, don't be a spoilsport." Grace says, presumably against his lips.
"Who even says that?" Irritation starts to bubble in El's throat. She feels like she deserves to at least know who the hell her cabinmate is making out with at ungodly hours. Isn't that only fair?
"I do," Grace drawls and El gulps. Her dismay makes way for embarrassment. El feels like she's intruding.
Is she?
No, I'm not, El tells herself. They're intruding on me and my sleep.
Moans. Even more giggling. "Grace, it's too early for this," she says. Her sleep-deprived mind tells her to turn on the lights to end this. So El turns on the lights.
That may not have been the best decision.
She almost turns the lights off again, but she is frozen in horror at the sight of a half-naked Grace slithering around a shirtless Finn. El shudders.
Finn pulls away from their kiss, a deep blush blooming on his cheeks (at least he has the decency to look embarrassed). "G-good morning."
Are you fucking kidding me? El wants to say - no, shriek. She wants to freak out. She wants to lose her goddamn marbles. "Good morning," is what she does say, and coldly, at that.
Grace sucks on Finn's neck - just like El did yesterday - not paying attention to what's happening. El tries to keep her eyes off where Grace is pressed against Finn, where pale curves meld into tan, sharp edges. She bows her head, using her hair to shield the heat coming up her neck.
"How's it going?" Finn says brightly, despite the fact that he's pinned under Grace. He seems to be enjoying it very much. (More than he enjoyed kissing El, anyway.)
Grace has now gone to sucking and nibbling just under Finn's jaw, which seems to be a pretty sensitive spot because Finn's breaths turn short and ragged. He lets out a moan. Jesus.
"I'm not doing too okay," El replies earnestly. If the only way she can play off her dismay is by being sarcastic, then so be it. "You?"
"This is...weird," Finn exhales hard. He looks at El, eyes wide. There's something in his gaze. It isn't hazy or glazed over, like what El would think someone should look when making out with someone.
"Pretty weird," El agrees. Silently, she asks, why?
"Are you two done talking?" Grace mutters against Finn's jaw. God, is her voice husky. Then, she stops and sits up. She raises an unamused eyebrow at El. "Do you mind?"
"Do you?" El retorts, her voice still weirdly calm. "It's too early for this."
"Actually," Grace crosses her arms, "it's the perfect time for this."
At the corner of her eye, El sees Finn shaking his head wildly, mouthing NO. Seeing as her brain is very much lacking sleep, El is confused.
"Well, this isn't really the perfect place," El says, stalling until Finn can get his act together and make clear what he wants to tell her.
"It kind of is." Grace's tone is infuriatingly matter-of-fact. "A dark, quiet room. That's until you woke up, at least."
El just wants to go back to sleep peacefully. She tells Grace this.
"The go back to sleep!" Grace says curtly.
"Not with him," El points to Finn, "impregnating you," the finger goes in Grace's direction, "literally two feet away from me!"
"Whoa," Finn pipes up. "This is where I step in. I was not impregnating Grace."
The girl on his lap glares at him.
El sighs. "Can't you make out in Finn's cabin?"
"It's cooler here," Grace says quickly, as if she'd already thought about her response to this question beforehand.
"Really, now?" El lets her doubt seep into her words.
"Yep. I think you of all people know it's pretty shit to make out with someone in Finn's cabin."
El's jaw hangs open at this. The expression on Finn's face is borderline hysterical as he signals El to cut it out. The thing is, El isn't sure if she wants to. Something's iffy with Grace. She's unusually snappy and El doesn't peg her as the sort of person to make out with someone while another person is in the room. (Finn, however, totally that sort of person.) It almost reminds El of pre-truce Grace, her former so-called mortal enemy.
El is almost amused. "You told her?" she addresses Finn, referencing how incredibly boring they agreed their kiss was.
"We had a bet," is all he says.
"I can't - it's too early for this," El says again. She shuts her eyes tight. "Just...don't make too much noise." The light gets switched off and El hops back into bed.
Immediately, the sound of intense osculation resume. It takes everything El has to keep the vomit rising in her throat down.
"I think," Grace huffs against Finn's lips, "someone's jealous."
El shuts her eyes, her dark view now pitch black.
She practically hears Finn smirk at what Grace said.
El is most definitely not jealous.
At all.
Not.
Jealous.
⌚ 7:37 AM
When El woke up again, Grace was already ready to go, dressed in her more familiar pink tank top and denim shorts, hair curled, face made up. She greeted El brightly, as if what had happened earlier that morning hadn't happened. As if it was just a dream (El would almost believe that but she knows her dreams only involve her mother now, and that's kind of thanks to Grace, too). Nevertheless, El was relieved.
She doesn't think she could bear losing a friend and gaining back an enemy. Especially if it's Grace Upland.
Now, as breakfast is about to end, El concludes today will be one of the worse ones. Today's cause: Isaac Salib. To be honest, though, he kind of is always a cause. But considering she still has an activity with him later, she might as well say he's the primary cause of today's utter badness.
And maybe that thing that happened earlier in the morning that El would rather not think about for fear that her breakfast might come up. She's being overdramatic.
As always, a voice at the back of her mind tells her. The voice gets stomped down. She stomps down the thoughts of her mother even further for good measure.
Anyway, breakfast is about to end. Isaac. Badness.
"I mean, look at him," Isaac hisses, referring to an overweight boy in Jason's cabin. "How fucking hard is it to cut down on food?"
"Pretty hard, apparently," El says dryly, gesturing to his tray, on which is three waffles, six sausages, and three eggs scrambled.
"That's different," Isaac insists. "My body looks good."
It doesn't take a detective to see that Isaac is pretty fit. Still. "So what? Let the boy do what he wants."
Isaac rolls his eyes.
"Did you just...roll your eyes at me?"
All other conversations around the table die down, like they normally do when Isaac and another counselor are at each other's throats.
This makes Isaac rolling his eyes again even more annoying.
"Remember that time I told you to educate yourself?" El says slowly.
"Yeah, but he's a guy. Why do you care? I thought you were only into this female empowerment shit."
El senses Grace stiffen beside her. Probably for the same reason El's head has started to hurt. "I am for female empowerment." El sounds like she's talking to a first grader, and that isn't very far off, considering how ignorant Isaac is. "But there's more to it than that. I'm for equality. I think I made that clear, if I recall correctly, when I said no one deserves to get hit?"
Isaac hums grudgingly.
"Well, same for the boy," El says. "He doesn't deserve for some asshole to judge him for his weight. No one, regardless of gender, deserves that."
"How about you?" Isaac demands. "You all insult me because, apparently, my dick is short? Even if it goddamn well isn't."
Around the table, there is a collective shudder. Grace snorts. "Five inches?"
"Five inches more than you have." Isaac raises an eyebrow.
The look of fury on Grace's face scares El. Then again, El might look the same despite the calm voice she's using with Isaac. El squeezes Grace's wrist under the table, a warning to please calm down he isn't worth it.
"That's different," El tells Isaac; it's taking everything she has to refrain from slapping him. "Insulting your dick isn't discriminatory because it isnt discrimination if that thing is what makes you superior. Not to mention it's douchebags like you that ask for that by bragging about the damn thing. "
"How about rape, then?" Isaac raises his voice and a few heads turn. "Girls just ask for that, too!"
El is sick. Isaac constantly hopping from topic to topic dizzies her. "Okay, smart-ass." El has her head in her hands. "First of all, not only girls get fucking raped, okay? Rape is a serious thing and I'd really rather you don't use it to defend your tiny dick."
Finn and Will glance at each other, clearly amused at the burn El is delivering.
"Discrimination," El continues, "doesn't just happen between genders. Tell me, I'm sure you've been accused of being a terrorist before?"
"Because I'm Egyptian, yeah," Isaac says. "But that's different. That's racism. You were just racist."
El cocks her head at him because really? Can El even afford to be racist when her skin is dark as literal shit? "It was an example. That's another form of discrimination. Racism, sexism, homophobia, all discrimination. Oh, and fat-shaming, does that sound familiar?"
Isaac's expression changes just a fraction - his eyebrows have gone up and his mouth has hung a bit open. That's enough for El. "Yeah," he says weakly, "but - "
The breakfast bell (that's actually a thing, but El hasn't really been there to hear it; she always gets Cabin A out of the Campfeteria way before that) rings, cutting him off.
Isaac seems to consider whether or not he should continue what he was about to say, but he makes the wise decision and doesn't, storming away instead.
Louise, who is beside El, tells Will to follow him. "He's your friend, after all."
"He needs to blow off some steam." Will's eyes find El and he grins at her. "You really put him in his place today, huh?"
"I ran out of patience," El tries to say nonchalantly but she grins back.
The other counselors give El smiles as well before they gather their respective cabins, but Luke and Sky in particular look a bit terrified of El. That can't be helped, she guesses. Finn avoids eye contact with her altogether, which she figures is for the best as she might recall the sight of his lips pushed against Grace's...yeah, it's for the best.
El is about to get up to leave, until she sees that she barely touched her food. Grace, still beside El, tells her, "You should eat. Don't you have rock-climbing today?"
El's stomach drops. "Shit."
Grace's lips quirk slightly. "And it's with Isaac."
That, at least, El remembers. Still, that doesn't stop her from groaning exaggeratedly. "He's gonna throw me off the wall."
"I'll kill him if he does," Grace says, and El believes her. As El shovels her waffle into her mouth, Grace nudges her. "You did well, by the way. Couldn't have said it better myself."
A fond warmth spreads beneath El's chest at that. Whatever bitterness she has towards Grace left over from this morning sinks to the back of her mind for now. "Oo coo haf," she replies, her mouth full. You could have.
"And you could have shut your mouth when you said that." Grace rolls her eyes.
El beams at her, mouth closed.
⌚ 2:12 PM
The last time El went rock-climbing was, well, when she was a camper. Back then, her gangly limbs barely took her up the climbing wall and back down. The sun was especially hot at the top of the wall, she remembers, and this made the rocks even harder to grasp.
Since she's a nineteen year old counselor now, she's expected to "set an example for your cabin to follow." Considering El is extremely out of shape and her limbs are still gangly, she isn't looking forward to climbing the wall with everyone watching her. (We all know how she does in that department. See: poison ivy crotch.)
Isaac has already climbed and gone down the wall, with El in charge of keeping his harness stable from the base by holding onto a rope that leads up to the pulley at the top of the wall. She was already exhausted after that - what more when the roles are switched and she's now meant to trust Isaac with her life?
El pulls the harness on, cringing at how tight it is down there and puts on a crusty pair of gloves. She decides against a helmet because those things are probably older than she is. When she's at the base of the wall, she lets Isaac hook her up to the rope. The wicked glint in his eye does nothing to reassure El.
She takes two rocks in her hands, both slightly above shoulder level, and flinches at the heat that meets her through the gloves. The gloves are thin so she feels the rough ridges in the rocks. Already she fears that she's going to get scratched up. Next, she positions her right foot on one of the rocks nearer the bottom, and hoists her left foot up onto a rock higher than the other one.
El climbs fast. (Not that she has a choice. Isaac is tugging that rope way too feriociously. He's practically pulling her up the wall.) Her chest is heaving once she gets to the top of the wall, her limbs burning from the strain. She nearly hits her head on a rock when Isaac lets her rappel down the wall. She can barely move when she reaches the ground, but Isaac seems only more energized. El really should work out more.
Despite the physical strain, the two counselors are expected to man the harnesses for all the members of their own cabins.
That's ridiculous when El has fourteen girls to drag up a wall. She hopes their parents signed waivers.
Lionel blows his whistle to signal the start of one of Camp Ashwood's more ridiculous activities: Rock-Climbing Relay. The stupid name speaks for itself.
The thing is, it takes a lot longer to get the harnesses on and off the girls than for them to get up and down the wall. El's muscles are screaming (is she really that out of shape?) when she gets Cassie out of her harness, trying to keep her from crying even harder. As soon as Cassie has taken off her harness and joins the rest of Cabin A, El shouts, "DONE!"
Isaac whirls around to send her angry look, momentarily loosening his grip on his rope. The boy hanging from it flies down fast - thankfully Isaac has killer reflexes and stops the boy from hitting the ground.
"We won?" is what is murmured among Cabin A.
"We won!" El hollers triumphantly.
Lionel blows his whistle, beaming at El. He congratulates Cabin A. There isn't even anything vaguely sexist in his congratulations. Even Isaac doesn't say anything.
El is satisfied.
⌚ 7:24 PM
Will and Finn almost have to drag Isaac into the Campfeteria. El has already eaten quite a bit of the wretched meatloaf she has in front of her but she has the distinct feeling she and Isaac will have yet another showdown and she will neglect her food.
Isaac sits across from her (that is, he is forced to sit across from her) and scowls. "I'm sorry," he says through his teeth.
El flashes a look at Will, seated beside Isaac. "Pardon?" She smirks at Isaac. "I didn't hear that."
Isaac glowers at her. "I said," he grunts, "I'm sorry."
El makes show of chewing her next chunk of meatloaf slowly. Grace snorts from her right. "You have to speak up," El says innocently.
"I'm sorry, okay!" he exclaims.
"Ah," El hums, "for what, exactly?"
Isaac glances desperately at Finn, his eyes begging his friend to bail him out. Finn just jerks his head at El and punches Isaac in the chest, muttering "toughen up, dude."
Isaac rolls his eyes. "For being a fuckboy," he recites in a monotone.
El raises her eyebrows at the word his vocabulary. "How'd you know that word?"
"You called me that," he says. "And Finn told me what it meant."
"How'd you know?" El asks Finn.
His lips form a sly grin. His lips. That were on El's lips. And Grace's lips. And who knows where else they've been. "I know El-anese, remember?"
El fights down the heat rushing into her cheeks. She turns back to Isaac. "Do you mean it?" she asks, pertaining to his apology.
Isaac looks at Will this time, and Will ignores him, grinning down at his own food. "I guess," Isaac replies.
"Do you even understand why you have to apologize?"
"Mhm."
"How wrong you were?"
"So very wrong."
"You don't care about any of this, do you?"
"What's there to care about?"
El has to respond but it seems there's something clogging her throat. For the first time in awhile, El is speechless.
Isaac looks triumphant. That is, until Grace steps in.
"Everything," Grace says. She sounds scarily persuasive, and even Isaac leans in closer to hear what she has to say. "You have to care because treating people unfairly isn't right."
Louise mutters a "you're one to talk about that" from beside Grace and Grace elbows her.
"Getting treated unfairly," it seems like she's directing this at Louise, "isn't right. Is that hard enough to agree on?"
Isaac shakes his head slightly. A small movement, but a sign that Grace has got him.
"Okay. So when someone in particular insults someone younger than him slash her because of his slash her weight, is that right?"
"He didn't even hear me," Isaac says. Weak tone. Weak reply.
"So what?" Grace pierces a piece of lettuce with her pork (she has a Caesar salad instead of meatloaf). "What makes that different. You still insulted someone. It doesn't matter if you said it to their face or not. And it's not just that. How about the people being paid less than others because of their race or gender? How about - "
Finn places his hand on her from across the table. El's eyes follow the movement. "I think Isaac's heard enough for today, Grace."
Grace looks at him like are you kidding me? I'm just getting started! Eventually, though, she lets out a breath. Leans over the table. Looks Isaac straight in the eye. "Got it?"
Isaac gulps, his line of sight lower than Grace's eyes. "Y-yeah."
Satisfied, Grace settles back down beside El and takes a forkful of her salad into her mouth.
"You do know he wasn't making eye contact with you," El murmurs to Grace.
"I know."
"He's still a fuckboy."
"I know."
"You're okay with that?"
"He'll crack," Grace says determinedly, and finally El feels like she isn't alone in this (being Isaac's conversion into being less of a misogynistic dick). "We'll make him."
⌚ 10:14 PM
"So, tell me," Grace says, looking up at El. "Why were you acting all weird this morning? About me and Finn?"
El looks back down at Grace, who is currently resting her head on El's lap. "Was I acting weird?"
Just as El was about to fall asleep, Grace claimed she wanted to talk and before letting El give her an answer, she had already climbed down from top bunk and laid on El's bed, landing her head in El's lap. El couldn't complain. She was still stunned at how scary Grace could be and she wasn't taking any chances.
Grace hums and El feels the vibration on her thighs. "Yeah. Were you jealous or something?"
Hearing Grace say this makes El's stomach churn. Aside from the huge contrast between Dinner Grace and Bedtime Grace, with Dinner Grace talking about serious issues and Bedtime Grace pondering on some petty thing, it's that word that gets El. Jealous. Was she? "Maybe a little," she admits. A little.
"Why?" Grace seems genuinely intrigued.
"I don't know." El leans against her headboard. "I guess it was just weird seeing you two kissing - "
"Oh, we were doing way more than kissing..."
El gulps. " - especially after I, uh, kissed Finn? I don't know!" she squeaks.
Grace starts shaking. It takes El awhile to realize that it's due to her laughter. "You're so cute," Grace comments offhandedly through her giggles.
"What?"
"You're all mushy and shit, you know? That's cute."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
A drawn out silence takes over them. Then, El barely realizes she's blurting out, "Are you and Finn...a thing?"
Grace starts yet another fit of laughter. "God, no."
Against her own wishes, relief swells up in El. "Then why were you making out at two AM?"
"Why did you kiss him?" Grace counters. "Are you and Finn a thing?"
"No," El says promptly.
"There you go," Grace says.
"But that's different," El insists. She sounds a lot like Isaac did a few hours ago - how sick. "I wasn't dry humping his leg or anything." She is surprised at the ease that these words come out of her mouth.
Grace's laughter is ceaseless. "Finn said your kiss was boring," she says nonchalantly. El notices the change in their conversation's subject.
"It kinda was," El says. She doesn't even question how Grace got to know this. She and Finn are obviously close. "It looked like he enjoyed impregnating you even more."
"Stop using that word," Grace deadpans. And then she laughs some more. "You really are jealous, huh?"
El blushes, thankful for the darkness keeping Grace from seeing this. "I already told you that." Embarrassment. That's what's so prominent in her voice.
"You don't have to be." Grace rolls over; it tickles El. "I didn't really feel anything this morning, either."
"You didn't?"
"You don't have to sound so fucking surprised, Elizabeth. I can fake orgasms better than you ever dreamed."
El shifts. This really took a turn. "I'll take note of that," she says feebly.
"What I'm saying is," Grace sits up, "you don't have to worry about me and Finn, okay?"
"Then why were you - "
"I'm very bored and very sexually deprived." Grace cuts her off. "I need some action."
El hasn't heard words that she could relate to more than those. "Same here."
Grace takes El's shoulder in her hand. "Difficult, isn't it?"
El chuckles at the seriousness she hears from Grace. "Absolutely grueling."
_____________________________________________
a/n: IM LAME AND THIS IS SHORT but next chapter is going to be juicy so u should look forward to that kinda maybe nah dont i suck
dedication goes to ruby (i'm jealous u have the name of a crystal gem) bc she drew the aMAZINF FAN ART AT THE TOP OF THIS?? like holy cow someone spent time drawing my character wow ilu tsym
u should comment and stuff bc it gets me writing and ur all my friends :-))