Camp Gorebury

Chapter Twenty-Two

Essais 

We settle down on the counter, propping our backs against the wall and letting our legs dangle over the edge. I have to admit, it feels kind of cool. Like we're about to do a photo-shoot for our sick album cover.  Gretchen and Matthew inhale and exhale rapidly. Their smoke smells terrible— like roadkill skunk— but I try not to make too many weird faces. I'm being cool. So, so cool.  Smoking isn't a very entertaining spectator sport, so eventually I get bored of watching Gretchen and Matthew and hop off the counter-top and go to explore the rest of the kitchen. There's a refrigerator stocked with lunch food, presumably for the counselors, and one of the cabinets has a whole package of Milky Way bars tucked away in the corner. I consider stealing one, but then decide against it. The counselors might be keeping count.  Then Gretchen and Matthew start getting all giggly. They make me come back and talk to them all kinds of random stuff, like the Van Halen album 5150, the philosophical debate about whether a hot-dog should or shouldn't be considered a sandwich, and what counselors are definitely going to "bang it out" (Matthew's words) by the end of the summer. They decide on Olly and Leona, and it's all I can do to keep from laughing. If only they knew. I probably look like the most boring kid at camp, but I really do have the best secrets.  Eventually, Matthew asks Gretchen if she has a boyfriend back home, to which she responds, "I'm not that into guys." Matthew looks confused, so Gretchen has to explain (in great detail) how she realized that she likes girls, and then they both start giggling again. I just sit there, taking it all in.   "My throat is burning," says Gretchen, at some point later on in the night. She does look uncomfortably— her cheeks are flushed, her eyes are blood-shot, and her lungs have expelled more than a few coughing fits. "Matthew, this is such gutter weed. If I choke to death on your s**t, I'm coming back as a ghost and haunting you for life."  "It is not gutter weed," Matthew says defensively. "Hang on, I'll get you a glass of water."  He ransacks the cabinet for a clean cup (the cabinets are labeled, but I think he's too high to realize that) while Gretchen gazes at him irritably. She plucks a tiny perfume bottle out of thin air, spritzes herself with it, then says, "I'm not getting any younger here."  "Just give me a minute."  Dutifully, Gretchen begins to count to sixty. Matthew manages to scrounge up a cup before she reaches the end.  Matthew sticks a cup under the tap and fills it up. Fortunately for Gretchen, the water isn't running brown at the moment. "You are such a needy b***h," he says, walking over with the cup.  Gretchen's eyes narrow. "Don't call me that."  "What, needy?"  "You know what I mean."  "I'm sorry. I take it all back. You're not a picky b***h; you're a prissy bitch."  Gretchen smacks the cup out of his hands. It hits the floor and shatters.  "I told you not to call me that," she says.  Something cold and wet starts to seep into my pants. I glance down at my legs. The universe must be punishing me for succumbing to peer-pressure yet again, because there's water all over my jeans. I'm totally drenched.  I watch as the stain spreads quickly across the denim, almost disbelievingly. I can't believe the same mistake I made months ago is blowing up in my face again because I was too stupid to learn my lesson the first time.  "Are you kidding me?" I reach for the paper towel dispenser. It's empty. I reach for one of the dish-clothes. They're both sopping wet. "Great. That's just great."  A spike of anger pierces my chest. I leap off the counter and stomp towards the door, too fed up to stick around any longer. "Thanks for nothing," I snap. There's no response. Gretchen and Matthew are too busy bickering with each other to notice my departure. Let them battle it out. I don't care anymore. The cool kids never gave a s**t about me before, so why would they start treating me like a decent human being now?   I should have learned that these kids would never treat me like a real friend. I should have learned that they would only see me as an object that happened to be in the right place at the right time, until, inevitably, it's not.  "Essais!"  I whirl around. "What the hell do you want, Gretchen?"  But Gretchen doesn't look like she wants to pick a fight. Her face is white as a sheet, and she's pointing at something on the floor.  "What?" I repeat, more concerned than annoyed this time.  She gasps, "Your foot."  I glance down. At first, I don't see what she's talking about— but then a glimmer catches my eye. There's a finger-length shard of glass embedded in the heel of my shoe. I must have stepped on it while I was taking my shoes off.   "Somebody get me a barf bag," Matthew groans. "I'm gonna hurl."  "s**t. This is bad." Gretchen sounds genuinely shaken. "This is really bad. Oh, god, we've killed Essais."  I lift my foot up to examine the wound. The glass definitely punctured through the sole of my shoe, which must mean that it's also poking through my skin. I wonder, for a brief moment, why I haven't felt the pain kick in yet— until the truth hits me and I nearly double over with laughter. It's a crazy coincidence, but my life is crazy.  "He's going hystEdrickal," Gretchen says in a panicky voice. "Matthew, I think we need to get a counselor!"  "Are you kidding me? We've been smoking in this room for the past twenty minutes. There's no way we don't get caught if a counselor walks in right now."  "Matthew, he could bleed out and die!"  "So what? It's not my fault he had to f**k around and step on broken glass! Also, since when do you care about Essais's foot? You didn't give a s**t about me when you blew all that smoke in my face."  "Smoke is harmless, you moron! Glass in the foot is not!  I keep laughing. I really can't stop. "Guys, please— it's not what you think— I'm...." My voice trails away into more laughter. Gretchen was right— I really do sound hystEdrickal. "Oh, beans."  Gretchen slips off the counter and marches to the door."If you're not going to do anything Matthew, then I will. The Good Samaritan law will protect us!"  "I don't think that's how it works in summer camps—" Matthew begins.  "Wait!" It's hard to force words out through the laughter, but I manage to calm myself down. "I'm... fine. I swear. I'm fine."  "I don't consider three inches of glass sticking out of your foot to be fine!" Gretchen already has one hand on the doorknob— she really wasn't joking about getting a counselor. "I'm going to go get help. Wait here and try not to die."  "Just hold up a second. I'll take it out." In one swift movement, I bend down and yank the glass out of my foot. Then I chuck it in the trash. "See? Good as new."  Gretchen sways on her feet. Matthew actually retches.  "Oh my god. Please tell me that didn't happen," he moans. "How much weed do I have to smoke to erase that memory from my mind forever?"  "It's fine. I have thick skin," I say. This is such a terrible lie that I start cracking up again, which does nothing to make Gretchen or Matthew look less horrified. "Really, I'm fine. It's not even bleeding. Don't worry about it."  "Are you Superman?" Matthew demands. "Are you invincible?"  "No. I told you. The glass didn't cut me that deep."  "It looked pretty deep to me," Gretchen says.  I force myself to meet her eyes. Her gaze is still piercingly sharp, even after all the weed. It takes all my self-control not to look away. "You're high," I tell her in my most convincing voice. "I'm fine. Just take my word for it."  "I'm not that high," Gretchen protests, but she sounds a little less sure of herself. "I can still see perfectly fine."  "Trust me. It was nothing." I yank my shoe off, exposing the white fabric of my sock underneath— while being careful not to reveal anything else. "See, there's not even any blood!"  Gretchen and Matthew exchange a look. Matthew shrugs. "I believe him," he says.  "That's setting the bar pretty low. You'd probably believe me if I told you that the word 'gullible' was written on the ceiling."  Matthew looks up to check. "It's not."  "Uh, goodnight to both of you," I say. It's time to make a quick exit before the pair change their minds about my "miraculous" injury. I slide my foot back in my shoe. "See you tomorrow, same place, same time."  "Slow down, Essais." Gretchen strides over to my side. "I think I'm headed back your way. Want to walk together?"  I'm a little taken aback by her offer, but I since I don't want to make her more suspicious I nod my head in agreement.  "I'll clean up the glass, I guess," Matthew says grumpily. "Great teamwork, guys."  "Oh, don't start complaining. This is your fault."  "You're the one that smacked it out of my hand!"  "Well, you're the one that called me a bitch."  "Huh. That's a fair point."  I zip up my jacket. "Ready to go?" I ask.  "More than you can even imagine," she grumbles.  And just like that, Gretchen and I are walking out of the door, together.   We don't talk much on our way back to our cabins, which is probably for the best. She's high, and I'm not good at conversation, and for some reason I get the feeling that if there's anyone at this camp that could wheedle the truth out of me, it's Gretchen. There's something sharp about her blue eyes, even though she likes to act like the dumb blonde. I'm going to have to watch out for her more in the future.  It's not until we're standing in front of Mendenhall Cabin, Gretchen's place, that she speaks to me again. "You know, my brother went to Gorebury a couple years ago." She says this slowly, like she's offering me some piece of great wisdom. "His name is Carson."  I wonder if she remembers telling me the same thing during Initiation or if she's that out of it right now. Or maybe it's just for dramatic effect. "Yeah. I remember."  "He told me stories about this place. A lot of stories. I could tell them to you too, if you want."Gretchen stares at me with her sharp blue eyes. I have to look away.  "Who's your roommate?" I ask. It's a random question, but I want to draw the conversation away from myself. I have too much to hide and Gretchen's too good at searching.  "Selena," she says. "But I don't think I can talk to her like I can talk to you."  "Why'd you ever want to talk to me?"  She looks surprised by my question. "Because you would listen."  I'm surprised, too. For some crazy reason, Gretchen is being... nice to me.  She's probably just high, I think, but I know that's not the case. Gretchen is actually trying to reach out to me. To tell me her brother's stories about Gorebury. But this isn't the Breakfast Club— this shouldn't be happening at all. Gretchen should still be making fun of me and treating me like crap, and I should still be jealous and bitter because she's everything that I'm not. But now we're standing here in silence, and nobody is fighting with anybody. It's like we're actually on the same level, not light-years apart.  "You got some advice that could help me make it through this summer alive?"  Gretchen flips her hair over her shoulder. "Don't set your sights so low, Sostenuto. If you aim for the clouds you'll never reach the stars."  "You talk like a bad motivational speaker when you're high."  "Ha. That was funny. I like you, Sostenuto. I get the feeling we're going to be hanging out a lot more in the future."  "Uh, I hope so. We do have kitchen duty together for the rest of the week."  Gretchen laughs. It's satisfying to see that she's laughing at the joke, and not me. "Goodnight, Essais. I'm sorry about your pants. Take care of that foot, okay?"  Before I can slip in a reply, Gretchen is gone, leaving nothing but the faintest whiff of cherry perfume behind her.