Top Bunk

DAY 21

⌚ 6:00 AM ON THE DOT

Twenty days into summer camp, and El is still caught off guard when that godforsaken horn blares and shatters her ear drums. Sitting up abruptly as she is thrown out of what little sleep she's had, she hits her head hard against the bottom of top bunk and dread builds up in her throat. Her first thought isn't that she'd probably suffer a mild concussion because of the force of her impact. It's that she probably violently woke Grace up and Grace would finally be pushed over the edge and strangle El to death.

El doesn't like that she's back to being scared of Grace. That's a feeling she hasn't experienced since junior year of high school. To her credit, though, she isn't always scared of Grace. Most of the time (that time being the past day), she's slightly annoyed because of how immature Grace has been acting towards her. There's this small part of her, though, that's just plain sad. (That part is normally supressed along with everything to do with El's mother and Lionel...fuck.)

She's expecting Grace to do one of two things: scream at the top of her lungs (since she's finally been pushed over the edge) or fall off top bunk. It takes four long minutes of dead silence as El waits at the edge of her bed for any signs of these. Realizing there's none, she carefully climbs out of bed and peers at where Grace is supposedly laying.

Except she isn't. Her bed is empty, and she's even made it. That's a change. It unsettles El. Along with how Grace's closet is left slightly ajar and her hairdryer is placed haphazardly on her dresser - the closet is usually shut tight and the hairdryer should be in its drawer, cord wrapped around itself neatly. Not like El notices that or anything.

El hates that she almost feels disappointed - like she wanted to see Grace glaring at her from top bunk. Like she wanted to see Grace. Period.

The disappointment (fine, she kind of is disappointed) only grows when El listens for sounds of trickling water and humming from the bathroom and finds even more silence. And then she feels dumb for trying to hear sounds that she didn't hear in the first place.

Just a faint strawberry aroma floating around the cabin is all that's left of El's cabinmate, along with her bitter thoughts and El is so inexplicably lonely it's pathetic. She'd feel sorry for herself if she wasn't too busy wanting to stab herself in the gut. For being so pathetic.

Did she say that already?

Yes.

Right, El thinks. Her mother's voice makes its way into her subconscious, singing It's going to be a big, big day! over and over again. Is she going insane? Very likely. That's reassuring.

Grace wouldn't have a crush on someone who's mentally unstable. (Actually, El was pretty mentally unstable to begin with...things have just escalated at a rate that El's brain can't handle.) (She should really stop thinking about Grace every five seconds and pairing those thoughts with that certain five letter C-word.)

El strips on her way to the bathroom, dumping her clothes into her laundry bag as she shuts the door. She keeps her eyes off the mirror and thinks that she better sort her shit out, quick. She's scaring herself.

⌚ 10:17 AM

It turns out, all it took El was a nice shower to snap her out of the trance-like state her brain was in. Despite her relief, El was dismayed to realize that since it's the twenty-first day she's spent in this hell-hole (that's only a slight exaggeration), that means it's been three weeks. Exactly. Three. Weeks.

And what happens at the end of every week?

"The Weekly Bonfire Music Jam, people!" Grace's voice booms across the field designated for the Ashes to practice their musical numbers in.