The Kids Aren't Alright

Chapter 22: Jasper

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.

Giselle and Matt 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 Giselle and Matt 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 Giselle and Matt 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" (Matt's words) by the end of the summer. They decide on Owen and Maria, 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, Matt asks Giselle if she has a boyfriend back home, to which she responds, "I'm not that into guys." Matt looks confused, so Giselle 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 Giselle, 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. "Matt, this is such gutter weed. If I choke to death on your shit, I'm coming back as a ghost and haunting you for life."

"It is not gutter weed," Matt 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 Giselle 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, Giselle begins to count to sixty. Matt manages to scrounge up a cup before she reaches the end.

Matt sticks a cup under the tap and fills it up. Fortunately for Giselle, the water isn't running brown at the moment. "You are such a needy bitch," he says, walking over with the cup.

Giselle'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 bitch; you're a prissy bitch."

Giselle 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."