She had flown to the US with a nightgown, a change of clothes and toiletries. She’d ended up with a strange mix of clothing for camp: some thrifted, a few picked up from the nearby mall, and some she’d found in her closet that she hadn’t worn since high school.
‘I didn’t mean to interrupt,’ Briar said, breaking the silence.
‘You already said that,’ Alice pointed out. She took out her nightgown, unfolded it, and then hastily re-folded it, feeling self-conscious.
‘Who were you talking to?’ Briar asked, just as Alice had decided that their attempt at conversation was probably over.
She looked over her shoulder. ‘My friend Tess.’
Briar nodded, still staring at her sheets intently. ‘Weren’t you two…? I mean, um, I remember from Instagram.’
Alice hadn’t expected Briar to remember their short-lived fling, especially when, for years, Alice has only thought of Tess as a friend. Their friendship had bloomed in the months after Tess had ended things, when she’d proved to be one of the most loyal people Alice had ever met. And even though she’d kept expecting Tess to realize her mistake and ditch her, she never had.
‘We dated for a semester, but we were better off as friends,’ Alice explained. It was strange, unfamiliar, explaining herself to Briar. A decade had passed, yet she still expected Briar to know everything about her life. ‘It felt like the thing to do, you know, come out and then date the first lesbian I met.’
‘Okay,’ Briar said, her tone still stilted.
‘What? You don’t believe me?’ Alice asked.
‘No, I believe you,’ Briar said, pushing her pajamas to the side and sitting on her bed. She looked at Alice. ‘I just thought…’
‘You thought what?’ Alice asked, raising her eyebrows.
‘I thought, you know, with this whole insistence on helping with camp thing… I just assumed you were running away from something.’
Of all the petty comments Alice had put up with from Briar so far, that was the one that hurt the most.
‘Well, I’m not,’ she said flatly. ‘I don’t have any secret motives.’ She didn’t know why it felt like a lie.
Briar didn’t respond, grabbing her toiletries bag and pajamas off the bed and heading for the bathroom. Alice abandoned her nightgown, stuffing it to the bottom of her bag, and instead reached for a T-shirt, a relic of her time as a mathlete that readSTEMINISTin hot pink cursive.
Alice took her turn in the bathroom after Briar, changing into the T-shirt and her middle school gym shorts before starting on her nighttime skincare routine. She massaged various oils and serums into her face, already feeling more like the competent version of herself she had left in London. If she treated camp like she did her daily to-do list, maybe she would be able to bring that version of herself back and stop caring so much what Briar thought of her. It was perfectly natural that being back in this particular place with this particular person was heightening her emotions, making her feel like a teenager again. Regression was a psychological phenomenon corroborated by years of research. Alice might be able to submit her case study of overcoming it to a publication once the summer was done. It was a comforting thought.
By the time she returned to the bedroom, she had steeled herself for eight whole hours in the same room as Briar Elwood, something that a month ago would have only occurred in a nightmare. She methodically swapped the cotton pillowcases out for the silk ones she had bought, spraying them with lavender before settling in with her book.
‘Achoo.’
Alice looked over to where Briar was curled up, watching her with wide eyes. Something about it brought an acute image of their childhood sleepovers to the front of Alice’s mind. She hadn’t thought about Briar’s typical sleeping position in years – because, of course, that was something that only an insane person would fixate on.
‘Did you just fake sneeze?’
‘I’m allergic to lavender. My doctor says it could be deadly,’ Briar said solemnly.
‘You’re allergic to sesame,’ Alice said. ‘I’m fairly certain allergies don’t develop after the age of eighteen.’
Briar scoffed. ‘You don’t knoweverything, Alice.’
‘Actually, I basically do,’ Alice argued, realizing the moment it was out of her mouth that it was exactly how she would have responded to Briar when they were kids.
Briar rolled her eyes. ‘What’s the deal with the whole nighttime song and dance? Trying to scare away the insomnia demons?’
Alice swallowed, surprised that Briar had remembered. But of course she did; Briar had been there for so many of Alice’s sleepless nights.
‘Um, yeah,’ Alice admitted. ‘It got worse at uni, so I doubled down. Never met a problem I couldn’t create a three-step solution to fix.’
‘Are you going to read that’ – Briar gestured dismissively to the book Alice was holding,Marvelous Mycologyby Herman Fjord – ‘to put you to sleep?’
‘It’s good to have consistency, like reading the same book every night. So, essentially, yes. But not because it’s boring. It’s quite fascinating.’
