‘I mean, not bad?’ Briar tried. It was technically true – despite having to relive one of the best and subsequently worst moments of her life, the day itself had been fine. ‘It sucked the correct amount and nothing actively went wrong.’
‘All you can hope for,’ Harper said.
‘Do you need help?’ Noah cut in. ‘I’ve got a few weeks free before I need to start prepping for school. I could take the bus up.’
‘No,’ Briar said, almost too quickly, anxiety constricting her chest at the thought of Noah and Harper disrupting their lives for her. The image of them in their apartment in DC, happy and in love, was practically the only thing keeping her going. She didn’t want to ruin it for them with her feelings. If she had to be miserable, then she could be miserable alone. And if her misery was contagious, well, she already had the perfect target.
As if on cue, Harper asked, ‘How are things with Alice?’
Briar didn’t know how to respond. She could tell them about finding Alice in her bed the day before, the STEMINIST shirt or Alice taking charge of everything. She could say that Alice being there was bringing everything up again, stuff she thought she’d buried along with their friendship. She could tell them how pretty Alice had looked in the firelight.
‘Alice is fine,’ Briar said. ‘How are you guys?’
There was a pause, but without being able to see their faces, Briar couldn’t discern what it meant. ‘Good.’
‘Good?’ Briar asked, voice rising an octave.
Harper sighed. ‘Don’t ever plan a wedding.’
‘It’s not that bad,’ Noah said immediately.
Briar had heard this all before. It seemed like every few weeks Noah and Harper had some tense, almost-argument about the wedding. Briar had suggested elopement many times.
‘Are you guys fighting?’ She tried to keep her voice light, but the thought of anything else going wrong was almost too much to bear. She just wanted everyone to be okay for a little bit, for her to not have to worry. She was so tired of worrying.
‘No,’ they both said in unison.
Briar tried for a laugh but landed on something closer to a cough. ‘Okay, because you’re not allowed to. I can’t take it.’
‘Alright,’ Harper deadpanned. ‘We’ll be happy. For you.’
‘That’s all I ask for,’ Briar said. ‘I miss you guys.’
‘We miss you too,’ Noah said. ‘But you’ll see us before you know it. You’re still coming back for the Fourth, right?’
Briar smiled, thinking of the one weekend of the summer when she would have no responsibilities except to have fun. ‘Of course. I wouldn’t miss my own party.’
Chapter 5
Alice
The next day, while the counselors began their assigned opening duties, Alice busied herself doing anything she could think of to avoid Briar. After a few hours of manual labor, she found herself – as she often had throughout her years as a counselor – in front of the art cabin.
It was a hobby she had dropped, tapering off slowly in university and then abandoning it entirely as her graduate program had filled up her whole life. She didn’t have time for hobbies or for anything non-mushroom-related, aside from a weekly dinner with Tess which was entered into her calendar as:DO NOT WORK LATE – dinner w/ tess.
She was seized with the sudden desire to paint something, even though it wasn’t on her ever-growing list of tasks for the week. And in an act of rebellion that surprised her, Alice went into the cabin and grabbed supplies.
It had been years since she’d held a brush, but she’d always had a steady hand, and she marveled at how easy it felt to paint the side of the cabin, stroke by stroke.
And as she painted, she thought about the morning after she’d kissed Briar, the decision she’d regretted for the past decade. She had gone over the morning after again and again in her head, trying to think of some way she could have fixed things, but even in her imagination, it was hopeless.
She’d woken up pressed against Briar, not knowing exactly when they’d fallen asleep. It had seemed normal, natural, like waking up from any of the countless sleepovers they’d had. But it had all come back when Briar had stirred in her arms, and Alice hadn’t been able to look at her, hadn’t even been able to return her sleepygood morning.
She’d only meant to give Briar a peck, the sort of kiss that would be a funny story when they were older. Nothing about the kiss had been what Alice had expected. And as she had studied her best friend one final time, she’d felt every speck of dirt on her body acutely. She had known then that things would never be the same. So she had promised Briar they would talk later before getting in her car and driving straight to Noah’s house.
It was the first time Alice had mustered up the courage to disappoint Noah, by telling him she couldn’t be with him anymore. The revelation that the kiss had actually mattered made what she’d done impossible to ignore. It was the same thing that had torn her family apart, the thing that she had never forgiven her father for. She hadn’t seen Noah or Briar since that day.
She knew at some point Briar must have told Noah what happened, that the two of them had probably bonded over her betrayal and cowardice. Alice was sure that she and Noah both hated her, and that they were right to.
