Eitan turns to Josh and Penelope. “Pen, I’m sure you hear this a lot, but I think you won the lottery with this one. I love you, brother.”
Everyone cheers and claps, and Pen accepts a sweet kiss on the cheek from Josh. My vision blurs. There’s an alternate life out there, where I had friends who put in effort like that. I wonder how someone finds a friend like Josh. Is there a level of good personhood you have to have? Maybe a cache of karma points? Or maybe some people just have a nose for the good people and the not so good ones.
When I try to conjure my own story about Penelope and our friendship, I come up blank. It feels disingenuous to tell a story about two girls in their early twenties, every memory hazy with alcohol and rose-colored glasses. And even though we talked almost every day, I have no good stories from this summer.
Not a single one.
The stories continue, some funny, and some heartfelt, like Eitan’s. All of them make me feel like a stranger to these two people I am supposed to be celebrating.
“Gonna get a refill,” I mutter to anyone who cares, and stand up.
I linger by the stockpile of drinks, watching the campfire from afar.
No one even notices I’ve left.
“Hey there, Little Miss Comedian.” Skip approaches me, hands on his hips. “Calliope still wasn’t feeling well after Urgent Care and needed to head home. Mentioned something about a flare-up. She caught a train back to Chicago from Grand Rapids.”
Guess that makes sense. For a second, I wishIwas sick enough to escape this trip. I banish the thought quickly because that’s exactly the kind of jinx the Universe would love to latch onto.
“Looks like you’ll be bunking solo.”
“Oh.” Fitting, really. “Okay, thanks for letting me know.”
Skip gives me a sad smile before returning to his tent. Great, now even Skip feels bad for me.
I run my hand over the low hanging branches that line the campsite. The campfire is a distant roar. From the sound of it, the stories are done, and everyone is back to drinking games.
“Hey.” I turn around and Eitan is there, limned in firelight. “Heard that Calliope isn’t coming back.”
I grunt. So kind of him to come and rub my loneliness in my face.
“Want to bunk together tonight?”
I look up in surprise. “What about Josh…” I trail off, seeing him and Pen by the side of the campfire, making out passionately. Verging on dry humping. “Right.”
“I promise I don’t snore,” Eitan jokes.
It’s a blanket wrapping around my loneliness, Eitan cracking jokes and offering to spend time with me. Moisture hitting a parched throat. So much so that I don’t even try to talk myself out of it. “No snoring can be more egregious than what I experienced with Calliope last night.”
A few hours ago,when I tossed my bags in the tent, it looked plenty spacious. Now, standing at its opening, looking at the small square of surface area in which Eitan and I are about to sleep, I’m having serious doubts.
I avoid the immediate reckoning by grabbing my toiletries and brushing my teeth outside, facing the woods. It gives me two minutes to come up with a plan: use my duffel bag to create a barrier in the middle of the tent. Curl into a protective ball, Blinklebob style.
Eitan has turned on our Outventures regulation lamp when I duck back inside the tent. He lays in his sleeping bag, one hand behind his head, the other holding his phone. I move in silence, afraid my very un-PG thoughts will be telegraphed by one look at my face. I get out a pair of leggings and wriggle out of my jeans inside my sleeping bag. I stuff the jeans back in my duffel and shift the bag to sit between us.
Eitan gives one sidelong look at it but says nothing.
I pull out my book and open it to my bookmark, but it’s impossible to concentrate on tiny black and white words with Eitan so close.
I want to be someone you can lean on.
There’s a rustle on the other side of my Berlin Wall, and Eitan’s bedhead mop of hair peeks over the top of my duffel. There’s no baseball cap in sight, so the thick locks are just shooting in every direction they please.
“Pretty unique Kol Nidre, right?” he asks.
I completely forgot. Yom Kippur started at sundown. “It could be worse, I suppose. Skip could be leading us in prayer.”
“Are you missing out on something important at home? Family break-fast?”
