I’ve never minded people saying I’m annoying or weird or a bitch because I don’t think those things about myself are bad. It never occurred to me that some people deal with the weight of everyone else’s judgment and their own. That never occurred to me at all.
“But I have friends now,” she continues. “And I know they’re worth more than all the people who were…who were casually cruel to me, because they’re deliberately kind, and that makes them better people. My kind of people. Except I had to learn that. Don’t we all have to learn that?”
I huff and turn my pillow over. “So what are you saying—Brad was unfortunately deprived of his learning years because he’s tragically gorgeous and charming?”
Aurora grins. “I didn’t say that. You said that.”
I throw my pillow at her. “Not buying it.”
Because that can’t be enough. Surely that can’t be enough for the way he made me feel.
And the way you made him feel…
Was justified. It was.
But only if he’s the enemy.
And apparently, out here at least, he’s not.
BRAD
Our second day of the BEP is spent being lectured on the contents of our little green books （the short version is: DO NOT EAT 99 PERCENT OF THE PLANT LIFE AND DO NOT PLAY WITH FOXES） and learning all kinds of safety survival stuff we’ll need to remember for our next expedition. I don’t insult Celine. She doesn’t insult me. In fact, we don’t talk at all, nor do we glare holes into each other’s skulls. It’s all completely normal and healthy and very boring.
Success, I suppose.
On the plus side, freeing up the brainpower I usually spend on pissing her off has helped me think about my novel a lot more. On the minus side, I’m mostly thinking about how bad it is and how I’m never going to finish it, rather than useful stuff like, you know, working on the plot.
On our third day, rain falls again to match my attitude, and Victor gleefully drags us outside to perform manual labor. （I’m no therapist but I’m pretty sure he has issues.）
“Can you hold on to this?” I ask Raj, trying to hammer our final tent peg into the soggy grass.
He crouches down at my side and grimaces, which is basically all he’s been doing since we were paired off and given our tent. “You’re not gonna bonk my fingers, are you?”
“I might.”
“I’m an artist, Brad. I need these fingers. Break them and I will sue.”
“It’s a soft mallet, Raj,” I tell him. “Get a grip.” Then I bonk his fingers on purpose.
He collapses into the mud （it’s fascinating, really; he doesn’t even seem to hesitate） and howls, “Betrayal!”
I bonk his head.
“Violence! Vicious, relentless—”
“Everything all right over here, boys?” Zion asks pointedly, looming over us like a tablet-wielding god when, in reality, he’s five years older than us, max.
Raj pops up like a daisy, brighter than today’s cloud-covered sun. “Yes, sir, Zion, sir. Tent’s almost up. Pegs behaving. Everything’s in order. If you ask me, I think we’re doing a cracking job.”
Zion rolls his eyes and taps at his tablet as he leaves. Shit. Did he at least notice what an effective leader I’m being today? Probably not, since I was leading via mallet attack.
“Oops,” Raj says. “That probably wasn’t very committed of us.”
“Nope,” I agree. My eyes flicker across the tent-dotted clearing without permission, and I catch a glimpse of Celine. Her tent’s been up for ages. She’s now helping everyone else put up theirs, showing both leadership and team-building skills.
If I don’t get this scholarship and Celine does, I’m going to shave off my hair and eat it.
“Hey,” Raj says, dragging my attention back to our sad excuse for a tent. He pushes the peg into the grass. “How’s this?”
“Wrong. You’re supposed to hold it at a forty-five-degree angle.”
“I thought it was a ninety-degree angle?”
“No,” I say patiently, “the guide ropes loop into the pegs at a ninety-degree angle. The pegs—”
“Come on, Brad,” he interrupts, “just whack the peg for me. You can do it.”
I wave the damp scrap of paper that passes as the instructions. “I know you read this, because you got muddy fingerprints all over it—”
“Ouch.”
“—so you must realize the numbers were very clear. Forty. Five. Degrees. We have to do it right or it’ll…collapse! In the night!”
“Brad, we’re not sleeping in these tents tonight.”
“No,” I say seriously, “but it’s the principle of the thing.”
“Fiiiiiiine,” he says, and takes the sheet, squinting at the diagram. I only realize I’m smiling when the rain streams around my cheeks instead of down them. “All right, how’s this?”
I want to appreciate the effort, but mentally, I’m questioning his eyesight.
He catches my expression and adjusts his grip again.
I wonder if he’s ever studied angles in his life.
“Bloody hell,” he laughs, “you hold it, then!”
That’s not a bad idea. We switch jobs, and he only bonks my fingers eight or nine times.
Once the tent is up, we crawl inside it to admire our handiwork. I eye his muddy walking boots, and he kicks them off before they can spoil our beautiful shiny plastic floor. “Not bad,” he announces.
“Not good, either,” I allow. The right side of our tent’s inner lining dips drunkenly toward the floor.
“Rubbish. This is a feature, not a bug.” Raj ducks under it and disappears behind a swathe of blue fabric. “Privacy compartment. Now I can get changed without you clocking my six-pack and getting jealous.”
“Wow, thank God for that. Did we remember to hook all the clips to the outer lining?” I ask, trying to sound unsuspicious and nonjudgmental.
His head reappears, brown eyes huge and innocent. “You must have forgotten, Brad. That’s okay. I don’t mind.”
I laugh. A lot.
When we crawl out again, Celine’s there. Okay, not there—she’s a few meters away, being all perfect and impressive. I watch as she helps a sunny Irish Traveller girl named Mary wrestle a tent key into a pole.
“Don’t be scared of it,” Celine says firmly. “It’s not going to break.”
“It’ll break my damn nose if I let go,” Mary huffs.
“Then don’t let go,” is Celine’s sweet-as-honey response. She doesn’t seem bothered by the rain; she’s taken her coat off and wrapped it around her waist. Her hoodie’s unzipped and her collarbone is gleaming wet. A few braids have slipped out of her ponytail but her black eyeliner—two wings per eye, like a butterfly—is sharp and clean and as unbothered as she is.
“Mate,” Raj says in this very weird tone of voice, “isn’t that your cousin?”
“No,” I reply, watching Celine corral tent poles as if they were rogue boa constrictors.
“Oh.” He sounds relieved but still dubious. Relubious. “It’s just, Thomas said—”