yeah right!

GRACE PASIENCA ( RACHELLE VINBERG ) is an EIGHTEEN year old from Williamsburg, NY. SHE is known around the island as THE ENGINEER because she is LOGICAL and HARDY but can also be AWKWARD and ALOOF. SHE reminds me of grazed elbows,  a wrecked pair of sneakers, old wired headphones.

…

listening as grace talked about her neighbor and this junjie. on one hand, new york sounded like an interesting place to live, but on the other, she couldn’t even imagine it in her very sheltered life. “that’s pretty cool,” she said with a smile. “well, the lizard part, not the crazy guy going through your trash,” she tacked on with a laugh. “why does new york sound like another planet to me? i mean, you’re normal, and the others,” well jude stretched the definition of normal at times, but she wouldn’t say that out loud, “but sometimes i hear things and it sounds so ridiculous over there.”

she couldn’t help but chuckle at grace’s addition. “i’ve never heard of that one. kind of like the opposite of agoraphobia,” she observed. maybe not the exact opposite, but similar in a way. “it really makes you wonder, how many people have to have these fears before they put a word to it? like, say i’m the first person ever to say i’m scared of the colour yellow, do they automatically know it’s going to be called xanthophobia or does it take, you know, five or ten people to all say they’re also scared of yellow?” this was such an odd conversation, but honestly, she much preferred her weird conversations with grace over anything else. it kind of felt like their thing at this point. “for the record, i’m not scared of the colour yellow,” she felt like she needed to clarify, just in case grace assumed that.

-

Grace couldn’t help but laugh at Clarke’s assessment, mostly because she had a good point and Grace was impressed that she hadn’t been afraid to share it so candidly. “Cos it is,” she concurred with the smile still lingering as she spoke, “No way we’re normal- like it’s not a bad thing to be not normal or to be normal or whatever, it’s just you know, how some people are but no way we’re normal,” she insisted and she believed it to be utterly true. Perhaps the four New Yorkers created somewhat of a spectrum of normality when lined up against one another but the fact remained, they were none of them normal. “The City does that to people, you gotta be weird to live there or wanna live there cos it’s a weird place” she deduced, somewhat proudly.

“For real,” that was, in fact, an exact thought that Grace had had on more than one occasion, it was nice to hear that Clarke’s brain seemed to work in a similarly unusual manner. “I think about that shit all the time like not just with fears but with anything like, who cracked open an oyster for the first time and thought like ‘ yeah, that shit looks good, imma eat it,’ she questioned, rhetorically. She laughed again and it felt nice, things were easier with Clarke than they were with most of the others and Grace appreciated that about her, “Nah but if you were gonna be afraid of a colour, what would yours be? Mine’s like, hmm, maroon red,” she decided, out of nowhere, a chuckle chasing her words as she considered how ridiculous it was.

…

shane definitely wouldn’t say that she was naturally gifted, so she had to agree, everything took practice. “true that, it is pretty hard,” she said with a small chuckle. “but i definitely couldn’t pick up skate boarding like you, i’m sure that took a lot of practice.” and grace was right, shane really didn’t have anything to lose, especially now. “maybe next time i feel like screaming at someone, i’ll just try to meditate or whatever.” it could be beneficial for everyone if she learned to chill the fuck out every once in awhile. “see, i told you that you have important ideas,” shane nudged her elbow into grace and offered her a smile. 

-

“I bet you could,” she genuinely thought that, in fact. Shane seemed like the type of girl who could pick up any sort of ball or board or other type of sports equipment, take a few pointers and then hit the ground running with it. Maybe a minute or two of finding her balance and then she’d be pushing around like a pro- or something close to it, anyway. She couldn’t help but chuckle at Shane’s wording. Grace had moments of despair, moments of anguish and angst but she couldn’t say she’d ever really felt the need to actually yell at somebody, not really. She’d consider just yelling into the treetops, maybe but yelling at somebody? Nah, it wasn’t for her. “Or even just like, scream at a tree or throw a rock at a log or something,” she suggested but maybe that wasn’t enough for Shane. 

She smiled and shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know man, I mean, I try to have good ideas but like- it’s hard out here, I gotta get my head right,” Grace was trying to be proactive, trying to be a useful component of the group, especially with the others having mental breakdowns, getting injured or just straight up gladiator battling each other but it wasn’t an easy role to step into, especially not for somebody like Grace.  “-but I’ll help with the shelter and beds and shit, for real, I gotchu,” she promised. 

…

it was dumb, really dumb in the grand scheme of things, but she was glad that her random fact worked to at least ease some of her own nerves when it came to talking to grace. “mhm, did you also know that some people keep them as pets?” she asked, even letting a small chuckle out when she went on to say that one tried to crawl up her butt. “i think you’re butt is safe, but still shouldn’t risk it,” she tried to turn it into a joke but like most things with clarke, it came out awkwardly. a light blush hit her face when grace asked how she knew so much, thankfully it was hidden under days of sunburn and freckles. “oh, um, i read a lot and have a pretty good memory,” she said modestly. “i had to write a paper once on fears and i used that fact to introduce entomophobia, the fear of insects,” she explained so it didn’t seem like she was looking up bug facts for fun on her free time.

-

Grace wrinkled her nose slightly, making it quite obvious that she hadn’t ever considered the idea of keeping a centipede as a pet but now that she had, she wasn’t in any way enamoured with the idea. “Nah, fuck that,” she said, her harsh accent and vulgar wording a stark contrast to Clarke’s rather pleasant cadence.  “A guy in my old building had a Chinese Water Dragon called Junjie that he used to like, put up on his shoulder and stuff and that dude wasn’t scared of anything, he was so chill,” she paused a moment before she realised the vagueness of her words “Junjie was chill, I mean- his owner was like...he would say stuff like the CIA was going through our trash at night to make sure we weren’t talking about JFK and shit,” in retrospect, he was one of the more pleasant neighbours that Grace had had. 

…

hearing grace’s voice, clarke looked up from what she had been doing; working on a new inventory list while going through the things that were saved that morning. she set the still slightly damp journal down and offered her a smile. “did you know centipedes can’t bite people? they aren’t strong enough to hurt humans unless it’s in self defense,” a random fact for grace’s random comment. after last night, she was almost glad this was how grace chose to approach her. she thought it would be a little awkward considering clarke had to push her puppy dog crush away having just learned that not only was grace straight but she also had a boyfriend back home. not to mention the fiasco that happened thanks to a hair tie that looked very similar to the one she had given her brother days before. 

-

“For real?” Grace evidently did not know that, in fact, she didn’t really know anything about centipedes except that they were mean lookin’ and had a whole bunch of legs that made them seem more spooky than they were when you thought about them for long enough. “Nah, I didn’t,” she assured the other girl, “-but that’s good to know cos this one was trying to crawl in my butt, dead ass,” she offered with a chuckle. “How do you know so much stuff about stuff, man? I feel like I don’t know stuff about stuff unless it’s like, right in front of my eyes,” like she knew a lot more about the Chipotle menu than any decent person should, she knew a lot about skateboarding and she knew a lot about the hoods she grew up in. Maybe it was different in England, maybe they just took like, cool shit classes where they learned about anything and everything all the time.

“I saw a centipede” that was it. Not only was that Grace’s opening line after everything that had happened the night before and the disastrous morning that followed but that was it, that was all she had to say on the matter. At least for now. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about how Clarke must have felt after her brother’s disappearance and the suspicious manner in which his belongings had returned to camp on the wrist of a deserter. It wasn’t that at all. She cared a lot, she just didn’t quite know how to broach the subject but it was a work in progress. A lot of stuff was a work in progress for Grace when it came to social affairs, in fact.

…

“i guess you’re right.” it was rare to find peace in a place like this. shane did have moments of peace, times with jenny, times with joss, even with a few of the other eves. but in between those rare moments, it was a constant battle. maybe shane needed to take a page out of grace’s book and try to focus on those moments more. “well, i’m good at practice,” it was a joke, but she wasn’t sure if grace knew enough about her to know what shane meant. how her entire life has revolved around soccer and practicing. joss would have laughed at her joke. she let out a sigh at the thought. “i guess i could try it some time, ya know, zen out and shit. probably do us all a bit of good,” again it was a joke but considering everything and how weak she delivered it, it wasn’t a very good one. 

-

She smiled to herself and nodded her head, “I kinda got that vibe,” she explained, “I’m not sure I believe in like, natural talent or being gifted or whatever, I think everybody works hard, just some people keep it to themselves,” she explained. “I played soccer for a week in middle school, that shit is hard,” she added with a light laugh. She nodded once more, then, “Got nothing to lose,” Grace noted. In a situation where they had just about everything to lose on a regular basis, there were some things that they could spare a moment to gamble on. Meditation, Grace thought, was one of those things. 

…

shane smiled to herself when grace knew exactly what she was talking about. of course she did, anyone who’s been on the internet for too long would know those two dudes. but it was still nice to be understood. “right? like, it’ll be a lot of work, probably take a few days, but it’ll be better than sleeping on the gross dirt and shit out here.” not to mention, maybe it could be something shane could do to put herself back in the good graces of the others. just keep her head down and work on something rather than causing problems with everyone all the time.

stopping when grace did, she listened as she tried to put into words how she would meditate. if she was being honest, shane thought it sounded stupid as hell. how could visualizing something like that help her calm down? but then again, grace was being kind to her when she really didn’t need to be, so shane listened, tried to understand. she supposed to was similar to how jenny calmed her down from her panic attacks; focus on the sound of the oceans, the things she felt. she laughed a little when grace said she was picturing salsa and shit up in the tree. “i dunno, sounds pretty crazy to me, i don’t know if i’d be able to do that,” she said honestly. “but hey, it’s probably better than being at my friend’s throat.” 

-

Grace nodded her head in agreement, “For sure,” she confirmed with light enthusiasm. Anything would be better than sleeping on the bare ground with God knows what creepy crawlies trying to manoeuvre their way into every crack and crevice. It was enough to make Grace’s skin crawl, just thinking about it. Her experience with the centipede had been more than enough to put her off having any additional meet and greets with the insects that called the jungle floor their home.

“Maybe,” she considered, shrugging it off, “Does it really matter if we’re crazy if we’re just finding a little peace out here?” she asked, rather philosophically. By now, she was pretty sure that every one of them had lost at least a considerable portion of their sanity by now. Could anybody blame them? “It takes practice, man, like anything,” meditation took practice, school too practice, skating took practice, learning how to talk to people without being fuckin’ weird took practice. Everything took practice. Even making their beds would take practice, so good luck to whoever scored the first one.

…

“no problem,” she said with a smile. and as if proving shane right, grace had a good idea. if they have to move to the jungle, they definitely couldn’t be sleeping on the ground like the could on the beach. sand fleas were one thing but there were loads more bugs and shit out there. “have you ever got sucked into those youtube holes where you end up on those indian boys who build shit on like 5 times speed?” the question sounded completely random but shane had a point to make if grace knew what she was talking about. “i saw one once where they made a whole ass bed out of, like, bamboo and shit. looked uncomfortable as hell, but maybe that’s what we need.” sure, they didn’t have bamboo, but cut down some saplings and put some palm frons on top and they could make something similar. shane let out a huff of a chuckle out of her nose at the idea of being zen. the closest shane has ever gotten to being zen was when she’d snot one too many lines of xanax at a party. “nah, i’ve never done that. wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

-

“Yeah,” Grace said as if it was a completely normal, even inevitable response to Shane’s question. Of course she had gone down the rabbit hole of watching them make underground swimming pools and waterslides in the shape of a crocodile. Who hadn’t? She nodded her head in agreement, listening carefully as Shane made her elevator pitch, “For sure,” she was thinking it through, “We could definitely pull that off.  We got that sweet axe, there’s like, nothing but trees, we could do that” it would take a little bit more coordination from the group than they had at the moment but it was definitely possible. 

Then Shane continued and though it was necessarily shocking based on Shane’s general demeanor, it was still surprising that Shane was completely unfamiliar with the idea. “I don’t know, bro, you just like um,” she furrowed her brow slightly as she tried to put her methodology into words. It was something she had never done before, “I guess I start out by tryna thing of something mad specific like okay, uh,” she stopped in her tracks, “That tree up there,” she pointed to the tallest tree she could see before closing her eyes, “I’m thinking about that tree and in my mind it’s like, twenty feet taller than that and at the top it’s got like, um, it’s got like every type of salsa and queso you can think of and it’s growing bags of tortilla chips too,” she chuckled at her own words, “So I’m gonna just stand here and think about how I’m gonna climb all the way up there and what I’m gonna see on the way up and like, there’s a Harry Styles song playing somehow when I get half way and it’s chill as fuck,” she opened her eyes back up again and looked at Shane, “-and I just keep going like that. Start with something you can see and then turn it into whatever you want, like, it’s actually fun when you get good at it,”

…

“i don’t think that’s true,” shane countered. “i mean, sure you’re not the loudest voice in the bunch, but you still have important ideas.” mainly, grace was the sole reason the cave worked as a shelter for so long, until the tide became too much for her work to hold back. it was only a matter of time before she’s roped in to making them a new shelter out in the jungle. she was important even if she kept to herself. she nodded though, as she went on. “i don’t think i’ve ever been able to turn my brain off,” she said with a weak laugh. “i think that’s my problem.” maybe she should try to be more like grace and not be so in her fucking head all the time. 

-

“Thanks, man,” Grace mused warmly, sincerity in her tone of voice that made it sound just a bit more lively than it regularly did. “I was thinking about maybe a way we could get off the ground- like, and I was sitting on this log and a fuckin’ centipede-ass-bitch tried to crawl up my butt, so it just got me thinking about how we need to start making a foundation for our camp, give us some height,” she explained. She looked over at Shane then, intrigued by the sentiment, “You don’t ever just like, totally zen out? Meditate and shit?” sure, Shane was rarely particularly ‘zen’ but Grace didn’t think that anyone was incapable of meditating every now and then.

…

shane gave a shrug to grace’s suggestion. sure they should probably do something more productive and helpful for the group considering everything that’s happened, but she didn’t have it in her to be around everyone else right now. “sure, why not?” she said as she pushed herself up off the ground and brushed the dirt off her legs. of course, she couldn’t help herself from glancing over her shoulder at the others, first searching out jenny to see where they were but then her eyes drifted to joss before quickly turning back to grace. “that what you do when the rest of us are causing trouble? throw rocks at stuff?” she teased lightly as she started walking. 

-

Grace chuckled at Shane’s question and half shrugged one shoulder, trying to find a clever way to answer the other girl before conceding to the fact that yeah, Shane was sort of right, “Pretty much,” she confirmed, “I don’t got anything important to add, anyway,” she wasn’t going to be the peacekeeper or the diplomat, she wasn’t going to get her hands dirty either so for the most part, staying out of the way of the other Eves was often the best solution for Grace. “If you don’t think about the food supply and the sunburn and shit, this place isn’t that bad,” she explained, “There’s like, all these mad pretty trees and flowers and weird looking animals and shit and if you just kinda turn your brain off a little, it’s like being at the zoo or watching Animal Planet or something,” 

…

sure, they didn’t have a lot in common, she wasn’t even sure she and grace would be considered friends, but there was something nice about having someone from the neighborhood around. even if most of their pre-island interactions were across the sneeze guard at chipotle or passing her and her crew on shane’s runs. she smiled lightly when grace showed her the very clearly home done tattoo on her arm. if she was in a better mood, she’d make some joke about how it was no wonder everyone assumed she was gay, but instead she gave a very grace reply, “that’s dope.” she nodded when grace went on to agree that it was easier to know where you stood with someone back home. “yeah, it’s not always bad,” she agreed. “but i guess when things are bad, they seem so much worse, ‘cause, ya know, there aint shit else here. if we aren’t trying to survive, then were picking fights because we’re all on edge.” 

-

“For real,” Grace agreed, trying to think about the sorts of things she liked to do when she was feeling stressed at home. She’d hit up her favourite street spots and put on a good playlist, she’d grab a boba and catch the L to nowhere in particular, she’d sit in the park and feed the pigeons and wait for a cool one to show up, like with a weird feather or a wobbly leg or something. There wasn’t much to do here, certainly nothing like that. “You wanna go for a walk and like, throw rocks at something or some shit?”

…

“thanks,” she said simply, understanding what grace meant by it. it was kind of weird how she seemed to be able to say so much with so little. evident by her simple nah. any other eve would push for more. half the eves, shane wished they would just shut up most of the time. she stretched out her legs, sitting in the jungle was far less comfortable than it was on the beach, leaves and twigs sticking to the fabric of her joggers. “you ever miss the bk? i know you left for school or whatever but… things were easier back home. someone had a problem with you, you duked it out and it was all good. act like it never happened, go buy a bagel and make up.”

“Hell yeah,” Grace spoke with light enthusiasm, which amounted to a great deal of emphasis when compared to her general musings. “I got mad love for the city, hell yeah I miss Brooklyn,” she assured Shane with a nod of her head before lifting up her sleeve, exposing a tattoo of wobbly handwritten script that read ‘L.E.S’ - “Lower East Side too,” she missed Brooklyn, she missed Loisaida, she missed Williamsburg and she even missed her shitty little apartment near China Town. She just missed feeling like she was at home. “Back home I knew where I stood, right? Like, I knew my place, I knew other people’s place, I knew who the homies were, I knew who to dodge but in California I don’t know shit about shit,” she clicked her tongue and considered it for a moment, “I mean, I don’t know shit about shit here either but it ain’t as bad, like, some of you guys don’t suck that much and I pretty much know where I stand,” 

…

out of all the eves, grace was probably the last person she would have expected to actively seek her out to talk. if there was one thing shane appreciated about her, it was how she never felt the need to talk about useless things. a part of her wondering if someone sent her over here to talk to her. “it is my fault though,” shane said in a dry voice. of course, it wasn’t her fault the tide came in and fucked up their camp, like she told joss, she didn’t control the tides. but the tension? the bad vibes that hung around the eves? that was her fault. if she hadn’t gone in on joss like that right in front of everyone, things would have been different. “i don’t want anyone’s pity. you don’t have to check on me, i’m sure you have better thing to do with your time.”

-

“I don’t pity you bro- no shade or anything, I just don’t,” she explained sincerely. Sure, the argument had been tense and awkward and unpleasant but she didn’t think it was anything that Shane couldn’t handle. She certainly didn’t think it was worth pitying Shane over. Shane was tough, she deserved compassion but not pity. 

“Tell me to fuck off or whatever if you’re not tryna talk about it and shit but are you good? It’s like, mad tense around here,” she waited a moment, processing her own words, “Not in a ‘its your fault' kinda way, I mean like just everybody is feeling it after the wave or whatever it’s called, tide and shit,” whatever that mother fuckin’ thing was called, Grace didn’t want to learn because she hoped it would never happen again, here or anywhere else she was at.

open starter @wildshub​ when: day 18 where: just outside of the new camp

Alexa was having a tough couple of days. All the progress she had made with the other Eves, all the progress she had made on a personal level, it was all gone now and she couldn’t help but feel some type of way about it. She felt overwhelming amount of guilt, crippling almost, so she sat out the last nights party and stood clear of everyone for most of today. — Her foot was doing worse as well, she couldn’t really put any weight on it so she didn’t manage to grab and save that many things during their sudden move. This made her feel even more useless, almost like she was proving everyone right.

Once their new camp was more or less set, and she could see some of the Eves beginning to settle down, she decided to use whatever was left of the sunlight to go and look for some berries or mushrooms. It was the least she could do to make up for her lack of productivity around the new camp. — With her foot aching , she leaned onto trees for support until a sudden loss of balance made her reach for the first person to her right. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” she starts but looks down at the floor instantly. “I’m gonna go look for some food, I don’t…I don’t need a buddy I’ll be back in a bit.” not sure if the buddy system was still a thing or not, she was gonna do her best to follow whatever rules were possibly in place. “Um…yeah…I’ll just –” pointing ahead, she’ll take a hold of the tree again.

-

“Uh,” Grace hesitated, though she was eager to speak. It was often enough that she was at a loss for words but the gravity of how terribly, terribly, bad Alexa’s idea was had truly stopped her. “Dude, no shade but you’re not um,” she paused a moment, really trying to find a turn of phrase that appropriately captured her opinion on Alexa’s physical state without being entirely offensive or vulgar- but she didn’t, “You’re like all kinds of fucked up right now, bro, I don’t think you should be going anywhere or like far at all,” she explained, “No shade,” she repeated a moment later, just to make sure it was clear.