SACRED HEART;

There was always too much thinking and pointless deliberation involved in socializing, or rather, in Theo’s understanding of those face-to-face encounters. A completely new environment wasn’t much of an extenuating factor; weren’t first impressions even more important around here? From the get-go he was ready to deduce everybody would be judgmental towards him, but thankfully Katherine didn’t seem to fit this presupposed pattern. “That makes two of us,” he claimed, giving a subdued laugh. In his case, indulging in reverie was too often to deem it only sporadic.

He cracked a yet another mild smile, starting to acknowledge their chatter must’ve already taken the awkward route. Not like he saw anything wrong in that, in his experience a great deal of small talks fell into the basket labelled ‘not excessively stirring’. Asking questions he himself could answer if he spared a few seconds to think couldn’t make the matters significantly better. The girl’s expression — which at a glance screamed bemused to him — was telling enough. “Good to know, thanks.” He twiddled with his thumbs, cheeks gradually getting sore from the stiff grin he hadn’t put to rest. “I’m not sure why I asked that,” Theo tittered. Dragging this topic on wasn’t the best idea and Katherine certainly wasn’t anticipating the tedious screed sprouting at the back of his mind. A brief look at the other’s books hit him with a reminder that she probably didn’t come to the library for some idle chat. “So,” he cleared his throat, “I guess I shouldn’t be stopping you.” Personally he had nothing against letting the conversation flow, his assignment could wait. 

“Probably more than that, I think,” she reasoned, “Who doesn’t let their imagination get away from them sometimes?” probably Damian, probably Faith, “I think life would be a bit boring if you didn’t think about stuff like that just sometimes- not too much but sometimes,” she didn’t think she needed to make the argument to a guy like Theodore but the prospect of him probably agreeing her was an inviting idea and it encouraged her to continue on her tangent.

“Yeah,” she said for a lack of anything else to say in response, filling the air before the silence had the chance more than contributing anything meaningful to the conversation. She cleared her throat and nodded her head in agreement, he was right, he shouldn’t have distracted her from the things she needed to prioritize and yet, she was already thinking of ways to prolong the conversation and procrastinate for just a little longer, “So you moved here,” she announced, “Where are you from? Somewhere near?” he gave off a bit of a Nighmore vibe but there were so few people in town, she doubted he could live nearby without Kat having seen him more than a few times at the local grocer, coffee shop or ice creamery. There wasn’t much else for teenagers to do in Nighmore, unless he’d been in a basement for the last few years. He kind of gave off that vibe as well, admittedly.

“Hey Taco Bell isn’t that bad.” He chuckled.

Domenico raised his brows, but didn’t stop smiling. “Maybe if I take another bite…” In fact, he leaned closer to her as she pulled the tray away and went directly for a second bar, munching it with far more gusto than the one before that. 

“And you thought I would not  make a good actor.” He smirked. 

“I was just teasing  you know, they are amazing.” He continued, with still a bit of a treat in his mouth. “Can you forgive me? Would you really let me starve and deny me one of these?.” He continued playfully and gave her a puppy eyed look.

“So you’re also a good chef? God you are full of surprises.” Indeed, she was, not that it was totally unexpected from the impression that he got Kat so far. Himself Nico wasn’t a complete noob in the kitchen, he could make a few dishes, mostly as a matter of ‘survival’, but treats and cakes were definitely beyond his abilities.

“Looking forward to camp?” He asked. “Myself, well that’s going to be my first time sleeping in a tent, a bit of a camp virgin if you will.” He smirked.

“It’s not exactly fine dining,” she reasoned. She was far more open to the idea of Taco Bell for dinner after she’d had a couple of drinks but before that, she considered it an abomination of low-cost ingredients, manufactured fats, salts and sugars and above all else, too messy to enjoy sober.

She rolled her eyes as the male pinched another bar from her tray, just before she’d managed to pull it out of his reach. He didn’t deserve another chance, not in her opinion but it was too late for her to take it back now that it was already in his mouth. At the comment that followed, she raised an eyebrow, confused until she realized that he’d been messing with her. He was kidding. “Oh my God,” she groaned in response to his antics, “Yeah well as long as you’re trying to be an actor and not a comedian, maybe you’ll be fine,” she mused, clearly she hadn’t found his joke as funny as he did.

“Mmm,” she hummed pensively, pretending to genuinely weigh up her options. “I guess we’ll have to see, won’t we?” she suggested, “You might have to beg,” she added, trying to keep a straight face though a small smile threatened to ruin the facade. 

“Yeah, it’s true,” she confirmed without any semblance of humility over the fact, “I’m the only vegetarian in my family so I had to learn to cook for myself,” she explained, “-and when my parents work late or vacation, I used to cook for my little brother and sister too after school,” she was evidently proud of the fact and made no effort to hide it. “I don’t get to cook so much now, obviously but sometimes I can make things work in the kitchenette or maybe if the cafeteria staff are in a good mood, they let me use things in the kitchen under supervision,” she explained, though it was probably more information that Nico had really wanted to hear.

She nodded her head to confirm the fact, “I am,” she assured him. Soon after, she found herself chuckling at the fact that he was a so-called ‘camp virgin’ “Really? Wow,” she thought about it for a second or two, “Yeah, you’re from a big city or something, aren’t you? I guess not a lot of opportunities when there isn’t anywhere but your backyard to put up a tent,” if he even had a backyard, that was. “My family are big on the outdoors, we’ve always gone camping so,” she shrugged a shoulder, “It’ll be nice to be in nature with friends,”

sofie certainly hadn’t started the conversation with kat with the expectation that she would be almost grounding in her disbelief of the strange and unexplained. but hey, she was here now and after listening to and reading the intense amount of bullshit that appeared to go on in the very area they were supposed to be camping, she would take kat bishop as her grounding voice of reason. she pressed her lips together and nodded, not sure she could convincingly get away with me neither haha!  so instead opting to not say anything at all. until kat continued with a question. one sofie didn’t have an answer to, not really. she lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “ there is some video, and like photos, recordings and stuff. not of giant snakes– i don’t believe in those either, ” at least not in massachusetts. the tatzelwurms of austria however were an entirely different matter. “ but like, ghosts and bigfoot, ” she felt a little stupid even saying bigfoot but there was a fair amount of evidence that the sasquatch existed. “ i mean, if you believe they’re not staged, anyway, ” she said, leaving it up for discussion whether she believed the videos people claimed were proof of paranormals and cryptids. 

was she worried? abso fucking fruitly. was she going to admit that in front of a junior, a junior in her house that had a serious flair for the dramatic? no. “ i don’t know if worried is the right word. ” she decided, though it probably was. “ suspicious, maybe. ” she said, tilting her head a little as she considered the word. it sounded better, she liked it better than worried. especially in front of someone she was supposed to be a leader to. “ i mean, i just think it’s a little weird when so many people say they’ve experienced the same crazy things. like, do you think they’re all lying? ” she asked.

“I don’t know,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders, “Somebody photoshopped a photo of me onto a picture of Edgar Winter in the graphic design last year so,” she spoke casually as if the two incidents were on par with one another. “Mmm,” she hummed thoughtfully, trying to decide whether she believed in any of that stuff, or even the possibility of it at all. “I don’t know,” she said again, it was something she was likely to say more than a few times in a conversation this serious about things like bigfoot and giant snakes. “Sister Michael is coming with us. Isn’t that like- aren’t ghosts and stuff afraid of God?” she asked, raising an eyebrow, “Like, praying and everything, that makes it go away or makes it weak or something? I didn’t see all fo the Exorcist but I saw a little bit when I was a kid-,” a younger kid, she was still a kid, “-Priests have powers like that or whatever and we’re going to be praying and singing hymns like every night, so,” she allowed her voice to trail as if she’d made some sort of profound argument to rest her case.

“Yeah, probably,” she nodded her head as she spoke, “Don’t you sometimes just say whatever your friends are saying just because they’re saying it?” that wasn’t exactly the same as making up an entire fictional and macabre history about a place, filled with delicate and gruesome lore but Kat was pretty sure she was onto something anyway. If Andrea said she saw devil worshipers in the cafeteria, all it would take was a single look in Katherine’s direction for Kat to say ‘Hey yeah, me too’ truth be told.

Truth was, Domenico was conflicted about the whole camping and kayaking thing, sure he would have been way more enthusiastic if he had a date for the event, given that, well, they would be supervised, but he was pretty certain that there was going to be chances to sneak out aplenty. It was not his case though. Not since that fucking party night, a while ago by now.

And ok he was outdoorsy and enjoyed a good hike, but well he had never done any camping in his life which meant he was probably going to make a fool of himself one way or another. Yeah…

On the other side, they would be away from the classrooms for a while, have a chance to mess around with his friends, get wasted when the sisters weren’t looking. So, there was that.

In fact the seventeen years old was distracted as he strolled through the common area, trying to think about a good way to smuggle a bit of ‘fun’ during the trip, while being sure that the sisters won’t find his stache during a random search of their bags or any other paranoid, but probably justified attempt to keep the kids behaving properly. Maybe he could find someone to dupe or ‘convince’ to carry them, yeah easy peasy.

He was immersed in his thoughts when Kat almost shoved a tray of treats at him. 

“What?” The girl really was too sweet wasn’t she?  

“Sure. God they smell great.”

“Not that I’m aware no.” He grabbed one of the bars from the tray and took a pretty generous bite. 

“Meh, they are ok I guess.” He shrugged, while still chewing through it, giving her a look like if he was struggling to actually swallow them. Actually, they were great, but there was nothing wrong with a bit of a playful teasing.

“Yeah,” Katherine agreed, accepting Nico’s words as fact rather than taking them as a complement to her culinary abilities when he commented on the smell that had filled the kitchenette area since her project had begun. She chuckled lightly as he claimed not to be aware of any allergies or similar, hoping they weren’t about to find out anything to the contrary when he took a bite.

She eagerly awaited his assessment with wide eyes and eyebrows raised, her face hopeful until he actually spoke. Almost immediately, her face dropped, clearly she’d been offended by his lackluster, arguably rude reaction to her offerings. She clicked her tongue disapprovingly and pulled the tray away, “Well, what do you know, anyway? Boys eat anything- I bet you like the taste of meatloaf and Taco Bell too, so,” she waved a hand in the air dismissively, attempting to appear as if she didn’t care whether he liked her granola or not, though evidently, it did indeed matter to her. “Just don’t come back to me when you’re hungry on camp, you can starve first,” she warned him wagging an index finger in his general direction.

the ghost of lamps past and a pumpkin stealing cryptid, a seemingly innocent episode title of one of sofie’s favourite podcasts. little did she know that she would be tuning in to em and christine talking about … well, about exactly where her and her classmates were supposed to be going camping. she didn’t notice it at first, happily listening to the hosts catch up with one another as she typed away at an assignment. then they say it: the bridgewater triangle. 

it catches her, but she thinks maybe she heard it wrong, or she was misremembering the name of the place they were supposed to be camping in a week’s time. or maybe bridgewater was where they were going but the bridgewater triangle was an entirely different thing. but then they continue. the corners of the triangle: abington, rehoboth, and freetown. wasn’t freetown one of the places they were going too? with concerned features she minimised microsoft word and opened chrome instead. in one tab a google search from the triangle and in another, her school emails open with the information about camp. there was only one freetown massachusetts, just like there was only one bridgewater massachusetts. both were in this bridgewater triangle, both were locations of philip’s war,  and both were where they were going to be camping. oh boy.

she paused the podcast, removed headphones from her ear, and wondered to herself, was this nuts? it had to be, right? she hated to disturb other people while they were working but if they were going to some crazy supernatural vortex, surely people had to know about it, right? “ hey, sorry, ” she said, reaching out a hand to grab the attention of the other person at the table. “ have you ever heard about this? ” she asked, spinning her laptop around to show the wikipedia page. “ the bridgewater triangle, ” she said, even though her companion could surely read that for themselves. “ i think it’s where we’re going for camp– i mean, do you like, ” she paused a second, lowering her voice a little as she continued “ believe in all that spooky stuff? ghosts, and cryptids and whatever? ” because sofie absolutely did, but she wasn’t in the mood to be completely mocked for it.

It truly didn’t take much, if anything at all for Katherine Bishop to become distracted. In fact, when she was working on arduous tasks like her latest math homework sheet, she was subconsciously begging for something to snatch her attention away from quadratics.

Though she wouldn’t call her and Sofie friends, per se, she did like the other girl and they had, in her opinion, somewhat of an inherent connection due to their shared house and a mutual understanding of life with foreign parents. What they didn’t share, however, was a taste for the macabre, supernatural and spooky. This sort of thing made Kat’s stomach muscles tighten and she’d never listened to more than a few seconds of a podcast whenever there was a mention of ghouls and ghosts, afraid that God would find it tasteless. 

“Yeah, that’s it,” she agreed, she knew the name Bridgewater, she had no idea where the triangle part came from until her eye wandered the content of the wiki page presented to her. “Mmm,” she hummed in a low tone, clearly unsettled by what she was seeing, “No, I don’t,” she decided curtly, tapping her pencil on the surface of the desk between them with agitated energy, “How come if that stuff exists, we don’t have videos of it and stuff?” she asked, raising an eyebrow, thinking she’d made quite an astute argument in her own favor. “We know the giant squid is a thing, even though it lives so deep in the ocean we can’t even see it when it’s alive- so, how come we can’t take photos and stuff of...giant snakes,” she tapped on the screen where it said ‘giant snake’. “Giants snakes leave slither paths and stuff on the ground and big skins, we would find them if they were real- yeah, I don’t think it’s real,” she hadn’t continued reading after the first couple of lines on the page. She certainly hadn’t reached the truly concerning content, “Are you worried, a bit?”

drea is just about ready to but in with how it’s not an accident, it’s evolution and bees wished everyone died when they stung them but then kat continued and she had to laugh. wiggling her arm out of kat’s grasp once she’d delivered a squeeze with wide grin, as if she’d been tickled by the touch. “ these are service weapons, ” she stated, though her features didn’t hold the same attempt at seriousness as her voice did. “ i’m trained to handle these, they’re registered, okay, ” she continued, seriousness in her voice quickly fading and instead matching the amusement of her features. “ –and! if i accidentally kill someone with one punch, i’m just saying, they probably deserve it. ” she said, lifting her arms in a shrug, holding back her giggle for a moment before it tumbled forth. 

even facetiously, kat’s playing along  made drea grin and made her nod her head enthusiastically when asked if her statement was true. times like these she wondered how she’d gotten so lucky with kat. it’d been a long time since she was close with the girls in milford, but she didn’t think they’d go along with even a quarter of the things she said the way kat did. she pretended as though something had just been made clear to her, “ oooh, see, that makes total sense now. you know, because i don’t have an uncle-grandpa-cousin-second-cousin to tell me those things. ” she raised her hands as if she were weighing something out, one hand rising “ far lower chance of genetic diseases and mutations, ” the other hand lowering “ missing out on those sweet, sweet life lessons. ” she chuckled, shit eating smile remaining on her features. 

“ what do you mean somehow? ” she asked, brow furrowing a little in confusion. “ i was just gonna put a flask in my bag, put it in my toiletries bag so it doesn’t just, pop out. ” it’s what she’d done for stowe, hell she hadn’t even gone that far for the ski trip. her big hydro flask had been full of liquor, and just in her bag, hidden in plain site. however she’d already accepted that she’d probably need her hydro flask for you know, water this time. “ do you think they’re gonna like, check our bags or something? ” she questioned, lowering her voice a fraction but both kat and herself were horrid at actually being quiet, especially around each other. however, kat didn’t need to clarify any part of what she said next, and she didn’t need to sell it either. while drea wasn’t sure about the makes-you-smarter thing, she was on board regardless. “ yeah, it’s like some back to nature shit. ” she agreed confidently, wiggling her fingers at kat for a second when she did. “ and it might actually make the whole ‘survival skills as taught by a walking midlife crisis’ thing interesting. ” 

“Weapons of massive destruction, yeah?” she continued with a chuckle, trying to match Drea’s momentary seriousness but failing to keep a straight face for more than a second. Even when there was nothing to laugh about, sometimes Kat could find herself catching Drea’s eye in the classroom and tumbling into a fit of laughter anyway, unable to help herself. It was just one of the many things that forced their teachers to separate them whenever they had the misfortune of hosting a class with both Kat Bishop and Drea Pearson in it.

She clicked her tongue, feigning sadness as if Andrea’s lack of inbred kin was an absolute tragedy, “That’s so sad for you,” she mused in a melancholy tone. At Andrea’s next comment she tipped her chin, a self-assured and unmistakable confidence shifting her features, even if it was in jest, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, my genetics are obviously perfect,” despite wonky teeth and a notable lack of pigment that Jay liked to remind her of on a regular basis. 

Katherine laughed obtusely, “Yeah, okay,” she spoke bluntly, a lightly dismissive manner, “Maybe that works for you but you know Sister Michael is going to be up my ass, the whole time- she’ll probably do a cavity search to make sure I don’t bring a Nutri-bullet or something,” Kat didn’t really know what a cavity search was, she’d just heard it on an abundance of cop type shows and knew it was a thing. She shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t think they’re allowed to search our bags, it’s probably illegal,” she spoke with confidence though she had no reason to believe they couldn’t search them, the staff had searched their belongings and accommodation before, “I’m putting water in my Hydroflask because I’m not going to die in a swamp but we could sneak shit in in like- mmm, hand cream or maybe-” she was trying to think of something else that was reasonable to pack but not so essential that they couldn’t replace it with booze and drugs, “Mouth wash?” she suggested with a shrug of one shoulder. 

She nodded her head in full agreement with Andrea’s words, “Exactly,” she spoke as if the other girl had said something profound about their impending journey. “It’ll make singing hymns by the fire before bed less annoying,” she suggested, they might even actually enjoy themselves if they were lit enough.

Her tenacity was surprising — so much so that Alex’s gaze snapped back to Kat, brows inching upward as the blonde seemed to casually meander on the subject. “I’m not friends with Ella.” She countered, almost too quickly, voice low and even, as though Kat had lobbed something at her, and Alex’s only course of action was to swat it down. She didn’t have a place in the school’s constantly churning rumor mill, or so she thought — she wasn’t eager to swim into it. Nor was she particularly interested in shoving Ella in. Not for this, anyway. Ella knew too much about her — information Alex hadn’t been comfortable sharing with anyone. (Of course, not because she’d once been the closest thing Alex had to a friend in all of Massachusetts.) Her eyes stayed trained on Katherine, hopping her clipped answer was warning enough to drop it.

Bemused grin curved her lips — by her logic, New Canaan was almost Nighmore at a near two-hour drive. She almost said as much, but the thought alone almost brought on a sense of claustrophobia. “You a legacy?” She asked, seeing no other reason why someone who seemed so fond of home would leave it. Of course, there was a chance it wasn’t be her own volition. That would be a twist, though deciding she had people figured out after the first conversation was sitting right atop her very long list of bad habits. She kept getting surprised that way. “I left the ‘Connecticut pride’ T-shirt at home.” She hummed. The obvious answer was she didn’t know that — she hardly knew anything about Andrea, and almost all of what she knew came from other sources. Still, the best she could do was feign interest. “What part?” She asked. It was a small-talk question, and it felt it. 

If Alex was almost pouting at the idea of a nightmare singalong, she was actually pouting when Kat doubled down. “I liked music before I came here. Like, actively sought out compositions, all the shit. Have you ever heard ‘Blest Are They’ on a bass guitar? I think that’s the day the last of my joy died. It’s so fucking Catholic to take something good and make it terrible. Or, worse, let you keep all the good shit and make you feel guilty about joy until the day you die.” She grumbled. The idea of soaking wet campers brought elicited a smile, one Alex was quick to cover, hand barely concealing her lips. Though, it did nothing to stop her laugh. “Picture this with me. It’s a downpour. New roommates Gwen Prescott and Louisa Walsh interlocked in an Alpha battle about the best hiking trail during a downpour.” Alright, so she hadn’t really dealt with Gwen, and she genuinely respected Louisa — but she appreciated nothing quite like a good battle of wills. “If you’re telling me you don’t think that’s better entertainment than identifying fucking marsh plants, you’re lying to us both.” She added with a matter-of-fact nod. With a grin, Alex followed suit, glancing up and whispering, “do it.” Then, for proper insurance, she glanced generally downward. For all she believed, she was making the request to the sprinkler — but in a pinch, it would do. Short-sighted at best, but fun, at least. And she was a firm believer in sacrificing future happiness for a moment’s entertainment. 

“Yeah, okay,” she held up her hands defensively, surrendering to Alex’s insistence, “Didn’t think you were,” she reminded her that that was why Kat had highlighted it in the first place. It was a touchy subject, apparently and it made her all the more interested to know what the fuck happened between the pair. She’d asked Drea later, she’d been at Broadripple longer than Kat had and she was also better at figuring that kind of thing out, Kat thought.

Katherine scoffed at the thought as a steadfast, “Pfft, no” left her lips, “My Dad came here from Norway in his twenties and my Mom never heard of the place until I showed her the website,”  she explained casually, “We had this talk at my old school from the uh- like a person- a spokesperson for the IB diploma thing,” she couldn’t remember what IB actually stood for but she was pretty sure that didn’t matter, “-and they gave us a list of schools and Broadripple was one od them,” it wasn’t a particularly romantic story nor was it exciting but it was the truth. “I applied for freshman year but there weren’t any openings,” actually, she’d just been rejected but that was almost the same thing. “Mmm, it’s called...” she allowed her voice to trail as she desperately tried to remember where the fuck Drea was from, “Hartford?” she spoke but realized soon after she was mistaken, “No, Milford, that’s it,” she nodded her head, confident that she was right the second time around.

“It’s not on any of my Spotify playlists at the moment,” she said with a laugh, “Not planning on putting it on any either,” okay, so she’d looked up school hymns on Spotify once but in her defense she’d been totally wasted and it had been funny at the time but she wasn’t about to check out rock covers of Blest Are They for any reason, not even just to see if it was as cringey as Alex made it out to be. “Yeah,” she agreed, feeling a little bad for dissing God or whatever on campus, just in case he felt like making her pay for it. Then again, Alex kind of had a point...time spent in the chapel almost always made Kat end up feeling bad about something. “Drea said they almost got into a full-blown fistfight on the night of the blackout- it’s going to be interesting watching them try to put up a tent together,” she tapped her temple “Remember that when you’re deciding where to put yours,” no chance in hell Kat was risking putting hers and Andrea’s tent anywhere near any of the house captains, even if she and Damian were in the process of putting their questionable relationship back together. 

ofkatherinebishop‌:

“Mmm,” Kat hummed thoughtfully, a high, almost chirpy tone that made it evident that she was flattered, if not slightly surprised by Alex’s assessment. “That’s generous,” she conceded, a week seemed like a long time to be without meals, a bed and her cell phone among other necessities. “Oh yeah?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. She was admittedly caught off guard by the image of the two together, they seemed to remain at odds with one another. Katherine didn’t know the details but she was aware that something had happened between the girls. She wasn’t convinced that either Alex or Ella would ever tell her the story but she was curious about it.

“Minnesota,” she informed the other girl, there was a sense of pride when she said it despite that she tried to avoid letting her accent get the better of her or fall into the trap of being tragically cliche by saying things like ‘you betcha’ or talking about hockey too often. “Kind of near Minneapolis,” she explained, since she’d learned recently that mentioning that she was from a place called ‘Eden Prarie’ tended to result in other students thinking she was a farmer, a hillbilly or grew up in some kind of a remote religious cult.  “Rich fancy parents?” she asked, again, finding herself a little surprised to find out more about Alexandra Maverick. Evidently, Kat knew next to nothing about her, “Where are you from?” she asked curiously, in return. 

She laughed openly at Alex’s concerns, “Oh, if you think we’re not gonna sing hymns on camp, you’re mistaken- no fucking way are we going to get through a whole trip without somebody suggesting it,” she insisted with a laugh, “I give it a night- first night there, we’ll be singing about Jesus around the campfire, I’d put money on it,” if she had any money to put on it. “-and we’ll have to pray for like, good weather and firm ground or something like that,” she mused, clearly not looking forward to that aspect of their trip. 

“What can I say? I’m an optimist,” she said with a half-smile. It wasn’t even a convincing joke. If anything, she tended to dance the line between cynicism and nihilism, hopping neatly to whichever better suited her that day. She may have lacked generous self awareness, but there were a few finer points she had nailed down. The inquisition was a baiting one, she suspected, and she was only half in the mood to be reeled in. Instead, she feigned misunderstanding where the direction the question was pointing. “That I could possibly be disagreeable?” She asked, wryly. “You’d be shocked.” She added, idly swinging long legs from her counter perch. 

She studied the other, perhaps for a moment too long, trying to align what she knew of the state with what she knew of Kat. After a moment, she nodded, as though she’d finally gotten the outline to lay neatly over the picture. She couldn’t miss the subtle lift in her voice. It almost sparked a bit of jealousy in her — the tiniest little flicker, gone as quickly as it had come. She nodded. “Like, actually near, or middle of the nowhere and it’s the closest town near?” She asked, suspecting there was a wide gap between the two. Though, that could’ve just been her own absolute ignorance about Minnesota geography. She knew Minneapolis, she knew St. Paul, and she thought maybe they were neighboring cities. Beyond that, her closest reference point for the state was a Tom Waits song about Minneapolis, and even that only mentioned a dirty bookstore above Euclid Avenue. But in this moment, she was curious enough to ask. Before answering the question bounced back to her, she chewed her thumbnail, considering on how truthful to actually be. Fuck it, she decided, almost visibly so. “Plastic surgeon meets family money. Worst Connecticut has to offer.” She said, sardonically. “New Canaan. It’s great, if Stepford is your thing.” 

Alex pulled a face, once again drawing from the well of how exactly to get out of it. She was one more piece of bad news from asking as though she were being dragged to the gallows. “God, I really want you to be wrong.” She said, almost pouting at the thought. At the idea of the prayer, Alex let out a breath of laughter. “Firm ground in a fucking swamp. Fuckin’ a.” She muttered, though there was at least at hint of amusement. “Does it make me an asshole to say I hope it rains?” It did, she would wager. Some people were probably genuinely excited about the trip, group bonding and new experiences or whatever. Just because she was predetermined to be miserable didn’t mean the rest of the school had to be — though this happened to be one thing she did prefer to share.

By no stretch of the imagination did she think that Alex Maverick was indeed an optimist but on this occasion, she decided to keep that to herself, nodding herself in passive agreement instead. “That you’re friends with Ella,” she said casually, allowing her voice to trail almost dismissively while she shrugged a shoulder, just as if she hadn’t put any thought into at all, though she was blatantly fishing now. “We talk about English class and stuff,” she added, providing some semblance of a reason for her interest in the girls' dynamics. Were Katherine and Ella friends? She wasn’t sure. She definitely wasn’t confident enough in the idea to share it with Alex, lest Ella think it was laughable. 

“Mmm, like...a half an hour away,” she conceded, “Eden Prarie but it’s not like- it’s not an actual prairie, it’s a city but there’s a lot of parks and lakes,” she expressed, somewhat defensively in Eden Prarie’s favor. “Wow,” she uttered, it felt like everybody had a doctor in their family except for Katherine. Damian had like, twelve of them and those were just the ones he’d mentioned. Kat’s father was technically a doctor...well, he had a PhD, did that count? Probably not. “I didn’t know you were from Connecticut,” she chimed, she didn’t actually know anything about her so this shouldn’t have come as any form of shock, “Andrea’s from Connecticut, did you know that?” she was getting dangerously close to the assumption that everybody from Connecticut knew each other but she didn’t outwardly say that, not yet anyway.

“You can wish and pray but I’m telling you now- no way I’m wrong, can’t you picture it already? Somebody with an acoustic guitar, the house captains trying to get everybody involved,” she could see it perfectly in her head, it was tragic but it was inevitable. “Hello? If it rains we’re fucked,” Katherine reminded her, “They’re not gonna call off the trip, it just means it’s going to be harder to hike, harder to canoe, everything is going to be wet and chafe and then we’re all gonna come home sick and snotty all over each other- no thanks,” she waved a hand in the air as if to brush the idea of rain right away, “One drop of rain and I’m blaming you now,” she looked up at the sky, pointing at God or whatever briefly, “Don’t be tempted,” she begged whoever was listening playfully.

The scenario played out almost too easily in Alex’s mind — Kat stepping neatly over her maybe dead body and just… continuing on into the woods surrounding the school. Truthfully, in the pre-trip chaos, she doubted it was even the strangest thing to happen on campus this week. Looking contemplative, head tilted to the side. “I give you a week. Maybe pull out some Snow White shit, find some help among the forest creatures.” She teased, hoisting herself onto the countertop. “Or at least.. sneak back on campus while the rest of us are off galavanting in the fucking middle of nowhere. Should buy you some time.” She added, raising her eyebrows as if this were a real scenario. She let out a laugh, wrinkling her nose. “No. Closest I’ve come to a tutor is copying Ella’s shit.” Until she decided to tear into into Ella for no better reason than she felt like it in the moment. “Pretty sure they’d quit on me. Apparently I’m not agreeable. That, and a terrible attention span.” She said, sarcasm coating the words, as if she were surprised anyone could possibly apply them to her. It was no help that instead of taking her Adderall prescription, she’d been selling them since the moment she got on campus. Oops.

“Where are you from?” She asked, finally popping the last piece of her granola bar piece into her mouth. “Pretty sure the closest my parents get to ‘outdoor activities’ is laying by the pool. Absolutely stellar for building survival skills.” Alex mused with another roll of her eyes. “Our next field trip to a country club, I’m all set.” She added. With a chuckle, she looked around in a moment of almost genuinely nervousness. “Jesus Christ, don’t say that too loud. You’re going to give them ideas. And I was scared about singing fucking Kambaya holding hands around a fire pit.” She half-whispered, though the smallest grin lingered. “Which, by the way, if it comes to that — put me out of my misery. It’s a mercy.”

“Mmm,” Kat hummed thoughtfully, a high, almost chirpy tone that made it evident that she was flattered, if not slightly surprised by Alex’s assessment. “That’s generous,” she conceded, a week seemed like a long time to be without meals, a bed and her cell phone among other necessities. “Oh yeah?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. She was admittedly caught off guard by the image of the two together, they seemed to remain at odds with one another. Katherine didn’t know the details but she was aware that something had happened between the girls. She wasn’t convinced that either Alex or Ella would ever tell her the story but she was curious about it.

“Minnesota,” she informed the other girl, there was a sense of pride when she said it despite that she tried to avoid letting her accent get the better of her or fall into the trap of being tragically cliche by saying things like ‘you betcha’ or talking about hockey too often. “Kind of near Minneapolis,” she explained, since she’d learned recently that mentioning that she was from a place called ‘Eden Prarie’ tended to result in other students thinking she was a farmer, a hillbilly or grew up in some kind of a remote religious cult.  “Rich fancy parents?” she asked, again, finding herself a little surprised to find out more about Alexandra Maverick. Evidently, Kat knew next to nothing about her, “Where are you from?” she asked curiously, in return. 

She laughed openly at Alex’s concerns, “Oh, if you think we’re not gonna sing hymns on camp, you’re mistaken- no fucking way are we going to get through a whole trip without somebody suggesting it,” she insisted with a laugh, “I give it a night- first night there, we’ll be singing about Jesus around the campfire, I’d put money on it,” if she had any money to put on it. “-and we’ll have to pray for like, good weather and firm ground or something like that,” she mused, clearly not looking forward to that aspect of their trip. 

Any guilt she may have felt for her own histrionics were quickly abated by the sound that came from the blonde — it was almost like someone had given a mouse a megaphone. Clear amusement broke through Alex’s best attempts to put on a sympathetic face, but at least she was trying. At least, that was her justification. It really was low-hanging fruit to mess with Kat, of all people. She considered the other too be too kind for her own good — but she was one of the few people in that Alex liked, in an almost, sort of way. Not in the ‘braid each other’s hair and spill secrets’ way, but at least… head nod in the hallway. “You have got to work on your emergency response skills.” Alex mused in place of an apology, taking another small bite of the piece she’d taken. Only then did it occur to her that maybe that could’ve been her out — but she was hardly versed in faking anaphylaxis, and she doubted the nurse wouldn’t see right through attempt number two to avoid the wilderness.

At Kat’s plan, Alex stifled a laugh. “At least you would’ve had food for your fugitive journey.” She offered, as if it were any consolation for her hypothetical murder. She had to admit — the visual of Kat traipsing through the Massachusetts wilderness with a baking sheet of granola bars was enough to elicit a genuine laugh. Hand barely concealing it, she gave a small little half bow on the subject of her performance. “I’ll write an appeal. God knows I need the GPA bump. Fuckin’ chemistry.” She half-grumbled, though chemistry was far less than problem than Alex herself. Of course, she would never actually appeal anything. She was far more the type to let the chips fall where they may, then bitch about where they landed. To make up for her outright laughter, Alex landed on a rare moment of close to kindness. “Nah, leave ‘em alone. They’re great.” She said, eyes flickering around the room. God forbid she look sincere when she actually said a nice thing. “Were you a girl scout or some shit? This seems like a girl scout thing.” 

She laughed at the image, “Oh yeah? I just take off into the woods with oven mitts on and a tray of half baked granola bars? How long do you think I’d last? I think I’d at least grab my backpack from my room first,” she decided, though she was glad she wouldn’t have to flee from Broadripple a criminal, at least not that afternoon. “Mhm,” Kat hummed, “My worst subject too,” actually it was her second-worst but she wasn’t about to list off the number of subjects that made her brain ache to a student who probably thought she was kind of a dumbass already after the display that afternoon. “Have you ever had a tutor?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. Her last tutor had been a complete and utter nightmare though that had been for mathematics, not for chemistry. She was consistently on the cusp of considering launching back into the world of peer guided study assistance but she remained unconvinced for now.

Kat shook her head, a small laugh passing her lips to make it known that the suggestion was ridiculous, “Fuck no,” she assured the other girl, “My family just does a lot of hiking and outdoors things; fishing, skiing, that sort of stuff- stuff where it gets so boring sometimes, the only thing you have is snacks,” she thought of the hours she’d spent sitting in a tin boat or on the ice, waiting for one of the fishing rods to jiggle, sometimes they never did. “I did dance for a little bit and then I was in like a- a Christian youth choir as a kid,” she said with a chuckle, it was only one of the many lame things she’d endured in her life, “We didn’t learn to tie knots or use knives or anything cool or actually useful,” she mused with a shrug, “- you know, unless you want a solo rendition of Shine, Jesus, Shine while we’re in the swamps,” not that that was definitively useful.

drea made a face for a second, doubt held in the crinkles over her nose and between her brows. “ yeah, sure, except i’m not a bug and i’ve never killed anyone. ”  she said, features relaxing again as she pointed out the two distinct and most obvious differences between herself and bees. not to mention: literally everything that made her different from a bee “ so like, a little bit of a difference. ” she continued, holding up her index finger and thumb to display the size of the difference. 

stupid smile coated her features as kat continued the joke, building on it in a way that caused chuckle to bounce of drea’s lips. leaning against counter she crossed her arms loosely over her chest and lifted her shoulders as she tried to subdue smile. “ yeah, no, i have no idea what you’re talking about, ” she played along. what were manners? she’d never heard of them. “ maybe we’re just like, busy not fucking our cousins on the coast. maybe that’s it. don’t have time for manners because our family trees grow away from the trunk, ” she teased, tacking some inland usa stereotypes onto her teasing just for fun. it certainly wasn’t the first time kat had heard such a tease from drea and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. then again, east coast technically included the limp dick of america: florida. 

“ mmhmm, yeah, ” she confirmed quickly. nodding her head and pressing lips together to try and hide her stupid shit eating smirk. even if it weren’t an exaggeration, drea hadn’t ever held much shame about what she got up to with boys, especially not with kat. “ spitters are in. ” she announced, only able to hold her faux seriousness for a moment before it broke with a giggle. tragically, that was not the case and even if it was, she wouldn’t know until someone told her that’s what they wanted.

berries would be too much sugar? yeah, okay, drea was suddenly reminded of how different her and her blonde best friend’s eating habits were. she lifted her shoulders in another shrug. “ anything but raisins. ” she offered, though really raisins wouldn’t be too bad in the granola bar. then another look of doubt coated her features. she could prove kat wrong, but she also didn’t believe it at all. “ no, there’s no way that’s true. ” she decided,  shaking her head before she took another sip of her coffee. then doubt was replaced by disgust. “ are you joking? that’s– ” she was cut off by kat shoving her pit into her face, giving out a quick scream and trying to push her back with her forearm “ no, stop it! that’s so gross, you’re actually disgusting. ” she complained, “ if you do that you’re not sleeping in the tent, those are the rules. ” 

“Bees don’t mean to kill anybody, they do it when they’re scared,” she reminded Andrea, “What about your super biceps? Maybe one punch and you could accidentally kill somebody too, that’s your curse of being so buff,” she squeezed Drea’s arm playfully, reminded of the way she’d referred to them as her “guns” during previous but equally as stupid conversations between the girls.

Kat couldn’t help but laugh, sure, Andrea’s comments painted the respectable city of Eden Prarie as a swamp-dwelling hick town but it was entertaining none-the-less, “Is that true?” she asked facetiously, raising an eyebrow. She clicked her tongue as if it was a tragedy that Andrea hadn’t grown up with the same inbred priveledges that Kat apparently had, “Well, my uncle-grandpa-cousin who is also my second cousin always taught me that manners maketh the man, so” she mused, continuing the gruesome gag.

In response to Andrea’s request, Katherine shook her head, “No, no raisins- they’re fucked,” she announced as if dried blueberries weren’t basically the same thing. “Oh!” she squeaked as a sudden realization struck her. With that, she stopped assaulting her best friend as if nothing had happened and lifted a finger, “I was thinking about that, actually,” actually, what she was thinking about had nothing to do with any of this but Katherine didn’t really grasp the idea of segues entirely, “We gotta bring like- a flask or something, somehow,” she hadn’t come up with a plan yet but it was in the works, evidently, “-and you know the forest is like, it’s like-” she stumbled on her words, having not thought them through, “If you look it up, getting high while you’re in nature is like the best experience for your soul, like you can have these really cool experiences-” or totally freak out, “-and it can change your life forever, like make you smarter,” she was very much rephrasing what she had read on the internet, arguably re-shaping the information she’d obtained in its entirety but she spoke with enough conviction to make it seem as if she was stating fact.

To Mags, it was nothing more than ironic that a camping trip had been scheduled shortly after their arrival, a trip organized by a faith that, historically, had an issue or two coexisting with their own going what was essentially one of their primary worship settings. It wasn’t at a total loss, though. Mags figured, if they played their cards right, they could sneak away to perform a quick, discreet ritual or at least sing a campfire song or tell a ghost story or two. If nothing else, it would be a good opportunity to reconnect with nature.

Mags wondered what, if anything, they’d be able to sneak away and do before anyone noticed they were gone. Honestly, there was probably quite a bit they could do, seeing as they hadn’t really made too many friends since arriving. As they paced through one of the student common areas, Mags wondered how long it might take them to find any other students who were as weird as they were, assuming there were any there to begin with. However, these musings were cut short when a very chipper looking blonde girl stopped them and asked to try some of whatever she had been baking at the moment.

Never one to turn down free food, Mags shrugged and reached toward the tray, only for it to be pulled back at the last minute. Mags recoiled as the girl asked if they were allergic to anything. Mags looked to the side for a few seconds before answering, “Not that I know of,” and taking a granola square from the tray.

“Sounds pretty vegan to me.” They said before taking a square from the tray and eating it. An expression to show that they were impressed had appeared on their face by the time they swallowed. “These are really good. What all did you use in these?”

“Do you think so?” Katherine had a habit of rhetorically questioning people even after they had blatantly stated their opinion. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe them, per se, or that she required any sort of further elaboration on the matter, it was purely inveterate. She smiled with self-satisfaction, pleased with her efforts as she popped a small chunk of her culinary accomplishment into her mouth, celebrating the feedback. “Mmm, there’s- it’s mostly oats, obviously, maple syrup- but the real stuff from Canada, there’s almonds, almond butter, some cinnamon and cardamom for the cozy taste, pumpkin and chia seeds for vitamins and stuff and then a little bit of- just a few blueberries- dried ones, I dried them myself- like the kitchen staff helped but it was my idea, so,” she thought that meant that it was basically, exclusively her achievement.

She set the tray down and leaned against the countertop comfortably, now that she was satisfied that her recipe was universally accepted (or close enough, anyway) she could relax until it was closer to the trip and she needed to prepare the final batch. “My plan is to bake them before the trip, let them cool and then wrap them up in parchment paper and take them hiking with us on the trip- so important to eat and drink when you’re hiking, you know?” most people did know that, it wasn’t exactly revolutionary thinking but since Kat tended to lack particularly impressive knowledge on any other front, she liked to share details like this as if she was teaching people a thing or two.

It should be no surprise that Alex hated camping — or at least, she would hate it, surrounded by Broadripple’s finest. There was a distinct lack of wilderness in New Canaan, no matter what her elementary school field trips to the nature center would try to have people believe. Ever since the announcement, she had been trying to brainstorm ways to get out of it. After Sister Florence saw through her very thinly veiled act of ‘coming down with something,’ she had accepted that she was indeed, going camping. It wasn’t too late to break a limb or something, but she was almost convinced she would be bandaged up and forced to limp along the trails anyway. 

It was like watching a beehive that had been poked with a stick — students were all buzzing about, everyone leaving the relative sanctity of their dorms to prepare. Watching the relative chaos was as good a way to pass the time as any, since she’d already shoved everything she planning to bring haphazardly into her backpack. Less than three minutes until her venture, she was stopped. She paused at the request, eying Kay with relative suspicion. In truth, she generally felt like most granola bars were like chewing on honey-coated rocks. “Dunno. Guess we’ll find out together.” Alex said, teasing lilt to her words as she raised an eyebrow, carefully selecting a corner piece from the tray. Taking a careful bite, she nodded, half chewing as she answering. “Not bad,” she started, slightly shielding her mouth with her hand as she pressed on. She had at least some manners. “What is in these —” She started, eyes momentarily going wide in feigned panic, a small cough escaping her. It only last for half a second, grin curving her lips as she swallowed, leaning against the countertop. “I almost failed drama. You know how shit an actor you have to be to get a D in drama?” She asked. “Really, though — what is in there?” She asked, nodding toward the tray.

While Kat and Alex weren’t particularly chummy by anybody’s definition of the term, there was nothing quite like free food to mend the bridge between classmates, she thought. With this in mind, she offered the handmade granola bars to the other girl with a warm smile, despite Alexandra’s evident hesitation. “Good luck then, I guess,” she mused in response. She had to assume that Alex was just messing with her, nobody in their right mind would risk anaphylaxis for the sake of a relatively unimportant taste test. Then again, Kat didn’t really have much evidence to support to the idea that Alex Maverick was indeed in her right mind. Oh well.

“Yeah?” she asked hopefully, it wasn’t the enthusiastic gushing nor showering of compliments that she’d hoped for but it wasn’t a bad response, she supposed...that was until Alex’s features shifted into a somber expression, a guttural cough ejecting from her throat and a look of panic replacing her previously jovial demeanor. “Oh my God,” Katherine uttered in a low tone, her heart rate picking up immediately and a tightening of her stomach muscles that felt like a jab to the middle but didn’t encourage her to actually put the tray down or do anything practical to help her classmate, other than watch with wide eyes.

“Oh my God!” she said again once the theatrics were over, this time her voice high and squeaky, scolding the other girl for making her stress over nothing. She set the tray down this time and touched her hand to her chest as her pulse returned to a normal rate, “Hello? I thought you were going to like- choke and die on the floor or something- I’d have to like, run into the woods and never come back,” she was obviously more worried about the consequences of Alexandra’s death at Katherine’s unintentional hand, rather than the death itself. “I think your drama teacher needs to go back to teaching school,” she decided, thinking that Alex’s performance had been much better than a D grade. She brushed loose crumbs off of her hands onto the floor and processed Alex’s question, “Just like- oats and some blueberries, cinnamon, and cardamom and some different kinds of seeds- what else do you think they need?”