@connyr0
Wendy was pleased to discover that walking right into the Senior cabin was a much less arduous process than checking herself in and out of Conny’s dorm building. Sure, she got a couple sidelong looks from a few students still milling about, clearly clocking her as one of the Juniors who tried to learn a TikTok dance over by the well the other day, but no one spoke up and stopped her from entering Room 3. Conny hadn’t been there—and that’s what Wendy was counting on. His bed was easy to spot, unmade with a Scream poster overlooking it; a crumpled up flannel sat at the foot, and it took a surprising amount of self control not to take it for herself. She wrote a flowery note to tell him to meet her at the bridge at three o’clock sharp with snacks in tow, then ripped out the page, folded it into into a cootie catcher, and left it on his pillow with a little heart scribbled on. For as frustrating it was to not be able to just text him the message, she always said letter writing must’ve been way more personal and she was thrilled to enact the practice.
At 2:56 PM, plucked dandelion in hand, Wendy peered over the bridge and down at the creek below. She liked the way the sunlight danced off it, twinkling as the clear water rushed over little pebbles and plants. She could see her reflection too, distant and distorted, and smiled slightly. She thought of Narcissus, turning into that pretty flower in a fiery passion, and tried to imagine what a Wendy-flower would look like. She always liked purple—but also yellow, of course, for Keough. Purple and yellow with lots of petals, she thought, like a dahlia. Those were her mom’s favorite. Or maybe like a snapdragon, shooting elegantly up toward the sky. She picked off a few petals from the dandelion and dropped them over the side, watching as they floated downstream, and hummed thoughtfully to herself. At the sound of footsteps, she turned. “I see you got my secret message,” she said. “I really wanted to do one of those invisible ink tricks, but it turns out lemons are not indigenous to the forests of Massachusetts.” Which she knew, but the idea popped into her head nevertheless. Her stomach quietly growled and her smile dropped. “What’s the snack situation?"
