Archive of Our Own

if longing is madness, then none of us are sane.
— crier’s war

One year ago, Enid discovered that she loved the color brown.

It had been a year since Enid had glanced at Ajax and seen brown eyes. That was why. It wasn’t because it had been a year since Enid had stared at Wednesday and seen a different pair of brown eyes, just a bit softer, and had been enchanted by their unsaid words.

Wednesday wasn’t the person who had made her love brown. She wasn’t, not even when her eyes fostered a mirthful flame, nor a quiet acknowledgment that rivaled evening rainfall, nor that stubborn determination she had grown to appreciate.

That’s all those pretty brown eyes made Enid feel: appreciation. Enid appreciated that midday sunlight turned them to honey, amber as molasses and heavenly as clouds at sunset. She appreciated that, when Enid’s twinkling fairy lights hit them just so, they pulled the universe to swirl in their depths. She didn’t love it. She appreciated it.

Maybe it had been three weeks ago, when Bruno had asked her out with a charming grin, that she realized she loved brown. His eyes had darkened familiarly, and they, too, had something mirthful swimming within them, and they were also stubbornly determined, but for all the wrong reasons. They weren’t reasons Enid knew.

But all of those things had existed, and Enid found them easy to grasp.

Propping her chin in her hand and swinging her feet in the air, Enid flipped the magazine resting on her bed. The images on its glossy surface stared back at her, but she didn’t register any of them.

Shafts of warm, slanted sunlight spilled through the dorm window, dappling the floorboards in gilded sheens and a myriad of colors. Across the room, Wednesday sat in her leather chair, leafing through the pages of a book with a worn spine. Even from the distance Enid stole a furtive glance from, she could see the speculative pinch of her mouth and the crease between her brows.

Enid felt an unbidden smile tug at the edges of her mouth, and she pulled her bottom lip between her teeth to stop it from growing. It was an impossible feat, though; when Wednesday muttered something under her breath and flipped the page again, her smile broke from its confines.

If there was a single thing Enid had learned about Wednesday in a year, it was that she rarely relaxed. Whether she was poring over the intricacies of a case or the plot of her novel, she was always tirelessly focused. Even now, her dark eyes narrowed as they flicked over a page.

In some way, Wednesday’s eyes were haunted. They weren’t haunted by the weight of sorrow, though. They were haunted by things Enid couldn’t name, things that felt a bit like the future and even less like the present.

Enid drew her attention back to her magazine lest she be caught staring. Of course, there was nothing wrong with watching Wednesday, nothing that should make her clutch some stowaway guilt. Friends observed each other all the time.

Friends knew what made each other’s lips quirk into the ghost of a smile. Friends knew what one another’s freckles looked like. Friends knew what it was like to cling to each other after narrowly escaping death. Friends knew what each other’s shampoo smelled like, and what time they woke up in the morning, and what their favorite serial killer was, and what each other’s coffee orders were.

Still, Enid didn’t want to be caught.

She flipped a page of her magazine and considered that, at some angles, Bruno’s eyes looked a bit like Wednesday’s. Though it had been Wednesday’s eyes that were haunted first, Enid had decided Bruno’s were haunted, too.

The day students had arrived back at Nevermore, Bruno, alongside his pack mates, had been in their room. When he had glanced up at her while crouched on the floor, Enid hadn’t coined his eyes as haunted yet.

The door to the dorm had swung open not long after. As soon as Enid had seen it was Wednesday who opened it, cementing her arrival in disgruntled shock and a dark coat, she had abandoned his side in favor of skipping over to her.

“Howdy, roomie!” she had said, the words flowing from her tongue as easily as a spring creek.

A thrill sent a trail of fire through her veins, its embers quickening the pace of her heart. She hadn’t seen Wednesday since her brief excursion to San Francisco during the summer. That gap in time was the only reason her heart faltered in her chest—or perhaps it was the excitement, or maybe even the safety of her presence. Enid wasn’t sure, and at some point, she resolved it wasn’t important to find out.

When Wednesday pulled those dark eyes away from the room and pinned them on her, Enid’s breath stalled in her chest, a stuttering and pitiful thing.

Haunted, she had thought as she lingered over the crease settled between her brows. For a moment, she vaguely registered Bruno, who was stagnant somewhere inside the room. It was then that she decided his eyes were haunted, too.

It was familiar—easy, in a sense, to associate them together.

It became a bit less easy when Wednesday handed her a doll with a sash reading Miss Kansas, emphasizing that it had human hair. It became a bit less easy when Wednesday explained, upon her hesitancy, that it had been a trophy of her favorite childhood serial killer. It became a bit less easy when Enid realized, through Wednesday’s quick, assessing glances and her hands folding behind her back, how much it meant to her, because it was so unequivocally Wednesday.

There wasn’t anyone like Wednesday Addams. No other eyes held her soul.

Still, Enid clung to what she could.

The snap of a book closing resounded behind Enid. She looked over her shoulder again. Wednesday stood from her chair with her book in hand. Enid followed her with her eyes, a moth to a lantern, as she walked to her desk and sat the book on its surface.

It was only when she grabbed the thick coat hanging on her desk chair and began shrugging it on that Enid realized she had been staring again. It took her a few more seconds to realize that Wednesday was intending to leave.

“Where are you heading?” she asked, sliding the magazine away and sitting up.

“I’ve got an errand or two in Jericho.” Wednesday glanced at the digital clock on Enid’s desk. “Don’t wait up on me.”

It was the kind of vague excuse Enid had come to recognize these past few weeks. She took it, even if it felt like thistle going down her throat.

“How long will you be?”

Wednesday slung her bag over one shoulder and slid a notepad into her pocket. “It might be a few hours. I’ll be back late.”

Enid couldn’t quell the unease her answer manifested. It settled deep in her gut, a specter lingering over her reservations. She could barely breathe past its clutches. Why wouldn’t she ever say where she was going?

Enid knew the answer: it was dangerous. Wednesday was already entwined in a web of pitfalls. She had been since the second day of the semester. She was hunting danger like a bounty hunter. Yet, when her back was turned, danger was hunting her. That might not scare Wednesday, but it scared Enid.

She decided to tempt fate. “Can I come?”

Four times. Enid had asked to come four times. She had been declined four times, too. She wondered if this request would mark a fifth or a first.

Wednesday fixed the collar of her jacket and slid her gaze to Enid. In the evening light, Enid caught her jaw ticking. It was subtle, but it was there. Wednesday was a person of subtlety. Enid saw her subtleties. Through fleeting glances and quiet mornings, she memorized them.

Eventually, she didn’t need an answer. Wednesday’s quiet stare was enough.

“Be safe,” she said, forcing the words out through the uneven catch of her breath.

Wednesday hummed, which wasn’t comforting in the slightest. She made for the door, hovering her hand over the knob, before casting another look back at Enid.

“I mean it,” she reiterated. “Don’t wait up on me.”

Enid smiled. “I will.”

She wasn’t lying, and Wednesday knew that. Just as all the other times, she would be waiting for the door to open, even if her eyes had begun to droop and her vision had begun to blur. Enid wouldn’t rest until Wednesday was back safe. It was foolish of her to entertain the idea that she would do otherwise.

In retrospect, maybe Wednesday didn’t entertain it at all. A knowing blink-and-you-miss-it smile of her own ghosted the edge of her mouth, and then she was gone. The echo of the door shutting pervaded the air, floating towards Enid with its belt of traitorous hymns. It was wrought with finality, but Enid hoped its stay was temporary.

Enid threw her magazine onto the floor and leaned over the side of her bed. She stuck her tongue out as she reached beneath her mattress, searching for a familiar shape. To her relief, her fingers curled around the edge of it. With a furrow of her brows, she tugged it into the open.

Enid shifted the little journal in her hands, running her thumbs over its surface. A pom-pom hung over the side of its built-in ribbon bookmark. Its weight felt forbidden in her grasp.

She snapped open the clasp and flipped to the middle of the book, where her secrets lie hidden and dormant.

Everything I love about you, read the top of the page, scribbled out in pink ink. After rework, left behind were the words My favorite things about you.

The page was not about Bruno, but instead Wednesday. The page was not about her boyfriend. It was about her best friend. Still, friends listed their favorite things about one another all the time.

A thread of guilt wove through her certainty, stitching lines through the precepts she held like a lifeline. It wasn’t the first time that Enid had wondered why she was so inclined to hide this journal. It also wasn’t the first time the thought had been disrupted by the image of willingly handing it to Wednesday. It was a terrifying idea, so easily overtaking any doubts she harbored about the secrecy of those bound pages. 

The journal could stay a secret. It had nothing to hide, but it needed to be hidden.

Swallowing, Enid read the first six numbers. Your dimples. When you play the cello to help me sleep. That face you make when you’re concentrated. Your sarcastic comments. The way you’re braver than I’ll ever be. Your eyes.

She reached to grab a pen from her desk and kept reading.

Your freckles. Enid tapped the page with her pen. Your braids. Your cute nose and the way it scrunches. The way you respect what I don’t like (you even took the murder board out of the room for me last year). Your confidence. Your acceptance of me for me. The way you’ll always fight for what you believe in. The way you don’t ridicule me or try to change who I am.

Enid read over the thirteen bullet points again before shooting a glance at the door Wednesday had retreated from. Enid lowered her pen to the page and began writing. Your stubbornness. You don’t take shit from anyone. You’re so headstrong and it’s so frustrating because sometimes you won’t ever back down, but I love it. You’re always steadfast in your beliefs, and it’s so irritating because you should listen to me more, but it’s also kind of endearing.

Enid stared at the word ‘endearing.’ Dread settled within her, as unpredictable as a storm brewing on the horizon. When it reached her, its downpour soaked her hair and dripped down her neck, and with it came all of the things she couldn’t escape. She crossed it out and wrote ‘charming.’ She scribbled that out, too, and finally wrote ‘admirable.’

It felt stilted. Fake. Maybe it wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the whole truth. She kept it there because it was none of those things.

It was with ease that she shut the journal and tucked it back beneath her mattress. It was with ease that she reached for her phone. Enid needed to be reminded of a face that wasn’t Wednesday’s, of a touch that wasn’t hers, and of words that didn’t come from her lips.

It was with ease that she watched the screen light up beneath her fingers, and it was with ease that she pulled up her text chat with Bruno.

Trying to forget about Wednesday’s absence was a bit more difficult.

. . .

The chains around Enid’s wrists were heavy, but more than anything, they burned.

Silver, she had thought when something pulled her from consciousness. She felt it at once—the searing, immobilizing singing that burned her skin and brought tears to her eyes.

Rarely did Enid have an encounter with silver. She had always taken the proper precautions to avoid proximity with it. She could hardly move beneath its lynching agony, let alone try to free herself.

Bruno was at her back, wriggling and writhing against their confines. He had asked if she was okay once, no doubt pinpointing what the chains binding them were made of if his hisses of pain were anything to go by, but she hadn’t been able to reply past the subdued whine rising in her throat.

Their captor remained an anonymous entity, for the blindfold that had covered Enid’s eyes had been ripped down only after she managed to steal her awareness back. She felt the fabric tickle her chin as she craned her neck to the side, straining to adjust her eyes to the darkness. She didn’t know where they were. She didn’t know how they’d gotten there. She could hardly recall what she had been doing before this. It was disorienting. She was apt to believe she had been deposited in an alternate reality and not a soul had bothered to tell her.

Amid the room that seemed to have no end, the only thing Enid was aware of was the blistering pain in her wrists, the pounding of her heart, and the boy at her back who felt more like a stranger than a boyfriend.

It was sudden. Quick. Enid felt the air shift above her before she heard the gears whirring.

She lifted her eyes to the ceiling, where dusky blue light managed to peer through holes near the top. It didn’t reach the ground, but it eclipsed the large platform beginning to lower from chains in the ceiling. Serrated points ringed its surface like a threatened animal’s bared teeth, and it was heading straight for them.

It’s going to crush us. Enid abruptly struggled against the chains bound around her wrists, even as every brush of metal augmented the tears in her eyes. She couldn’t get out; the silver had leeched the strength from her bones, and she was sure Bruno shared her affliction.

Confusion dazzled her vision, pursued only by sheer panic. What’s happening? She pulled at her chains again and hissed. Where are we? Bruno shouted something at her back. We’re going to die. The platform lowered down, down, down, and Enid was going to die.

When it was a mere two feet above them, she squeezed her eyes shut and hunched in her chair, biting back the terror building in her chest like a martyr.

At once, the gears groaned in protest. Enid chanced a glance upward, only to find sparks emanating from the depths of the ceiling. The platform stalled, swinging and precarious, as the minuscule firelight rained down upon them.

A door Enid hadn’t known existed slammed open to her right, spilling a path of dull light into the room. She snapped her head towards it.

Wednesday stood in the entrance, clutching an axe in one hand and holding the doorknob in another. The light at her back silhouetted her features, revealing the disheveled state of her hair and the heavy rise and fall of her chest.

It took Wednesday all of three seconds to drop her axe with a loud clang and hurry to her side. Enid couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her so disorderly.

Wednesday spared a single glance at Bruno before beginning to unwind the chains around Enid’s wrists. Enid winced, but the darkness veiled it, leaving Wednesday to finish loosening the chains around her and, by extension, Bruno. They clattered to the floor when Enid flung them away from her. Behind her, Bruno set to work freeing himself. 

Enid shot to her feet in front of Wednesday. She grabbed her shoulders roughly and looked over her, gripping her just a bit too desperately.

“Are you okay?” she breathed, finally lifting her gaze and meeting Wednesday’s eyes in the low light.

“Am I okay?” Wednesday echoed, appearing almost dumbfounded. “Are you?”

“I’m—” Enid stole a glance behind her, where Bruno was dropping the rest of his chains, and then to the platform hanging from the ceiling too low for comfort. The burning of her wrists prevailed amidst the beating of her heart, but it was subdued, a momentary reprieve. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

She turned back around, breathing heavily, and found Wednesday’s eyes again. After a moment of stillness, Wednesday raised her hands up and wrapped them loosely around Enid’s forearms. Enid rubbed her thumbs over her shoulders in return, swallowing the tightness in her throat.

Paired with the harrowing nature of their predicament, the worry painted across Wednesday’s face was obvious. It manifested in the downturn of her mouth, the furrowing of her brows, and the flicker of something Enid couldn’t identify in her eyes. They all tore Enid’s heart to smithereens. Why did it hurt so badly? Why did it hurt to be so gently handled by Wednesday when it was all Enid desired?

That realization sent her plummeting, but she forced her knees not to buckle. That realization made it hard to breathe, but she told herself it wasn’t true. It was born of a lie. It was born of dwindling adrenaline and near-death experiences, not of doubt festering beneath her ribcage. It wasn’t born of journals tucked beneath mattresses and long looks across the room in the middle of the night.

Wednesday let go of her. Enid couldn’t breathe.

Once Bruno had relinquished the hold of his chains, he sidled up beside Enid, his gaze swimming with something that felt unnervingly like suspicion.

Enid couldn’t breathe.

Wednesday raised her chin and met his eyes. Something flashed across her face, far less tender than what she had offered Enid mere seconds before, and her eyes hardened.

Before Bruno could say a word, Wednesday turned her back to the two of them, leaning down to grab her discarded axe. Enid felt a dejected pang curl in her lungs, but it didn’t last long; Wednesday glanced at the door, an invitation built on a year’s worth of studying one another’s mannerisms.

Enid accepted it easily. After a quick glance and obligatory smile to ensure Bruno was fine, she left him in the room, following Wednesday out the door and trying not to feel as though she was being ripped in two.

Their shadows fell along the walls of the spiraling staircase they walked down. Wednesday’s face was bruised from the light spilling from the slim windows they passed, painted in hues of misty blue. As they passed the last window, she glanced at Enid, catching her eye and keeping it for longer than necessary. Enid looked away first.

“What was that?” she managed to ask after they reached the bottom of the staircase. She wrung her hands together, careful not to brush her tender wrists against anything. When they kept walking, she catalogued their surroundings, piecing them together until they became familiar. “Are we in the clock tower?”

“Yes. Someone managed to tie you up and distract me from a lead I was pursuing,” Wednesday said, her voice taut.

“How did you know we were up there?” Enid asked, deciding not to dwell on how whoever captured them had known Wednesday would have come for her. She tried not to think about how Wednesday did just that.

“A note.” Wednesday shifted her axe to her opposite hand. “Did you see who it was?”

“No. I was barely even awake before the blindfold was taken down,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Wednesday replied. She seemed genuine, but her tone hardened upon her next words. “Did Bruno see who it was?”

“Oh. I don’t—” Enid paused, chewing on the inside of her mouth. Nearly every conversation they had about him led to bristled hackles and biting words. Enid retreated into her shell every time, spitting the venom that kept her safe, but Wednesday never would back down. “Um, I didn’t ask him. I don’t think so.”

Wednesday hummed, unconvinced.

“I’m serious.” Enid tugged at Wednesday’s bicep, forcing her to stop walking. Wednesday kept her face stubbornly tilted away, much too focused on the control panel across the room. “I get that you don’t like him but come on. He was tied up, too!”

“Easy way to avoid blame,” Wednesday commented.

“Wednesday, stop. He hasn’t even done anything to you,” she said defensively. “How would he have tied himself up?”

“Why don’t you ask him?” Wednesday finally cut her gaze at Enid, who exhaled frustratedly and clenched her jaw. Beneath Wednesday’s gaze, now fortified with something Enid rarely saw nowadays, that frustration trickled into hesitance.

“He would have told me,” she said. It sounded more like she was trying to convince herself than Wednesday.

Wednesday seemed unaware of her inner qualms. “I don’t know why I bother,” she muttered, pushing Enid’s wrist away from her arm. Enid hissed at the contact.

Wednesday’s face shifted almost imperceptibly. Her frustration turned into something else as well. Enid wasn’t sure what it was.

She reached for Enid’s hand and turned it over in her grasp, inspecting the burns on her wrist. Enid’s heart stuttered at the gentle examination. She wasn’t able to stop herself from taking a step closer.

“They used silver,” Wednesday said, her voice pinched. She traced the skin beside the irritated burns. Her featherlight touch sent a fluttering jolt up Enid’s arm, intoxicating and addicting. She couldn’t see Wednesday’s face well, but she saw her brows furrow.

“It’s okay,” Enid murmured, her palm tingling where Wednesday held it. “It’ll just heal slowly. I’m fine, really.”

When Wednesday kept a hold on her hand, she lightly added, “Hey, at least it wasn’t a bullet or something. I’d be dead right now.”

When Wednesday lifted her eyes again, they were anything but amused. She opened and closed her mouth. The crease between her brows deepened. Before Enid could say anything, she dropped her hand.

“There’s a first aid kit in the dorm,” she said. Enid picked up on the unspoken insinuation immediately. They had come to an agreement, somewhere between near-misses and infringing information, that it was better to steer clear of the infirmary where possible.

“What about your lead?” Enid lowered her hand, realizing she had kept it where Wednesday let it go. “Are you going to lose it?”

Wednesday stared at her for a long moment. “I’ll figure it out. Let me—” a glance down, an inhale, “—let me help you with this.”

Wednesday was abandoning an aspect of her investigation in favor of helping tend to her wounds. While they hadn’t hailed from any fault of Wednesday’s, Enid suspected there was something lingering beneath her request, unspoken but potent in its entirety. She would have agreed under any circumstance, but that obvious falter was more than enough reason to nod.

The only movement near them was the occasional sparks streaking from the control panel. They highlighted the frizz of Wednesday’s hair and came to rest in her eyes; in doing so, they pulled the sky down to reside alongside them. In the brief second that gilded sheen danced within Wednesday’s eyes, Enid entertained becoming an astronomer.

Under the light of the destruction she caused, Wednesday was radiant. It was undeniable. That didn’t mean Enid wouldn’t try denying she had ever thought that.

“Okay,” she said, and she hadn’t meant to sound so breathless.

Wednesday looked her up and down, like something was hanging just off her tongue, but she stayed silent. When she began walking again, Enid fell into step beside her. She thought it better not to ask what Wednesday had been thinking. She didn’t want to know—no, maybe she did. Maybe she just didn’t want to decipher her own tangled maelstrom of thoughts.

When they reached the bottom floor, Wednesday walked ahead of her. Enid watched her and discredited her previous resolution. There was nothing for her to decipher.

. . .

Camp Jericho was nestled in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, built on slippery creek stones and fog wedged between valleys. It was far enough outside of town that nobody would come looking if someone were to disappear, but close enough to reach wider civilization.

A light drizzle caught the breeze and fell atop Enid’s hair, a product of the overcast veiling the sun. She hoisted her bag over one shoulder and rocked on her heels in the check-in line stationed just inside the gates. Far behind her, idling beside the bus, Wednesday was speaking to Pugsley. Barely lifting the coffin suitcase he’d brought along, he matched his sister’s exterior, clad in black clothes fit for outdoor ventures. While Wednesday’s face seemed severe, Pugsley’s was anything but. Even from this distance, Enid could see a bit of amusement tugging at his lips. Whatever Wednesday was saying was evidently going to be taken with a grain of salt.

Enid strode a few paces forward in line, rubbing the strap of her bag between her fingers. As the rain lightened up, Wednesday approached her, adjusting the collar of her glossy puffer vest.

“What was that about?” Enid asked amusedly.

“Just a word of warning,” Wednesday replied, casting another look at Pugsley, who filed into a separate line with Eugene. Enid waved at the pair. Wednesday tssked and turned back to her, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Well,” Enid began, extending the l and clasping her hands behind her back, “you’ve got the whole week to give him some more words of warning, so relax. Besides, your parents are here.”

Wednesday blinked once. “Joy.”

Enid rolled her eyes, deciding not to call bullshit. “Are you worried about him causing shenanigans?”

“No. He’s going to,” Wednesday said. “I don’t care whether he does or doesn’t. I just need him to leave me out of them so I can focus.”

“Come on.” Enid offered her a mischievous grin. “We’re in the great outdoors. You can afford to have fun for a few days. What’s the harm?”

“There’s a lot of harm in not being vigilant, Enid,” Wednesday refuted. She adjusted the black duffel bag strung over her shoulder and moved her gaze over the scene before them. Camp counselors mulled about like worker bees, hurrying to wrangle the gaggle of rowdy teenage outcasts, while the accompanying Nevermore staff waited past the gates for their assigned students to join them.

“I’m pretty sure the tent groups are mostly the same as the Halls,” Enid said as they moved up a few spots in line. “I read over it in the brochures they gave us before leaving. There’s different sites for the tents, so they’re not all in one place.”

“Really?” Wednesday asked, and it didn’t take Enid even a second to detect the sarcasm in her voice. She glared at her. She wasn’t sure how successful it was, but Wednesday didn’t say anything else.

Enid continued, “I’m pretty sure there actually aren’t as many tent sites as dormitories, so I’m just assuming they’ll be similar.”

Wednesday hummed. “You wrote us down to share a tent, right?”

Camp Jericho had but a sparse selection of one-person tents, leaving any student with a roommate to pick someone to share a two-person tent with. Students weren’t required to choose their current roommate, so long as they chose someone, but Enid had still written them down together on the sign-up sheet. She hadn’t asked, really—she just assumed they would be sharing one.

“Yeah.” Enid glanced at her. “I just figured—”

“No, that’s fine,” Wednesday interrupted. She kept staring ahead.

“Fine?” Enid echoed, just to make sure.

“Fine.”

“Fine, cool. Okay. Yeah.”

A heavy silence settled between them as the line in front of them dwindled. It wasn’t uncomfortable, but it shadowed them, nonetheless, underscored with something unnamed. By the time they stepped up to the check-in table, Enid had stolen four more glances at Wednesday.

Checking in was less time-consuming than it was disorderly. The pair of students in front of them had managed to knock the jar of pens to the ground. Enid had spent 30 seconds finding them all in the grass and putting the jar back upright, much to the frazzled counselor’s appreciation. Once Enid had the sticky note with their tent spot number clutched in her hand, they made their way over to their group.

“2B,” she read off it.

“You can take our bags to our spot,” Wednesday said, taking the paper out of her hand and sliding the bag off her shoulder. She handed it to Enid’s limp hand with the ghost of a smirk. “I’ll get our tent.”

Enid slipped Wednesday’s bag over her arm with ease, which wasn’t lost on Wednesday; she looked Enid over for longer than necessary. Her following nod broke whatever spell had overtaken them. She turned on her heel and headed towards one of the log buildings, leaving Enid to shift the bags on her back, exhale, and make her way to Campsite B.

Fifteen minutes later, after Enid had deposited their bags at the tree beside their tent spot, she set to work clearing out an even spot to put their tent down. Hunched over the ground, she threw a stick into the brush, relishing in the sunlit dapples that had managed to peer through the mantle of clouds. As she stood up and kicked an acorn away, the crunch of leaves signaled Wednesday’s arrival.

“Home sweet home,” Enid said, gesturing to the space in front of her. Bordered by two trees, it was padded with moss, providing cushion amongst the roots and dirt. The closest tent site was at least six yards away.

“We’ve got a problem.” Wednesday stopped at her side and dropped a long bag at their feet. Enid blinked at it before looking up at her.

“They assigned us a one-person tent,” she continued, nudging the bag with her boot. “They overbooked, but they had a few singles left. You’d think the mounds of cash they have flowing into this circus would be enough to afford plenty of spares.”

“Oh.” Enid fidgeted with her hands. She tried to ignore the heat she felt crawling up her neck. “Well, I’m sure it’ll be big enough for the both of us.”

“Barely, if at all,” Wednesday said, leaning down to unzip the top of the bag. When she began pulling it out, she paused. Resting in her white-knuckled grasp was hot pink fabric.

Enid couldn’t bite back her grin. She hadn’t known seeing Wednesday sleeping in a pink tent was on her ‘must see’ list until now, but she couldn’t dispose of the image once it was in her head. If the cutting look sent her way was anything to go by, Wednesday was unamused with her delight.

Enid laughed, then covered her mouth with her hand. She wasn’t able to abate her grin, though. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” When Wednesday sighed and continued sliding it out of the canvas bag, she shifted on her heels. “I can go see if someone will trade with us. Maybe a—”

Couple. The word teetered on her tongue, flinging itself from the precipice of something Enid didn’t want to digest. A couple might have been inclined to trade tents with them, but speaking that aloud would suggest that this tent was fit for couples. And they weren’t—they weren’t a couple. They were friends. Best friends. Enid didn’t want them to be anything else, and she certainly wasn’t going to imply that only couples would share a tent fit for one person. But the thought of sharing such a small space with Wednesday, of curling ever so closer against her side, of meeting her eyes in the darkness and brushing her hair away from her face was a bit too tempting.

She felt sick.

The only thing she received in response to her hesitation was a speculative glance, but it managed to sear her nerves, nonetheless. Wednesday slid the tent all the way out and tossed the bag aside.

“There’s no need,” she said, eyeing the tent. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

That was quite the contrasting sentiment to the one she had preached not even a minute ago. It only served to enhance the lump Enid felt building in her throat. She tried to reply, but her tongue felt like cotton. Her mouth was parched. She took a tiny step backward, unable to moderate the dissonance ringing in her head. It manifested in dark spots at the edge of her vision, and she was suffocating in them.

“I think—” Enid’s words caught in her throat again. Wednesday looked up at her. She tossed her thumb over her shoulder weakly, hoping the gesture appeared natural and not like Enid was pretending to be something she wasn’t. “I think I left my phone on the bus. Yeah. Um—I’ll be right back. Right back.”

Her voice, shaky and pitiful, trembled over hurried syllables. Wednesday furrowed her brows, as though she saw directly through her, and Enid wanted to cry. That was the last thing she wanted. There was nothing for Enid to hide, but she wanted to stay hidden.

Wednesday wordlessly nodded, relieving her of her perception. It wasn’t for long, though; when Enid turned away, she felt her gaze follow her. The suspicion along its precepts was tangible, so thick that Enid felt she could touch it, but she didn’t look back. To look back would be to acquiesce all that she wanted to withhold. To look back would be to fail. To look back would be to meet her eyes and wonder why it felt like falling.

To look back would be to admit that she already knew why.

The ground tilted beneath her as she walked. Her knees nearly met the grass. The drizzle was no longer her respite, but instead her tormentor, for it stole the breath from her lungs and forced tiny gasps to bubble from her lips. The clouds darkened on the horizon. Her lungs burned. They wouldn’t work. Her classmates glanced at her as she passed them with her nails dug into her arms. They know. They know.

Enid found herself in a storage closet in a building she didn’t know the name of, clutching her knees to her chest and burying her face in the safety of them. She felt the tears through the wet fabric against her skin before the first sob escaped her lips. She didn’t let another run free.

And Enid Sinclair picked up the fragments of what she thought was true, piecing them back together with flimsy tape, because that’s all she knew to do. She idled in front of a dusty mirror until her eyes no longer shone with tears and her cheeks were no longer splotched with red. In the nine minutes she spent hiding, she wondered what was wrong with her.

. . .

Two days passed.

Amber spilled in flames within a firepit before Enid. It lit the undersides of the trees, casting a glow against their rough bark. The foliage swaying beneath the gentle breeze preened beneath its touch. Tendrils of smoke upheaved the night air, swirling upward and veiling the stars that managed to peer through gaps in the treetops.

The heat from the fire buffeted Enid’s face like a cloak, but it was welcome. She had always liked bonfires. During summertime, when things had been simpler and Enid hadn’t yet failed, she would return from the neighborhood park with grass stains on her knees and dirt smudged on her face to huddle in front of the bonfire her father had prepared out back. The city lights had always obstructed the stars, so Enid liked to imagine the embers floating in the air were stars, swirling and dancing across a canvas they couldn’t touch.

Enid shifted on the log she sat upon, holding a stick into the firepit. She could already smell the smoke clinging to her hair, tinged with hints of sap and fallen leaves. She breathed it in and rotated the stick in her hand, watching the marshmallow at the end of it bubble and brown.

Just three minutes ago, Bruno had left her side, failing to convince her to accompany him out into the woods. Campers weren’t supposed to venture into the woods at night without supervision, and Enid wasn’t vying to get in trouble and ruin what was supposed to be a fun trip. He probably wanted to sneak off and make out. Enid didn’t. She never did. She made up thousands of excuses every time. That didn’t mean he didn’t try.

She swallowed the gnawing feeling in her throat and watched the marshmallow turn black.

The chatter from her classmates reached her ears from their places around the fire. She heaved a sigh and drew the marshmallow out of the fire, blowing out the flame that had caught on it. Gingerly adjusting it so that it wouldn’t fall off the stick, she leaned down to grab the plate at her feet.

“Did you mean to burn it that much?” a voice asked at her back. Enid sat up and smiled to herself. She placed the plate in her lap, lying one of the Hershey chocolate bars on a graham cracker.

“What do you mean?” she asked, moving her grip on the stick upwards so that she could put it on the cracker.

“You don’t strike me as the type to burn your marshmallows to a crisp.”

“Me? No way. I’ve always burned my marshmallows like this,” she replied. Wednesday sat down on the log beside her. Enid paused her struggling and stared at her unfinished treat. It was incredibly difficult to fix one-handed. She grabbed Wednesday’s hand out of her lap and pushed the stick into it, making her blink.

“Hold this,” Enid said, sticking out her tongue. Wednesday wordlessly complied, which left Enid to sandwich the marshmallow between her graham crackers and pull it off the stick.

Enid took the stick from her and propped it against the log. “Thanks.”

Wednesday’s only reply was a nod. Enid took a bite of her s’more and looked at her. “Do you want one?”

Wednesday turned her eyes away from the fire and stared at her.

“I’ve been told I’m, like, the best s’more maker in San Francisco before. I bet I’m the best s’more maker in Vermont, too,” Enid bargained. Wednesday kept staring, unamused. Enid tilted her chin down and jutted her bottom lip out. “Not even just a burnt marshmallow?”

Wednesday sighed and pulled her eyes away. “Maybe.”

Enid grinned and knocked their shoulders together. The crackling of the fire in front of them occupied the silence left by their dwindling conversation. Where Enid’s chest had felt heavy with dread moments before, warmth now pervaded it. Soft and unrivaled in tandem, it sent pleasant tingles down to her fingertips, a sensation she wanted to cling until the night turned to dawn. Wednesday always managed to kindle such a reaction. Whether it was her comments or her presence, she was a haven. A home, even.

The flickering light in front of Wednesday accentuated her face, highlighting the dark of her eyes until they glinted like polished copper. Beneath the luster of the firelight, Enid could see the soft sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. A few more had popped out since arriving at the camp, no doubt from the past two days spent traipsing the outdoors in the sun. Her hair was wilder than she tended to keep it. Strands stuck out from her braids, blown awry by the day’s ventures, and her bangs were a bit disheveled.

Wednesday sent a wayward glance her way, then turned to face Enid when she clocked her look. Enid froze, both at being caught and the flecks of golden light dancing in Wednesday’s eyes.

“What?” Wednesday said.

Enid swallowed as she stared at her. She could be honest. Friends did this.

“You just look really pretty,” she whispered.

Even though it felt like something was collapsing within Enid, she kept where she was. She couldn’t look away. The girl in front of her was worth remembering, in this moment and every one to follow.

Wednesday’s eyes widened. It was subtle, so minuscule that one could easily miss it, but Enid didn’t. It kickstarted her heart and numbed her defenses. She could feel an apology building in her, an explanation, but neither of them made it past her lips. She was rendered useless, entirely at the will of Wednesday, and she could only hope she wouldn’t peel back the trapdoor to her heart and see the truths within. How would Wednesday react when she was barren of lies?

I’m not lying. Enid’s pinkie finger brushed against Wednesday’s on the log. I’m not lying about anything.

Wednesday opened and closed her mouth, but she said nothing. Enid couldn’t read her, which was a bit terrifying. Over the past year, she’d gotten really good at reading Wednesday. Enid’s ears began to ring.

She knows. She knows. She knows.

What did she know? What did Enid know?

Her thoughts were disrupted when Wednesday nudged her pinkie back against hers. She turned her face away and exhaled, leaving Enid to study her side profile with expanding worry. Enid glanced down to where their hands connected at their fingers. Though it felt like she was doing something forbidden, she lifted her pinkie and wrapped it over Wednesday’s.

The silence continued before:

“Thank you,” Wednesday said, staring into the fire. “You look beautiful.”

Enid’s world screeched to a halt. To be so revered by Wednesday was a feeling unlike any other. She forced a shaky smile through the heat crawling up her ears and the tears threatening to blur her eyes. She knew what this was. She didn’t want to.

She couldn’t run away again. More than anything, beneath the panic churning her breaths, she didn’t want to. Instead of tumbling out another excuse, Enid kept herself rooted to the log, to that moment, and to her place at Wednesday’s side.

She didn’t trust herself to say anything, so she finished the last of her s’more in silence. Once she was finished, she unwound her finger from Wednesday’s, only to pick up her hand and tug it into her lap. Cradling it within her palms, she ran her thumbs over her knuckles and down her fingers, tracing the black chipping polish on her nails. To her relief, Wednesday decided not to mention it. Enid fiddled with her hand while the vestiges of her world continued to crumble.

Wednesday seemed unaware that she was both her anchor and her downfall, and for that, Enid was grateful.

Enid had never done this before. In fact, she hadn’t ever held Wednesday’s hand at all. She decided that this was close enough. Wednesday’s hands were more worn than one would expect, exposed to the elements of her writing and the echoes of past experiences. Enid flipped her hand so that her palm was facing upright, tracing the lines on it, before turning it over again.

Finally, Wednesday’s curiosity seemed to get the better of her. “What are you doing?”

“You have interesting hands,” Enid said, the excuse easy. It wasn’t entirely an excuse. She was studying Wednesday’s hand, but she wanted to hold it just for the sake of holding it, too.

“That’s not an answer,” Wednesday said. She didn’t seem to mind much because she flicked her eyes up and continued: “Why do you say that?”

Enid hadn’t prepared an answer for that. She had been foolish for thinking Wednesday would let it go.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, a person’s hands say a lot about them, right? People have scars. I think those scars say things. And you . . .” Enid inspected her palm again and ran her fingers over the calluses on them, “you’ve got little calluses from writing on your fingers, but you also have them on your palm. Maybe from rock climbing yesterday?”

Enid held her hand out in front of her, revealing her own set of calluses. “I mean, that rope was pretty tough. I got some, too.”

Wednesday hummed at her side. Her gaze was dark and weighted on Enid, but Enid kept her attention fixed on her hand. She tried to, at least. It was proving very difficult.

After a long moment of Wednesday not saying anything, Enid finally lifted her head again. Her breath shook when Wednesday tilted her chin to the side, meeting her eyes with something that looked like intrigue.

Enid wasn’t sure what she was going to say, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know, so she blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Do you have any lip balm?”

“What?” Wednesday said, clearly taken aback by the sudden change in topic.

“My lips are really dry,” Enid explained, licking them for good measure. Wednesday’s eyes dropped down and back up, glinting with tinges of fire, and the quick movement sent a jolt through her heart. “Do you have some? I didn’t bring any with me.”

Wednesday leaned backward and drew her hand away, leaving Enid with a persevering sensation in her own palms, cold and empty where it had once been. She slipped her hand into the pocket of her vest and resurfaced with a tube of lip balm.

This time, it was Wednesday who grabbed Enid’s hand, dropping the lip balm into it. Enid’s fingers curled around it as she murmured a quiet thanks.

Enid knew that, resting at the bottom of her bag in the tent, a tube of lip balm was nestled among her cosmetics. She had brought one. But it was back in their tent across the camp, and she didn’t want to walk back there. That’s why she lied. It wasn’t because Wednesday’s lips had touched this same lip balm. It was the thought of walking back to the tent to retrieve something so menial that made her hand tremble when she applied it. It wasn’t because this was Wednesday’s lip balm.

A guilt so potent she could taste it infiltrated her senses when she capped the tube and handed it back to Wednesday, who took it and looked away. Enid lifted a finger to her lips. Her heart fluttered, a traitorous and electrifying sensation. She clenched her hands into fists and dropped them back to the log.

She should have gone back to get her own. She shouldn’t have used Wednesday’s. She felt dirty, wrong, like she had somehow tarnished Wednesday’s trust and cast it to the wind like it was nothing—like it wasn’t the most important thing to her.

Enid opened her hands and wrapped them over her knees, attempting to abate their quivering. She was mildly successful, which she was grateful for; it was rare that something evaded Wednesday’s detection, and she didn’t have an excuse prepared on her tongue this time.

She didn’t find Wednesday’s hand again. She couldn’t trust herself not to be selfish and take it. She couldn’t trust herself to let go.

Maybe that’s what scared her the most.

. . .

Enid had been camping in a tent plenty of times. Once, on a summer trip to Washington, she and her brothers had all managed to pile into a tent fit for three. It wasn’t without its problems, but they had all been younger and far more forgiving of grudges. A kick to the shin in the middle of the night did no harm when settled with games of frisbee come day.

She had always liked tent camping, and she had never had a problem squeezing into a tighter space to make do with what she had. The uneasy fluttering of her heart was something unfamiliar in circumstance but familiar in verse. Because while Enid didn’t mind sharing a tent, she had never shared one with Wednesday—who rarely allowed such prolonged proximity—especially not one fit for only a single person.

Two weeks ago, she might not have known why it made such a difference. It would have roiled in the back of her mind with the animosity of a horizon-dwelling storm, but that was all it would have done: idled, never to release its downpour. At some point, the gates had flung wide open, and sheets of rain warped Enid’s world. The rain dripping down her lashes wasn’t unknown to her, not anymore, but she was determined to cleanse herself of the droplets regardless.

Beyond the bounds of the polyester tent fabric, rustling stirred the stillness brought forth by night. In the depths of the foliage just beyond her place, crickets hummed their synchronous tune, spurred onward by their companions’ voices until their chirping swelled into a crescendo. It was a welcome reprieve from the haste of Enid’s thoughts. She shuffled around in her sleeping bag and pressed her back against the wall of the tent. Drawing a blanket over her crossed legs, she shone a miniature flashlight onto the pages of the book in her lap, chewing on her lip and trying to avoid thinking about the inevitable.

Unfortunately, the inevitable came knocking on her door not three minutes later. Enid drew her eyes upward as the tent flap zipped open, revealing Wednesday’s silhouette outlined against the distant light. Holding a pair of folded clothes to her chest, she hunched over and stepped inside. Enid held the flashlight up for her as she zipped the tent up again and turned around.

Her heart lurched into her throat like it had the past two nights. She forced it back down and eased her book shut with a smile. “Hey.”

Wednesday offered her a nod and shuffled through her bag, depositing the clothes she’d worn that day into it. Now clad in silk pajamas, her hair was dripping with the remnants of a shower. The essence of her unscented shampoo preened within the small space, amplified by Enid’s sensitive nose. It wasn’t as though she wasn’t used to seeing Wednesday like this—rough edges dulled by her nightly routine, movements sluggish in a way she wouldn’t allow during the day—but proximity had a tendency to magnify every sensation, and Enid was feeling its effects.

Wednesday ran her fingers down one of her damp braids and stepped past Enid, shuffling into her own sleeping bag and reminding Enid of what little space they had. She could feel the air move as Wednesday unfolded her covers. She was close enough that Enid’s eyes picked up the awry strands of hair against her face and the furrow of her brow as she tried, presumably, not to encroach on Enid’s space.

The adrenaline of the day’s activities had begun to wear off, leaving Enid mildly sore. A twinge in her shoulders now accompanied the calluses on her hands, but they weren’t unwelcome. If anything, they were the manifestation of good memories.

After she had downed another s’more or two, she had hurried off to the showers to rid her hair of the smoke scent and had conveniently forgotten to tell Bruno goodnight. Enid wanted to be sure it wouldn’t be a problem. They would see each other tomorrow, bright and early, just as they’d been doing for the past few weeks. Enid knew it would be a subject of discussion, nonetheless. Bruno was peculiar about things like that. Anytime Wednesday mentioned it, she would tell her the same thing: he was just worried about her. He just wanted her to be safe. Maybe he was a little protective, but he meant well.

He didn’t always seem to know what the word ‘no’ meant, and sometimes his grasp was too tight, but he occupied a growing hole in her heart. He was there to fill it, and his presence meant she didn’t need to address it, so she welcomed it. He didn’t quite fit into place exactly right—his piece wasn’t meant for that gaping sore in her chest—but she forced it in anyway, even as that wound grew into a gash and turned to infection.

Her face must have reflected her thoughts because Wednesday stared at her and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Enid tucked her book down at the foot of her sleeping bag, keeping her face turned away in the darkness. “Nothing. I’m good. Peachy. Um, were the showers busy?”

Wednesday had that look on her face. Given away by the twitch of her brows and the narrowing of her eyes, it was a look Enid knew well: suspicious, just on the border of concluding. It was Enid’s new goal to ensure she didn’t reach that conclusion.

“No,” she finally said, rolling her sleeves up twice. “Thankfully. I’m not sure if our classmates don’t think they need to bathe in the wilderness or are simply too preoccupied to do so, but it spares me the trouble.”

Enid smiled and shuffled back in her sleeping bag. “Well, at least you had it to yourself. Someone was blasting music when I was in there and one of the counselors had to—”

Her breath stuttered and died in her throat.

After rolling up her sleeves, Wednesday had taken to sliding the elastic bands from the end of her hair and deftly unwinding her braids from their taut position. Enid stared, wide-eyed, as Wednesday undid the last of one braid and set to work on another.

Wednesday had never, never let her hair down in front of Enid. If there was another thing Enid knew about Wednesday, it was that her hair was sacrosanct to her. It was special. Enid couldn’t recall a time she had seen anyone touch it, and she couldn’t recall a time she had seen it in a different style other than the Rave’N.

It was so jarring that Enid was apt to wonder if Wednesday had forgotten she was there.

That couldn’t be right, though, because Wednesday met her gaze as damp, wavy strands fell down her back and around her shoulders before quickly flitting away. Oh. Wednesday finished undoing the last of her other braid and snapped the band around her wrist. She carefully ran her fingers through her hair and freed the loose tangles within. Oh.

Flyaway wisps strung around her face and curled with minds of their own. Enid closed her mouth only when she realized it had fallen open—not a lot, but enough for her to notice. She swallowed and tugged her eyes to the ground, doing her best to rein in her thumping heart, but the reins were dry and cracked and on the verge of snapping.

Wednesday stopped after a long moment of adjusting her hair, like she couldn’t get it just right. It was after Enid counted another eleven seconds that she looked up again, finding Wednesday’s lips pursed and her brows furrowed.

A beat passed.

“You’ve never let your hair down in front of me before,” Enid whispered. She hadn’t meant to sound so breathless.

“No,” Wednesday agreed, glancing away and busying herself with looking through her bag. Clearly, she wasn’t interested in talking about it.

“It’s—” Enid shifted onto her hands and offered a little smile. She wasn’t going to make a big deal about it. She figured that was the last thing Wednesday wanted, even if Enid found it a bit difficult to breathe properly while watching her. “It’s really pretty. Super long, too.”

Wednesday blinked at her before tucking her feet beneath her legs. It was a look so soft, so domestic, that Enid felt herself grow a bit dizzy.

“I let it dry a bit more sometimes before braiding it again,” Wednesday explained after a moment. “When you’re not in the room, typically.”

“Oh,” Enid said. She wasn’t sure what else to say. She was actively processing two things. One: Wednesday was allowing Enid to be around her this time. Two: she had braided her hair to walk back in case she ran into anyone else, but had intended to let it down in the privacy of their tent with Enid beside her.

These past two nights, they had spent the time leading up to sleep in companionable silence. And just like those past nights, this one was met with a comfortable quiet, something worth treasuring, something she shouldn’t warp with her despicable heart. As such, Enid bit her tongue and reached down to grab her book again, angling herself away from Wednesday and choking down the fluttering sensation resting at the base of her throat.

She tried her best to ignore the weight of Wednesday’s presence at her back. Enid was hyper aware of every shuffle, every breath, and every displeased exhale that expelled from Wednesday’s nose when she encountered something that confounded her in the book she read. It was almost maddening.

The most irritating thing about it was how utterly normal Wednesday seemed. She settled in for the night each time like this wasn’t odd, like they did this all the time. It led Enid to wonder if she was the only one affected by such a predicament. It led her to consider she was the only one feeling far more than she should feel. She was the one being weird about this, not Wednesday.

Enid was more than frustrated with herself. What was wrong with her? She flipped a page in her book without reading it. Why couldn’t she act normal? The light of her flashlight shook as a result of her quivering hand. She stole a look over her shoulder at Wednesday, who was sitting much too close, nestled in her sleeping bag with her own book in her lap.

Enid lingered for longer than necessary. Her lip trembled as she watched Wednesday, her stare unabashed beneath the protection of night. As her heart skipped in her chest, she wondered why she couldn’t not only act normal, but be normal. Because whatever this was—whatever this thing was she felt for the girl at her side—she wasn’t supposed to be feeling it, and it was tearing her apart.

After a long moment of silence, she gave up trying to digest the words on the page. She kept her book and flashlight in hand solely to appear as though she was occupied. Enid was occupied, but that entailed trying to act casual in Wednesday’s proximity, not reading. Once she kept up the farce long enough, she snapped her book shut and clicked the button on the end of her flashlight, dousing the tent in darkness.

Warmth stirred beside her, and it was only then that she realized she had taken Wednesday’s light source, too.

“Sorry,” Enid said quickly. “Did you want to keep it on?”

“No.” She heard Wednesday shuffle not even a foot away. The movement disturbed the air at the back of Enid’s neck. When she angled herself away from the tent wall, she found Wednesday setting her book aside and re-braiding her hair, her silhouette just barely visible. Enid watched her in lazed silence as her keen eyes adjusted to the dimness. Wednesday didn’t seem to mind, not really, which was good because Enid barely registered that she was doing it. She wasn’t sure if it was Wednesday or the night that stripped away her inhibitions. She hoped it was the latter. She knew it wasn’t.

That private admission was enough to have her pulling her lip between her teeth and tightening her grip on her own book. With lingering finality, she set it down as well, shifting onto her back and pulling her silky covers atop her. She propped a single hand behind her head and fisted her blanket with the other, shutting her eyes in an attempt to ignore Wednesday lying down as well.

Just like the previous nights, Enid failed. Wednesday was barely three inches away, a product of the small space they’d been bestowed, and her presence was tangible.

Enid had always known Wednesday to be cold. Despite that, in these prolonged glimpses of closeness, Enid had come to learn that she was actually quite warm beneath the protection of her sleeping bag. The heat emanating from her was a fixture in the space between them—not excessive, but there, persevering despite all odds.

With a long exhale, Enid whispered, “Goodnight, Wednesday.”

The sound of shuffling broke the silence once more before all fell still.

“Goodnight,” Wednesday whispered in return, her voice tinged with the vestiges of sleep. She was so often alert and aware, and yet she was allowing herself to slip in Enid’s presence. In the moments that followed, interrupted by only the crickets’ chirping, Enid considered that maybe it wasn’t only she who felt safe in Wednesday’s company. Maybe Wednesday felt safe in Enid’s. It was a dangerous idea to entertain, but Enid had seemed to love danger lately.

Enid gripped her blanket tighter. She longed for the lull of sleep. It taunted her, idling in a haze just at the edge of her awareness, but it evaded her continuously. After an hour, she realized that she wasn’t going to catch it. Not anytime soon, at least. It was partially the fault of Wednesday resting just at her side. It was mostly the fault of her traitorous thoughts.

She opened her eyes and stared at the tent net above her, extending her hearing deeper into the woodland. In the distance, an acorn thudded to the ground. Hooves disturbed the foliage. Deer. An owl hooted from its perch in a tree some yards away. If nothing else, Enid wasn’t alone in her restlessness.

She turned onto her side to face Wednesday. With her eyes now used to the darkness, she could see that her head was angled towards Enid on her pillow. Wisps of unkempt hair fell into her face.

Enid clasped both of her hands beneath her head. “Wednesday?” she whispered. “You awake?”

She figured she ought to check. There was always a possibility they were both chasing sleep. Her hopes were sunk as soon as they surfaced, though. Wednesday remained still. It reaffirmed her previous resolution: she was affected by this, not Wednesday. Or maybe she was developing insomnia. She decided that was the better theory. The idea that her touch-averse best friend was more normal about this situation than she was—well, she didn’t quite know what to do with that.

Enid sighed and tucked her chin closer to her hands, watching Wednesday sleep despite every instinct blaring at her not to. It was simply rare that she got to see Wednesday so open, so untouched by the throes of reality. Her eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks, and though her face was mostly lax, a crease had settled between her brows. A rush of fondness overtook Enid. Even in sleep, Wednesday couldn’t relax.

Without thinking about what she was doing, Enid untucked a hand and reached it towards her face. She drew it back once she got her wits about her. It burned with missed opportunities.

Enid swallowed the growing knot in her throat, keeping her hand in the air. Wednesday remained ignorant of her inner turmoil, blessed by the respite of sleep. Unaffected by the harshness of daylight, she was uncharacteristically soft.

Enid stared at her and wished it didn’t make her heart flip. Enid stared at her and thought, What have you done to me?

She felt pressure building behind her eyes. She blinked to dispel it as soon as she felt tears creeping upon her. What the hell was she doing? She had a boyfriend. He was—he was good. He was everything Enid wanted.

She scrunched her nose in a desperate act to temper the emotion rising within her. Why was she even thinking about this? Wednesday was her friend, her best friend. She wasn’t anything more to Enid. She never would be. So why did Enid feel the need to compare the two? They weren’t on the same pedestal. They weren’t even in the same universe.

Another owl hoot pulled her from her spiral. She breathed another sigh. As much as she hated to admit it, Enid wanted nothing more than to stay in this moment. Here, in this space shared by only the two of them, her faults weren’t under a safelight. They weren’t being highlighted by anyone other than Enid. She could handle her own suspicion. She could carry herself across the finish line of her downfall. She just wasn’t sure what she’d do when someone else caught on.

Enid wanted to deny that there was anything to catch onto. But she couldn’t, not this time, not when the only thing in front of her was Wednesday and her own stifled emotions. She had no excuses. I can’t keep lying. She blinked as the feeling in her eyes abated. I know exactly what they’d find.

She reached her trembling hand forward again, and she didn’t stop herself from gingerly brushing the hair away from Wednesday’s face. She had the persistent urge to press her thumb against the crease of her brows and smooth it away. To combat that, she tucked a strand of hair behind Wednesday’s ear and shuffled just a bit closer. For this one moment, she wanted to chase this feeling, to nurture it.

She lingered where she was for another heartbeat, gently running the back of her fingers across Wednesday’s cheek. After a few seconds, the crease between her brows faded, smoothing into something peaceful and relaxed. A twinge of guilt forced Enid to draw her hand away and shuffle backward, forging what little distance they had to its limit.

With something heavy settling in her chest, Enid turned over until her back was to Wednesday and she was barely a breath away from the tent wall. She pulled her blanket tighter around herself in hopes it would smother the feelings threatening to eat her alive.

The distant hum of wildlife provided an ounce of solace. It was only the night and its children that bore witness to her truths.

It wasn’t the first time Enid fell asleep praying they were nothing more than lies.

. . .

Verdant foliage sprang from beneath the gnarled roots of the trees around Enid. Their serrated edges coveted for a sky they would never reach, but they were tireless in their journey. The canopy of branches above her position strung gentle shadows atop her, eclipsing the uneven soil and turning the acorn shells to a likeness of wolves’ teeth.

Evening had befallen the woodland, and with it came the cold. Though it wasn’t quite fall yet, its approach was evident in the temperature drops that plagued the air. The added bonus of a higher elevation didn’t help. Regardless, Enid, with her puffer vest on, was content to stay where she was.

With a conifer at her back, Enid cast a furtive glance at Wednesday sitting on a rock across from her. A blade in one hand, she had set to work slicing the top of the stick in her opposite, forming a clean point at the end.

“I can feel you staring,” Wednesday broke the silence, peeling another strip from the stick. When her knife met her thumb and she discarded the remnants, she looked up once.

Apparently, Enid’s glances hadn’t been furtive nor had they been glances.

Enid didn’t respond, much too busy trying to formulate an excuse. It seemed any sense of reasoning had fled her person, as she resurfaced with her hands empty.

“Sorry,” she finally managed. She offered a small, teasing smile. “You enjoying yourself?”

“Plenty.” Wednesday stripped another piece off of the stick and dropped it at her side. Enid eyed her as she twisted it in her hands and began working on the other side. She looked up again, briefly, just enough to catch Enid’s eye. “You?”

“Yeah. I mean, just sitting here is nice,” she said, fiddling with her hands where they hung over her propped knees.

Wednesday hummed. “What are you writing?”

Enid blinked and shifted the journal resting against her legs. She’d almost forgotten about it. “Just drawing. Doodles,” she replied quickly.

Fortunately for her, Wednesday didn’t press the matter. She gave a nod and refocused on the task at hand, leaving Enid to look down at her journal. What stared back at her on the lined pages weren’t drawings or doodles, but instead a familiar list.

My favorite things about you, the first page read. A scribble stained the paper beside it. Enid breathed out slowly and slid her attention over each bullet point until she landed on the last one she’d written. When had lying become Enid’s second nature? She supposed it must have been when she met Wednesday. She decided to lie about that, too, and told herself it happened at some unrelated point in recent months.

Wednesday furrowed her brows as she continued slicing the stick. Enid watched her for a while before she picked up the pen on the ground beside her and brought it to the page. She added another bullet point and began writing. I love just watching you do things, she stole another look and kept writing, because, and I don’t think you notice it, but you’re really expressive when you focus. In a you way, of course.

Enid paused, considering, before harping on that train of thought with two more bullet points. The way your eyebrows crinkle when you read over something. The way your nose scrunches when you find a typo in your novel.

Your glares. They’re still kind of scary, but I think I’ve grown fond of them, she wrote. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. The way you try to sneak up on me like you used to (it doesn’t work). I think I’ve just gotten used to you. Soon enough, the words began flowing from her fingertips with ease. I love when you go on rants about your interests. I love the way you light up when you do that. I feel like I get to see a side of you a lot of people don’t. I love your style. Your passion. Your ability to dedicate yourself to things. The way you always paint your nails black. I love asking you to read things aloud because the way you narrate things is enchanting and so vivid (especially when it’s your writing, and especially when it’s poetry).

Enid took notice of a weight trained atop her. It was intense in the richest way possible. She tilted her head to just enough to see Wednesday watching her out of the corner of her eye. Her heart skipped. Just when that weight became a pleasant warmth, she caught Wednesday looking away, clenching her jaw and slicing off another piece of the stick.

Enid bit her lip and focused back on her journal. I love when I catch you staring.

She couldn’t devise a reason behind that—not one that she wanted to believe.

With her hand cramping, she sat her pen back down at roved over each and every bullet point, silently counting them. There were only 31. Enid was certain she could find more things about Wednesday that she could deem a favorite in time. Truthfully, everything about Wednesday was a favorite of Enid’s.

Enid wasn’t aware that Wednesday had stood up until her shadow befell her. Startled, Enid snapped the journal in her lap shut and looked up, finding Wednesday inspecting her honed stick in front of her. She said nothing, which Enid took as a sign she hadn’t taken a look at what was on her page. That, or she didn’t care. Enid would be satisfied with either, because neither of them included Wednesday reading it.

With all the casualness she could express, Enid tucked her pen into her pocket. Journal in hand, she rose to her feet and eyed Wednesday’s stick.

“What’s it for?”

Wednesday shot her a questionable look. “Wait.”

Enid wasn’t sure if she wanted Wednesday to elaborate, so she nodded and pulled her hands above her head to stretch. When she opened her eyes, Wednesday was watching her again, though her face deigned Enid with no motive.

“Are you going to show me what you were drawing?” she asked after a beat of silence.

Enid blanched and held her journal a bit tighter. “Maybe someday.” That was another lie. Wednesday would never see it, not while she had the means to stop her from doing so.

Wednesday’s curiosity didn’t seem to abate—in fact, it seemed to grow tenfold, for she cast a look at the journal. Despite that, she said nothing. Enid knew she valued her privacy, and she supposed Wednesday would think it hypocritical to continue badgering her about it, regardless of how persistent her intrigue tended to be.

Wednesday pulled her attention away and trained it on the distant sky. The purple hue overtaking the east was evident through the maze of branches. Dusky pigment bathed her face with all the luster of a day drawing to a close. To avoid doing something stupid like calling her pretty again, Enid gestured over her shoulder in the direction of the camp.

“Dinner should be soon,” she said, “and I don’t know about you, but I’m famished.”

Wednesday turned back around with an arched brow. “Famished is a little dramatic, don’t you think?”

“Uh, no way,” Enid refuted. “I could actually die.”

Something crossed Wednesday’s face then—no longer jesting, no longer teasing, but strained and dark. It drained the mirth from her eyes and left her pursing her lips. Before Enid could say a word, Wednesday walked past her with her stick in hand. Her knuckles were white around it.

Enid watched her walk away, confused. She thought Wednesday would have found that amusing. Once she shook herself from her stupor, she jogged to catch up with her, cradling her hands together behind her back. She rubbed her thumb atop her journal and resolved not to point out her peculiar reaction.

When she glanced at Wednesday, her jaw was still taut. Enid bumped their shoulders together, making Wednesday look at her. It gave Enid the chance she needed to make sure she was all right. She extended a tiny smile, one Wednesday gave a nod to in return before looking back at the trail.

As the evening drew on, Enid never asked her about it, but it didn’t leave her mind.

. . .

If there was one thing Camp Jericho’s creeks were, it was cold. Enid wasn’t sure whether or not it was because Appalachia creeks tended to err on the chillier side or because it was fall, but she hadn’t ever been in creeks this cold. Even now, with the sun breaking from behind a cloud and dispersing its light across the creek’s surface, it was freezing.

Tree boughs swayed above her, catching with their kin in the canopy. Shadows dappled the ground from Enid’s place ankle-deep in the water. The slanted rays of golden sunlight that lit the area were momentarily blotted out as a bird flew within them, scattering in fragments across the rippling surface of the creek. Birdsong flitted in the air. Somewhere across the water, in the opposite copse, a woodpecker’s tapping echoed from the tree trunks.

For all its peace, the forest was lively. Its life dripped like dew from ferns and swelled like honey from combs. It was something Enid always appreciated about nature; where it was tranquil, it was also teeming with life. Everything within it—every bray of a deer and every rustle of wildflowers—resounded with a sense of companionship. She had been taught from a young age that the woods were her ally. She held to that sentiment today.

Enid watched the water slide past her over the slippery stones before wading a few steps out, relishing the chill. She’d been tempted to take her shoes off, but with her luck, she would slip and fall without the extra grip. And so she idled in her waterproof sandals, basking beneath the shade of a tall white oak.

“Is this the last one?” Wednesday called out behind her on the bank, drawing her back to the moment.

Today’s activity was a scavenger hunt. Each group of partners had been given a list of things to find out in the woods. Enid was a bit disappointed when she realized it wasn’t a race—she had always been competitive—but it allowed her to appreciate the moment.

She glanced down at the paper clutched between her fingers. The last thing they needed on the list was a crawdad.

The counselors were very firm with their directions: “Take a picture of it. Don’t bring it back with you.”

Enid had full confidence that someone would try to bring one back anyway. One of the Furs, most likely, but she digressed from the idea herself.

They had left their findings nestled within the roots of a nearby tree for safekeeping. Among them were maple leaves, moss, and wild irises. Their final obstacle lay before them, hiding somewhere in the creek depths.

“Yeah,” Enid said, waving the paper in the air before folding and putting it in her pocket. “Last thing.”

Relieved she chose to wear shorts today, she waded out until the water was nearly to her knees. She heard splashing behind her and shot a glance over her shoulder, watching as Wednesday stepped into the creek, donning waterproof boots and an endearing, focused look.

“I swear, if I fall and drop my phone and we can’t even finish the hunt . . .” Enid said, turning back around and testing a rock beneath her shoe before pushing her weight onto it. “Have you ever caught one of these things before?”

Wednesday shot a look at her before surveying the creek. “My father taught me to catch them in the creeks on our property.”

“Okay, great.” A gust of wind tousled Enid’s hair as she carried herself to a place where the water grew more still. “I haven’t done it in years.”

Admittedly, Enid hadn’t been too thrilled the first couple of times she’d encountered one of the little creatures. Six years old and uneasy around them, she had squealed and yelped when her brothers chased her, grasping them in their grubby paws. She had only worked up the courage to hold and catch one when her father showed her how to do so without getting pinched.

Wednesday rolled up her sleeves to her elbows and set her jaw as she mulled over her options. Enid watched her quietly. Amusement and endearment fought for the forefront of her mind, but the former ultimately won out.

She loved how focused Wednesday got, even on something as trivial as a scavenger hunt. Her determination knew no bounds. It bowed to only her stubborn resolve. Not that Enid would be much better had it been a competition, but still. She held to her opinions.

She made a show of stretching out her arms before leaning her hands on her knees to peer into the water. The trees above them reflected patterns on its rippling surface, forcing her to squint to see what was beneath.

Once she pinpointed a decently sized rock, she lowered her hands into the water and grasped its slick surface. As soon as she heaved it up, dirt and mud stirred up, clouding the space around her hands and the hole where the rock had been. She reached in to feel for anything, a bit leery that something would bite her fingers, but came up short.

Wednesday was attending to her own devices. Enid stole a glance at her while she searched for another place to look. Her braids hung just above the water, her bangs awry around her face as she turned over rocks. A smile pulled at Enid’s lips before she could stop it.

With the cold numbing her legs, Enid precariously trudged through the water until she found another stone. This time, she was careful not to stir the sediment. She managed to only make a small cloud, but was disappointed to find nothing lurking atop the dirt.

Finally, when she lifted her third rock, something darted further into its shadow. Gotcha. She waited for the dirt to settle, pinning her attention on the swirling sediment until she spotted a crawdad beneath its mantle. She leaned down, positioning her hand atop the glinting surface of the water, but the movement startled it. It darted out into the open, fleeing through the rocks with haste. Enid dropped the stone and made quick work of snatching it before it could go far.

She gently gripped its torso in her fingers before pulling it out of the water, watching it flail its pinchers, clearly unhappy with its new arrangement. Unluckily for the crawdad, it couldn’t reach to pinch her. Enid straightened and turned back around, finding Wednesday watching her with the faintest trace of amusement. It was gone as quickly as it had come.

In Wednesday’s fingers rested a crawdad of her own. It was more docile than Enid’s; it barely moved in her hold. Enid found that incredibly ironic.

“You could have told me you got one,” Enid said, beginning to trudge back to her. The water sloshed around her legs.

“And let you slack? Never.” Wednesday raised her chin once Enid stopped in front of her. She eyed Enid for a second and dropped her eyes to their crawdads. “Hm. Mine’s bigger.”

“I wasn’t aware it was a competition,” Enid remarked, noticing that Wednesday’s crawdad was indeed bigger.

“It could be,” Wednesday said, tilting her head. Something about the look on her face—eclipsed by the rustling canopy’s shade, testing and tinged with a challenge—made Enid drop her gaze. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, managing to get a few droplets of water on it as she snapped a picture of their crawdad buddies.

“Aww, don’t you think we should name them before we let them go?” Enid said as Wednesday bent down to release hers. Wednesday arched a brow at her. “Come on, for memories.”

Wednesday raised back up with a huff, leaving Enid grinning.

“I think I’ll name mine Wednesday.” Enid held hers out in front of her. Wednesday blinked at her unamusedly before making to let hers go again. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding.” She hummed when Wednesday gave her one last chance. “Ooh, I know. Friday.”

“That’s the best you can do?” she asked, unimpressed. “My middle name?”

“I think it’s a great name,” Enid refuted, only half joking. Wednesday sighed and stared at hers for a long moment. Enid was silently overjoyed that she was even entertaining the silly idea, let alone putting thought into it.

“Laura,” she finally settled on, casting a look at Enid and back at the crawdad. “Like the protagonist of Carmilla.”

Enid grinned again and put her hand in the water, freeing Friday back to do whatever it was crawdads did. Wednesday mirrored her actions, and they waded back up to the shallower water. A relatively dry rock jutted out from beneath the surface. Moss and lichen covered its divots and grooves. Enid sat down on one side, leaving room for Wednesday on the other.

Wednesday took her unspoken olive branch and sat down on the large rock, busying herself with fixing flyaway strands of hair.

“What time is it?” she asked after a moment.

“About 2:30,” Enid said. The teams were supposed to be back with their collection by 3 P.M. Wednesday had never been particularly fond of tardiness, but Enid was content to stay suspended in this little haven with her, if only for a few minutes longer. Bruno would be waiting for her back at the camp, and though she felt guilty for thinking it, she really wasn’t sure she wanted to talk to him right now.

He always made an effort to point out when she spent time with Wednesday. It made Enid feel exposed, and not in the good way, not in the way she felt exposed beneath Wednesday’s curious inspection. No, his suspicion made her feel like he was on the brink of discovery, like he wouldn’t like whatever it was he found. Enid really, really didn’t want him to find anything. His grip was always a little too possessive, a little too tight when he got that way. His hands were rough where Wednesday’s were soft. Enid never did like rough things.

But he was easy. Safe.

She looked at Wednesday out of the corner of her eye and tried to ignore the sudden tightness in her chest.

She forced herself from her stupor and propped her chin in her hands, watching the glassy water in front of her ripple beneath the breeze. Dropping her chin, she stuck a hand in the water, absently fishing for a flat rock. When she found one, she pulled it out and watched the droplets falling from it catch the sunlight.

She handed it to Wednesday, who took it wordlessly. “You can skip a rock, can’t you?”

Wednesday turned to look at her before adjusting the rock in her hands and standing up. She took a few steps out and faced the stretch of water that resembled a swimming hole. It was untouched by the frothing current that traveled over the rocks downstream. Once Wednesday angled herself as she saw fit, she threw the rock out. It skipped a good six times before ultimately crashing into the bank diagonal to them.

Enid whistled lowly. “Nice. I’ve always sucked at skipping rocks.”

Wednesday stared in the direction the rock flew before sitting back down. “Practice and technique,” she said, sliding her gaze to Enid. “That’s all.”

Enid shrugged and stared into the water again, watching her reflection oscillate atop its depths. A small, flat grey stone caught her eye, distorted from the ripples. She reached into the creek to grab it, resurfacing with it snug between her fingers.

“Look.” She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth at Wednesday’s attention. “I bet this is one of those rocks you can paint with.”

“I’m going to pretend I don’t know what you mean. Enlighten me,” Wednesday said. Enid rolled her eyes and dug her hand around for a canvas. Fingers numb from the cold, she lifted a rock into the open and sat it on her lap, relishing the weight of it.

She wet the tiny rock again and began scribbling on the larger one. Sure enough, the stone began to wear down, smearing grey pigment on the rock. Enid swiped her fingers along it before drawing a line on her arm.

“This was my favorite thing to do as a kid when we went camping,” she explained, making a few other lines on her arm. She scribbled more paint onto the rock and used it to draw a heart on her hand.

Wednesday’s gaze was heavy on her. Enid glimpsed it from the corner of her eye, but it was only when she looked over at her that she caught it. Her breath stalled in her chest. Situated atop the rock, they had to vie for the dry little space they had, which left them much too close for comfort. Enid tracked her attention over Wednesday’s freckles again, unable to stray far from them when the opportunity arose to revere them.

The two stared at each other in a spell of suspended silence. Broken only by the rushing of the water, it was tangible in its fervor. It threatened to tear Enid apart limb from limb, ready to feast on all her wrongdoings and traitorous desires.

They turned away at the same time. While her heart scrabbled at the confines of her ribs, Enid busied herself with searching for more painting rocks. She managed to find two more: black and russet. She stuck her tongue out of her mouth as she began to scribble them on the canvas rock.

Five minutes later, Enid’s arms were covered in swirls and lines. Putting the finishing touches on an orange heart on her shin, she lazily held one hand out to Wednesday.

When nothing happened, she straightened and looked at her. Wednesday stared back, resolute in her stillness. A tinge of mirth danced in the notes of Enid’s voice when she said, “Your turn.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You mean you don’t want matching bestie tattoos?” Enid gasped. The word ‘bestie’ weighed on her tongue like ash, but she continued. “Just a little drawing? You can wash it off, like, as soon as I’m done.”

Enid wasn’t sure whether it was her insistence or the irrefutable urge to shut her up, but Wednesday acquiesced with a blow from her nose, dropping her arm into Enid’s outstretched palm. Enid dipped her finger into the paint, giving Wednesday her most innocent look—a veiled deception, truly—and set to work drawing a little heart.

When she started drawing a smiley face, she glanced up to find Wednesday’s jaw clenched. The epitome of unamused, her glare was as honed as a blade; luckily for Enid, she dodged its swipe and continued her artistic endeavors. It was only when Wednesday’s forearm was covered in varying swirls, doodles, and cat faces that Enid tossed the worn pebble back into the water and sat back with a grin.

Wednesday examined her arm. “That’s more than matching,” she said, but there wasn’t much bite to her voice. Enid suspected she’d meant to instill much more into it, for it hardened a second later. “You’re lucky I’m feeling merciful today.”

Enid had long since traipsed past being scared of Wednesday’s threats. She had toed the line a long time, teetering back and forth through many stormy words’ utterance, but she had eventually found a medium. It occurred to her that she should have tried harder to tame her grin, but the subtle, irritated twitch of Wednesday’s top lip was far too beguiling a sight to pass up.

“How kind of you to spare me,” she decided to stay, overplaying a posh air into her voice as she did so. Wednesday regarded her for another moment before turning away.

As silence eclipsed their easy conversation, Enid turned back to her canvas rock. The splashing at her side signaled Wednesday was washing the paint from her arm. With an exhale, Enid dipped her fingers into the rusty-tinged pigment.

“Did you ever watch The Lion King?” she asked, watching the red on her fingertips glint under the sun. Enid suspected she already knew the answer, but she supposed she should ask anyway.

To her surprise, Wednesday’s answer was not a no, but instead a slow and suspicious, “Once.”

Enid glanced over at her, watching the dapples of light illuminate her face with tendrils of gold, before she lifted her fingers to her forehead and drew a half circle on it.

“Simba,” she said, a lilt to the single word.

Wednesday stared at her and shook her head. She craned her face away before Enid could catch a proper look at her reaction, but she didn’t miss the little tug of a smile at her lips. She figured Wednesday thought she was a fool. But Wednesday kept her company, so what did that make her?

“You know . . .” Enid began as an idea capsized her better judgment. She grasped it between her fingers and shuffled a breadth closer on the rock. “There could totally be two Simbas, right?”

Wednesday narrowed her eyes.

“Like,” Enid held her fingers out and pointed them at Wednesday, “I think you could really do with a little Simba mark.”

Flicking her eyes between Enid’s outstretched hand and face, Wednesday pushed herself off the rock, righting herself in the creek and eyeing Enid from above. Enid bit her lip and stood up as well, enticing rippling waves to tug at her legs. She took a step closer in the water.

“Enid,” Wednesday warned.

“What?” Enid inquired innocently, pursuing Wednesday as she walked backward toward the bank. For a brief second, Enid admired her; she was certain she’d slip and fall into the water on those rocks without looking where she was stepping, given how slippery they were. Wednesday eyed her pointedly.

“You’re not putting that on my forehead.”

Enid paused as Wednesday stepped onto the soft, sandy dirt. Her boots sank into it as Enid stayed in the shallow depths, idling on the rocks as the water lapped at her ankles. “Who said I was going to do that?”

“Don’t be coy,” Wednesday replied. She kept where she was, her fingers curling into the sleeves of her jacket. Enid slunk forward another pace, flashing her canines for good measure, an artful tactic werewolves couldn’t help but employ when playing. Wednesday blinked, a fleeting thing, as though taken aback by the teasing gesture. Her rare surprise gave Enid the cover she needed to sidle up a few more steps.

When Enid stopped her pursuit just in front of the bank, clasping her hands behind her back and leaving her fingers outstretched, Wednesday offered her another warning: “Don’t even think about it.”

“Think about what?”

Wednesday tilted her head as her jaw flexed. Enid took another step closer, and Wednesday, ever the one to hold to her truths until they weathered to dust, didn’t move backward. Enid waited a beat. Two.

With a snap of her wrist, Enid reached one hand to grab Wednesday’s forearm. Holding her in place, she brought her other hand from behind her back, the one with the paint smeared on it, and attempted to swipe it across her forehead. Wednesday was nothing if not versed in adversarial tactics, though; she expertly avoided Enid’s blow. She fixed her free hand around the wrist that held her and, with a calculated pressure that made Enid’s grip slacken, wrenched herself free. Placing adequate distance between the two, she paused, her eyes roving up and down as though sizing Enid up. Electing to ignore what that made her feel, Enid planted her feet more firmly against the soil.

When Enid caught Wednesday’s gaze, she spotted the faintest flicker of a thrill catching within it, bursting with a spark untouched by rain. It danced across her face with a mirthful tinge, an invitation sent Enid’s way through subtle tells she had spent months decoding. Enid was all too eager to accept such a challenge.

She faked Wednesday out by taking a step forward, only to lunge to her side and reach for her arm again. Wednesday evaded her grasp.

After wolfing out, Enid had trained herself over a fortnight to better understand her abilities. No longer did she feel like a new foal struggling to stand on knobby knees, not entirely. With that came a sense of reassurance, of confidence in her potential. Still, there was only so much she could do against someone who had been practicing fighting maneuvers for years.

If there was one thing Wednesday taught her, though, it was to utilize the resources one had. With that ticking in the back of her mind, she dug her foot into the grainy dirt on the bank, waiting for Wednesday to ease closer. When she did, Enid kicked the dirt at her, sending it showering into her face. Even Wednesday had to reflexively close her eyes at such a display. Her flinch was the opening Enid sought.

With her distraction carving her footpath, Enid surged forward again and grabbed Wednesday’s bicep. When Wednesday opened her eyes, Enid could tell her assessment was quick. Upon registering that, Enid lifted her hand again, aiming to smear the paint atop her forehead.

Enid wasn’t the only tricky one, of course. Wednesday’s free hand snapped up to grab hers before it could reach her. An endearing crease settled between her brows when she pushed back against Enid. Her nose wrinkled, and Enid was so intent on glimpsing it that her concentration was sent into disarray. Wednesday shot her knee up and nailed her in the stomach—not enough to hurt, but enough to steal the breath from her lungs.

She freed herself from Enid’s grasp. With a twist, she grabbed Enid’s shoulders, forcing her backwards. The world in Enid’s periphery blurred in a mirage of leaves and light, dizzying, and it was all she could do to focus on the girl at the center of it.

It was quick. Disorienting. Enid’s back hit a tree. Wednesday’s forearm came to press against the base of her throat. Her other arm held Enid in place at her shoulder. Every nerve ending within Enid fired at once.

“I told you,” Wednesday breathed out. “Don’t even think about it.”

Enid swallowed against the sudden knot in her throat. “Yeah, well,” she began, her words cracking pathetically, “it was worth a shot.”

Where Wednesday’s eyes had been narrowed with determination, they widened a fraction, glancing between Enid’s own. Far too aware of the position they’d found themselves in, Enid did her best to wrangle in her seizing heart. It beat with a fervor so intense it scraped a hollowed tightness between her lungs. She wasn’t successful in stalling it, and she never would get the chance to be because Wednesday’s face was mere inches from hers, and they were pressed against each other, and Enid couldn’t breathe.

Her hands hovered in the air because she realized, with utmost horror, that there was nowhere she could place them on Wednesday that would be casual. She settled for lying them against the tree behind her. She settled for ignoring how much they wanted to reach out.

Enid swallowed as Wednesday’s arm loosened its pressure, just slightly. The intensity of her eyes didn’t wane.

Friends do this. Friends do this. Friends do this.

The mantra was a fool’s effort, drained of its resources from usage, but it was the only thing tethering Enid to her last remnants of sanity.

Unsure of what to say—or if she should speak at all—Enid uttered a quiet, “You win.”

Wednesday swallowed, and Enid couldn’t help but follow the movement down the column of her throat as she did so. “I guess I did,” Wednesday said slowly, not relinquishing her hold. 

Enid flicked her eyes back up, doing her best to combat the heat threatening to betray her by finding purchase on her face. Their proximity steadily stripped back every metaphorical curtain around Enid, the ones she curtsied in front of but shrank behind, when the audience was no longer party to her veracities. She was certain Wednesday felt the rapid pace of her heart against her, and this time, she had no excuse prepared.

Wednesday, no longer tucked beneath the haven of her sleeping bag, was cold once more. She carried an eternal chill with her, a looming entity that never receded and only went dormant. It was so familiar to Enid, known like the recollection of song lyrics and book scriptures, that she found herself seeking its embrace. Right now, however, it only served as a blaring reminder of how close they were.

By now, Enid could easily push her away. She could tell Wednesday’s guard had lowered significantly; she wasn’t expecting Enid to retaliate. Enid had the chance to prove her wrong, to wipe that stupid mark on her forehead and giggle as she washed it off, but she found she was more addicted to her closeness than the idea of satisfaction.

After a few more seconds, each of which rippled with tantalizing prospects, it occurred to Enid that Wednesday could easily draw back as well. They both held the cards of autonomy, so why did they make no moves to play them?

Enid could see her private question reflected in Wednesday’s eyes. She forced a shaky inhale. This really, really wasn’t good for her vile heart. It crooned beneath this prolonged touch, and Enid wished that it wouldn’t more than anything. Had she known this would be the result of a silly spar, she wouldn’t have indulged in the first place.

Liar, something whispered. She ignored it. Enid had gotten very good at ignoring—or maybe she liked to think she had. She decided not to dwell on it. She wouldn’t have been able to, anyway, because Wednesday slid her hand from her shoulder to her upper arm.

“Wednesday,” she began, her words a mere whisper, but she wasn’t quite sure what she had intended to say. She chanced a look at her lips before drawing her attention back up. She dropped her gaze twice more, a fleeting, skittish assessment, as she drew her hands from their braced position against the tree and wrapped them around her lower back.

It wasn’t only Enid’s focus in fragments, though. Wednesday’s eyes lingered somewhere below hers. She sucked in a breath. Oh. Wednesday looked up again, the barest flicker of alarm making home in the slope of her face.

In that moment, the last bridges of Enid’s denial collapsed into the ravine they swung over.

Enid wanted to kiss Wednesday like the weight of the consequences wouldn’t haunt her lips.

I can’t do this, Enid thought, even as she tilted her head, a quiet invitation. I can’t. I don’t—I’m not supposed to want this. Wednesday’s fingernails pressed lightly against her skin. She forced her hands to stop shaking as she drew Wednesday a breadth closer, eradicating the infinitesimal space between them, and choked down the knot growing in her throat.

Enid caught a glimpse of Wednesday’s eyes fluttering as she leaned forward enough to brush their noses together. She swore it was Wednesday who nudged closer. The dread curling in Enid’s stomach was momentarily overshadowed by the palpitations tripping up her heart.

Just before Enid could do something irrevocably foolish like kiss her, the dread came back tenfold, an armed adversary slaughtering every other sensation daring to idle in the battlefield that was Enid’s soul.

She couldn’t do this. She wanted this. She shouldn’t. She was forcing Wednesday. That’s the only reason Wednesday stayed where she was, the arm against Enid’s neck retreating and coming to tentatively rest on her waist. It wasn’t because she wanted this, too, because if Enid were to entertain that, she wasn’t sure she would ever resurface.

Enid jerked back so quickly that her head bumped into the tree behind her. Wednesday flinched and drew away, her hands retreating from Enid as though she’d been scorched.

Enid met her startled gaze, and she knew they shared the same question: what were they doing?

The silence was suffocating.

Wednesday took another step away. Enid felt something within her break.

As Wednesday crossed her arms over her chest—something Enid had come to know was a defensive stance as much as an annoyed reaction—Enid swiped a hand through her hair and shakily said, “The scavenger hunt. We’re going to be late.”

Wednesday’s only response was a single nod. A lingering finality tied them together, but it was just that: lingering.

Wednesday’s features lost any semblance of emotion. Her face slackened and grew unreadable. Her walls were rapidly being drawn up, and Enid wasn’t welcome within them. She hadn’t been subjected to that in a long time. Oh, how it hurt now. She felt like she couldn’t breathe past the sharp ache in her chest.

Wednesday’s throat bobbed before she stiffly turned and walked away, heading to their stash of stowaway scavenger hunt items.

Enid waited half a minute to follow her, tilting her head against the tree and fighting back tears.

. . .

Enid was not the person she wanted herself to be.

It tore at her, snapping bones and tearing flesh, until all that was left were fragments of the girl she wanted to be.

Enid was a performer. She made a home on the stage that was her life, and in doing so, she basked in the ethereal glow of the audience’s praise. Beneath the spotlight, she molded herself into all that she could be. She sculpted her inaccuracies until they stared back at her with false bravado, a canvas of desires never to be reached. In that manner, Enid’s fidelity was admirable. It was cowardly and misplaced by the shaking hands that crafted it, but its posture stood unrelenting, nonetheless.

Enid was rough, jagged edges, cries muffled by pillows, and everything messy, but in no way was she the person she pretended she was.

As she laid herself to rest each night, slipping into a world where her faults were less of a specter and more of a distant presence, she mulled over it. If she was not who she wanted to be, masquerade masks and all, how was she supposed to do right by those who knew her?

She couldn’t, she knew. She never had. She never would. She could pull an apology from behind her teeth, but it would be wounded and bradycardic, clinging to life only by pure desperation.

Living, she had learned, was not thriving, and yet it sated the needs she begged for. To live was to continue pretending, however much it gouged at her soul. To thrive was to offer her sins, and that was far more terrifying than any stage or spotlight.

Mirrors were as much of an ally as they were Enid’s downfall. In her reflection, when her cheeks were flushed red and her eyes were muddled with tears, she would see her. Not the front she put on, not the mask, and certainly not who she pretended she was. She saw herself, in all her messy pieces. She would clutch the sink until her knuckles were white and her arms quivered. Her eyes would burn from how long they stared into the mirror, longing to see something change.

In the hours following, she longed to open her arms to the sky and say, “This is all I am.” And despite how hoarse her voice would be, despite how it would tremble and break, it would be true. Enid was nothing when barren of her secrets, but she was also everything she wished she wasn’t.

A prayer would leave her mouth once a day. It bowed to no schedule. It wasn’t when she closed her eyes, nor when she opened them to face the day’s gravity. It merely happened, inevitable, as all things were. It spilled past her lips when she remembered she was exactly what she said she was not. It spilled past her lips, silent and unforgiving, when she caught Wednesday’s eye.

Look what you’ve made me, she would think. I was good at hiding before this. Look what you’ve done to me.

In her most desperate moments, she considered getting on her knees before Wednesday and pleading for closure. Reject me. Send me away. Tell me all I truly am, and do it without remorse. Maybe then I’ll be able to walk away. Enid would whisper until her knees were nothing but gashes. She would bargain until she had nothing left to give. If she were brave enough, she would offer herself as a sacrifice to her throes; perhaps then she would be pure.

Yet, as much as she wished it were true, Enid was not brave. She was a cowardly wolf with a malformed heart. Nobody would truly take it if they knew what it looked like.

That was one of the many reasons she pretended. It was one of the reasons she hid.

As a child, when lightning flashes lit her room with silver, Enid would crawl beneath her bed and tremble. She would press herself into the furthest corner, wrap blankets and stuffed animals around her like watchmen, and she would hide. She had never grown out of that, it seemed. She hid behind boyfriends and normalcy, but she still hid. It was still hiding; it was just packaged differently.

She had never diverged from the kid who ran from thunderstorms. She simply learned to take the rain, and the wind, and the lightning, even if it ran down her neck and soaked her to the bone and burned like everything that was wrong with her.

Tonight, the deer and the owls were witnesses to her restlessness once more. The space beside her was empty, though. Wednesday’s absence was much easier to notice in the tiny confines of their tent. Her presence, however dangerous, would have been a balm against it. She craved it like an archer to its target. She wanted to chase it like a fox to a hare through brush.

Enid stared at the tent flap in silence. The sounds of the wildlife were an anchor, but it was just barely holding her to the sand. She could feel herself slipping. For a long moment, she wondered where Wednesday was. Four minutes later, she wondered if Wednesday was avoiding her.

Is that why she hadn’t returned? Was she so disgusted by the sight of Enid, the mere idea of being around her, that she had elected not to sleep at all? Enid picked at the skin around her nails. One minute later, she decided that she didn’t blame Wednesday. If Enid, too, could escape herself, she would jump at the opportunity without a second thought.

Nine hours ago, Enid had made the biggest mistake of her life. She had been tapering off the edge of exhilaration, of giddiness, and hadn’t thought when she pulled Wednesday closer and wondered what her lips would feel like against hers.

Wednesday had to have known what she wanted to do. She knew then, and she knew now. If nothing else, it gave her an excuse to escape Enid.

Enid longed for that freedom.

It was only the naivety pounding in her skull that had her considering that Wednesday had leaned closer as well. It had been a trick of the light, nothing more. The ginger touch against Enid’s waist had been nothing but a precursor to her stepping away. A goodbye, even, to Enid and all her ugly mistakes.

Enid breathed in. Out. The silence hurt more than any wound. Had she ruined this? Whatever this was—friendship, she reminded herself—had she destroyed it? 

Let me beg for forgiveness. She pulled her knees beneath her chin. Let me make it right. I’ll stop being the way that I am.

I’ll stop loving you.

Enid bit her tongue so hard it bled. She swallowed the metallic taste and shoved that thought to the back of her mind, never to confront it again. And yet, in spite of her efforts, she knew it would come crawling back—limping, battered, but still returning. She would scream at it to go away until her throat was raw, but there was nothing she could do.

She couldn’t carve this out of herself, but she would be damned if she didn’t try.

Enid thought of Wednesday for the hundredth time that lonely hour.

I don’t love you. I don’t love you. I don’t love you. Believe me, please.

Her lip quivered as she continued looking at the front of the tent, waiting for Wednesday to come in. She felt like a kicked puppy. It was pathetic. When the clock hit 11:37 P.M., she decided Wednesday wasn’t coming.

It was then, and only then, that she shut her eyes and allowed the first tear to roll down her cheek.

It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t messy. Her shoulders simply shook and the tears just fell. Enid didn’t want anyone to hear her, and her cries didn’t, either. They acted as a guard, not a traitor. It was the only reprieve she had.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard the zip of the tent flap. Enid did her best to extinguish the relief she felt. In the end, it would only betray her. Though it was dark, she made quick work of wiping the wetness from her cheeks. Enid still wanted to hide, and if she could cling to the last bit of protection she had, she would.

Enid was convinced she was imagining Wednesday squinting at her through the tent opening. She wouldn’t put it past her mind; it could never truly decide what it wanted, but it took great pleasure in kicking her until she was down, and then some more.

Wednesday’s voice cut through the silence Enid had fret in for two hours. “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

Enid blinked. She was glad this was the question Wednesday was asking instead of inquiring about the tears on her cheeks. If Wednesday saw them, she made no comment. Realistically, Enid knew her shadowy haven concealed them, but she wouldn’t blame Wednesday for ignoring them.

“Two reasons,” Enid said. Her voice was only a bit gravelly. “One, I don’t need the light. Two, it’s past curfew. I’m not supposed to have a light on.”

Both were lies. As piteous as it was, she had just wanted to sit and let the numb weightlessness consume her. Enid wished she could walk around in the dark so nobody saw what she looked like beneath the light.

“You also aren’t supposed to sneak into the woods right now,” Wednesday said. Her voice was tinged with something foreign. Enid wanted to taste it. “But I’m still asking you to come with me.”

Wait, what?

“What?” Enid echoed her inner sentiment.

“Come on,” Wednesday said. It was clear enough that she didn’t want to repeat her words or explain them.

Enid’s brows knit together. Why had she come back? Why was she asking Enid to come with her when she had betrayed her so?

Enid had dropped her beating heart at Wednesday’s feet like a bird dog that only caught rats: incorrectly. Wrongly. It was an offering that deserved to be rejected. It deserved her a look of pity and a disappointed head shake. It deserved her a tap against a syringe of euthanasia liquid before it was injected into her veins.

Don’t do this to me. Enid stared at her. Stop pretending you don’t know.

All Enid found herself doing was scooting over to her bag and rifling through it. Even from the insulation of the tent, she could feel the nip of cold outside. Once she found her letterman jacket, she dragged it into the open and shrugged it on. She stared resolutely at the clothes she hadn’t bothered to change out of as she zipped it up a fourth of the way.

When she looked back up, Wednesday was reaching a hand out to her, likely to help hoist her up.

Wednesday shouldn’t offer her hand to her. Enid still wasn’t sure she could let go this time. She was a selfish, wanting beast.

Enid pushed off her sleeping bag without taking Wednesday’s hand. She tugged on her boots without looking up because she didn’t want to see her reaction. Enid wanted it to be surprised. Sad, almost. She figured it would be relieved, for the world had never been that kind to her.

Wednesday backed away enough for Enid to slip outside and zip the tent back up. When Enid stood up and faced her, she half expected her to decide she didn’t want Enid to join her after all. She found nothing of the sort on her face. She only found the moon reflecting glowing discs in her eyes, and her heart ached in her chest.

Wednesday looked her up and down. Her face was still unreadable, but it didn’t seem like she was trying to force Enid out this time. She wasn’t sure why. She deserved it, especially now. Wednesday merely cast a cursory glance around them before nodding her chin to the tree line three yards away.

Enid fell into step at her side, and though they always tended to brush shoulders, she kept a reasonable distance from Wednesday. It was only a few inches, truthfully. That was all she could bear, but it was the least she could do, even if the distance scorched her like a thousand suns. That’s how they entered the woods: too distant, too close, and never enough.

The trees groaned around them, creaking soft berceuses within their highest points. Where barren branches clawed at the sky, they eyed the pair walking beneath them and beheld all their truths. Enid’s, namely, but she felt strangely comfortable amongst them. The trees could not deceive her. They could not rip confessions from her lips, and they couldn’t repeat them even if they had.

An owl’s hoot resounded again somewhere to the far left. Enid wondered if it was the same one she’d heard every night. Perhaps the predator enjoyed watching a bunch of teenagers mull about, or maybe it took pleasure in seeing Enid shatter. She supposed that, from an objective point, it was quite entertaining.

As they ascended an incline, marred with leaves and snaking roots, Enid lifted her attention to the sky. She could only catch glimpses of it through the thick canopy, but it was a welcome sight. Through the foliage, stars glinted—some bright, some small, some orange and some blue, but all persevering. The moon cut through the trees, spilling slanted dapples of light upon the trail, and Enid allowed herself to preen beneath its touch.

“So . . . ,” she began when the crickets began chirping. “What was this for? Not that I care, of course, I’m just curious.”

When Wednesday didn’t reply, she swallowed her growing panic. It was possible that she didn’t want to talk. Still, if that were the case, why did she want Enid to accompany her on this excursion? The questions flit in her head with all the tenacity of a rabid animal, and they were dizzying. Had she brought Enid out to slit her throat, trying her for the crime of daring to care for her? Enid was tempted to ask. She wouldn’t be mad; in fact, she would understand. She knew they were far, far past that, but she couldn’t help her doubts from festering.

“Can you believe they don’t have anyone watching the grounds?” she added hurriedly, fiddling with the sleeves of her jacket. “I mean, it’s so easy for us to escape. Maybe they just don’t really care that much.”

 Before she could begin rambling, Wednesday threw her a bone like the dejected dog she was.

“You’ll see,” she said in response to the first question, intentionally vague. It sparked Enid’s interest. She was always hanging onto Wednesday’s every word, though, so she wasn’t sure how commendable a feat that was. “And I assume they have better things to do than wrangle teenagers, even if it’s their job. They’re probably turning a blind eye. That, or their security is lacking. Neither would surprise me.”

Enid made a hum of acknowledgment and folded her hands behind her back. She kicked a walnut, watching it skitter across the soil, and breathed out. Try as she might to ease the tension in her shoulders, she was unable to. Why couldn’t she just enjoy this? It might be the last time Wednesday entertained her presence before deciding Enid, and the headache that she brought, wasn’t worth it.

Wednesday veered off the trail, rustling the overgrown ferns with her boots. Enid stared after her, befuddled. Ultimately, she couldn’t stay away for long. A bloodhound to a scent, she cast a final look at the trail before jogging to catch up with her.

Away from the marked path, the foliage grew denser. The branches of a draping pine snagged her arms. She had to step over a briar thicket before it could catch her clothes. Wildflowers tossed languidly in the breeze as they passed. Enid detected movement somewhere above their heads. It lingered like a weight atop her. Her predatory instinct kicked in within milliseconds; she snapped her gaze up, tensing her muscles, only to find a young raccoon peering down at them from a tree. Its eyes flashing yellow beneath the moonlight, it wrapped its tiny hands around the tree and craned its head to the side as though wondering what the odd creatures that traipsed below it were.

Relaxing, Enid cooed at the raccoon and watched it scurry up the trunk and out of sight. When she turned around, she found Wednesday watching her curiously.

“Did you see it?” Enid asked, bouncing once on her heels. The little encounter was wearing down her defenses, if only a bit.

“Mhm,” Wednesday replied, sliding her gaze to the tree and back to Enid. Her eyes were accented by something Enid couldn’t name, intense but unfamiliar. For the sake of her sanity, Enid decided she didn’t want to know what it was.

Biting her cheek to stop herself from asking, she continued walking, humming a quiet tune. The breeze picked up and rustled the branches arched above them.

When the trees thinned and gave way to a rocky escarpment, Enid wasn’t sure how long they had been walking. It couldn’t have been less than 30 minutes. The incline they trod upon was steep and rugged, more jagged stones than soil. Roots crept over the rocks, a testament to their age. As she stepped over mossy stones and used those root systems as stairs, Wednesday followed in her stead, her movements calculated and precise.

When Enid finally reached the top, her heart was pounding from the climb and a pleasant ache burned her legs. She paused and waited for Wednesday to sidle up behind her. A mountain laurel bush lay in their path, split only by a small, pebble-laden pathway, overgrown from disuse. Wednesday pushed ahead of Enid, casting a conspiratorial look over her shoulder that made her heart jump, and slid through the bush.

Enid followed after her, squinting so the leaves wouldn’t hit her eyes, and stopped short when she surfaced on the other side. Beyond her lay a bluff, accented by moss and lichen, bordered by thin trees and wildflower brush. It sloped downward and tapered into a cliffside. The grooves in its surface spread like bile, harsh beneath the cover of night.

The emerging bluff was nothing less than a throne. The rolling mountains stretched in the distance as far as Enid could see, their trees dusted by the pallor of moonlight. The moon, a waxing gibbous, hung in the east, illuminating the space around it with an iridescent ring. Stars danced across the sky like dandelions, unimpeded by city lights or fire. Thousands twinkled down at Enid and scattered their radiance with the delicacy of snow in winter.

Enid felt like she was at the top of the world, and there was no one else she’d rather be there with.

She said nothing, for the words caught in her throat and inhibited her breath. She took a few steps forward, mindful of where she put her feet, and stared out into the distance. The wind tugged at her hair and sent leaves whisking past her.

“Wow,” she breathed after a long moment. Her breath caught again. “It’s beautiful.”

In the resulting silence, she looked over and found Wednesday watching her.

“It is,” Wednesday replied, her voice one of conviction. She didn’t pull her eyes away. Enid’s heart dug its grave.

Stop looking at me like that, Enid wanted to beg. You don’t know what it does to me.

Perhaps Wednesday did know. Maybe she wanted to tug her along, just to see how far she would follow. Enid should know better than to chase such a lure. Yet, like a loyal dog to its master, she trod at Wednesday’s heels. Enid knew Wednesday wouldn’t abuse her trust in such a way—not anymore—but she couldn’t stop herself from entertaining the idea.

Without allowing Enid a moment of recovery, Wednesday began to step down the bluff, creeping towards the edge with expert precision. Enid followed her path, certain that she wouldn’t fall if it was Wednesday she trailed after.

A bush with thin, exposed roots hung over the rock Wednesday disappeared behind. Enid’s ears twitched at the rustling resounding from it as she crept after her. When she poked her head around the rock, she found Wednesday sitting on the uneven stone with her back against it. The bush draping over her haven cast a myriad of shadows atop her; they were interrupted by only the pearl flecks of the sky. The breeze languidly tugged at the wisps framing her face.

She didn’t look at Enid as she, too, shuffled behind the rock and slid down it. Enid settled for crossing her legs in front of her and tilting her head back. The rock was cold, assuaging in its presence, and she relished the chill that pervaded her scalp where they touched.

Shutting her eyes, Enid allowed herself a moment of respite, of contemplation unbidden by worldly troubles. When she opened them, she found that Wednesday had tucked her knees beneath her chin and was staring at the sky.

As Enid studied her profile, she decided the real stars made a much better companion to her eyes than Enid’s lights did.

Wednesday shot her a wayward look. Mercifully, she spared Enid and didn’t ask why she was staring. She merely tugged her gaze back to the view before them, her throat clicking before she pointed one hand towards the sky.

“There’s Cancer,” she said. Enid tried to follow her finger, but she couldn’t pinpoint where the constellation was through the plethora of stars.

As she tried to locate it, a smile tugged at her lips. “Hey, I’m a Cancer.”

“I know.” Wednesday kept her finger where it was. Enid eyed her.

As risky as it was, she asked, “Is that why you wanted me to come with you? Because you saw it out?”

Wednesday’s silence was enough of an answer, despite how vehemently Enid knew she would deny it. Wednesday was many things—she was passionate, attentive, extreme, but she was also deflective. Enid had come to know that like she knew the prayers that came from her mouth: like an old friend. If she decided not to broach the subject, Enid wouldn’t press, but she was certain they both were aware that Enid knew the truth.

“Where is it?” Enid continued. “I can’t see it.”

Without looking at her, Wednesday wrapped her cold fingers around Enid’s wrist, exposed above her ridden-up sleeves, and tugged it into the air, positioning it in the direction she desired. Ignoring the sensation of Wednesday’s hand, Enid leaned closer to her arm and stared up. It took a moment, but she finally spotted Cancer, its tiny stars flickering amongst its sisters. It drew a straight path across the darkness and diverged into two points near the bottom.

The night was beautiful. It was beautiful in the way sunrises on Saturdays were, in the way Enid’s favorite songs sounded on repeat. The moon, the stars, the mountains—all of it was certainly beautiful. It just wasn’t as beautiful as Wednesday was.

In some universe, one where Enid was braver, she would tell her that. In this one, she bit her tongue. Wednesday let go of her wrist; the sudden absence of her touch was poignant. Venom coursed through her veins where it had once been, forcing her to hover her hand in the air until she was sure Wednesday wasn’t going to reach for it again.

“Thank you,” she decided to murmur, her voice unintentionally weighted. She cleared her throat and pulled her arm back against her chest. Wednesday’s only response was a hum, a wordless concession that she had, in fact, brought Enid out to show her Cancer.

She knew Wednesday wasn’t influenced by astrological signs; where Enid liked to check up on her horoscope every few days, Wednesday had once told her she preferred to not be defined by star patterns or planet positions. To Enid, it was a blanket of security, something to fall back on when she wanted reassurance, whether or not it proved to be true. As much of a planner Wednesday was, Enid admired her disregard for the entire idea.

The moon—a waxing gibbous—yielded a gentle haze upon the mountains. It painted the pair sitting beneath it with a milky glow. Enid took solace in the knowledge they were the only ones out here for a mile or two. It made this feel special, like they were existing in a world that belonged only to them, nestled amongst swaying trees and cliffsides and moss.

The breeze picked up. It wasn’t a lot, but it was noticeable. Enid curled further into the body heat her thick letterman jacket provided and watched a bird momentarily block the moon out. At her side, a faint tremble ran through Wednesday. Enid had eventually ended up close to Wednesday, nonetheless, and the movement alerted her from where their shoulders pressed together.

Enid refrained from mentioning it, but over the course of three minutes, it happened again, again, and then once more. It was then that she turned to look at Wednesday. Her jaw was clenched hard beneath the shadows, as though she was attempting to stop her teeth from chattering.

“Are you cold?” Enid asked, quiet.

Wednesday shot her a single glance. “No.” As if in disagreement, she shivered again.

Enid took a second to consider the temperature. On the brink of fall, the air was rather chilly. Enid’s nose was a bit cold, but it was manageable. Werewolves tended to run warm. Wednesday, though? She ran cold.

“Don’t worry,” Enid whispered, “I won’t tell anyone.”

Heavens forbid the student population discovered Wednesday Addams could be affected by cold weather. It would be a scandal, Enid was sure, which was mostly a joke, but the idea still brought a private smile to her face.

Wednesday didn’t reply, but another shiver wracked her body. She subtly brought her legs closer to her chest when Enid assumed she thought she wasn’t watching. In her time of knowing Wednesday, though, Enid had learned to be observant.

After a short period of deliberation, Enid began to tug her arms out of her jacket. When she shrugged it off entirely, she grasped the top in her hands and scooted away from Wednesday, who eyed her suspiciously.

“Here,” Enid said, clenching it in her fist and stretching her hand out.

Wednesday stared at her before replying, “I’d rather freeze to death.”

She was so frustratingly stubborn. Enid recalled writing something about that in her journal. Wordlessly, she swung the jacket across Wednesday’s shoulders and draped it over her back like a blanket.

“Too bad,” she murmured, unconsciously fixing the collar. She flicked her eyes up to meet Wednesday’s. “I like you too much for that.”

She hadn’t entirely meant to say that. The weight of her words hung in the air for a beat too long. Enid managed to pull her eyes away and scooted closer again. Damn her reservations; she could cast them to the night until daylight came. Until then, she was content to stay like this.

Enid was certain she would regret that later. Selfishness never went without consequence.

Wednesday didn’t respond for a long moment, leading Enid to believe she’d deduced the deeper meaning behind her words and was considering pushing her over the cliff edge. Enid knew her well enough to know she would never truly do that, but the idea still lingered, mostly because she figured she deserved it. Wednesday did nothing of the sort, though; she simply tugged the jacket closer around herself and sighed from her nose.

Four heartbeats later, she was sliding her arms through the holes and not-so-discreetly burrowing into the fabric. Enid’s heart did unruly things at the sight of Wednesday in her jacket. A familiar guilt surged through her. She tried to combat that problem by looking away, but she couldn’t. It was only when Wednesday glanced at her that she forced herself to watch the mountains again.

When their shoulders were brushing again, Enid exhaled and, closing her eyes, leaned her head to the side and laid it on Wednesday’s shoulder. Wednesday didn’t push her away; if anything, she sank into the touch, relaxing into the rock behind her. Enid tried not to smile at that.

A hoot resounded from the trees again, and the crickets started humming once more. Just like it had earlier in the day, a wave of unfiltered panic washed over Enid, gripping her intentions like a vise and turning them insidious and poisoned. She shouldn’t be doing this. She was wrong for taking so much comfort in this. She was a deceptive dog; she slunk to the side and cowered until given the chance to bite.

And so she lifted her head, playing it off as attempting to gain a better read on the sky, and tried to ignore Wednesday’s gaze pinning on the back of her head. When she could ignore it no longer, she turned around.

Wednesday’s dark eyes, glinting in the moonlight, flicked over her face. Her brows furrowed, acknowledging in the way they got when she breached a detail she had missed before.

“You have dirt on your face.” Her words, indecipherable and blunt, were punctuated by the slackening of her face.

“Do I?” Enid said, racking her brain for every reason why it might be there. “Oh. I was playing horseshoes with some people earlier and got mud tossed on me. Guess I missed a spot.”

“We play our own version of horseshoes at home. It involves bear traps,” Wednesday said. There was a slight uptick of her lips and enough directness in her voice that Enid couldn’t tell if she was serious. She supposed that was the intention.

Her breath stalled in her throat when Wednesday leaned infinitesimally closer. “Do you want me to get it off?” she asked.

Enid stared at her, silent, as her brain decided it didn’t have enough oxygen and she grew lightheaded. If she were any more foolish, she would almost go as far as to say Wednesday was flirting with her. But those were all lies fabricated by Enid’s desperate, longing heart, so she paid them no mind. She swallowed and forced her next breath to not shake.

Enid nodded silently, deciding she didn’t trust herself enough to open her mouth. Wednesday shifted so that she was facing Enid, unwinding her arms from her legs and dropping her knees. Far too surely, she reached out and framed Enid’s face with her cold hands. Enid couldn’t stop the way her breath caught, but Wednesday didn’t seem to notice.

Her thumb swiped across Enid’s cheek, her face hardened in concentration as she followed the movement with her eyes. While she was distracted, Enid took the opportunity to admire her. She looked ethereal beneath the starlight, as if it was made to behold her and only her. Moonlight spilled in tendrils over her hair and dusted her face like fresh snowfall. She was divine in all senses of the word, and Enid’s heart just couldn’t take it.

After Wednesday stopped the featherlight movement, Enid breathed out. “Did you get it?”

Wednesday met her eyes. “Yes,” she said, but still she stayed there, holding Enid’s face like she was a most precious artifact.

The worst thing was that it was all Enid truly desired. That admission was less like a respite and more like bile running down her mouth. Don’t hold me like this. I’ll pretend it’s something it isn’t.

Enid pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. She wanted to grab Wednesday by the collar of her own letterman jacket and kiss her with the mountains as her witness. She spared Wednesday the trouble of disliking the idea, for Enid loathed herself for it.

Wednesday stared at her like she was something to be figured out. She tilted her head to the side and swiped her thumb across Enid’s cheek again, tempting electricity to dance in its path. Slowly, Enid lifted her hands to wrap them around Wednesday’s wrists, her touch little but a whisper. A question weighed on her tongue, but she couldn’t muster the strength to articulate it.

Just as the silence became too much to bear, Enid’s phone chimed.

Wednesday prolonged pulling her hands away. Enid noticed. She forced back a shiver as her fingers ghosted over her skin. Without considering the implications of anything that had just happened, lest she entertain things that would never be true, Enid reached for her phone tucked into her back pocket.

She’d had her notifications to where nobody could disturb her unless they bypassed the option. She had a dreadful feeling she knew exactly who would do such a thing.

To occupy the silence, she murmured, “I’m not even sure how I have service out here.”

Wednesday said nothing as she pulled her phone out and tapped the screen. It lit up to reveal, as Enid expected, a new message from Bruno at the bottom of her lock screen. She swallowed and clicked on it, unconcerned that Wednesday was at her side and very well could read her conversation.

Fortunately, the earlier messages were nothing of substance nor importance. The new one, sent at 12:41 A.M., read: Where r u?

Enid’s fingers stilled atop the keyboard as the cursor blinked. She swiped down so it wouldn’t show her typing, aware of Wednesday staring at the screen, too.

A typing bubble appeared, and then: I went to ur tent and you weren’t there.

Wednesday tensed against Enid and pulled away. Enid figured she was uncomfortable with the idea of someone encroaching on their space like that. She found she shared that sentiment. It was their space, no one else’s, and perhaps it was the werewolf talking, but such interruption was never welcome.

Enid didn’t reply. She really, really didn’t want to share the truth about her whereabouts. This outing with Wednesday—it was secret, special to Enid. She didn’t want to share its existence with anybody. It was theirs. She didn’t want to say they were stargazing or looking at the mountains because, for tonight, the stars and the mountains were theirs. Enid wasn’t going to let anyone taint that.

So, with the idea of secrecy in mind, she replied, out. why?

The typing bubble appeared and disappeared multiple times. Enid assumed it wasn’t the response he wanted, but with Wednesday at her side, she felt compelled to be less amicable.

Finally, his response came. My pack buddies wanna hang out so come on.

Enid swallowed as she stared at the screen. She didn’t want to go. She wanted to stay in this moment with Wednesday, where she felt safe, where it felt a bit like home.

But that wasn’t what the girl she was supposed to be would do. Any normal girl, any normal werewolf would take up her boyfriend’s offer to sneak around and hang out with the pack. It wouldn’t even be a question—they would go for it, simple as that. Their best friend wouldn’t be at the forefront of their mind. Their best friend wouldn’t, by no means, be all they ever wanted.

Enid didn’t realize her hands were trembling until she noticed the light of her screen shaking. She faltered and looked at Wednesday.

Wednesday stared at the screen with steely eyes before pulling them up to Enid, silent. A challenge.

Enid’s heart pounded. She was never going to be as brave as Wednesday was.

She continued to hold Wednesday’s gaze as she typed out an ok without looking. Wednesday’s eyes dropped to the screen. Something passed over her face, fleeting, too quick for Enid to grasp or name. Enid saw a few things, though; she saw Wednesday’s jaw set. She saw her pull further away. And when she looked up at Enid, that something flashed over her face again, and Enid saw what it was: hurt.

Enid’s heart sank. I’m sorry, she wanted to say. She was a coward. She didn’t.

Wednesday turned away and tugged her legs to her chest once more. She stared into the distance, even as the breeze whisked at her hair, even as Enid’s lip quivered.

She wouldn’t look at Enid.

When Enid realized she wasn’t going to, she tucked her phone back into her pocket. She stood up, shattering the delicate peace they had made, and took a couple steps backward. Wednesday kept resolutely staring ahead. Enid’s throat closed painfully, a warning of the inevitable, but it was too late—the inevitable came. Tears welled in her eyes and blurred her vision.

“I can come back later,” she whispered, her voice wavering. It was borderline pleading, but she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

Wednesday had no obligation to wait for her. This was her gift, and Enid had thrown it into the night like it was nothing.

She was tempted to text Bruno and say she couldn’t come. She did no such thing.

Enid swallowed the tears in her throat when Wednesday didn’t reply. She didn’t acknowledge Enid at all. Wednesday stayed still, looking at the view, and it was worse than any frustration she could grant.

Realizing she was no longer welcome, she turned and started to walk away. Her steps were haphazard and disjointed, for the stone was blurred by her tears. She was unable to stop herself from casting a look over her shoulder.

Wednesday, wrapped in her jacket, had rested her chin on her knees, still sitting in the shadow of the rock.

Enid pursed her lips and kept walking. The horrible gravity of her decision followed her like a ghost, however numb she felt.

In the end, Enid couldn’t make herself turn around. Doing so would prove she was everything she didn’t want to be.

Enid left Wednesday alone to look at the stars by herself.

. . .

A pleasant buzz radiated from Enid’s cheeks to her fingertips. Her feet were akin to lead, and the sounds of the forest seemed far more distant than she figured they should, but her problems seemed less of a trouble. For a long, lingering moment, in which she paused and stared at the path between campsites and deliberated which one to take, she forgot what she was worried about in the first place.

She languidly slid her eyes to the most familiar sign and began walking again. The foliage tossed in the wake of her passing, refuting her presence, but she paid it no mind. Not really. In fact, she wasn’t paying mind to much of anything. Her mind was swathed by cotton, her chest was fluttering with a thousand feelings, and she just wanted to go home.

Home was in a tent somewhere between two trees, and her name was Wednesday.

Enid vaguely recalled that she was supposed to be upset about something—sad, even. Something in the back of her mind reminded her that Wednesday might not even be around, but she couldn’t quite remember why that was. She resolved that it wasn’t important. So long as she managed to find her, Enid decided that she would be all right. Nonetheless, a pit of dread coalesced the last remnants of sense she had into a gaping pit, forcing her to slow her pace and take another look around.

It took her a brief while to realize where she was, but when she did, her steps—however sluggish—were sure as she followed a familiar footpath. The owl hoots, the ones she had grown fond of, were no more. Even when she strained her ears, she couldn’t hear anything, not even the rustle of feathers or the shifting of talons wrapped around a branch. It sent a twinge of unease through her.

After what felt like hours of walking, a tent came into view, peering out from behind the brush. Her tent. Their tent.

Enid swallowed down nothing as she made her way to the entrance. She listened past the heat of her face, but she didn’t hear a single thing within it. All was still. Enid kept where she was, every loosening muscle frozen, as she remembered Wednesday probably didn’t want her around. That, or she wasn’t there at all. Mountains and stars danced in her head, dreamlike, and the dread grew.

As she debated turning back around and slinking off into the woods somewhere, shuffling resounded from inside. Losing any thoughts of her earlier plans, she reached for the tent flap zipper. It proved difficult to get a good grasp on—she fumbled and wondered why it kept slipping from her hold—but she managed to zip open the tent.

The distant lamplight spilled into it, revealing Wednesday sitting on the ground, halfway through lacing up one of her boots. Her brows furrowed when she looked up. Enid took note of her current position and tried to reckon why she was putting her shoes on in the middle of the night.

Wednesday’s voice was tinged with something like anger when she said, her words clipped and hard, “Where have you been?”

Enid frowned and glanced over her pensive face. How long had she been gone? She recalled meeting with Bruno, then swiping a drink or two from his friends to combat the sadness festering within her, but she hadn’t kept track of time.

“With some friends,” she mumbled, her tongue heavy, suddenly all too aware that she was peeking through the tent entrance. She was lying. They weren’t her friends. They just offered her a balm to her troubles, and she had taken it.

Wednesday tugged off her boots, keeping her face pointed away. “I’m sure.”

If it were any other day, any other time, Enid’s hackles might have raised. A defense would tear past her teeth, unbridled. But Enid was exhausted, and dizzy, and all she wanted was Wednesday, whose words were taut and stifled.

Enid’s brain took that second to remind her of Wednesday under the moonlight. An overwhelming guilt flooded her. It took her a long moment to sort through the clues laid out before her, but she decided it was terrible to imply she had been having fun after she left—left—Wednesday. She decided it was even worse that she hadn’t wanted to leave in the first place.

“I’m not—” she started, staring at the floor. She couldn’t make sense of anything in her mind. It was all muddled and distorted. “I’m lying. I’m sorry. That’s not . . .” her throat clicked as she struggled for words, “that’s not true.”

Wednesday regarded her with something calculating—her eyes narrowed and her lips twitched. Enid crept into the tent following her silence. She crawled atop her sleeping bag with unsteady limbs and turned to face Wednesday, blinking slowly. She wanted to say something, but when she met Wednesday’s eyes, she couldn’t remember what it was.

“You’re drunk,” Wednesday said. It wasn’t a question, nor was it an accusation. It was simply a statement. She frowned.

“Mm, not a lot,” Enid replied, tilting her head to the side. Wednesday sighed and reached up to zip the tent closed, draping a tarp of darkness atop them. It relented only when Wednesday flicked on an electric oil lamp beside her sleeping bag.

“Not a lot is still a little.” She fiddled with the lamp and looked back at Enid. “Why?”

Enid’s response came belatedly. “What?”

“Why did you drink? You’ve never been the type to do that.”

Enid stared at her hands. The truth? She wanted to forget. She wanted to forget what Wednesday made her feel. She wanted to drown herself in the bliss of ignorance. So she took a few of the smuggled drinks, and Bruno had kissed her some hour ago—or maybe half an hour, she didn’t know—and she kissed him back and pretended he was Wednesday, for even alcohol couldn’t cure her of longing.

A lump grew in her throat. She forced it down. With the little inhibition she had left, she whispered, “I don’t know.” It sounded far more pathetic than she’d meant for it to be.

Enid pulled her eyes back to Wednesday and exhaled slowly. Before Wednesday could speak again, she hurriedly said the first thing that came to mind. “I didn’t want to.”

A beat passed.

“Didn’t want to what?” Wednesday replied, unmoving. Her face remained impassive. Enid wanted it to soften like it always tended to do around her. It didn’t, though. The acknowledgment was like needles in her lungs—suffocating, a death so slow one barely realized it was upon them.

“Leave you,” Enid tacked on quickly. She wasn’t thinking about what she was saying. “Go. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay with you.”

She searched Wednesday’s face desperately. She needed her to understand. She needed her to understand what she couldn’t say aloud. She needed her to understand before she messed up and did say it aloud.

Wednesday stared at her for a long, long moment before looking away. Enid pulled her knees to her chest, blinking past the monumental effort it took to keep her head entirely upright. When she felt gravity pulling her into its lull, she tilted her head and rested her cheek on her knees. As she watched Wednesday, she jutted her bottom lip out. Had she said something wrong? She couldn’t fathom what about her words had been bad, but she resolved it wasn’t important. Mere seconds ago, she might have known, but she disregarded it.

The silence drained Enid of any previous understanding. When Wednesday lowered her shoulders and looked back at her, she couldn’t remember what they’d been talking about, but she felt the weight in her chest, nonetheless.

“Why didn’t you?” Wednesday asked, her voice taut. While her eyes betrayed her reservations, her face remained rather unreadable. She stood on a pedestal Enid, in her hazy stupor, couldn’t reach.

Enid furrowed her brows while her brain tripped to catch up with her. “What?”

Wednesday sighed. “Forget it.”

“No,” Enid said. She sat up much too quickly; the following wave coursing through her head made her feel as though she were underwater. “No, no, tell me. Why didn’t I what?”

“Never mind,” Wednesday said, retreating back into the armor Enid knew she wielded like a lifeline. She shifted away from Enid. It wasn’t far, admittedly, for their tent didn’t allow such distance, but the action was palpable. It tore at Enid’s ugly heart. “You should go to bed.”

Enid frowned. She didn’t want this conversation to end. She might not be the most active participant, but she felt safer than she had in the time she’d spent being stupid with her stupid boyfriend and drinking stupid drinks to drown out her problems.

Don’t you get it? Enid’s muddled brain supplied as she dug through her bag for her pajamas. She found them rolled up and wrinkled at the top. You’re what I want.

She ran her fingers over the silk fabric and looked over her shoulder. “Could you . . .” she started, unable to finish through the weight that was her tongue—or perhaps she just didn’t want to voice it. Nevertheless, she didn’t really trust herself to stumble up to the bathrooms right now.

But Wednesday’s back was already facing her, a silent safety device. Enid wordlessly changed into her pajamas, persevering despite her fingers deciding they were unwilling to cooperate. She finished in a particularly untimely fashion, much to her chagrin. If nothing else, she felt lighter as she wadded her clothes up and shoved them into her bag.

She ran a hand through her hair and mumbled out a slurred, “‘m done.”

Wednesday turned back around. Enid, realizing she hadn’t taken her clips out of her hair, busied herself with extracting them and relieving the tension on her scalp. Wednesday shuffled onto her sleeping bag as Enid dropped her hair clips somewhere on the ground—she’d find them tomorrow—and rubbed her eyes.

When she lowered her hands, she looked at Wednesday, who, against all odds, was already looking at her. Enid’s heart jumped wildly. Whether it was from her mildly inebriated state or just Wednesday, she wasn’t entirely sure.

As she met Wednesday’s gaze in the dimness of their tent, she couldn’t rid herself of the profound feeling she’d messed something up. This. Them. She wasn’t sure how to fix it, but it was evident in the clenching of Wednesday’s jaw, the unyielding rigidness of her posture that hadn’t been there before.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, bringing her knees to her chest again. Wednesday’s eyes, which had grown distant, sharpened. “About leaving. I think—I think I’ve messed up.” Any secrecy Enid had hoped to maintain fled in an instant. She briefly entertained that she’d regret all of this by the time the sun peaked the mountains. Right now, though, she couldn’t find it in herself to care.

Wednesday didn’t reply. Enid floundered, opening and closing her mouth, before eventually slurring, “What can I do?” She dropped her knees and leaned on one of her hands. “What do I do to fix it?”

Wednesday regarded her for a while. Finally, she exhaled slowly and shook her head. “There’s nothing to fix, Enid. You’re not in your right mind. Go to sleep.”

“Please,” she said, her voice cracking. She hadn’t intended to sound so desperate. “Please tell me. I want to make it better. I can’t lose you.”

Gone was Enid’s filter, for it had run with her sanity, run away from her like she wished she could run away from herself.

Wednesday narrowed her eyes. “You’re not losing me.”

“It feels like it,” Enid choked out, strained. Her lip wobbled. Wednesday held her response, and its absence was nothing short of a death sentence. Enid righted herself and folded her hands together atop her lap. She watched with a metaphorical shoe on her neck as Wednesday reached for her lantern. Enid couldn’t bear the silence.

“Is it—is it Bruno?” she spilled out. Wednesday’s eyes widened. Enid continued with clenched fists. “I don’t . . . I don’t—” she faltered, “he’s not—”

“Enid,” Wednesday warned, pinning her with a hard stare and effectively shutting her up. “Stop talking before you say things you don’t mean.”

Enid snapped her slack jaw shut and bit her tongue. I mean every word I say. She knew it wasn’t true, not most days. Tonight, though? She felt tempted to lay her heart bare and hand a hot knife to Wednesday. She would be at her behest, and she would be so willingly.

Wednesday sat up without turning off the lantern and pointedly looked at the tent wall behind Enid.

“You don’t know what I mean and don’t mean,” Enid finally said, keeping her gaze fixed firmly on Wednesday. She was issuing the challenge.

Wednesday flicked her attention back to Enid’s face. Her brows furrowed. “No. I don’t,” she said. “Let’s keep it that way. I don’t need to know. Your matters aren’t my concern.”

“Bullshit,” Enid slurred past the sudden hurt that infiltrated her. Clearly, Wednesday hadn’t expected that; she blinked as if taken aback. Enid continued with a frown. “If my . . . my matters aren’t your problem, then you wouldn’t have been putting your shoes on to come find me, would you?”

Wednesday huffed and cast a sidelong glare at her boots. When she didn’t argue, Enid started to think she had been right, even through the dysfunction that was her bogged mind.

By some otherworldly grace, she managed to hold her tongue long enough to sigh. She couldn’t keep talking. She was treading into dangerous territory, one only exacerbated by her desire to continue forward. There was little but a tiny alarm stopping her from doing just that.

The best thing would be to hold her tongue, to lay down, to face away from Wednesday and pretend it would rid her of her wrongs. Yet, Enid was nothing if not impulsive—and that tendency was amplified—so she shuffled a breadth closer and stared at the blankets between them like they would give her answers.

“I’m not . . .” She tilted her head to the side and picked at a loose thread on a blanket. It was difficult to hold onto what she wanted to say, for her thoughts slipped between her fingers like mountain mist, but she persisted. “I’m—I’m sorry. Really. I just . . . ,” she looked up, “I don’t think I would do it different if I had another chance. But I would want to. I did want to. I just—I can’t.”

Wednesday provided nothing but a hum as she held Enid’s gaze. It didn’t ease her nerves.

“Maybe we could try again?” Enid whispered. “Before the week is over?”

Wednesday eyed her for a moment longer before glancing towards the front of the tent. “I don’t know.”

Enid tried not to let her face fall, but her efforts were for naught. Paired with the ever-present heat of her face, the tears brimming in her eyes were pronounced. Even still, she nodded and blinked them away. She understood. She didn’t deserve a second chance, especially not when it involved matters of Wednesday’s trust.

“It’s not a ‘no.’” Wednesday looked at her again. Her efforts of indifference were obvious, but Enid glimpsed a crack or two in them. “I’ll have to see if Cancer is out again.”

Enid blinked, unable to dampen her surprise. “Oh,” she mumbled. “Yeah. I’d like that.” A pause. “I’d love that.”

After a period of silence, accompanied by the minuscule shift of Wednesday’s expression, Enid said, “I’m sorry.” She’d said it a lot, sure, but she felt the overwhelming urge to keep saying it.

“You sound like a broken record,” Wednesday said before she could go further. Enid shrugged and looked back down at the blanket thread snagged on her claw. “I mean it, Enid. Go to sleep.”

“Why?” she asked, not accusatory. A private smile tugged at the edge of her mouth. “Are you gonna sneak out with me asleep?”

“No. You just need to sleep.”

“I want to keep talking to you, though.” Enid lifted her eyes again. The words came easily. Too easily. “It’s one of my favorite things to do. Really. . . . Like, if someone had to ask me what one of my favorite things is, I would say ‘talking to Wednesday.’ You’re just . . .” she trailed off. She couldn’t find the words. Distantly, she decided none of them would ever encapsulate all she truly wanted to say.

Across from her, Wednesday was still. She opened her mouth, but Enid beat her to it.

“I don’t know. You’re maybe just the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Enid said, meeting Wednesday’s wide eyes imploringly.

Wednesday’s voice was hoarse when she said, “Enid.”

“I mean it,” Enid insisted, even though her head threatened to droop. She’d never been more sure of anything in her life. She figured that should scare her more than it did. Come morning, she knew it would.

“Stop talking, Enid,” Wednesday said. “You shouldn’t be saying things when you’re like this.”

“But I want to say them,” Enid protested.

“No, you don’t.”

Enid shuffled a bit closer. Wednesday met her head-on, a familiar, unwavering determination settling on her features as she stared Enid down. With barely two inches of space between their knees, Enid was all too aware of the hardening of her gaze, the furrowing of her brow, and the tilt of her head. When Wednesday leaned closer, as if to punctuate her coming words, she was also far too aware of how her warm face grew warmer. This time, it wasn’t any drink’s doing.

In some world, she was brave enough to proclaim all she kept a secret. She was holding onto hope that it would be tonight’s world.

Enid beat her to speaking again. “You don’t get to tell me what I do or don’t want.”

“You’ll thank me tomorrow,” Wednesday said. Enid shook her head.

Wednesday sighed. “I’m serious.”

“I’m serious, too,” Enid said, unmoving. She shuffled forward another inch, just close enough to see the halo of the lantern reflect in Wednesday’s eyes like a coin. Wednesday’s eyes flicked between her own. Enid resolved she wouldn’t try to figure out what she was searching for.

When the silence lapsed for a beat too long, Enid lowered her shoulders and tried not to do something irrevocably foolish in such proximity. Unfortunately, the last of her inhibitions snapped when Wednesday swallowed. She moved close enough to brush their knees together.

“You’re really pretty, Wednesday,” she slurred lowly, searching her face again. Her heart writhed in her chest.

Wednesday stared. “Enid—”

“No, I mean it,” Enid interrupted, “you’re so pretty.”

“Enid, stop talking. You’re not thinking right,” Wednesday said. Outside, the owl resumed its hooting. Enid took a deep breath.

“You’re really brave, too. Braver than I’ll ever be, probably.” Her eyes drifted to the lantern sitting at the foot of Wednesday’s sleeping bag. She swallowed heavily and met Wednesday’s eyes again. What was that about losing inhibitions? Liquid courage, was it?

The following silence gave Enid time to dwell on it. Wednesday remained still, her eyes contemplative. They steadily weathered into something else, something Enid wasn’t sure she should try to put a name to. She knew she’d be wrong.

“I have a secret,” Enid said quietly.

Wednesday’s throat clicked when she asked, “What is it?”

“I can’t tell you.” Enid leaned a fraction closer. “Then it wouldn’t be a secret.”

Wednesday’s eyes dropped once. Enid didn’t miss it, but it made her more lightheaded than she already was. She slid her attention to Wednesday’s hand on the sleeping bag, where it propped her up. Gently, shakily, Enid twined her fingers with Wednesday’s, leaning her weight into her hand as she looked up again.

Wednesday moved her sights from their intertwined hands back to her. Enid ran her thumb along the back of Wednesday’s hand and decided that, if she could stay in this moment for a few minutes longer, there wasn’t another thing she would want in this life. She tilted her head to the side as Wednesday, too, leaned forward.

“You’re going to regret this,” Wednesday whispered.

“Yeah,” Enid agreed and closed the distance between them.

It was barely a brush of lips, but it still managed to make Enid’s chest lurch. Wednesday’s lips were soft—impossibly soft for a person so sharp, so distant. When Enid pressed just a breath closer, keeping her eyes closed, she rethought her opinion. It wasn’t surprising. Wednesday was soft; she was just soft in the way a feral cat begrudgingly accepted pets, soft in the way new grass grew after a forest fire. Unsuspecting, even reluctant, but there.

Their lips hadn’t stayed pressed together more than three seconds, but Enid knew, even through the haze, this would be the moment she lost herself.

Their lips hadn’t stayed pressed together more than four seconds before a siren rang out.

Enid’s eyes flew open as they flinched away in tandem. Alarm pulsed through every focal point in her body, coalescing in her heart in a last-ditch effort to regain herself.

Though the shrill wail of the siren outside prevailed, she and Wednesday held each other’s stare, their hands still connected on the ground. Enid swallowed down the growing knot in her throat as Wednesday breathed too evenly, too deeply, and glanced over her face.

At that moment, too many things flooded her eyes. All of them were intense, but they were all fleeting, too. Enid couldn’t read her. She couldn’t even speak.

Finally, when the siren reached a crescendo, Wednesday seemed to break from her stupor. She pulled her hand out from under Enid’s and drew backward. Enid felt strangely cold as she looked at her abandoned hand. Weightlessness and heaviness fought for control over her autonomy. Her lip quivered as she lifted her attention again.

Wednesday was still looking at her, eyes wide and still tinged by a thousand unspoken words. She turned her face away, her expression hardening, as orange light began to color her features from beyond the tent.

Enid had almost forgotten about the sirens in her haste to realize the gravity of what she had done. Wednesday hadn’t.

“Something’s happened,” she said, her voice still hoarse. Enid held her hand to her chest and watched her hunch over and make her way to the tent flap. Enid’s lips were cold, bidden by each and every one of her sins, and they tasted like Wednesday. She wasn’t sure which was worse. Maybe that, in and of itself, was a wrong.

Enid struggled to right herself as quickly. She wanted to say something. Anything. No words came. Had she lost her tongue alongside her mind?

I’ve messed up, was the only rational thought clouding her mind as Wednesday roughly tugged her boots on. What did I just do? When Wednesday reached for the zipper, Enid dug her nails into her palms. Her breath quickened. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

Wednesday shot her a single glance backward, betraying nothing but confliction, before she stepped out of the tent. Enid scrambled upright, squinting as the world tilted, and barely made it to the entrance to follow her.

She stumbled out of the tent in her bare feet, wrapping her arms around herself and blinking against the sheer unexpectedness of what she saw. It took her longer than it should have for realization—and shock—to kick in. Through the trees, one of the distant cabins was partially ablaze, sending plumes of smoke curling into the air. It didn’t look terribly bad—it was small, if anything—but it wasn’t good.

Enid’s heart fell into her throat as she pulled up beside Wednesday, who was staring at the fire, her eyes wide. For a moment, their impulsive kiss was eclipsed by the magnitude of such a situation.

When Wednesday turned to face her and took a step backward, the severity of her expression was enough to shove it back into Enid’s face without mercy. Enid expected anger. She expected disgust. She could handle them, even if they were at the hands of Wednesday, because she felt those things constantly. What she didn’t expect was fear.

“Go back to the tent,” she said, hard.

“What?” Enid choked out. “No. I’ll stay with you.” I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it. Let me make it up to you. I don’t think I can.

“You’re in no state to do that,” Wednesday refuted.

Enid faltered and tried not to let gravity pull her down, however enticing it was. “Wednesday, I’m sorry.”

Wednesday looked over her shoulder and back at Enid. The firelight at her back highlighted the edges of her silhouette. The black trees framed her, bowing to all that Wednesday was, even against the distant flames.

Her face was stitched with reservation when she repeated, “Go back to the tent.”

“Why?” Enid whispered. “Is it—is it because—?”

“It doesn’t matter why I’m telling you,” Wednesday said, her words clipped. Urgent, even, like she was trying to get a point across by any means possible. “Just do it.”

Enid racked her brain for every possible reason why she shouldn’t go with her. She came up with a few, and all might warrant such a reaction, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was afoot. Enid stared at Wednesday and forced her jaw not to quiver.

“I want to come with you,” she eventually said, quiet.

Wednesday flicked her eyes between Enid’s as though she were searching for a response. She must have found an adequate one because her next words were, “I don’t want you to come with me. I will come for you if we need to evacuate. Go.”

Enid was unable to stop herself from recoiling. The order was entirely deserved, but she hadn’t expected Wednesday to voice it so blatantly. She wrapped her arms around herself and took one unsteady step away.

“I’m serious.” Wednesday’s voice grew strained. “Enid, please.”

Wednesday was practically begging—and for her absence, no less. It hurt worse than any accusatory remark she could throw at Enid in the wake of her mistake. Enid eyed the ground between them, fixing her attention on a lone walnut, before she released a shuddering breath. Without a word, she turned on her heel and retreated back to their tent.

She didn’t look back, even when she almost fell stepping inside, even when the distant sounds of emergency response sirens began to ring out alongside the others. She didn’t look back when blue and red lights began to accent the trees, and she didn’t look back to close the tent.

Enid simply crawled into her sleeping bag, relishing the welcome reprieve that lying down was, and pulled her knees to her chest. As she stared at the empty sleeping bag beside her, tears infiltrated her exterior again. She had no reason to hold them back, so she let them slip down her face, hot and silent.

She shouldn’t have done it. She shouldn’t have kissed Wednesday. The near mistake she had berated herself for before had become a reality, and it was infinitely worse than any potential had been.

Some foolish part of her, one she tried not to entertain, argued that Wednesday had also leaned closer. It argued that Enid regretted it much less than she should. It said she was a liar. That was the only thing she could readily accept. The others? She was content to mull over them in her shared tent with nothing but her faults to keep her company.

Enid kept staring at the empty tent in front of her. She couldn’t muster the will to do anything else.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered again, even though Wednesday couldn’t hear it.

. . .

Camp Jericho went by as quickly as it approached. The steepled points of Nevermore had loomed before Enid through the bus window when they got back, but she couldn’t find comfort in it past the thick silence between her and Wednesday.

The week-long excursion had reached a sudden conclusion following the fire that had consumed one cabin. There hadn’t been any direct injuries, but it hadn’t been without its faults; after the flames had been reduced to black, smoldering wood, the police had found a body in the woods. Enid wasn’t sure who it had been. The officials never disclosed it. But Wednesday—whose eyes always seemed to know more than they should—hadn’t mentioned a word of it to Enid.

It wasn’t the first murder ticked on this semester’s calendar. It seemed Nevermore had an innate ability to attract sinister circumstances. Or perhaps it was Wednesday—maybe you’re cursed, Enid had told her two days into the school year—who was a magnet for danger. The idea wasn’t a welcome one. It settled into her bones like a parasite, one intent on consuming her marrow until there wasn’t a thing left to support her transgressions.

Regardless, as soon as Enid noticed the extra inch or two of space between them on the bus, she hadn’t expected Wednesday to tell her. She allowed those spare inches to invade her mind without a fight. In doing so, they became gaping chasms, cracks in a foundation she once thought was solid. It wasn’t Wednesday’s voice that echoed back to her when she called across it, but instead her own, wielding a sharp tongue and a ridicule.

Enid hadn’t mentioned it to Wednesday. She let her drift. In the three days they had been back, she let Wednesday avoid her without a word. If there was anything Enid was to blame her for, it wasn’t that.

It didn’t matter if Wednesday leaned in as well. It didn’t matter that she seemed intent on staying there until the sirens pulled them apart. It didn’t matter that Enid kissed Wednesday, however fleeting it was, because that was the problem: she kissed Wednesday. Never, in all of her pathetic decisions, should she have done that. She wanted to blame it on being tipsy, on the fuzziness clinging to everything she had done, but she couldn’t.

It wouldn’t change all that Enid was. It wouldn’t change her mistakes. She had wanted to kiss Wednesday regardless.

The students had been ordered to pack their things the next morning, and they didn’t talk about it. They took down their tent together, and they didn’t talk about it. They got on the bus together, and they didn’t talk about it. They got back to their room, and they didn’t talk about it. Wednesday kept glancing at her, kept leaving in a hurry, and they didn’t talk about it.

Wednesday wasn’t avoiding her in a physical sense, not entirely. Her presence was tangible, her nods received, but she wasn’t there. With every distant stare Wednesday donned during a lecture, she believed that more and more. Something was wrong—it was wrong in the way Wednesday couldn’t look at her for too long, as if she feared what she saw, as if the very sensation warded her away. It was wrong in the way Enid felt like she wasn’t telling her something.

Enid didn’t deserve to be told anything, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. A dull blade still cut. If anything, it cut worse than a sharp one. A sharp blade cut quickly, evenly. A dull blade used more force, more time, and left jagged, messy edges in its wake.

Enid decided that was what it would take to pry Wednesday from her heart. Whatever being wished to tear her away would have to hack at the place she had carved for days.

Enid apologized twice that night—once with Wednesday’s ear and once without it. She wasn’t sure she could give another. To say that she didn’t want it would be a lie, and though Enid had learned lying’s language well, she didn’t have the energy to do it again. To say she was sorry, though? That was genuine. Enid could apologize for hours and never repent for all she wanted to.

I’m sorry for kissing you, she would say. I’m sorry you have to put up with me. I’m sorry my heart is like this. I’m sorry you’re stuck with me. I’m sorry you’re all I want.

I’m sorry for loving you, she would say, and that’s when Wednesday would leave.

Enid’s heart was wretched and feeble. Wednesday wouldn’t take it even if she wanted to. She would sneer at the desperate sight of it and discard it back into the hollow that was Enid’s chest, and Enid wouldn’t stitch herself up. She’d allow herself to bleed, for it would be one of the last times Wednesday would ever have anything to do with her, and if that were true, she wanted remember what her touch felt like.

Outside the windows, the sun retreated behind the clouds. The horizon brewed a storm. But Enid wouldn’t just take the wind, the rain, and the lightning this time. She would embrace them like an old friend, because that’s what they were to her. They had puppeteered her footsteps too long for her to treat them like strangers.

The doorknob felt like a weight in Enid’s unmoving grasp. Her eyes fell to her hand. Wrapped around the fixture like a dead man to his will, it trembled beneath the force of her crimes.

She pulled her gaze back to the door, the one Wednesday had crossed the threshold of not two minutes ago. Enid had asked where she was going. And just like her response a few weeks ago, she had been vague.

“Out,” she’d said with her bag on her back.

“Will you be back soon?” Enid asked quietly. She wasn’t expecting an answer.

Wednesday had opened the door and hadn’t looked back. “I’ll see.”

The silence she left was an assailant unlike any Enid had faced before.

Enid didn’t know how to make it right. She didn’t know how to fix it. She wanted to go back to naming crawdads Friday and using roasting marshmallows as a guise for stolen looks. She wanted to go back to stargazing. If she had one more chance, she wouldn’t bend to the will of any interruption. Oh, it would tug and pull at her, but Enid would be selfish. She would take, take, take and truly become the wanting beast she had always been.

She was tired of lying. She probably wouldn’t be tired of it tomorrow, or the day after, or in the coming weeks. But she was drowning in it today, and she’d finally run out of air.

She knew Wednesday didn’t want her around. She knew it like she knew the prayers in her throat. But Enid needed to be sure she was okay. She needed to explain herself. If Wednesday was going to push her away entirely, she needed to know who she was pushing away. Enid, in all her desperate ugliness, should be known. Wednesday deserved that.

Enid shoveled the last mound of dirt onto her grave as she went out the door.

The hallways beneath the attic were silent. They held their breath with trepidation, as though bearing witness to Enid’s descent. A rumble of thunder swelled in the wooden floors beneath her. A lantern’s light trembled on the wall, forcing its triangular shape to blur until it was muddled with the patterns on the old wallpaper.

Wednesday was easy to follow. Her scent was one of parchment and coffee grounds, ink and the bitter tang of pressed roses, more familiar and intoxicating than anything Enid had known before. All of that was true, but Wednesday was also predictable—not frequently, but she was. She followed a similar path each time she left the school, despite her efforts to remain unperceived. Enid noticed. She always did, and she wished she didn’t more than anything.

Though she didn’t know where Wednesday was going, she figured her familiar footpath was a good place to begin. Her sensitive nose led her along by ink and approaching petrichor, but her heart led her along by the habits of the girl who had stolen it.

The world was teetering on the precipice of a downpour when Enid emerged into it. The doors were heavy behind her when she pushed them shut. She paused beneath the awning only to observe the distant woodland, whose trees swayed with fervor, touched by the wind and everything it brought. Rain had already begun to tap against the sidewalks. It was the kind of rain that was tentative, less of a promise than it was a warning.

Enid didn’t feel the sprinkle on her clothes when she stepped into the open. Her mind, often unrelenting and even moreso traitorous, had sewn its last remnants of logic together to aid her in this effort. It left her both focused and unseeing. She supposed that’s what came with focus—the downfall of observation. It was ironic.

As clouds overtook the remaining blue skies, Enid watched a shadow shift in the tree line. Wednesday hadn’t made it far.

Enid quickened her pace as the rain fell harder. An overt glance at the mountains told her all she needed to know. Curtains of rain turned them pale, their streaks betraying their violent nature. The wind tugged at her hair, carrying the storm closer. It wouldn’t be long before it reached her.

Enid pursued Wednesday with the grace of a newborn fawn: wobbly, uncertain, but determined in spite of it all. If one were to ask her exactly what she wanted from this, she wouldn’t know. To explain herself, maybe. Wednesday, probably. She would get neither of those. She was too much of a coward, for one, and for the second, she didn’t deserve her.

Enid kept going. She knew it would hurt, but the hurt would feel good.

“Wednesday,” she called before she knew she was doing so. The wordlessness she received in response added an extra pile of dirt onto Enid’s grave. The added weight pressed down too hard, compressing her lungs until there was nothing left to siphon from her. No prayers, no apologies, no words.

Emerging into the forest, she squinted as droplets slid from the leaves of the boughs above her. They fell upon her hair and slid down her temple. The rhythmic pattering of their kin on the soil was an anchor in the vacancy. As the curtains of rain began to devour all in the vicinity, Enid began to realize the way they fell wasn’t a suggestion, but rather a promise.

Ahead, Wednesday ducked around a wall of oak trees. Enid’s voice grew desperate. “Wednesday!”

Wednesday didn’t relent. Enid quickened her pace as the rain began to dredge her clothes. It was only when puddles began to gather in the dips in the earth that she managed to glimpse Wednesday again. She glanced over her shoulder through the rain, leaving as an angel stricken by the tears of her woes, and stopped when she caught sight of Enid. The mist swelled around them as they stared at each other through the trees, suspended in a world whose fragments were becoming lodged in the ground.

Then Wednesday ran.

Her figure distorted by the downfall, she ran away from Enid, ran with her back to her like it was the easiest thing she had ever done.

Enid started to run, too. She wasn’t sure when, but her feet started to hit the ground, the trees blurred around her, and the rain blew sideways at her face. The distance between them closed steadily, even if Enid slipped on leaves and had to squint past the rain.

“Wednesday!” she yelled again.

When Enid was at her heels, she shot her hand out and grabbed Wednesday’s arm, forcing them both to skid to a halt. Wednesday whipped around to face her, one of her braids flying to the side. Her bangs were stringy with dampness, and the lapel of her coat dripped with rain.

“Why are you running?” Enid shouted over the rain, gentling her grasp. Wednesday stared at her, eyes wide, brows furrowing like there was something she just couldn’t decipher.

“You shouldn’t be here.” Wednesday jerked her arm away without answering. “You need to leave.”

Enid’s heart fell so quickly it nearly knocked her to the ground. “Wednesday, let me explain.”

Wednesday took a step backward. The rain fell harder. “This isn’t about that. Enid, I need you to go home.”

That. That. That.

“What?” Enid said. Her hand hung in the air. She knew her actions warranted Wednesday’s departure. They deserved her a closed door and looks devoid of warmth. But if that wasn’t what breathed life to those things, what was it? She wrinkled her nose in an attempt to quell the emotion rising in her throat. “I get it! I get if you’re mad at me, Wednesday! You don’t have to lie. Don’t lie.”

Don’t lie. I’ll mistake this for everything it’s not, and I’ve done that enough already. Send me away. Do what I know you want to do. Enid said none of those things, but her chest ached with the desire to.

Wednesday’s eyes flicked over her face. She took another step backward as if the urge to do so was the only thing speaking to her. Finally, she uttered, “I’m not lying.”

“Then why?” Enid’s voice broke. She couldn’t register the gravity of such an admission past the confusion poisoning her fragile heart.

“I can’t tell you!” Wednesday shouted back, her voice strained. Conflict bore heavy in the crease of her brows.

A heavy silence overtook them, its only accomplice a numbing shock. Enid watched as a flash of lightning lit Wednesday’s face an electric blue. It was rare she ever heard her raise a voice in such a manner, especially one that bordered on desperation. It only served to increase her worry. Gone were her original plans of explaining herself. She needed to know Wednesday was okay. And if pushing Enid to the side is what would make her okay, she would offer her absence willingly.

Over wavering syllables, she whispered, “You know you can trust me. If it’s about the investigation, if it’s about what I did—”

“It’s not about that,” Wednesday repeated, unrelenting. Her posture was rigid, seemingly a last-ditch attempt to regain whatever composure she had lost from yelling. “It doesn’t matter. I need you to go.”

Enid wasn’t sure if the droplets sliding down her face were of tears or rain, but they were adamant regardless. Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance again. At its heels followed another strike of lightning some miles away. Enid felt its resulting thunderclap in her bones as she stared at Wednesday.

“Why, though?” Her voice cracked. “Why do you need me to leave if it’s not about that? Tell me what I did. I’ll fix it. I can make it better.”

Wednesday glanced over her, then down, down until her gaze was pointed at Enid’s neck. When she looked up, she looked like she’d seen a ghost. But Enid was no ghost. She couldn’t be. She felt the electric quiver of life around her, she felt her heartbeat pounding, her blood rushing. She felt the rain like an anchor to a shifting seabed. Enid felt. She felt, and that was her downfall.

“You can’t—” Wednesday stopped talking and looked into the trees over Enid’s shoulder. “You can’t fix it.”

What was so drastic that it was unfixable if not the mistake Enid had made? Wednesday had never been one to spare feelings. Enid didn’t know why she was taking the liberty now.

It wasn’t that Enid didn’t trust Wednesday. She trusted her more than anything. She simply couldn’t fathom the insignificant nature of what she’d done—of kissing her. Surely that deserved far worse retribution than she was being bestowed?

Wednesday had a tendency to gravitate towards hiding. It was a different kind of hiding than Enid’s, but they both hid their feelings. Maybe their silent tormentors weren’t so different after all. That didn’t change the fact Wednesday was likely sparing Enid the consequences of her true reaction. Reacting, in this situation, would be a vulnerability.

Enid had known she was nothing but a selfish, wanting beast. To see the retributions of the horrid creature she had become brought nothing short than self-loathing upon her.

She wanted to apologize again, but nothing came out. Enid was nothing but a coward. If she could voice her desires, she would appeal for everything she’d done wrong.

Finally, her shoulders lowered. “I could always try. I don’t . . .” she swallowed as Wednesday looked at her again, “I don’t want to lose this.”

She realized only after she’d spoken that she wasn’t just talking about fixing whatever weighed on Wednesday. She wanted to fix this. Them. If that meant erasing her actions and burying her feelings again, so be it. Whatever pain came from their containment wouldn’t be worse than losing the reason for keeping it that way.

Wednesday’s attention bore into Enid as lightning struck again. “It’s not your battle to fight.”

Enid’s heart dropped. What kind of battle was it she fought? What hadn’t she been telling Enid?

“What do you mean?” she whispered. “What do you mean it’s not mine to fight? I can help you. You can tell me things. If you’re in danger . . .” Her voice grew pleading at the idea. “Don’t let yourself get hurt. You don’t have to—to protect me, or something.”

“You don’t understand,” Wednesday said, her voice rough. She shook her head and withdrew another step.

“So tell me!” Enid cried. “Don’t push me away!”

The rain came down harder. Something flashed over Wednesday’s face.

“You’ve done a pretty good job at doing that yourself, have you not?” she muttered.

Enid recoiled like she’d been slapped. She might as well have. The worst part? She couldn’t argue it. Every damning word was true. Whatever Wednesday expected of her, of them, it was her fault nothing came of it. She kept pulling away, regardless of what from.

Enid wanted to be angry. She wanted to bite back. She wanted to call Wednesday a hypocrite, for the exact crime she accused Enid of is what got them into this mess, but she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t even want to be angry; maybe she just wanted to feel something other than what she usually felt when she looked at Wednesday.

Enid couldn’t find a reply. She had no excuse. No answer. Nothing that wouldn’t infringe her. So she stayed quiet.

Wednesday straightened like she hadn’t expected a response. “I’m serious,” she said. Quiet. Too quiet. “Go home.”

I don’t know what home is if it's not you.

Enid’s heart squeezed as Wednesday turned back around. The mist crept closer to them over toppled trees and wet ferns. It didn’t have a chance to reach them before Enid was reaching out. Her hand didn’t make contact, but her words closed the distance.

“Wednesday,” she rasped. Wednesday stilled with her back to her. “I’m sorry.”

Something cracked like the electricity in the sky. Wednesday turned her head to the side. A drop of rain tracked down her forehead and dripped from her nose.

“Sorry for what?” She was barely audible over the rain, even to Enid’s sensitive ears. “For kissing me?”

Enid’s heart plummeted. Her lack of response must have been enough of one. Wednesday turned to face Enid again, the darkening trees at her back doing little to soften the sharpness of her face. It was the kind of sharpness that was made to shield. It wasn’t real.

“What did it mean to you, Enid?” Wednesday took one step closer. It was possibly the worst question she could have asked.

“What do you want it to mean, Wednesday?” Enid shot back, at a loss as she lifted her hands at her sides. The words were like broken glass in her throat.

“It doesn’t matter,” Wednesday replied, crossing her arms. The space between them was both a blessing and the vilest of curses. “I told you that you’d regret it.”

Enid choked on words she couldn’t say. Thunder clashed again, closer this time, emulating her desperation. The silence extended for a long time.

“You can’t even deny it,” Wednesday finally muttered. That shield gave way, if only a bit, and revealed a splintered mess of defenses.

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t want it,” Enid whispered shakily. She’d never been more honest in her life. Droplets of rain gathered on her eyelashes from her dripping bangs. She blinked them away and met Wednesday’s eyes.

When Wednesday stayed silent, it was Enid’s turn to retreat a step.

“Then why?” Wednesday asked after a beat too long. “Why do you—” a clenched jaw, an exhale, a quick look down and back up, “why don’t you ever stay?”

Something within Enid broke at those words. 

The truth? Enid was scared. She was tired. She was so, so tired of pretending Wednesday wasn’t everything she wanted. Enid wanted her stubbornness, even if it irritated her. She wanted her haunted eyes watching her. She wanted her heart, even if it was stained in ink. She wanted Wednesday and all of her lovely writing. She wanted her secret sweetness. She’d give all of herself if Wednesday would give her even a part of herself in turn.

“Because I’m scared,” Enid said before she thought better of it. I’m so scared of what you make me feel. I don’t know what to do with it.

“You’re scared,” Wednesday repeated, narrowing her eyes.

“You don’t understand,” Enid threw her words back at her, but her voice was weak.

“Enlighten me.” Wednesday took another step closer, then another, her resolve unwavering. It seemed that, now that she’d gotten Enid to crack, she wasn’t letting go.

Enid shut her eyes for a lingering moment, unable to face Wednesday directly under such close inspection. When she opened them, Wednesday was still there, her eyes dark and her skin glinting like porcelain from the drenching rainfall.

Thunder rolled again.

Lighting, after.

The rain continued.

“I think,” Enid started, her voice small, “I think I just want you.”

Wednesday’s eyes widened a fraction. Enid noticed. She always did.

Wednesday swallowed heavily and looked at the ground far too intensely for it to be directed at the soil between their shoes. She took another step closer, then another, her eyes still trained anywhere but Enid. It was only when they drifted back to Enid that she lifted her hands ever so slowly and cupped her face with one.

Enid stayed still, waiting, as though Wednesday would spook like a deer and take off at any sudden movement. Heart pounding in her throat, she watched as Wednesday lowered her other hand until her fingers were dusting against the side of Enid’s neck. Her eyes followed intently where Enid felt her thumb gently caress. She looked at it like she saw something that wasn’t there.

She pulled her eyes back up to Enid.

Enid shakily exhaled as Wednesday leaned closer. Close enough for their noses to brush. Close enough to destroy Enid without mercy.

“You’re going to regret this,” Enid whispered.

Wednesday’s eyes were distant, as though she were remembering something.

“I know,” she said.

It was Wednesday that closed the distance this time. Enid couldn’t hold back the sob that escaped her lips when Wednesday captured her own, seeking. Desperate. All-consuming and absolutely everything Enid wasn’t supposed to want.

Wednesday’s nails curled into Enid’s shoulder as Enid pressed into her, dropping her hands to her waist and pulling her closer. She scrabbled frantically at her jacket until they were pressed together, and yet it still wasn’t enough. It never would be.

This was nothing like their first kiss, if one were to even call it that. This was more like a goodbye. To what, Enid didn’t know. She didn’t want to know, not right now, because Wednesday’s hands slid into her wet hair and tugged and she felt her knees buckle.

Wednesday tasted like rain and something forbidden. Her hands felt like the hold of a leash on an aging dog—bittersweet, withholding a knowledge that this wasn’t going to last much longer. 

Enid couldn’t stop her claws from unsheathing and piercing the fabric of her jacket as Wednesday swiped her tongue along her bottom lip, a desperate request. Enid was all too eager to comply, unable to moderate the whine building in her throat. She pressed further into Wednesday, forcing them to stumble backwards a few steps, and slid both of her up hands to hold her face.

Hot droplets trailed lines down Enid’s cheeks. Tears, not rain. One of Wednesday’s shaking hands drew back to cradle Enid’s face, her touch far too gentle for someone as corrupt as Enid. She almost fell into it.

When they parted for air, gasping, they didn’t stray far. Enid pressed her forehead against Wednesday’s and ignored everything screaming at her to run the opposite direction, just this once.

She shouldn’t be doing this. She shouldn’t be wanting this. She had a boyfriend.

Wednesday defied every one of those, though, because Enid found herself leaning in again. Wednesday tilted her head up to meet her, the hand in her hair tightening like Enid was her lifeline.

With the woods as their only witness, Enid kissed her like it she needed it to breathe. The wind, the lightning, the rain—all of it knew now, knew like the old friends she’d accepted them to be. They still burned going down her neck. But they knew what to expect this time.

Lightning.

A thunderclap.

Wednesday tensed beneath her hold.

Something was wrong.

Right when Enid pulled away to make sure she was all right, Wednesday’s head snapped to the sky.

Enid had seen this once a few weeks ago, she thought, watching as black tears welled in her unseeing eyes and spilled down her face. The rain washed them away at once, but that didn’t stop them from continuing. When Wednesday started to careen backward, Enid tightened her hold on her and lowered them both to the wet ground beside a tree.

Lightning lit them blue once more. The thunder was Enid’s only companion as she waited with bated breath and shielded Wednesday from the downpour, her head reeling.

It didn’t last more than a minute. Wednesday came to with a gasp on her lips and a panic in her eyes unlike any Enid had ever seen. She found Enid’s own from her position in her lap, held them for three seconds with black tears smudging on her cheeks, before she sat up so suddenly that Enid knocked her head back into the tree.

“Wednesday?” Enid rasped as she scrambled backwards and breathed rapidly. When Enid moved to rest a hand on her knee, she flinched away and held herself tight with one arm, staring at her.

Enid couldn’t swallow the lump in her throat. Everything they had just done came flooding back to her. Paired with the sheer terror on Wednesday’s face, she wanted to cry. She realized she was still crying when a muffled cry pushed past her lips and Wednesday hurriedly rubbed at the tears on her face.

Wednesday pursed her lips and shakily pushed herself to her feet.

“Wednesday?” Enid repeated weakly, her voice cracking. “What happened?”

Wednesday stumbled backward, a sight so unlike her characteristic composure. She said nothing, her mouth opening and closing like she didn’t deem any of the words fit. Enid stayed sitting against the tree as she clenched her hands into fists. Lightning split the sky through the trees above their heads, and it had never made Wednesday look more frightened.

Worry overtook Enid when Wednesday’s hands kept shaking. Her face didn’t lose that dread. It was only when Wednesday took a few more steps backward that she managed to croak out another word.

“Wednesday?”

Wednesday looked over her a final time before she unsteadily turned on her heel and retreated into the rain. Enid watched her leave. Anything she wanted to say got lodged in her chest.

I’m so sorry.

The lightning flashed again, and Wednesday was gone.

The rain fell harder. Enid stared into it blankly.

. . .

Enid was cold, but it wasn’t the good kind of cold.

Rainwater dripped from her clothes as she silently swung the door to their dorm open. It followed after her in a splattered trail as she numbly shut it behind her and looked around the room.

Wednesday wasn’t there. Enid didn’t expect her to be.

Another lightning flash lit their room, and then all fell still. The glow of Enid’s lanterns strung above her bed was the only thing left lit. Enid’s soaking hair stuck to her face and neck when she crept further into the room, her lip quivering.

A shiver wracked her frame as she made her way over to her bed. Careless of her wet clothes, she kicked off her shoes and climbed atop it. The water dripped onto Enid’s comforter as she blankly stared at the far wall.

Another rumble of thunder pulled her from her stupor.

She reached to her desk and grabbed a pen in her soil-flecked hands. She wiped her palms and clutched it like a vise.

Silently, she reached beneath her mattress and pulled out her journal. Her mind was barren except for a relentless nothing. That farce shattered as soon as she flipped to the middle of the book and read My favorite things about you.

She bit her lip to force an oncoming sob down and read over the bullet points. Even as tears distorted the words, she kept reading. She knew what they said. She knew all of these things by heart.

Your freckles. The way you’ll always fight for what you believe in. Your passion. Your stubbornness.

When she reached the last one, she released an exhale that was more of that sob she’d tried to suppress. She reached to the page and wrote a final one: The way it’s just so easy to fall in love with you.

Enid went back to the first page and scribbled out the title. She replaced it with, in scrawled handwriting, 32 reasons why I love you.

At the bottom of the last bullet point, she added a new section: One reason I can’t.

With shaking hands, she wrote, I’m not supposed to love you.

Enid shut the journal and pushed it away. She didn’t stop the second sob from shaking her shoulders, or the third, or any of the ones after. Curling her knees into her chest, Enid tucked her face into her hands and wept, unrestrained in the way it usually was. It was raw.

She’d ruined her and Wednesday’s friendship. She’d ruined them.

Her shoulders continued to shake with the effort of her cries, which turned to heaving gasps and quiet whimpers. The night wore on until her throat was burning and her pillow was stained and her eyes were stinging.

She waited hours into the night, staring at the empty space across the room, but Wednesday didn’t come home.