This was not how today was meant to go.

The almost complete lack of adult supervision aside from the camp counselors was probably not a great idea when Valerie was basically getting paid $4 an hour to get high in the woods with Alice and Arnie. It had been kind of awkward when Alice and Arnie had started dating, but honestly she was used to it by now.

But, it also meant that sometimes when they snuck off to makeout that she had to deal with her own shit by herself. Her cut had opened back up and she couldn't find anything to fix it with. Her knee ached, and she'd already dripped blood onto her socks. Normally, she'd tough it out, rip a t-shirt and make a bandage. But this one was just a little bit too much.

So, very bitterly, she hobbled off to Nurse Mary's office. "Nurse Lane?" She called out, immediately sitting on Mary's desk. "Hello?" There was some shuffling and Val shivered. This is why she never went to Nurse Mary's office if she could help it.

She hopped awkwardly off the desk and tried to take a step forward but her knee seized up. "Nurse Lane?"

God, of course her friends would abandon her now that this shit was happening. The door swung open and Val jumped, Nurse Lane frowning at her. "Jesus, Mary. You want to give me a hand?"

"Oh, dear. Are you alright?" Nurse Mary had a vacant look in her eyes as she approached, and when she got closer Val could see that there was a thin layer of dirt on her hands. She reached for Val's leg, but the teenager flinched.

"Are..." this interaction was already far too uncomfortable. Val should've just hunted down Arnie and Alice, watching them suck face was less painful than this. "Are you alright Nurse Lane?"

The look in Nurse Lane's eyes seemed to melt away as she looked down at the nasty cut on Val's knee. "Valerie! What have you done here."

"I ate shit in the woods," Val said, not taking her eyes off Nurse Lane's face. "Are you alright?"

"Let's get that sorted out," Nurse Lane tried to reach out for Val's leg a second time and this time Val spoke up.

"Do you want to wash your hands first?"

Nurse Lane looked like she hadn't even noticed the state of her hands. "Oh! No, that won't do at all. Yes, wait right here, sweetheart. I'll be right back."

Nurse Land washed her hands and then got right to helping Val treat her knee. She operated in silence, but fixed Val right up so she was able to go supervise her campers in their archery practice. 

She couldn't shake off just how weird the interaction was, though, as she watched her middle schoolers attempt to re-enact the Battle of Troy with each other. She was never really the most hands-on counselor, but now with her bandage peeking out from underneath her jean shorts at least she had an excuse. 

Honestly, she just wanted to forget about her knee so she could push the interaction with Mary out of her brain. Luckily for her, Arnie and Alice were probably too fucked-out to even notice. She was jealous. 

"What happened to you?" 

Her first instinct was to tell whoever it was behind her to fuck off, but seeing Tommy's face, her irritation melted away. "Spent too much time on my knees for your dad." She said casually. 

"Did you trip?" Tommy ignored her. "You need to be more careful, Val. Jesus that looks rough."

Normally people doting on her like she wasn't an adult who could take care of herself always made her feel condescended to. But with Tommy, it felt more like true concern. "Okay, dad." If people started to think she couldn't take care of herself, then she'd start having issues. She did appreciate his care, though. 

"Did you go and see Nurse Mary?" 

She wanted to roll her eyes, but she could not be fucked keeping it up. "Yeah, I went just before." She frowned.

Tommy perked up, interested. "Did she manage to fix you up?"

"She was acting weird as shit," Val admitted after a moment. "Like, the nurse's office always gave me the heebies but, I dunno dude. She looked like she'd been digging or something."

"Digging?" Tommy cocked his head, and as the light hit his face Val felt a disgusting amout of affection for him. "For what?"

"I don't fucking know, Tom. If I had known, I would've said."

He rolled his eyes, a grin  forcing its way onto his face. "Right, okay. Is your leg okay, at least?"

She faltered, looking up at him through her eyelashes. "Yes, Tommy. I feel much better, thank you."

"You guys know your campers left like ten minutes ago, right?" 

She tore her eyes away from Tommy's face and was met with Cindy Berman's concerned face. Evie stood beside her, hand curled around Cindy's cardigan. The sun was setting, the lights were on in the mess hall and they could hear the low hum of several hundred teenagers inside. 

"Shit, come on," Val grabbed Tommy's hand and dragged him towards the mess hall. 

Cindy and Evie stayed put, though. They'd gone out there to escape from the campers and also Kurt's suspicious gaze. Literally any time anyone a conversation that Kurt was not involved in made him feel pissy. 

"We don't have to do this." Evie shuffled. 

"Evie," Cindy's eyebrows furrowed. "I need you stop, stop whatever this is."

Evie had never been so uncomfortable in front of Cindy. "I don't understand what you want from me."

Panic was spreading through her veins. She truly did not understand what Cindy was asking of her. She truly didn't know much of what she was meant to be doing, it felt like she'd been living her life in a way that she understood, and then it was like someone had come in and fucked up her rhythym. The only reason time was passing was because she had no choice but to let it. 

If time moving forward was something she could control then it probably wouldn't be happening. 

"What's been going on with you?" Cindy pressed. "You've been acting so weird lately."

"I have no idea what you want from me, Cindy!" Evie said, hands shaking. "I need you to tell me what to do."

"Why have you been so cagey?" Cindy asked. 

Cindy thought for a moment that Evie would start crying, but the words poured out of her almost like by foce. "I was with Ziggy," she gasped out, "when she set fire to the flag. And I tried to stop her but my head has been so cloudy that it didn't even process what was going on and I'm gonna be honest, Cindy. I have no idea what's going on, and I don't really need this right now."

She turned and made her way back to the mess hall, leaving Cindy out in the setting sun. Cindy had never really been yelled at by Evie, and even that was a stretch. She hadn't realised that Evie was struggling with... anything really. 

And as Evie stormed back into the cafeteria, Cindy went back to the cabin, needing the silence to actually think. Things had been so rough in her own mind that she didn't even think about Evie. 

Camp had always been the fun break between school years, the time that Cindy and Evie got to spend the most time together. But with everything happening both in the past year and that Cindy was planning after the summer, she'd been hoping that they would just be able to slip back into their usual stream of summer. 

Evie collapsed her head in her arms beside Julia. "Jesus, you good?"

"Bermans." Evie sighed. 

"Tell me about it," Julia let out a low whistle. "I called my sister yesterday, I didn't even really want to talk to her I just wanted to talk to my niece."

"How's she doing?" Evie rotated her face so that she wasn't looking at the table anymore, looking over at her friend.

"She's good! My sister wants to get her into gymnastics, which, I mean. She's one, I feel like that's probably too early but the idea of Katie in one of those little costumes is really cute."

"That is really cute." Evie admitted. Julia placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Can I come with you the next time you go see her?"

Julia nodded. "Of course you can. That kid loves you."

Evie, as much as she loved Cindy, really appreciated the way that Julia seemed to understand what she needed. Julia and her older sister didn't really get along 100% of the time, but Julia also never spoke bad about her sister in front of Evie.

Evie sat up to look at the photo of Julia's niece that she pulled out of her wallet, and as she leaned over she caught sight of a flash of red hair. 

Ziggy Berman was done with dinner, and the eye contact that she shared with Evie on her way out gave them both a pit in their stomachs. 

────────── ⋆˚✿˖° author's note
this chapter was rough man honestly there were a lot of difficult feelings and i had a bit of a struggle truly articulating them in the way that i used to do really well, but it was very much a character-based chapter that reveals a lot of really important info about pretty much every single character. 

also you guys know my best friend joshuabasket i love her so so much, and it is her birthday today <333 she turns 20 today so happy birthday she is my all time favourite

tommy and val have their thing goin on, cindy and ziggy hate each other (but that much was obvious), kate is canonically the neice of a girl who went to camp nightwing in 1978 so i figured i'd find a way to shove olivia rodrigo in there somehow, and mary lane is going through some shit that i'm sure won't come back to be important later :D