Celine should be ordering everyone about like soldiers in her army, not meekly following Sophie’s instructions. I keep waiting for her to say something bossy and annoying. The lack is starting to creep me out.
“What are we even looking for?” she demands, addressing a nearby tree.
“I don’t know. A little plastic bag? A big flashing arrow?”
She whips around to face me, her eyes narrow and suspicious, like she has no idea why I’m answering her. Seriously? Come on, Celine. It’s literally you or the undergrowth. Work with me here. We’ve been walking alone for like twenty minutes and I am so completely deprived of company, I’m actually grateful when she speaks again. “The chances of us finding either in this rain are roughly equal.” She sniffs, shoving her hands into the pockets of her black puffer jacket.
The rain isn’t heavy; it’s fine like mist, clinging to your eyelashes, obscuring everything more than a meter in front of your face. So I suppose by “?‘equal’?” she must mean “?‘zero.’?” Instead of commenting, though, I say, “Hands out of your pockets.”
She stares at me like I’ve lost my mind. “Suck a toe.”
“If you want to fracture your other wrist,” I say, “do it around someone else, because I’m not carrying you out of these woods.”
“If I fractured my other wrist,” she replies sweetly, “I wouldn’t need anyone to carry me because I don’t walk on my hands.”
Fine; let her trip over a shrub and break her neck. Like I care. I catch sight of my mud-stained trainers and huff.
We move in silence for another five minutes before I realize Celine’s done talking. If I want more noise, I need to wind her up again. “I don’t think splitting up was that bad an idea.”
Her eyes flash. She is wonderfully predictable. “Of course it’s a bad idea! We split our resources and waste time stumbling around in the dark? Hardly the plan of the century.”
Ooh, she’s pissed. This is more like it. “Do you mean the literal dark, or the metaphorical dark?” I ask innocently.
Her jaw tightens so hard you can almost hear it pop. “Obviously, I mean the metaphorical dark, Bradley.” Celine must really hate me because when other people annoy her, she gets bored and clocks out. When I annoy her, you can practically see the pulse pounding in her forehead.
“Well, if it was obvious,” I say, “I wouldn’t have asked.”
She scowls. “Stop taking the piss. Listen, as long as we’re in this together—”
“Did I hear that right? Did you just say together?”
“We need to keep an eye on these things,” she continues, as if I haven’t spoken. “I know you know how illogical this plan is. One of us should’ve been paying attention back there.”
She knows I know? I keep my expression blank and my voice steady as I say, “Why, so we could speak up and undermine the whole democracy vibe?” But inside I’m vibrating like a confused Chihuahua, freaked out because Celine thinks I’m…smart? No, that might be too generous. Sensible? Or something like that? Basically, I’m astonished she doesn’t think I’m an Allen-level idiot. I’m not, but she’s never been reasonable enough to acknowledge my frankly impressive intelligence, so—
“Screw democracy!” she announces.
Er. “Okay, Comrade Celine?”
“Everyone’s in a rush to win,” she continues. “That’s why they jumped on the first idea instead of talking over all the options.”
She’s not wrong, but then, she rarely is. It’s one of her most annoying qualities. “I think you’re being too harsh. The sector’s small; we could stumble across some booklets out of order. There’s a chance this’ll make things more time efficient, and the group chat means we don’t lose the teamwork element.”
“We’d work faster if we used the strengths of every team member simultaneously, and I don’t think a group chat is going to cut it. We’re trekking through the forest, for God’s sake; who’s checking their phone?”
I don’t mention that she has her phone out right now to check the pictures we took of the map. Celine’s voice has gotten progressively higher in outrage and she’s gesticulating wildly. I sometimes, occasionally, accidentally watch her conspiracy theories on TikTok, and she gets like this when she’s talking about how the Loch Ness Monster has tragically died of old age but was, at one point, totally real.
“What are you smirking at?” she demands.
I wipe the illegal and unplanned smile off my face. “Nothing. Just…I knew your quiet and polite routine couldn’t last.”
She stops in her tracks, planting her (sensible, walking-boot-shod) feet in the earth and propping her fists on her hips. Her cast peeks out of one sleeve, poking me with the guilt stick. “What is that supposed to mean?”
I shrug, because staying casual when she’s pissed always annoys her more. “What’s with the shy and retiring bit you’re doing in front of everyone else? Are you biding your time? Warming up your audience before you tie them in knots? What’s the problem?”
“I told Allen to shut up,” she counters with a scowl.
“I thought you were shockingly polite to Allen.”
“Excuse me?”
“Well, for you. It was basically a gentle scolding. I hope you’re not wasting all your energy on me, Celine. I need to see you scalp at least one other person while we’re here.”
“Funny,” she bites back. “I thought you liked it when I kept my mouth shut.”
All my amusement from making fun of her drains away like water down the plughole. She’s said something like that to me before. Maybe she thinks I don’t remember. Maybe she doesn’t remember, and I’m the only one who’s replayed that day in the cafeteria over and over in my head a thousand times.
Probably not, though.
When Celine was a kid, her dad went missing for a few days and she decided he’d been abducted by aliens. When he came back, announced that his mistress had given birth to twins, and divorced Neneh to go be with his new family, Celine concluded it was due to alien mind control. She had willful delusions and I had obsessive compulsions—that’s probably how we became best friends. Who was I to judge?
But as we got older, I learned to fold myself up nice and neat so no one would notice I was different. Celine never did. She talked about aliens to anyone who’d listen. Especially when she was nervous.
“I thought you liked it when I kept my mouth shut.”
The quiet rush of rain against leaves fills the space between us like a swollen balloon. Her jaw is tight; I wish it wasn’t. My chest is tight, but there’s not much I can do about that. Just ignore it. Don’t say anything. There’s no point—
Except I’ve always struggled to let thoughts and feelings go. They gnaw at me until I give in. “I told you I was sorry.”
She snorts, and just like that, I know there’s nothing coincidental about this conversation. Celine hasn’t forgotten why she hates me.
Maybe she sits beside me in Philosophy remembering things the same way I do.
“It’s not my fault, you know,” I blurt out, “that we got separated. Back then.”
Her expression is incredulous. “Our classes, you mean?”
I shrug, already uncomfortable, wondering why I’m digging deeper instead of shutting this conversation down—
“Of course that wasn’t your fault, Bradley,” she says sharply. “Everyone’s schedule changes eventually.” Her jaw shifts as she bites some part of herself I can’t see—her tongue? The inside of her cheek? She’s talking again. “The problem was, you made it worse.”
I have to put plasters over all my scabs because if I can see them, I’ll pick them until they bleed. Maybe things would be easier if I could put a nice, beige tarp entirely over Celine, but I can’t, so I ask, “How?”
“You had to go and…” She waves a hand. Her nails are glossy and black. “Make new friends. And join the football team, and—”
Righteous outrage roars to life in my chest. It turns out that after almost four years of quiet seething, I am so ready for this argument. “Because that was such a crime,” I bite out. “Wanting to do new things without you. I was the bad guy for joining a new club and quitting Latin? Okay, Celine.”
She presses her raindrop-studded eyelashes together, breathes deep, and says the last thing I expect. “Well, no. Obviously not. You were free to do whatever you wanted, and it was…it was unfair of me to question that.”
Um. Did those words just pass through Know-It-All Celine’s gritted teeth? I think I might be in shock. Thrown off course, I search for something to say and blurt, “My therapist said you were controlling.”
Amazing stuff, Bradley. Team building to the highest power.
She winces and shoves her hands in her pockets. “Ah.”