Chapter 28: 28 The Party, Part Five

She woke uncomfortably early the next morning. Angharad had been so sure after listening to Sophie talk about her date with Darren for half the night that at least she'd sleep in late. No such luck. Being alone with her thoughts while Sophie snored in the other bed was the worst thing she could imagine, so she reluctantly put on clothes and dragged herself out for a walk.

She didn't see anyone but Jin, stumbling back towards his room in the early morning light. Back to his usual level of vaguely dishevelled, of course (did he cultivate that on purpose?), but grinning fit to light up the whole camp with just the happiness in his eyes. He spotted her and stumbled over, silently hugged her so tight for a moment she could barely breathe, then muttered his thanks and stumbled off.

She wasn't even remotely interested in asking how good his conversation with Freya must have been, but at least some good had come of the night before.

With that, she breathed out deep and slowly strolled back toward her room. If she made it before the rest of the camp woke up then Sophie wouldn't even know she'd gone out. And there would be no questions. At that moment she was happy to hear about other people being happy without trying to have any emotions of her own.

When she got back to the room she took off her shoes, lay back on top of the covers, and decided to struggle through a book. By the time Sophie stumbled off to get breakfast and Tabitha showed up, Angharad had read the same book about artificial intelligence through twice.

Tabitha seemed pretty pleased with herself, even after the telling off she'd received from the adults the night before. Her hair was up in one of those old-fashioned, elaborate styles she liked so much, and she wore a soft, floaty summer dress and crochet cardigan, both as strikingly red as her hair. She twirled around in the small space between the beds and said, "I feel like a million dollars. And you should, too."

"I feel like, if you traded me in right now, you'd get change for fifteen dollars," Angharad said.

"That won't get you out of doing these exercises."

Angharad flopped about on the bed, trying to convince herself that they weren't going to be an ordeal. "These fake push ups you make me do aren't even pretending to be push ups."

"And yet I'll need to see you manage at least twenty of them in a row before I let you graduate to knee push ups. I had the doctor approve this whole routine."

"Fine." Angharad huffed out a breath and tried to go through the routine. Stretched herself out like tape, struggled through the kinds of sit ups she'd found laughably easy six months before, pushed herself onto hands and knees to attempt the ever so fake precursors to push ups that she started to think of as a torture of their own.

"So," Tabitha said, just when Angharad got to number five, "what's up with you and Josephine?"

Angharad tried not to break her rhythm. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"I saw you kissing her when I grabbed my purse last night."

Angharad slammed flat into the mattress as her arms stopped holding her weight. "I so deeply do not want to think about that ever again. I'm super embarrassed."

"Whatever for?" Tabitha asked. Angharad rolled onto her side to see Tabitha kicking the air beside her mattress, and looking gleeful. "It's not an entirely unexpected development, let's be fair. You've been flirting for weeks. She's once again unattached. Any fool can see you have no real interest in your so-called boyfriend. You're both my precious friends."

"So?"

"So, why wouldn't I want gossip about your hook up?"

Angharad flopped onto her back and looked at the ceiling instead. "She called me by another person's name."

"Oh."

"I feel like I should have seen that coming. Because, like, okay, nobody actually likes the real me. They want the fake me they construct in their head, that uses different names and acts like someone I'm actually not, so why wouldn't she..."

But she swallowed the rest of the sentence away, because the whole thing was too embarrassing to bear.

"You listen here," Tabitha said, hand grabbing firm at Angharad's arm. "There is nothing wrong with the real you. You are much better than everyone here. It disappoints me that Josephine has turned out to be an idiot, who is unworthy of you, but I will not listen to any of this self-doubt bullshit."

"I mean, okay, she's not an idiot. She's just really into her ex."

"Which I simply cannot understand. Eleanor is really annoying."

Angharad made Tabitha promise not to tell anyone that she'd laughed at that.

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"We'll find you a better girl," Tabitha said.

Angharad sighed and stared straight up at the ceiling. "There's not really a lot of non-straight options."

*

She finally left her room after Tabitha let her give up on exercise for the day, and headed straight for the hospital. Or tried to head straight there, at least. Basically bumped straight into Eleanor as soon as she got near the hospital doors.

"Um, sorry, I need to..."

But Eleanor grabbed her arm with a surprisingly strong grip. "Sorry, I wanted to talk to you."

Angharad straightened up and plastered a friendly smile on. "Okay, sure."

Eleanor pushed her hair out of her face and it flopped straight back in front of her eyes. "Should we go somewhere?"

"Here is fine."

Eleanor's eyes flitted around, as if to check if anyone was watching them. Angharad tried to get a better look at Eleanor than she had the night before. Not only the distracting things like the gigantic baggy hoodie in pepto bismol pink, but the way she held herself, shoulders strong like she was confident in her body, but face looking nervous like she wasn't confident in anything else.

"I wanted..." Eleanor coughed, looked away, looked back. Her voice was really loud. Angharad could see what she and Josephine had in common. "I wanted to apologise for last night."

Angharad blinked, rapidly.

Eleanor rearranged herself to look Angharad in the eye. "It wasn't fair of me to treat you like that. I'm sure you're a great friend to Josephine."

"Well, that's... Okay, u-um, there was a weird room in the mood." Angharad closed her eyes and put her cold hands to her face, so she could think enough to speak. "Rewind that. There was a weird mood in the room. People were weird. It was a thing."

"It's not fair for me to be suspicious of Josephine's friends."

Angharad laughed, nervous. "Yeah, I mean, you're not suspicious of Sophie and Tabitha, right? And they actually fit the way you described me."

"Correct."

Angharad opened her eyes and looked up from her hands. Eleanor looked so sincere. That just made things so much worse. "Don't worry. I mean, it's pretty clear that Josephine isn't thinking of anyone but you. You don't need to get jealous, but you should definitely take her back. Ignore her protestations, because she's totally into you."

Eleanor looked down again. "She told you we broke up again?"

"She probably told Jin first. Because they're, like, besties. Yeah."

"Why would you want me to get back with Josephine? If you're her friend, aren't you supposed to think I'm not being fair to her?" Eleanor asked.

"You know, I don't actually know if that's what relationships are about. I actually have no idea! But I'm pretty much an interfering busybody, and she wants you, and I want her to have what she wants. So, go get your girl."

Angharad suspected the thing she felt was hysteria.

"Okay," Eleanor said, and nodded.

Angharad watched her walk away.

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