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Night. Order. Routines— come on, this had been the same routine for weeks, get it together. No, don’t be so harsh, you just got forced into a ritual. Instructions, campers walking to and fro around the cabin, like a huddle of distressed pigeons. Breathe. In and out. Only one more night. A hand on her shoulder. An alien feeling. The night was so cold, even with the sun fading in the distance. A warm hand— an unfamiliar hand. No, of course this was familiar. Of course.
‘Salem?’ Worry— that was the expression on Marisol’s face. God, she was tired. ‘Salem, you’re zoning out. You gonna be ok?’ Salem smiled weakly, and Marisol’s hand squeezed her shoulder, if only for a second. ‘I’m sorry. I know, just a bit longer.’
‘Thanks, Mari.’ Her voice felt like a foreign object in her mouth. Breathe in, breathe out. Keep going. Just a bit longer.
The lights flickered out, the campers in their beds, as Salem staggered dully into her and Marisol’s room. No words needed to be shared as they collapsed onto Salem’s bed, the exhaustion like lead in her legs, her mind.
Bed. A concept Salem could certainly get behind. Their bodies fell like marionettes cut from their strings, now devoid of purpose as their hectic, frenzied dance came to an end. The adrenaline rush flooded away as if sliced through by a guillotine, and they folded in on each other in exhaustion and hurt and relief.
The springs on the mattress protested against the weight, shifting and creaking with any slight movement, but Marisol and Salem remained. Huddled in a pile with arms wrapped around bodies, legs tangled and hands stroking faces, stroking hair, they comforted each other in a final desperation against the horrors of the past day. The campers were asleep, finally given the mercy of rest in the room next to them. They could allow themselves this. They’d all endured. When they’d almost broken, almost shattered with the warping horrors of the day and all it implied, they allowed themselves to soften, to hurt and to ache and to let themselves rest.
It wasn’t until Salem felt the warmth of tears that either of them realised that Marisol was sobbing; painful, shaking moans of fear and sadness and ignored pain that wracked her body. Even then, she was quiet, so scared to disturb the kids, so scared to admit what they’d seen and experienced. This job was killing them. Breathe. In and out, face pressed so tightly against Salem’s chest, breathing in the smell of her shirt and her shampoo and everything that was so undeniably Salem, as she held Marisol so fiercely, with such protection. Until she finally broke, and her pained whimpers of sorrow and numbed terror joined Marisol’s, fingers grasping into the back of her shirt as if it was the only thing tethering her to life, as if holding her was as essential as breathing. Her heart pounded.
They didn’t sleep. They couldn’t, not like this; not when every creak of a spring sounded like the crackle of burning wood, not when the curtains blazed with a sickening pink hue, not with the almond-sweet smell of the nightmare powder hanging like a disease in the air. Sleep called for them, its red hands pulling at them, its façade not enthralling enough to hide its cruel potential beneath the veneer of comfort. Besides, the tension and fear and stress still coiled within them, tightly-wound and prepared for another attack, another seizing of their senses and actions. Sleep was out of the equation, at least for now.
‘It’s okay now. He’s gone.’ Salem’s voice was barely a whisper, muffled by Marisol’s hair as she held her closer, tighter.
‘I love you so much.’
‘I love you too. It’s okay. Are you alright?’ Marisol laughed darkly, but nodded.
‘Alright as I could be with… all this.’ She looked up, and even tear-stained and crumpled with fear, her smile shot through Salem’s veins. ‘Could we maybe… go for a walk? Clear our heads.’
‘Mhm. Do you think it’s safe?’
‘I guess… It's no less safe than in here. I kind of need to get out— there’s somewhere I know around here. Did some wandering here and there.’
‘That sounds like it could be good. But are you sure you’re ok, honey?’ Marisol fell silent.
‘No. But neither are you, and neither is anyone else. I’ve been so scared, and you were, you and Sydney were the only ones who listened. And now look. I’m scared. Today was… you know. But we’re going to be alright.’
‘I’m so sorry. We didn’t deserve this. You didn’t deserve this.’
‘Yeah. I’m sorry too.’ Marisol paused, the silence as long and heavy as a metal pole. ‘Should we go?’
‘Let’s. No time like the present, I guess.’
Thick, warm air filled the camp, eddying like waves of honey with the damp August breeze. The grass was bone-dry, dull and waving complacently like a crowd of fans at a concert, long-dead and cheering again and again in a rhythmic, muscle-memory routine. Leaves crunched underfoot, wet from the late-night condensation as they walked, further into the forest, away from the campfire and the lake and the once-pyre, stripped from the ash-blackened bark and now lying, a wreck of cracked wood, where it once stood, proud. Good. They walked, through knots of trees and funguses, over roots so thick and dark and winding from their years of silent growth, under the moon’s watchful eye. She stared, unsmiling, unthinking, her one milky eye open to everything, every piece in the flurry of movement throughout the world, so they walked onwards, the night sky their only witness. If two lovers walk in a forest, and nobody watches, do they make a sound?
A pond. Tucked away within the forest, so far from the centre of the camp that the honey-arsenic smell of the nightmare powder was less than an afterthought. It shone, the trees open around it as the sky’s glow lit its radiant water, crystal-glass-iridescence on the still night. Marisol smiled, her face warm and expectant as Salem gazed at the pond, overcome by its beauty.
‘Here we are!’
‘Oh, Mari… how? When did you get the time to find this?’
‘You know me. Always out and about. Like it?’
‘It’s gorgeous. Oh wow… I didn’t know this existed. No clue.’
‘Well. Glad to surprise you.’ Salem grabbed her hand, gazing into Marisol’s face with an intensity that seemed to unravel her where she stood. Her heart pounded.
Salem stared into the water, and it stared back. The dark fuschia light of the night sky rippled the edge of the pond, tinting its prismatic depths with the same blush-pink that lay above. She sat, wordlessly, watching as a leaf floated, over and over, the sand and gravel and dirt dry beneath her legs. Her voice, low and gritty in her throat, was quiet, almost taken over by the susurrus of trees and wind and cicadas as Marisol joined her.
‘How can I thank you?’
‘For what?’
‘This. Taking me here, helping me all this time, God, just being with me. I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to tell you how much… this means.’
‘You don’t have to thank me, sunlight. You thank me by coming here with me. You thank me by listening to me, and caring about what I say and what I feel, and being my friend. You thank me by the way you looked at me when I kissed you that first time, and the way you know what I’m thinking when I don’t know how to say it. You thank me every single day, Salem, and the only thing I want more than this is for it to not end tomorrow.’ Salem’s face burned, her eyes straying to Marisol’s hand, lying on the sand, fingers trailing patterns among the pebbles.
‘Can I kiss you? Please, Marisol, could I kiss you?’ Marisol’s eyes flickered to Salem’s lips, quickly, yet it was there, and they both knew it.
Her only response was a murmured ‘of course’ before Salem leaned in towards her.
Salem had known for a long time that she would do almost anything for her. But when she kissed her like this, Marisol on her lips, on her tongue, in her eyes, in her arms, the truth became impossible to deny that she would crawl to the end of the world to stay with her. She was beguiled, to say the least. Marisol’s hands traced over her jaw, stroking towards the short hair at the back of Salem’s neck that she’d let grow far too long over the summer, kissing her again and again until her heart beat to the sound of Marisol’s name, the name flowing through her mind over and over. Salem kissed her as if they were lone trees in a thunderstorm, her stomach twisting and flipping, until they broke apart, finally, agonisingly. Dazed and content, heart pounding, they collapsed against each other, Salem falling into Marisol’s lap as the pond rippled unceremoniously at them. She smiled, hand aimlessly holding Marisol’s, kissing her knuckles idly as she sighed. Her free hand combing through Salem’s hair, Marisol exhaled shakily, her gaze full of no less admiration and wonder than if she was watching a shooting star, as if Salem was a meteor shower destined to collide with her.
Marisol’s hand cupped Salem’s cheek, thumb brushing over her jaw, and she melted into the casual touch, humming a soft, pleased note. She bit her lip, eyes once again straying towards Marisol as she moved closer, unconsciously leaning towards her warmth. She laughed, flustered and happy and for the first time of the night, at some sort of peace. Resignation, perhaps.
‘Last night of camp, huh. What a summer,’ she murmured.
‘Not long now, I guess.’
‘I mean, I’m so fucked if I stay here, aren’t I?’ Salem’s voice was soft, tentative, and as laced with rue as the cyanide beneath the soft flesh of a cherry.
‘…Yeah.’ It was the only possible response.
‘I want this. I want you, god, I want you and I want to be with you so much, but this place is killing us both, isn’t it? I can’t see you hurt any more. I can’t get hurt any more.’ Marisol’s hand cupped her face. ‘But I’ll just come back. Again and again. And we both know that, huh? Because I don’t want to leave the kids alone. God, what have I done?’
‘At least we’re both trapped together. I don’t know how I’d have dealt with this summer without you. I just wish there was a way we could be together and not have to be here.’ She trailed off, eyes flicking towards Salem’s face.
‘Come home with me.’ Barely louder than a whisper.
‘Do you mean it?’
‘Why not? I was going to give you a lift to the station anyway. Just… come home with me. We can see if it would work.’
‘Oh…’
‘You don’t have to, I just thought…’
‘No. Salem, sunlight, I want that so much, I want that with, god, everything that I have, please, is that ok?’ Salem nodded, eyes burning with love and admiration and adoration. ‘Wow. Okay. I love you. Very, very much.’
‘I love you too, honey. We’ll try it out. See if it works for us.’
‘Better than it’s ever going to be here.’
‘Yeah… at least that elephant guy isn’t going to be at my house. Ugh, god, poor Sydney…’ Marisol closed her eyes, shaking her head.
‘I feel awful for him. We all need a rest. Speaking of which, let’s head back. It’s late enough, and we need all the sleep we can get if we’re going back to yours tomorrow.’ Yours. Perhaps even ours, if they hoped.
If both of them then knew that this invitation was final, that their lives would become permanently intertwined from the moment Marisol stepped into Salem’s apartment, neither of them dared to voice the thought. The night was warm, the threats fading from worry, and even if they still held fear and loss like a coiled spring in their hearts, they still held each other, and perhaps, for now, that was enough.