Given that our fishing abilities were pretty abysmal, and given that I didn’t even like the taste of fish in the first place, there wasn’t much for me to eat come nighttime. Dad built a fire in a pit that came with the campsite, and I ate canned fruit, then roasted some marshmallows and had them with graham crackers. At one point, Jennie offered me part of a Hershey bar, then got a horrified look on her face and quickly withdrew her offer with a sympathetic shake of her head. I hid a grin as I took a bite of my chocolate  s’more.

Dad told scary campfire stories and I pretended like they actually crept me out, all while Jennie cracked up and BoA stared at Dad with the same expression I caught Jennie watching me with every now and then. I toyed with the idea of calling a truce with her at one point, but then Jennie took my hand and squeezed and my mind was elsewhere.

We retreated to our tents to change clothes and go to bed. Jennie and I had a simple setup: two sleeping bags, side by side, with my feet by the door to the tent. Our pillows were cold from being exposed to the air while we’d eaten by the fire, but the longer I rested my head on mine, the warmer it became. As Dad and BoA drifted off to sleep in their tent, the sound around us faded. 

Soon, we were left with just the crickets and each other, Jennie facing me with droopy eyelids and a light smile on her lips.

“I like the idea of falling asleep next to you,” she told me and burrowed deep into her sleeping bag like she was embarrassed, until I couldn’t see any part of her face below her eyes.

“Me too,” I said simply and reached out to tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear. I hoped she couldn’t see my hand trembling. I felt way too nervous for someone with a crush I knew was mutual. My stomach sank when I remembered what made our situation less than perfect, and then I marveled at the fact that I’d so easily forgotten, even for just a few hours.

“We should make sleeping side by side our thing,” she told me, her voice muffled by her sleeping bag. “Like, forever.”

“I think they call that marriage,” I laughed, my voice a whisper.

“I’m okay with that,” she mumbled sleepily. Her eyes fluttered shut, and I brushed my thumb back and forth along her cheek, just watching her.

When she fell asleep, I rolled over, trying my best to do the same.

Except I couldn’t. Even with Jennie safe and sound beside me, I couldn’t close my eyes without encountering some horrible vision of her dying a terrible death. This past week, I’d been texting Hoony in situations like these, but my appa had confiscated my phone earlier today to prevent me from texting my way through our camping trip.

Eventually, I gave up on sleeping and moved to grab a blanket and a sweater. Then I left the tent.
I walked a few feet away, careful to be quiet, until I found a patch of grass near the fire pit, inside of which a small fire still crackled.

The ground looked soft there, so I laid the blanket out across the grass by firelight. Once I’d finished, I laid down on the blanket, hands behind my head, and let out a slow exhale as I stared up at the stars.

As if I hadn’t already dwelled on it enough, I thought about the past week and of the revelation that Jennie’s 23 wasn’t going to change with a large pit in my stomach. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I’d been walked through this breathing exercise before, back when I’d had panic attacks as a teenager. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Slow and steady.

My heart rate slowed after a few minutes of this, and at last, I opened my eyes again, feeling calmer but not reassured. We were still into September, which meant that Jennie’s late-September birthday was getting way too close for comfort. 

Even if I couldn’t save her, I had to figure out what I was going to do to help her, and quickly. Plus, there was the added matter of deciding what I was going to do about whatever was happening between us. I’d almost kissed her twice today, yet I didn’t feel comfortable calling her my girlfriend. Just the thought of taking that step with the knowledge of what was going to happen to her was painful, and now I felt silly for even entertaining the idea today.

I heard her voice before her footsteps, quiet and a little groggy. “You’re beneath the stars. I’m sensing an existential crisis.”

I sat up and turned around to see Jennie standing just outside of our tent, one hand rubbing at an eye. “I’m sorry. I thought I was quiet enough,” I said.

“It’s okay. I wasn’t ever gonna get a good night’s sleep on the ground, anyway. Mind if I join you? I can pretend to find constellations with you.”

“I don’t know any constellations,” I told her, but moved aside to clear a space for her on the blanket. She sat down next to me, knees pulled up to her chest, and smiled.

“What brings you out here, then?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” I tilted my head back to look skyward again and let out a deep sigh. “I don’t think I like it out here.”

“Me either,” Jennie admitted. “Camping’s not my kind of adventure.” She paused, and then added, “What a day, huh? I can tell your dad’s happy you finally did this with him, though.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“You should spend more time with him,” she said. “He’s your family.” she added. 

“We used to. We’d watch old movies together almost every night back when Mom first died. Just the two of us.”

“Ah. So he’s the culprit,” Jennie joked, leaning over slightly to bump my shoulder with hers.

“No, those movies were my idea,” I corrected. “I got really into them right after Mom. Before that it was cartoons and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

“Why?”

“Uh... because I was 15 and Sarah Gellar plus lesbians is a winning combination?”

 She laughed. “No, why the movies?”

“I don’t know.” I shifted forward and then lay down again, shrugging my shoulders up at Jennie once I was comfortable. “I caught one on TV one day, I guess, and never looked back.”

“I think they’re boring,” she told me honestly, and joined me on her back a moment later. I forced a laugh. “Yeah, I know. Not enough special effects.”

“Well, I guess I figured it’d be nice to be taken back to the past. You know how when you read a book or watch a show and you get absorbed into it, and it’s like you’re in a different world? I like being taken back into the 50s...”

“Not in the literal sense, I would imagine,” she deadpanned. 

“The rampant ism and homophobia kind of makes it hard for me to romanticize the past like that.”

“No, I know. It’s not like that.” I struggled for the right words. 

“It’s just... I guess the more I absorb myself in the past, the less I have to think about the future, or the now. Things seemed... simpler back then. And it doesn’t hurt that some of the movies are actually really good.”

“Throwing yourself into the past to avoid the present and future. That sounds healthy.” She shot me a sardonic smile.

“Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled. “We all have our issues. I just want to be happy.