Eel shoved the sealed letters back into to her cubby. She couldn't do it.

Instead, she sprawled across her bed, facedown against her pillow.

How pathetic am I? she thought. Too much of a wuss to read a fucking letter.

She knew she would have to eventually. It was inevitable. But, no matter what, she was certain she wouldn't like what she'd read. Half of her wanted to get it over it. The other half wanted to bury them in a hole and never think about them again.

But the longer she waited, the more it would hurt later.

Breathing shallowly through her musty pillow, she wondered if Tyler would pick up the phone if she called. His apartment phone number was the only one she had memorized.

What would he even say to his useless delinquent sister?

Stop being a fuckin' idiot and read my letter already.

Eel rolled onto her side, throwing her arms over her head to block out the light. Too bad campers weren't allowed to use Green Lake's only phone. She wished she could call her brother, even if she hated him. She sure missed hating him.

Just outside the tent entrance, the top step creaked. Eel peeked through her arms – all the girls knew where to step to avoid the squeaky step. Squid poked his head into the tent.

Eel sat up, her heart flipping at the sight of him. The sun setting behind him immersed him in gold light, reflecting red off his dark brown hair. As he pushed the tent flaps back, the sunlight caught in Eel's eye and she flinched, drawing her gaze away.

"Uh, hey," Squid said, shooting a quick look around the tent. He had never been in the tent other than counseling, and for some reason, he thought it would look different. The cubbies were slightly messier, but wasn't far from the usual. He glanced back to Eel, sitting on her cot, her hair still wet from a shower. "I kinda overheard Cat say you were staying in here until dinner, so I thought I'd check and make sure you're okay."

"You're not supposed to be in here," Eel said. She nodded in the general direction of the Warden's cabin. "If you get caught, they'll punish you."

Squid rolled his eyes and plopped down on Eel's cot. "I think I can handle washing dishes for a week," he said.

Eel hummed in amusement, avoiding his gaze by staring at her hands.

"Zig woulda came too, but he didn't want the Warden to see him on the cameras," he said, watching her reaction carefully.

"I've told him a billion times," Eel muttered. "I've been in the Warden's cabin and I ain't ever seen any surveillance crap." She frowned. "Don't y'all go stealing shit from counselors like every other week?"

"I think the Warden really scared him last night," Squid explained. "You know how he is. Sometimes he's fine and sometimes he's really not." He paused, chewing on his toothpick as he thought. "Zig's worried about you."

"Zig's worried about everything," Eel pointed out.

"Yeah, and he's usually got a good reason to be," Squid snapped, irritated that she could so easily throw her own best friend under the bus to cover herself. "I'm worried about you, stupid."

"You shouldn't be," Eel said. "I'm fine."

"Fine my ass," Squid scoffed.

Eel smirked. "It's pretty nice."

"You didn't eat for five days," Squid said, narrowing his eyes at her. "How can you make jokes about that right now?"

"Well, I'm eating now," Eel protested, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "What does it matter?"

"It matters because no one wants you to kill yourself," he said.

"Who even cares?" Eel exclaimed, her face burning deep red. "Why would anyone care if I killed myself?" Tears threatened to well at the back of her eyes, and she had to concentrate to keep them at bay.

"More people that you'd think," Squid said. "Even Red told me to help you."

Eel scrubbed her hands over her face, unable to capture a coherent thought to reply. Her stomach was clenching with that same, sick feeling. Suddenly, she just felt so tired and she almost wanted to burst into spontaneous sobs. She wished Squid would just leave. But she didn't want him to go, either.

"Lily."

She could almost feel her heart crack. "Don't," she pleaded, her voice suddenly tiny and pathetic and her eyes stinging. She didn't want him to call her that. Her name held too many memories, and she couldn't stand hearing. "Don't fucking call me that."

Squid hesitated, dumbfounded. "I'm-I'm sorry, E…"

Eel directed her eyes up, trying to keep the tears that had been threatening for several minutes from spilling out, but they defied her anyway. She sucked in a sharp breath, wiping the wetness away from face with her palm. She could feel his eyes on her face and she turned away from him, planting her feet on the floor.

Everything came bubbling to the surface to choke her, tightening her chest with panic and anger and guilt. She struggled more with each breath, emotions clogging her throat, forcing her into a wheezing fit. Tears streaked down her face, dripping onto her thighs and tinting the vivid orange of her jumpsuit a few shades darker.

All the things she tried so hard to forget were rushing into her head. Katie's disappointed face as she watched Eel get pushed headfirst into the police cruiser. Her father hurling a vase across the living room, shatter both the vase and the framed photo of Eel in her softball uniform. Cody creeping into her bedroom at one in the morning, eight hours before she would be shipped off to Camp Green Lake, begging and pleading with her to stay.

"I don't have a choice," she had told him, glad he couldn't see how puffy her face was in the dark. "I screwed up, bubs, and I gotta make up for the stuff I've done wrong." She wanted to stay. She didn't want to leave him or Katie or Melina or Johnny, but she couldn't change the court's decision.

"Is going to Camp Green Lake like jail?" he asked, climbing into the bed and curling up next to her. He was way too old to be sleeping in her bed, she thought. She let it slide, though. She didn't want to be alone.

"Yeah." She didn't know what Camp Green Lake was, where it was, who ran it. But she imagined it couldn't possibly be worse than jail.

"Is going to jail like repenting? Like in church?" Cody continued.

She frowned, glancing across the room to the wooden cross hanging next to her wall clock. Not even God could save her now.

"Yeah," she said. "I'm repenting for my sins."

"I heard Dad tell Momma that he didn't want you to come back," Cody said, clutching at the sleeve of her nightshirt. "He's lying, right? You're gonna come back, right?"

Her throat tightened. She had suspected as much, but she had hoped with fervor that she was wrong. Her father hadn't looked at her since her arrest, and her mother had been exceedingly cold with her. She had tried to convince herself that they would come to forgive her – they were her parents; that's what they were supposed to do, right?

"I'll come back, bubba," she said, hugging him tight to her chest. "It's just a year. I'll be back in time to help you with next year's Halloween costume. I promise."

But it was a lie. She knew she would never get to see her baby brother again, and it hurt even more to know she was letting him down with an empty promise.

The guilt from everything she had done, from everyone she had hurt clenched at her. She wished she could tell Katie how sorry she was, and how she never meant for this to happen. If anyone should have been dead, it was her own damn self. She deserved more than anyone else to die out in the middle of the fucking desert. She had been too cocky, too selfish, and it was a fault that cursed every aspect of her life. All that she had done bled through the cracks of her shattered existence and into Lewis's life. Now he was suffering for what she had done, too.

Her refusal to admit her shortcomings had cultivated under the hot desert sun, until her self-pity and resentment boiled into rage, constantly bubbling beneath her thin skin. She projected her anger onto anyone she could – Sophia, Squid, Tyler, Golson… Her blinding fury protected from the cold, hard truth that whispered at the back of her mind. The truth she tried to keep from herself for so long.

There was nobody to blame but herself. No one had pushed her hand, forced her to retaliate. She could tell herself all her life that she was always the victim, but she had gotten herself arrested, and people got hurt in the process. Nobody was responsible but her.

She could lash out all she wanted against Golson and Tyler and Sophia, but, at the end of the day, it didn't matter. Pretending that everything that went wrong in her life could be blamed on them was a child's mentality. It was that kind of mindset that had landed her in a correctional facility. She was almost eighteen, and she had to grow up sometime.

She didn't hate them at all. She just hated herself.

She hated herself so much that she forced herself to fall asleep before the lights could dim and leave her to her own thoughts at night. She hated herself so much that she had refused to look at herself in the mirror for months at a time, revolted by the sight that reflected every time. She hated herself so much that she needed the acceptance and recognition of her tentmates to fuel her fake confidence. She hated herself so much she tried to push away the few people at Green Lake that gave a shit about her.

Feeling like her head might explode, Eel gasped for air, sucking droplets of tears and saliva into her windpipe. Her lungs convulsed and tried to expel the moisture, racking her with violent coughs. She could almost taste the smoke from Golson's office, smell the burning plastic. Whining aloud, Eel braced her hands on her knees.

The cot creaked as Squid shifted towards her, lifting his hand to her back. "Eel."

"Why didn't you just let me starve?" she retched out. She let out a frustrated grunt, trying to regain control of her lungs. Her body folded with the pressure in her chest.

Squid grabbed her by the shoulders, pulling her back sharply. She resisted the movement, but he held her in place. "C'mon, E, just breathe."

Keeping upright seemed to ease the stress in her chest. Her face tingling, she gulped down a large breath. "I wish you didn't love me," she blurted out, a steady stream of tears still pouring down her cheeks.

Squid didn't reply to that, tugging more on her shoulders until she collapsed onto the cot, her head on his thigh. "That's it, baby," he said, his voice low and soothing. "Just breath, E." He dabbed at her damp face with the sleeve of his jumpsuit and, like she had done with him the other night, ran his fingers through her hair.

Eel squeezed her eyes shut and inhaled, forcing her lungs to expand slowly. Squid gave up on trying to dry her face and just moved his hand to rest on her stomach. As she breathed out, she focused on the heat of his hand, burning yet comforting through her t-shirt.

His breath hit her neck, chilling the sheen of sweat under her chin. Her gaze met his, and she searched his face for a hint of irritation or disgust. But she only found concern, his dark eyebrows tilted up and his mouth twisted into a frown.

"You deserve so much better than me, Squid," she said, continuing her previous admission. He exhaled sharply, his gaze flicking away in disbelief. "You do. I'll just fuck up your life." She hiccuped and took a shuddering breath.

"You won't," he said, fixing his calm gaze on her. "You can't. I've already done enough of that by myself."

"You'd be surprised what I can do," she said, a bitter smile curling at her lips. "I did to everyone else around me – why not you? I might love you, Squid, but that won't make my karma better."

"Huh? What're you talking about, E?" Squid asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

Eel sat up, gently brushing his hands off her, and reached into her pocket. Her letter was still there from the night before. Figures, after everything that happened, she still hadn't learned not to leave it in her jumpsuit. She tugged at the corners and smoothed her fingers across both sides of the paper, flattening it as best as she could. "This is the letter that Gill found. There was a reason I didn't want her to read it, Squid…" Averting her eyes, she offered him the letter, her hands trembling.

Squid's lips parted, his teeth closed on the toothpick. "Wait, you want me to read it?"

Eel nodded, gnawing on her lip. "I trust you, Squid." She grimaced, heat searing her cheeks again.

With a puzzled expression, Squid took the letter.

And Eel waited.

Aww yissss i believe we have reached the peak of Eel's character development. And just a lil fyi, I'm pretty self-conscious about her whole panic attack scene. Like, I wanted it be real, ig? So the descriptions are kinda gross, but that's kinda the reality of panic attacks. but anyway enjoy. or i guess you already enjoyed. or i hope you did

also college has started up again so my updates definitely won't be regular. idk how i did it last year. but there's no way i can do it this semester, sorry about that