there was a sense of confidence about frankie that was new to jonah – it made him wonder if something happened over the last year that had changed the way she carried herself. maybe she’d grown up over the last year? either way jonah couldn’t help but find it to be attractive. “are you, uh, working here this summer?” he questioned, even though the answer was obvious.
Frankie rolled her eyes softly at Jonah’s question, a gesture she normally wouldn’t have the audacity for, but her back was still facing him. “Um, yeah,” she responded, in a tone that left the obviously implied, without her having to say it. “I see you are, too,” she pointed out, now turning to look at him. She wanted to say something. Anything. She just couldn’t tell what. “How are... things?”
ollie raised a brow, shrugging. he knew not everyone had to be excited about the summer and being at camp. “you’re not excited about anything?” he asked the girl, “there’s got to be some activity you’ve been dying to do”
Frankie furrowed her eyebrows softly. “I mean, yeah, I guess,” she agreed tentatively. “I’m excited to spend the summer with all my friends,” she conceded.
If asked, Fiona would say that she liked Frankie better than most other people, but that did not mean that they were ever particularly close. It did mean that Fiona was at the very least not prickly. Unfortunately not much could stop these rare conversations that were allowed to progress long enough from growing a little strange. “Hey, that’s kind of an amazing fantasy. Pretty girl offers to toast my marshmallow for me… Wait, do you think that sounds too much like an innuendo?”
Frankie couldn’t help the small upturn at the corners of her lips at Fiona’s words. “I mean, either way not a bad fantasy,” she teased lightly.
“Works for me.” Brielle hummed, growing more excited the more she thought about it. “Do you have a guest list already? Or should we text people on the way over?”
“I want it to be big, so I was thinking we could just invite everybody we see?” Frankie suggested. “Or is that a bad idea?”
“well, lucky for you i know this cabin like the back of my hand,” he responded, trying to offer her an amiable smile. he knew the room was filled with tension and he though maybe, maybe he could relieve it. something about seeing frankie again after over a year made him feel different. as cliche as it sounded, she’d grown up and by the way she was holding herself she looked more sure of herself than the frankie he’d known before. “what kind of string are you looking for?” he questioned, slowly getting up from his seat to wander the room.
Frankie let out a soft huff of air. Logically she knew she had no reason to be annoyed by his offer, but she couldn’t help it. When she thought about Jonah, she usually missed him, but seeing him again in person just brought up all the negative emotions and insecurities that plagued her during their breakup. “I can get it myself,” she assured him. The last thing she wanted was to ask him for help with something and risk coming across as the pathetic needy girl he had broken up with. She made her way over to the line of ukuleles and began searching around for where the extra strings might be kept.
Alaska laughed and nodded along in agreement. “It’s cliche for a reason,” she pointed out. “And honestly, I couldn’t think of a better way to kick off the summer.” She paused for a moment, thinking it’d be the perfect time to break out her film camera. She intended entirely to capture the summer and not develop the photos until it was over. “I could grab my camera,” she offered with a slight head tilt.
“Okay, I’m so glad you agree,” Frankie grinned excitedly. “Ooo!” she exclaimed, jumping up and down softly. “Yes, please do! It would be so cute.”
“Fun? I guess that it can be fulfilling at the right moment,” Fiona thought that she liked it better when she and Frankie didn’t try to have conversations that required any sort of high attention span. “It’s best when you have someone else toast it for you because then you don’t have to put in the effort, it’s a sweet gesture, and it almost always turns out better… Unless said person drops it in the fire…”
Frankie attempted to keep her cool. She wasn’t sure why she had bothered an attempt to actually bond with the older girl, it wasn’t something they had ever been successful before. Their relationship worked much better silently reading magazines next to each other. “Right,” she responded awkwardly. “Maybe you can find someone to toast yours for you,” she attempted.
jonah’s favorite cabin was the music cabin. practicing in there – even if only by himself – was theraputic for him. guitar in hand, he glanced down at his lyric book with his guitar pick in between his teeth. when he heard the door open, he looked up and instantly the pick fell out of his mouth. his eyes took in frankie and he felt his stomach do flips. “hey, frankie,” he replied, giving her a small smile. leaning over to pick up the guitar pick off of the ground, his head was swimming with thoughts. “do you…do you need something in here?”
Frankie’s stomach churned softly at the familiar cadence of her name falling from Jonah’s lips. She both hated and loved the sound of it- not too different to how she felt at the initial start to their relationship years previously. “Broke a string,” she mumbled quietly, breaking eye contact to scan the room for where the spares might be, but considering abandoning the mission altogether and coming back later when the cabin might be empty. Of course Jonah was a counselor this year, and of course she had overlooked that probability. She was silently kicking herself for the oversight when she spotted a row of ukuleles. The strings were probably somewhere near them, but she wasn’t sure if her legs were solid enough to carry her across the room.
Frankie had brought her own ukulele from home, figuring it would come in handy at some point over the summer, even if it was just for her to play when she needed a moment alone. Though, of course, just her luck, one of the strings broke almost right away, and she had to wander off in search of another. She remembered there was a music cabin around here somewhere and that would be her best bet, so she wandered around for a while before finally finding it. “Oh thank god,” she let out a sigh of relief as soon as she opened the cabin door and found it filled with instruments. She didn’t noticed however that the room was also currently containing her ex-boyfriend. “Oh,” she mumbled softly when she did notice him. “Hi.”
“oh my goodness – that’s so perfect!” becky beamed, “let’s get it going. what do you need help with?”
Frankie grinned back, grateful for the other girl’s shared enthusiasm over her idea. “Yay!” she exclaimed. “Um, we need the rest of the s’mores stuff,” she started, looking at her bag of marshmallows. “I only have these. So someone needs to get the graham crackers and chocolate from the kitchen. And then we need the firewood and the sticks for roasting the marshmallows,” she explained. “Though, I’m not totally sure where those are.”
Sometimes, Fiona was impressed by her own ability to completely derail a normal conversation. “But what if I really do want to? Do you want me to prove it to you? I can’t play small guit- Wait, that’s a ukelele- And sometimes I just burn the marshmallows instead of waiting for them to toast, though.”
“Burning the marshmallows is half the fun,” she managed a soft laugh, rolling her eyes slightly, and trying to remind herself not to take things too seriously. “I’m never patient enough to wait for them to cook.”
“I didn’t mean it- I just- Ohmigawd, sorry, I misunderstood you, and tried to turn it into a joke,” Fiona said, smiling without any of the light reaching her eyes. “I promise I’d be happy to eat marshmallows with you.”
Frankie furrowed her eyebrows softly, feeling a bit beaten down despite the other girl’s obvious attempt to backtrack. “No, it’s fine,” she shook her head. “You don’t have to.”
who? frankie hollingsworth & zig novak
what? frankie confronts zig about the whole hunter situation, despite her better judgement.
“Novak!” Frankie shouted once she was within hearing distance of the boy, before picking up her speed and racing up to him. Some part of her knew that Hunter wouldn’t appreciate this, but she just couldn’t help herself; if Hunter wasn’t going to say something, she had to.
Zig looked up from the busy work he’d been assigned when he heard his name, and let out a soft sigh when he saw Frankie approaching, but he kept his eyes on her nonetheless. “Hollingsworth,” he responded before turning his attention mostly back to the papers he had been organizing. “What’s up?”
“I need to talk to you,” the girl stated simply, though that much was obvious enough by her demeanor.
“About?” Zig wondered, trying to keep his tone casual despite a bit of a knot forming in his stomach, his mind running through a variety of topics he’d rather not discuss with her, each one of them boiling down to their most common link: Esme.
Frankie rolled her eyes at the slight tension she noted in the boy’s tone. “Not that,” she sighed, crossing her arms over her chest and huffing out a soft breath.
Zig let out a small sigh of relief, but couldn’t help but want to tease the girl regardless. “Not what?” he questioned, furrowing his eyebrows in a curious way and looking up at the girl.
She let out a little sigh of her own, some tension relieved by the boy’s joking manner, before shaking her head softly, remembering why she’d approached him. “It’s about your bunkmate,” she told him, trying to keep something of the light mood about them, but sure that mentioning her brother was bound to bring Zig back down. It was a topic neither of them really attempted to breach typically in their surface level almost friendship.
Zig huffed slightly, looking away from Frankie once again and back to his work. The last thing he wanted to talk about was Hunter. In fact, if he could avoid the other Hollingsworth twin altogether, he would. He’d probably avoid the whole family if he could, but that wasn’t exactly an option. “I’d rather not,” he responded candidly. “Don’t see the point.”
Frankie looked intently at Zig, hoping the sheer force of her gaze would make him look up at her. Maybe it did, or maybe it was just the prolonged silence, but once she had regained eye contact with him she continued. “I’m the one who talked him into working here this summer so he’s kinda my responsibility,” she began to explain.
“Sounds like that’s not my problem,” Zig cut her off. Maybe he wasn’t being entirely fair, but he hadn’t asked to have this conversation in the first place.
“He thinks you hate him.”
“He’s not entirely wrong.”
Frankie glared once more.
“It’s not like it’s news,” Zig defended with a small chuckle. “He hates me, too.”
“He doesn’t,” Frankie protested, her tone somewhere between annoyed and tired. “Look, Hunter knows he messed up with the whole Maya thing back in high school. He was in a bad place back then-”
“Yeah, so was Maya!” Zig cut her off once more. “And he made it worse!”
“And Maya made him worse!” Frankie fought back.
Zig opened his mouth to retort back but Frankie cut him off.
“I’m not defending what he did. I’m not. And he wouldn’t either. But he was in a bad place when he did all that stuff and Maya really set him off. It doesn’t make it okay, but I’m asking you to try to see it from his side,” she pleaded, her voice going soft at the end. “And you’re not exactly a saint either Zig.”
He looked back at her, mouth still slightly ajar from when he attempted to protest, but he just shut it, going back to his work for a moment to mull it over.
“He’s afraid you’re gonna hit him again.”
This caught Zig’s attention and he looked back up. “I’m not gonna hit him,” he responded immediately, his tone suggesting that the very thought was absurd, before stopping to consider it. “I’m not gonna hit him,” he repeated, in a calmer tone, one that displayed that he was actually attempting to think clearly. “If he doesn’t pull some dumb shit like that again.”
“He won’t,” Frankie sighed. “But you need to cut him some slack.”
“I’m not--”
“If you stress him out, you could set him off!” Frankie cut him off once more. “Look, I’m just asking you to pull back a bit, okay? Try to remember that none of us are who we were in high school?”
Zig stared back at Frankie for a long moment. “Okay I’ll try,” he conceded, finally.
Frankie let out a final little sigh of relief. “Thank you. Seriously.”
Hunter: You had classes and your own friends. And your friends are here with you. You didn't need me.
Hunter: Am I the only one who remembers him punching me in the face?
Hunter: He doesn't need to understand me.
Frankie: you're my twin. i always need you.
Frankie: YEARS ago. and don't act like you don't know why. i'm not defending him, but you didn't exactly apologize for how everything went down either.
Frankie: but maybe if he did things wouldn't be so tense.
