Four Weeks, Five People. Jennifer Yu

“Are you crying? Ben, what’s going on?” He pours me a cup of water from the faucet and hands it to me.

      “What’s going on,” I repeat. I take a drink from the cup and then dry heave. “What’s going on? Our dissolute camper, once so filled with hope and youthful energy, is paying the price for his impulsivity, for the belief that he could ever—“Well, I feel terrible,” I say after catching the look on Andrew’s face.

      “You have to stop doing that,” he says.

      “I can’t,” I say. “And I drank too much.”

      “Yeah, that happens sometimes,” he says.

      “And they taught us in health class that alcohol is a depressant,” I add.

      “Yeah, that happens, too. But I don’t think that’s what that actually means. Like, I don’t think alcohol actually makes you depressed, if you know what I’m saying. I think it just—”

      “And I hate myself.”

      Andrew shuts up.

      “Oh, God,” I say. The nausea is beginning to fade now, into a constant, throbbing misery—the sense that I would be better off anywhere else, anyone else, or perhaps not at all. To make matters worse, Mason chooses this moment to walk into the bathroom, clutching—I kid you not—an issue of Playboy.

      “I thought you were trying to sleep,” I say.

      “I gave up,” he says.

      I stare at him, speechless, before deciding that the best course of action is to pointedly ignore him.

      “I shouldn’t have let myself do this,” I say, turning to Andrew. “People like me can’t do drinking.”

      “‘People like me’?” he says. “What does that even mean? Depressed people? People who have emotions? People who do stupid things? People like us, Ben. Now shut up and drink water.”

      “People like us?” Mason replies, not looking up from his magazine. “People like you guys, Andrew. Leave me out of it.”

      I stumble out of the bathroom and climb into bed, thinking that camp so far has been far, far worse than Wet Hot American Summer.

       CLARISA

      THE SUNDAY SCHEDULE says we’re supposed to be up by 10:00 a.m., but waking up at a time like that is practically asking to have a terrible day. I set my alarm for 9:31 instead, and I’m feeling surprisingly well rested when it goes off. It’s going to be a good day, I think to myself. I’m going to get out of bed and brush my teeth. I’m going to write my mom a letter. I’m going to try to make friends. I sit up, open my eyes, and—//

      —Freeze. There are four shot glasses pushed into the back corner of the room, definitely unwashed. Pieces of paper that Ben and Mason had been scribbling on all night, now crumpled up on my desk. Somehow, Ben managed to forget his shoes in our room. It’s not even the clutter that gets to me, which isn’t as bad for me as people always think it is—it’s the fact that everything is wrong; the sense that that’s not where those things are supposed to be, not on the floor, not on my desk, no, no, no, and then I’m up and throwing away Ben’s nonsensical scribblings and putting Stella’s shot glasses back on her desk where they belong. Equally horrifying is the fact that it would have been this easy for us to get caught: the shot glasses are inconspicuous, sure, but all it would have taken was one careful walk through the room with a flashlight to notice them. And what if the counselors realized that the pair of flip-flops in the middle of the room wasn’t actually mine or Stella’s? //

      By the time I’m done cleaning up yesterday’s mess, I barely have time to finish my morning routine before we’re supposed to go outside for breakfast. “You do this every morning?” Stella asks as I’m in the process of checking my covers for the fifth time. They haven’t moved at all since the last time I checked them, and I know that they haven’t, but I can’t rip myself away before I’ve made sure. “Do you really have to?” Stella says. “Like, what’s the worst thing that can happen if you don’t?” “Okay, first,” I say, spinning so that I’m facing her. I’m wasting precious time, I know, and Stella’s offhand remarks aren’t worth getting riled up over, but something about her tone—smug, more bemused than anything—really gets me going. //

      “Yeah, I do this every morning, thanks for asking. And second, you’re being pretty rude, you know that? Believe me, I don’t want to be doing this any more than you want to be watching me doing it. But I just...have to.” I stare at her, defiant. This, I think, is exactly why I didn’t want to come to this stupid camp. It’s bad enough when it’s just my mom thinking that I’m a total nutcase. //

      But Stella surprises me. “You’re right,” she says slowly, like she’s just coming to the realization for the first time as she says the words. “Sorry, Clarisa. And sorry again about not checking with you before inviting the guys over last night. I guess I just didn’t anticipate these things—you know—being...problems.” “Well, that’s me for you,” I say. “A barrelful of unanticipated problems.” //

      “That’s not what I meant,” Stella says. But it is. Trust me, I’ve been in this situation enough times to know. “Yeah,” I mutter, and grab our room keys and a jacket from my closet. The bed is fine. The room is safe. I’m ready to go to breakfast. //

      * * *

      I don’t end up making it through very much of breakfast because Jessie comes up to our table pretty much the moment I’ve set my oatmeal down on the picnic table between Ben and Andrew and asks if she can see me in her office. It takes me approximately three seconds—between the time I finish processing her words and actually get up to follow her—to conclude that we’ve been caught, and that I am totally, totally doomed. It doesn’t help that she doesn’t smile at me a single time while we walk from the picnic tables outside to the counselors’ offices by The Hull. By the time Jessie clears her throat to start talking, I’ve come up with six ways to apologize for getting roped into Stella’s awful plan, all of which sound ridiculous. This is it. I am definitely getting kicked out. My stomach sinks as I imagine how disappointed my mom is going to be when she finds out that her latest plan to convert me into a normal human being, just like all the other ones, has crashed and burned. //

      After a few seconds of torturous, torturous silence, Jessie finally speaks. “You started sertraline three weeks ago, correct?” she says. I stare at her for a second, unsure of how to answer. Is this a prelude to the inevitable lecture? Is she trying to terrify me before kicking me out? “Um,” I say. “Yes?” //

      “Are you experiencing any negative side effects? Any difficulty sleeping? Changes in appetite? Increased feelings of depression or suicidal ideation?” she asks. “No,” I say. Jessie writes for a few seconds on the clipboard. I start to think that maybe I’m not totally busted, after all. //

      “What about positive effects of the drug?” Jessie continues. “Decreased anxiety, easier time focusing...?” This is when I sort of start to hate this conversation. When I start to almost wish that we had been caught, and that Jessie was giving me some stern lecture about “trustworthiness” and “camp values” as opposed to asking me about whether or not my meds are finally, finally working. Because no, they’re not. And now I feel like I’m letting her down. “Not really,” I admit. //

      “Well, it’s quite normal for sertraline to take four to six weeks to fully take effect, so I’m not too concerned yet,” Jessie says. “I’ll check in with you again in a couple of days and see if anything changes. In the meantime, please let me know if you start experiencing any new side effects. Is that clear?” “Yes,” I say. I resist the urge to apologize even though I know she doesn’t know that I’ve done anything wrong. Then, before she can tell me that my skirt is too short or try to fix my posture, I bolt for the door. //

      When I get back to the picnic tables, most of the other fifty or so campers have