It was now lunchtime and they were all sitting under the double green fly of the dining tent pretending that nothing had happened. It’s funny how silence can make your surroundings so damn loud. I could hear the buzzing of the mosquitos that found a home in the light hanging above us so clearly, I almost understood the conversation amongst the grimy things. It used to be white noise to me but now it’s as if my brain had been secretly translating their buzzes and all of a sudden I was fluent in a nonexistent language. I started dozing off at the sunset thinking about the possibility of talking bugs like the ones in the cartoons. Anything to keep me from registering the effects of time only to realize what felt like 3 hours had only been 10 minutes and we have the whole night to go. The tea was still hot in my hands but now cool enough to enjoy despite the fact that there was nothing to enjoy of the situation. 

“Are you kidding me?” Sarah coughed in disbelief

I remember the look of shock that sank to disappointment she gave me at that moment and the words that had just escaped my mouth set in.

“I'm just being honest. Don't yell at me it’s not fair.” I cringed at myself again

“Unfair! I’ll tell you about unfair.” Sarah exclaimed “I can’t even look at you” 

“I didn’t mean it like that. I'm sorry you’re right, I shouldn’t have said anything”

“Yeah, you really shouldn’t have,” Sarah said turning as she was walking out of the camper. Her exit left me alone in the camper with only the lonely cold.

I quickly sipped my tea to silence the dialogue that replayed in my head a dozen times. The taste of the bitter chai mixed with my hateful words circling my head created a monstrous mixture of embarrassment and nausea. I looked at Sarah only to see the back of her head. That familiar chill brushed past me again and the wind whispered to me what I didn’t want to hear. The tea only got colder as did the night and the mosquitos became impossible to muffle once again.