Rachel

It was raining.

Wet wasn't exactly a problem when you worked at a lake, but it was when your paycheck sorta depended on if people showed. Stevie wondered if anyone would even bother to stop by while absently tracking Rachel's path along the water's edge. Of course Rachel could make a bright-red baggy hoody look like something from one of those expensive brands where the strap on a purse cost more than Stevie's whole outfit, excluding maybe the lifeguard hoody itself. They'd made her pay for it when she'd gotten the job.

Rachel was one of those weirdos who wasn't working for the money. Her aunt lived nearby, and she was staying there for the summer. Her commute was a five minute walk that she spent humming and looking for monarch butterflies. Stevie spent thirty minutes in her slightly beat-up car, cursing at bad drivers. When she arrived, Rachel was always already there, chatting with another employee or one of the old women that volunteered to bring them sandwiches for lunch.

Rachel was the only volunteer under fifty. Stevie liked to tease her about it.

Stevie was native to New Hampshire. She'd grown up surrounded by liberals and trees, both of which she was pretty okay with. Rachel had grown up in Chicago. She liked to tease Stevie because she'd never left the state.

Stevie had never wanted to.

It was raining and Stevie was shivering even though winters in New England got far colder than this. Rachel seemed perfectly fine, water bouncing off her dark hair as she toed at the edges of the lake with her boots. Not combat boots like her cousin, but a worn pair of yellow rain boots unearthed from one of the few thousand closets at her aunt's that they had explored together the one time Stevie had gone over for pizza.

Rachel's cousin was called Jade, and it wasn't clear if it was her real name or not. She wore things like leather jackets and listened to things like Fall Out Boy and drew skulls in sharpie on the backs of her hands.

She was everything like Stevie and nothing like Rachel. Rachel loved her. Stevie hated her. Jade was seemingly unconcerned on both accounts.

A branch above Stevie's head shuddered, then dumped water onto her head. She swore loudly, and Rachel laughed. The tree seemed to be laughing too, as it poured more rainwater onto Stevie's upturned face.

[excerpt from a longer work]