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[sub][i]Dear Diary — Today, I made myself look like an asshole and failed to uphold my promise to my fifth grade D.A.R.E. officer.[/i][/sub][right][code]Campsite[/code][/right][hr][/center]

“And it’s not that it even has any artistic merit to it at all, really. The entire plot is razor thin and perforated with holes, the main character’s motivation is forced to the point of being laughable, and every shot is practically devoid of anything that would bring the picture to life.”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” said Rita softly, not sure to what she was actually agreeing with. She looked down at the red solo cup in her hand, her eyes narrowing as they focused on the speck in the foam of the amateurishly poured light beer. The moon was bright enough for her to make out the teensy legs of a bug kicking for dear life. Her lips thinned into a bemused smirk; at least she hadn’t drank any yet. 

The bug was stuck just like her. She had gotten separated from her host’s son while looking for the bathroom, and that was when she had run into Billy and his two friends. Normally she would’ve turned down their offer to go smoke, but the goal of the night (and every night from then on out) was to not be her normal self. So, she had followed the two older boys and the one heavy set girl away from the bathrooms and even further away from the campfire and her only source of security. They had made their way to the dock on the lake; the other girl had poured Rita a beer, which she didn’t want but didn’t refuse, while Billy passed around a bowl. Her coughing fit had been a source of amusement to them. 

But now the bowl was held hostage by Billy as he continued his filibuster about a movie that she had never even heard of, his two friends seemingly so enamored with his opinions that neither of them raised a fuss about the man being a bogart. Worse still, she had positioned herself in such a way that her back was to the water, meaning that the only way she could get out of the one-sided conversation was by cutting straight through it. Which, to put matter in perspectives, was a herculean task for Rita. When she had worked the register at a local convenience store her job mostly became listening to the life stories of senior citizens and the ramblings of angry conservatives, never quite managing to find a way to politely excuse her from the conversation so that the person behind them could buy their goddamn bag of powdered donuts.

That job hadn’t last long.

She was still stuck. The dude was still talking. His friends were still nodding. Maybe she could just jump in the lake and swim to safety? She was still muttering sounds that could be misinterpreted as interest. The bug was still drowning in her cup. The weed was still not being passed around. There was a change of clothes in her pack, although how would she be able to explain to the others why a (now extremely long) trip to the bathroom warranted a wardrobe change? She was [i]still[/i] stuck. The dude was [i]still[/i] talking. She [i]still[/i] couldn’t muster up the courage to just breakaway. So this was it? Montana was just Texas number two? What was the point of the clean break then? Of spending all of her money then? Of moving across the country then? The dude was still talking. He was still talking. He was still talking.

She dropped her beer, the foamy liquid splashing against the wood.

“Oh my God, will you just shut the hell up,” said Rita, louder than she had intended to but not really upset by that fact. It worked; Billy and his two friends looked at her in shock. “I don’t care about what you’re saying, and even if I had seen this stupid movie I still wouldn’t. It’s so easy to hate on something, and maybe it is trash, but who the hell are you? What have you done with your life? At least the people involved in that movie have created something. You’re just some hipster leech. God, do your parents pay your tuition for you just so you can be such an entitled prick?” 

“And...and don’t offer somebody to smoke if you’re just going to keep it all for yourself,” she added, snatching the bowl out of his hand as she shoved past them. 

Nobody followed her as she stomped back to the campfire, her steps growing lighter and almost becoming skips. The tense look on her face had softened into an almost childish grin, one that she tried to force away as she came within the light of the circle. Girls she didn’t know—well, she didn’t know just about everyone—were passing around a bottle of vodka. One girl was asking the scary looking tall girl for a sip. So polite. How nice. Rita’s sure someone that nice wouldn’t get too upset if they got bumped back a turn.

“Oh, thanks. Trade ya,” said Rita, intercepting the bottle and pressing the bowl into the scary girl’s hands. Rita pressed the bottle to her lips, tilted her head back, and took a quick pull before passing it off to the polite girl with nothing more than a toothy smile—that briefly fluctuated into a terrible wince as the burn hit her before returning to a slightly more embarrassed smile. She took a free seat by the fire, the smile on her face already fading as her feeling of triumph began to once again be pulled down by the undertow of worry. [i]Well, that was a really good way to make a first impression. Great job, idiot. [/i] Her eyes darted around the campfire, trying to find Martin.