izziedora

[izziedora]

campelliott‌:

Elliott could remember the first time she influenced someone. It hadn’t been something she had been planning to do, but it was really just something that happened. The summer before fourth grade, Elliott had gone and dyed the underside of her hair pink. Actually, Elliott’s mom had decided to dye the underside of her hair pink and Elliott had begged to follow in her mom’s footsteps.When Elliott went back to school, a few of her friends were immediately obsessed with her hair. And two weeks later, the girls were adding pink into their hair in all forms. A few had went the dying route and dyed streaks in their hair, others had gotten streaks from Claire’s and clipped them into their hair and other had just settled for pink clips. The trend had even dispersed into other groups of girls that Elliott didn’t even know. Even after Elliott’s hair had faded, there were still girls adding pink into their hair. Some of the other popular girls had branched out and added in different colors and sparkles, but none of those seemed to stick the way that Elliott’s pink had. Around that time, Elliott’s mom had gotten another piercing, and in true Elliott fashion, she had begged her mom for one too. And so she returned from spring break with a second hole, which basically sent the fourth and fifth grade into a tizzy. A group of fifth grade girls then started to invite Elliott to hang out with them on the playground. And when those girls left and went to middle school, Elliott had taken the reigns as the “popular” girl. Being popular seemed like it was always supposed to be part of Elliott’s DNA. After all, her parents had been homecoming and prom king and queen, even when they had had Elliott at fourteen. And continuing that legacy felt like it was a part of Elliott’s destiny. 

Because her parents had been so young when they had her, a lot of Elliott’s disciplining and extracurricular activities were decided by both sets of her grandparents. While her parents finished high school, Elliott’s grandparents had fed her, clothed her, taught her how to walk, and had enrolled her in every activity that was offered in their small town. It had started with swim lessons and painting classes, but nothing got Elliott more excited than when she would go to the gym. If it had been up to Elliott, she would have worn leotards to everything. And so had began Elliott’s love story with gymnastics. While her grandparents had started her in classes at the gym, that mostly consisted of jumping into the foam pits and hanging off bars, the reins had been taken up by Elliott’s mother after she had graduated high school. With her finishing high school, Elliott’s mom had a lot more time on her hands. She no longer had to worry about studying or potty training a baby, she could simply enjoy the parts of being a parent that she had missed out on when she was in school. It became even more important when Elliott’s dad enlisted in the marine corp in hopes of providing for his family. With the departure of her father, Elliott and her mom continued to do the things that Elliott’s grandparents had done for her. It was also around this time, when Elliott’s gymnastic career began to get more intense. At only five, it was intimidating to be planning the rest of her future. But her being good at gymnastics made everyone around her happy and so she wanted to be the best. Due to this, most of her life revolved around gymnastics. She transferred out of her “baby” gym and began training at an elite gym who were known for training more than one Olympian. Elliott never attended a true preschool or kindergarten, but was homeschooled by her mother so she could train for hours a day. And from the time she was four until she was eight, this had worked. She trained 40 hours a week and competed almost every weekend during the season and she was good, but she was also stressed. She was so worried about being good at gymnastics that nothing else mattered. And when Elliott’s dad came home on leave, he noticed this in his daughter. It lead through a big fight between her parents about what was best for Elliott. Her mother argued about how she could be a star and how training now was preparing her for a future, giving her more of a chance to become better than they ever could be. Her father countered with the fact that her mother wasn’t seeing how much the little girl was hurting, that she was too busy worrying about the Olympics that might not ever come, then seeing the little girl who was eating salads every day to stay the right side, who closed out everyone to focus on her sport, and who was laying down her whole life when she should be acting like a child. It was an argument that lasted for days. All the while, Elliott stayed in her room, headphones in, practicing her floor routine. At the end of it, it was decided that Elliott could stay in gymnastics, but she would be going to real school and take place in an activity that wasn’t gymnastics related once a week. So all of third grade was spent figuring out what she liked to do. And without gymnastics, Elliott wasn’t sure what she liked. Her dad had suggested other sports, like flag football or baseball, but Elliott didn’t really get into any of those. Her mother had taken her to art classes and yoga and girl scouts. 

Throughout that whole year there had been only one activity that Elliott had enjoyed–and that was when her family would take her to the lake and they’d spend the day hiking and swimming and doing lake activities. Elliott had wanted to do something like that all the time. So when her dad had started talking about this summer camp that she could attend, Elliott was psyched. The only part about it was that she would have to give up gymnastics for a whole summer. By this time, however, Elliott had already accepted the fact that she was Olympic material. The only hard part in that realization was when she was asked to leave the gym. Having her coaches who she had spent years competing for tell her that she was no longer wanted and was serving as a distraction to the other more serious gymnasts had made Elliott cry for a week. But her dad had stepped in again and found her a different gym, one that was still good, but didn’t focus on competitions. Being at this new gym, had brightened their little girl. It had allowed her to make friends, go to birthday parties, and actually have time to breathe. It also allowed her to attend Camp Caprice.

Elliott’s first summer at Camp Caprice had definitely been a culture shock. After having such an eventful fourth grade experience, Elliott felt like she was on top of the world. But after being at the camp for only a few minutes, she could tell that the girls who attended these camps weren’t anything like the fifth grade girls that had take Elliott under their wings. These girls weren’t definitely not worried about fitting in, they liked things the way that they liked them and weren’t afraid of letting people know it. Things that basically made you a social pariah in elementary school. But all these unlikable girls had led to Elliott meeting Izzie or Isadora as the teachers always called her until she corrected them. Elliott had remembered Izzie from school, but she had no idea if Izzie even knew who she was. And through that summer Elliott and Izzie became those friends that everyone wished they got at summer camp. The ones that would promise to write each other, if they didn’t live in the same town. And when they returned to school, it seemed obvious that this friendship would just continue where they left off, but that wasn’t the case at all. Immediately upon starting the fifth grade, Elliott was approach by Celina Rivers, who was considered the queen bee of the school. Celina immediately had told her about how she thought they should be friends since they both had bodies of water in their last names. Celina and her posse started to embrace Elliott into their clique. And just like that, the summer had been forgotten. Not entirely because Elliott wanted to forget it, but because life just happened that way, and each time Elliott would attempt to start a conversation with Izzie, something just got in the way. Most of the time, it was the fact that everyone thought she was weird, especially Celina and her posse. The next summer, it was finally time to start the conversation that she had been trying to get to. Izzie and Elliott picked up right where they left off. This pattern continued every summer until graduation. The only time where this pattern was deviated from was the time when Elliott had dated Erick. He had been older and every one in her group had been pressuring her to date somebody. Elliott had dated other boys, but none of them had been really serious. Celina had helped put Elliott and Erick together and had helped when Erick had asked Elliott to Prom. While her friends had been pressuring her to get a boyfriend, what they were really trying to pressure her into doing was losing her virginity. She was the only one of the girls who had never done it. And senior prom seemed like the perfect time to lose it and Erick was sweet enough. Except when it actually came time for it to happen, all Elliott could think about was Izzie. It just seemed wrong. After that night, Elliott and Erick had broken up, they blamed it on him getting ready to leave for college, but there was never an exact answer. 

As senior year approached, college became the topic that everyone was concerned about. Elliott was among that crowd. She had been approached by multiple colleges asking for her to compete for them in gymnastics. There were a few full scholarships and some offers she felt like she couldn’t turn down, but she hadn’t officially signed anywhere. Homecoming came and went and Prom came and went and then it was time for graduation. Around this time, applications for being a camp counselor for Camp Caprice started to get posted on the camp’s website. While all the girls in her clique were planning trips to Cabo, Italy, and other island getaways, all Elliott could think about was being at camp and maybe spending the last year she could with Izzie. It was around this time too that things started to take a turn for Elliott and she felt alone. Her parents were occupied with her little sister, the one they actually got to raise, her friends were either going on vacation, with their boyfriends, or already going to college, and then there had been that night. The events of that night solidified that Elliott had to go to camp because whether or not Izzie would be there, she needed some normalcy in her life. She needed a place where she felt safe. And so she had packed her bags, loaded her car and headed up to the place where she would get on the bus. 

Getting on the bus, Elliott immediately looked towards the seat that her and Izzie always sat in. She could have driven all the way up to the camp, but there was something about the bus ride that truly made it feel like summer. She grabbed her backpack straps as she made her way towards Izzie. Elliott waved as she took her seat and was immediately met with a tubberware box in her lap. “Oh!” She said, smiling a bit. “You brought these without even knowing I was coming? It’s like you have a sixth sense or something.” She said before looking over them. “They look delicious, but I’m still digesting my breakfast, but I’ll definitely dive into them, probably at midnight–” She laughed. Once Izzie started talking, it was like a train without a break. If you didn’t know her, then she was quiet, but the way that Elliott knew her, she knew that girl could talk for hours. She let her get out all her excited energy as she put her hand over Izzie’s. “Iz–we have all summer.” She said, taking a breath. “Take a breath.” She laughed. “But NYU sounds very exciting. “The University of Michigan offered me a scholarship for gymnastics–which made my mom rather excited. My dad just made me promise that I would be involved in something else too. He’s still rooting for me to join intramural flag football or probably a fraternity. My mother really needs to give him a son.” She said, shaking her head. As Izzie recounted the story, she shook her head at the memory. At the time, Elliott had wanted to make faces at her to make her feel better, but instead, she had to listen as Celina and the girls made fun of her. Elliott had never made fun of Izzie directly, but she hadn’t stood up for her either, and maybe she should have. She wondered if Izzie ever blamed her for that, if she was upset at her, but they never discussed it. It was one of their unspoken things–like Elliott’s relationship with Erick and the kiss they had shared when they were little. “Two months, just you and me Iz. And whatever little campers are forced with us–I feel sorry for them.” She said, being met with eyes of the little campers at the front of the bus. 

If Elliot was destined to be popular, Izzie was destined to be anything but. Even though Grace claimed it was biologically impossible, Izzie always theorized that Erick had stolen all the good genes their parents possessed during his time in the womb, leaving Izzie reject traits. While Izzie was the social equivalent to wallpaper, Erick was Mr Popularity. He was good looking, captain of the football team, the nicest guy who everyone loved and when people found out she was his sister, heads would snap. She could always hear the whispers, the shock, the gasps, it left invisible marks on her skin, tainted her mind, and she knew they were right. She was Erick Cardenas’ little sister? Her?! He was the after picture and she was the before, despite being the youngest and it sucked! There was no other way to put it: it sucked being the ugly, forgettable sibling. The one who could never live up to the other’s greatness. Sure, Izzie was a great artist, who had actual ambitions and goals? To her mother, it was all mute point. “You want to go to college to draw silly cartoons? Isadora, really?” her mother had said when the NYU acceptance letter had come in the mail. Saying it like that had hurt, but it wasn’t surprising. Everything she ever done, every dream she ever had was always stupid. Who was she compared to Erick? Erick who was going to college for business. Erick who had made the Dean’s list. It didn’t matter though. When Camp Caprice was done, Izzie had a week home to get herself ready to leave for New York, and soon, it’d all be a bad fever dream. Gone would be the days of Lakewood Heights High, and gone would be Celina Rivers and her pathetic little crew. Even Elliot would be nothing more than a memory, which made her stomach twist into tiny little knots. It was weird thinking that in about three months, Elliot would be nothing but a memory. Elliot, the girl she knew more about than anyone in the entire would. She’d probably never know anyone as good as she knew Elliot and vice-versa. Their game had lasted them seven going on eight years, and at the end of it all, Izzie knew the popular girl would gather her things and leave without a second thought.

It was weird being friends with Elliot here. She knew her parents were young having her, knew that her grandparents had gotten her into the sports young, just Elliot knew Izzie had failed at every attempt of a sport or activity her mother put her in, but art had been where she thrived. Art had also been her downfall in the long run, too. Celina Rivers, Elliot’s best friend, seemed to have it out for her. Not that Izzie knew why. Sure, she was Grace’s best friend, but even so, Celina never went as hard on Grace as she did with Izzie, but it also could have been how scary Grace’s confidence could be. Well, faux confidence, as the Drs Roth claimed. Grace’s parents were psychoanalysts, which was fun when life was hard, as it was for most children, to be analyzed by not only your genius best friend, but their parents too. But Celina’s favorite past time seemed to always be bullying Izzie. When they were five, Celina had tried to give Izzie an actual mud pie, in fourth grade she’d made fun of her art project and so on. It happened for years, between the mocking her stupid comics and calling her love of anime lame to her various hair cuts and clothing choices, it all seemed to be fair game for Celina. And when Elliot was there, it hurt Izzie. Not that she’d admit it. It’d never once come up in truth, because Celina and all of that was unspokenly off limits. Somehow, Izzie knew asking wouldn’t give her the answer she wanted. Or maybe it would, and the answer she knew would be too painful to hear. It also sucked knowing the girl who knew everything about you would never be your best friend, Camp or not.

At Elliot touching her hand, her heart lurched. It was meaningless to the girl, and Izzie knew that, but still. In truth, Izzie was out. Not that anyone knew or cared. She’d never had a girlfriend and her only kiss had two kisses her entire life: once with a band kid during spin the bottle, and the other when she was ten with Elliot at Camp - that was the spark of the crush, but hardly the beginning. If Elliot knew Izzie was out, she never asked about it or mentioned it, and Izzie never said anything about it. But if she were honest, she did like Elliot. A lot. How could she not? Elliot was beautiful, but so was Celina. Surface level, they were beautiful girls and they knew it, but underneath all the layers, she saw Elliot. There was no fantasy; she knew Elliot, and Elliot knew her, whether they’d admit it out loud or not. It was stupid to like Elliot this way, but Izzie’s heart had always been an enemy, and what could she say? She was one of those people who loved the things the couldn’t have: friends, a loving and supportive family, and the most popular girl in school. It was the tale of the ages really, nothing new. Just, she was gay, and no one cared because everyone overlooked her. It was easy being under the radar when no one was looking for you.

“It was wishful thinking,” Izzie admitted with a harmless shrug, but her stomach gave a tug as they felt into place. “Midnight snacks are always the best. I brought a gigantic thing of snacks for hikes, I was prepared.” Her cheeks were red, and sometimes it was hard to remember that Elliot wasn’t a memory she’d pulled from the depths of her mind. She was real, and she wasn’t slipping through her fingers like sand; but Elliot was wrong, they didn’t have time. This last summer was it, and then they were going to go their separate ways just like that. “Sorry,” she murmured, looking down, cheeks flushed and stomach aching. “Wow, Michigan, that’s,” so far away hung on her lips, begging to dive off and be out in the open, but instead she finished with, “so great!” Her smile was bright, because they were friends and she was happy for her - she was! Giggling, she said, “I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that. If anything, I think my mother wants a refund for me.” Izzie smiled, the previous story long forgotten as she held her water bottle up, “Here, here!” Taking a sip, she said, “I’m so excited for the new littles, and canoeing. Do you think they’ll allow us to go up stream on the river this year? Or tubing!?” she asked, eyes sparkling with possibility.

[izziedora]

- what your muse’s name in mine’s phone: Elliot Westlake - what your muse’s picture is in mine’s phone:

- what your muse’s ringtone is in mine’s phone: standard iphone ringer - my muse’s last text to your muse:  

[july 2018]: Come down to the lake. I’m watching the littles canoe, and I’m bored. In desperate need of company. SOS. 

    - my muse’s last unsent texts to your muse:

[3:03 am]: Why are you dating Erick? Why are you breaking our rules? To get back at me...? I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong.

@campelliott

[izziedora]

Elliot Westlake was a lot of things: pretty, popular, and everything Izzie Cardenas wasn’t. In every other time, Elliot and Izzie never were a thing. No one, and truly no one, not even her best friend - the one person she told everything to, Grace Roth, wouldn’t believe that she was Elliot’s friend in the two months away from home at Camp Caprice and had been since they were ten. Summer was a weird thing. The days were longer and time seemed to spin fast and slow at once, and while Grace and Izzie had been best friends since pre school, back when Izzie shared her sixty-four set of new Crayolas with Grace, her and Elliot had begun a bit differently. Before the rules of high school, or even middle school, Izzie had been sent to Camp Caprice the summer before grade five. She hadn’t wanted to go to camp at all, that much she remembered. Grace was going to Vermont to her family’s lake house, and Izzie was going to Maine to be in the wilderness, away from her parents. Erick had gone to camp the year before, and because her older brother had been fine, clearly, Izzie was going to be fine, too. That’s how it was in their family: Erick set the bar, and Izzie was forced to jump all the hurdles to meet it. Her mother had dropped her off at the buses at the elementary school, phone up to her ear, dealing with a client - her mother was a relator, dad a contractor: a pair to be reckoned with, in modest opinion - and cigaret in another. “Yes, yes, Mr Charles - I promise you, everything will be the way you want it. Mm-hmm,” she had been saying, puffing her cigaret as Izzie held her Sailor Moon backpack closer, eying the girls around her warily. Moving from side to side, she had wanted to be anywhere else but Lakewood Heights Elementary school at seven am, but with a snap of her mother’s phone and a puff of smoke, her mother said, in that tired voice - as if even having to be in proximity to her daughter was a tiresome task, “Isadora, please.” That, among with a long, heavy sigh that followed, “Oh, Isadora,” and blank stare that followed an eye roll and an impatient, “Isadora!” where the only ways her mother seemed to talk to her. It didn’t matter that Izzie was not Isadora to anyone else, or that she’d corrected her mother time and time again, it was always some impatient version of her full name. But anyway, after her mother said this phrase, Izzie had wailed about not wanting to go and begging her mom to change her mind. On the bus, Izzie sat with a girl she’d later learn was Lourna McPhee, who snored loudly and was a bossy know-it-all, who bored Izzie to almost tears and across from a girl, who she would later know as Elliot Westlake, a girl she knew of, considering they were in the same grade, just a different class, neither, Izzie had talked to as she shoved her headphones on and listened to Good Charlotte, wishing she was back home with Grace.

Elliot and Izzie shared a cabin with Lourna and another girl, Charity Hope Andrews, who demanded to be called by her full name, and was from northern New York. Izzie, being taller, got the bottom bunk beneath Elliot, and with the choices of friends being Lourna from Ohio and Charity Hope Andrews from New York, Elliot became Izzie’s friend by lack of choices and proximity. At least, Izzie knew that was true. She and Elliot never talked about it, but Izzie knew that if Lourna and Hope Charity Andrews hadn’t been their roommates, Izzie and Elliot probably would’ve never became friends; it was just science and facts. Izzie was the weird girl at school. She wore combat boots, a jean jacket with a REBEL ALLIANCE patch - among many others, and she was a social outcast from the marching band. And she played the oboe. As if being in band wasn’t dweeby enough, but she played the oboe, an instrument made for kids ages eleven to eighteen to mock, as far as Izzie was concerned. And if being the outcast, she loved anime and comics, and was best friends with Grace Roth. For as much as Izzie loved Grace, and she truly did love her best friend, Grace was intense. Valedictorian and future Harvard Law graduate and supreme court justice (Grace’s plan she’d had since grade three), it was hard to have anyone like you with her around. Grace had very little patience for most people, student class president, top piano player in the Hartford district, nothing Grace did was without intensity. Which was why, much to everyone’s surprise, even Izzie’s, that Grace and Fynn Paulsen, Izzie’s other best friend and Lakewood Heights High’s biggest underachiever who had only graduated because of Grace’s rigorous study enforcements and Izzie’s answers to the Spanish and European history finale, had made him pass by the seat of his pants, had begun dating in their junior year. But nonetheless, Izzie was a little less than popular, known as nothing more, even among her peers of band geeks, Drama freaks, AV and chess nerds, along with other various outlier groups, as Grace’s sidekick. Wherever Grace was, izzie was always a step behind her, quietly following behind, offering apologies to weeping freshman and random children alike who got in her way, and that’s how life was outside of Camp Caprice.

At Camp Caprice, Izzie was, well, Izzie. No one really knew the Izzie from Hartford because so many people came from all over the country, and all but Elliot and a few other girls from school who’d she’d known and stopped going over the years, when summers were no longer about dorky and babyish summer camp. Every year, despite the one hundred and eighty days of school they’d spend together, even in their senior year of taking three classes together, they never once spoke, when they got on the bus to Camp Caprice, none of that mattered. Izzie would, sometimes, imagine on the off moment, what would happen if she did speak to Elliot Westlake outside of the vast anonymous air of the camp. What would Elliot say if Izzie acted like that they were best friends, not just Summer Camp BFFS who traded bracelets and secrets under the starlight. She imagined various things, even Elliot not coming because of camp being for losers, but every year, despite that twinge of fear, Izzie would see Elliot on the bus, and they’d pick back up right where they left off; as if time hadn’t really even passed. For Izzie, Camp Caprice meant a few things: kayaking and hiking at night - a privilege she got during the summer between tenth and eleventh grade, when sixteen meant responsibility and privileges, s’mores, pine cabins, Elliot and their game. 

The Game was Truth. Truth, as in the dreaded slumber party game girls used to see if their friends had gone all the way, who the virgins were, and who among the group wasn’t up to snuff with all things cool. Izzie had hated that game, had scowled when Elliot had suggested they play it one day during their first years, as they washed dishes. It was just to pass the time, and there wasn’t like they had other options, so Izzie relented and played. The Game had been going for eight years, and both girls were wicked competitive, something Grace had given her during their ruthless games of Monopoly and Crazy Eights. Every year, the night before Camp, Izzie would wonder if Elliot was going - never texted or breached their unspoken contract of speaking outside of Camp boundaries, and every year, Izzie would think of their game. The things she knew about Elliot and Elliot knew about her were outrageous. Even her own family didn’t know some of the things Elliot knew, hell, she doubted even Grace or Fynn knew these things about, and they spent every waking second by her side. And as Izzie entered the bus, taking a seat by the middle and placing her backpack beside her, she rested her head against the window with her headphones in, waiting as the cars piled in, looking for Elliot’s. When she saw it, her heart lurched in both surprise and joy, a smile splitting her face. In truth, Izzie was surprised. Izzie signed up immediately to be a camp counselor because, well, what else was she going to do with her summer? But Elliot?! Elliot had options! When she entered the bus, Izzie sat straighter, her smile huge as they exchanged hugs. “Hi!” she squealed, as if they hadn’t been in the same school all year long and were reuniting after hundreds and thousands of miles apart. Reaching into her bag, Izzie pulled out a tupperware container full of no bake s’mores, handing them to Elliot. “Here! I made these last night for you, since you liked them last year. I put extra fluff in them, so hopefully it’s better this year.” Sitting back into the seat, she wrapped the cord around her phone and said, “So did you hear back from colleges. I mean obviously you did, but where are you going next year? I got into NYU, and my mother was mad as a hornet, because she wanted me to get, I don’t know, Columbia or Yale, but I got in and I’m a contender for their arts program, so I’m wicked excited. I think my mother still thinks I’m going to turn a leaf and follow Erick’s direction and be a journalist, or some bullshit. A “respectable job” that guarantees me for life, as if journalism isn’t dying out.” Erick. The other thing between them that they pretended wasn’t. For a brief moment in time, during junior year, those lines had blurred when Elliot dated her older brother. Soon seeing Elliot on her couch or at the table, or coming from her brother’s room or the bathroom, had once been as normal as breathing. They weren’t Elliot and Izzie, then. Then, they were Elliot Westlake, future prom queen or homecoming queen, and she was Isadora Cardenas, the girl who protested the cafe with a bunch of other weirdos for vegetarian options and Grace’s lackey. They were not friends and if they spoke, it was things like: “Izzie, can you pass the salt?” or “Can I borrow a toothbrush?” not The Game, or anything close. It was like they were strangers, and they never spoke about it the summer after the breakup. It was as if Izzie had imagined it. And maybe she had. Her brother always had girls weaving in and out of his life, and in a moment in time, Elliot had been one of the girls on Erick’s needle and that’d been it. Gone. Lost in time forever, only to be proven by old, probably long since deleted, Facebook photos. “My mom was such a bitch about graduation, though. You think being in the top twenty would be a proud moment, but it wasn’t Erick. Erick who was VP and gave a speech,” she rolled her eyes. “As if I’m even good at public speaking! One time, during speech class in tenth grade, I ran from the room to vomit in a trash can, just because I was about to public speak! I mean, c’mon!” She said, telling the story as if Elliot hadn’t been in that speech class and a friend of her’s hadn’t mocked Izzie about it for months, and even time to time over the years. Resting her head back, she said, “I’m so glad for two months I don’t have to deal with them, Elle. You don’t even know.”