"here were the both of you?" Sophie asks as soon as Abby and I enter our cabin.

Abby opens her mouth to answer, but Colette cuts in. "We had to cover for the both of you."

"Yeah!" Zoey exclaims. "Do you have any idea how hard it is to act like one is asleep and the other is in the bathroom?"

"It's so hard!" She answers herself, throwing her hands in the air.

"That's what she said," Abby and I snicker at the same time before we look at each other and burst down laughing.

"Are you guys high or something?" Colette asks, raising her amber eyebrow and bringing up her legs to cross them.

"No," I reply with a small grin, walking over to the bed that has my suitcase on it and zipping it open.

"We were responding to the call of nature," Abby grins at me and I laugh slightly as I get out a tank top and a pair of sweatpants.

"You were peeing?" Sophie questions.

"No, Anna and I went to meet up with Tyler because he's camping near us," Abby explains, unbraiding her golden hair and zipping open her bag to get her hairbrush.

"Tyler; your other best friend?" Zoey asks and Abby nods, running the brush through her hair.

"Why didn't you take me with you? I wanted to see him," Zoey whines, falling back on her bed dramatically.

"Hold on, Tyler as in the dude with black hair and brown eyes that tripped you when you were five and you pushed him in the sand for ruining your new dress in return?" Sophie recalls.

"Yup, that's him," she answers, putting her hair up in a bun. I don't know how she manages to look good with it. Messy buns look awful on me. They make me look as if my hairline just vanished into nothingness. That's how bad they look.

"Damn, you are best friends now?" Sophie asks and Abby nods.

I suddenly remember what Zoey said. "Wait, how did you pretend like one of us is in the bathroom?" I question, frowning.

"We got Zoey's Bluetooth speakers, connected it to Sophie's phone, placed it in the bathroom and played an old audio note of you talking," Colette shrugs.

"Why do you even have speakers?" I ask Zoey and she grins.

"So we can have a dance party at three in the morning," she replies excitedly. "We need to have some fun before we go back to exam and school life. There are like three months left, then we're all going our separate ways."

"Which college did you apply in?" I get out my makeup remover along with other face cleansing products.

"Colombia. The same university my girlfriend attends," she responds, grabbing a pillow and placing it under her head.

Sophie and Colette mirror my surprised expression. "Your girlfriend?" I ask in shock.

"Yeah, I'm into girls." She sits up. "You guys didn't know?"

Colette, Sophie and I slowly shake our heads in response.

"Well, I'm lesbian and I have a girlfriend who's two years older than me," she grins, locking her hands together.

"How long have you two been dating?" Sophie jumps on her bed, placing her chin in her hand as Colette turns her body around to face Zoey.

"Seven months now," she gives out an awe-struck smile and Sophie and I let out a long 'aw', making her slightly chuckle.

"That's so cute," Colette comments, smiling.

"We seriously need to meet her one day," Abby decides and we all nod in agreement.

"Of course, you will," Zoey says.

"Why does everyone have a better relationship life than I do?" Sophie groans. "Abby has Tyler who she will no doubt fall in love with later-"

"Wait, what?" Abby cuts in, frowning.

"-Colette already kissed Zach and it's about time, they both start hooking up."

"Whoa-"

"-Riley is going to get a sexy Latino. Zoey has a girlfriend and Anna has Luke who's too stupid to realize that he likes her, but that's beside the point," Sophie rants and lets out a huge sigh.

"Luke has a girlfriend," I remind her for the hundredth time.

"Who? Jennie?" Zoey snorts. "They're not going to last long. They're a nice couple, but they're not meant for each other. Jennie is the kind that needs time before she fully starts liking a guy. Same thing for Luke. They both need time."

"They've been dating for a month now. Wouldn't that be enough for them?"

Zoey shakes her head. "Like I told you, Jennie needs time. It will take her more than one month."

"I'm going to die single," Sophie exaggerates.

"Sugit vos esse," Colette snorts.

Sophie ever-so-dramatically gasps. "You take that back...what does it mean anyway?" She asks in a low voice.

"Sucks to be you," she translates.

"Bitch," Sophie flips her off and Colette gives her the middle finger back.

"Kids, kids," Abby calls out warningly. "Don't fight."

"Now, let's sleep," Abby grins before she jumps face-first on the bed and starts snoring.

"Is she really...?" Sophie questions.

"Yes," Zoey and I answer.

| | | |

"Wake up! Wake up!" A pillow smacks my face and I groan, turning on my stomach and burying my face under one pillow, while grabbing the one that was thrown at me and putting it between my legs. I have to sleep with a pillow between my legs.

"Mintuna biyar, Naija," I hear Sophie mumbling.

"I have no idea what that means, it's Abby and you're waking up now," she replies.

"It's so early," I muffle out.

"It's twelve in the afternoon," Abby says and I can imagine the dry look on her face. "And we need to go have breakfast."

I shoot up at the mention of food. "There's food?"

"Yes." That's all that Abby had to say and I jump out of bed and head to the bathroom, grabbing clothes to change into, on the way.

After Abby manages to wake the rest up and make them change into other clothes, we head outside for breakfast and the smell of fried eggs and toast along with other foods float in the air. We're probably the only people who are still eating breakfast because the place is empty. Abby told us that Coach Taylor said that we are going to 'explore' the area, so everyone's too busy getting ready for that.

You can imagine my surprise when I find Luke, Zach and Alex walking out of their cabin, looking like they just got dragged from hell. The world just chose this moment to make my crush see me in my worst condition. I actually took the liberty of brushing my hair, but I barely gave any care to the rest of me.

There are bags under my eyes from sleeping late–two forty-six in the morning to be exact–and I don't even have my glasses on to cover them up. There are a couple of pimples on my forehead which is why I avoided makeup in the beginning. I'm in a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie because I'm too lazy to wear a bra. Not that I'm never lazy.

While Lucas flipping Carter looks like an anime character with glasses on and his hair is falling over his eyes. At least his hair looks like a mess. A good mess. It should be illegal to look that handsome.

Zach is basically sleep-walking until he spots us and his face lights up. "Leni!" He throws his arms up before he fast walks over to us and grabs me in a hug.

"Hey, Zach," I laugh.

"Fee!" He grabs her in a hug too and does the same with Colette, then Abby and Zoey even though they don't know each other that well before he heads off to get some food.

Luke just waves at us and he shoots me a smile and I wave, smiling back at him then he goes with Zach to get food.

"Hey, guys," Alex mumbles before he drops on the seat next to Sophie and slams his head down on the table, then I hear a loud snore erupt from him.

"Wow, was I like that yesterday?" Abby questions, watching Alex and Zoey, Colette and I nod, while Sophie pokes Alex's cheek to check if he's really asleep.

"Alex is like that everyday," Zach says, as he takes a seat in between Abby and Colette with a tray filled with food in his hands, while Luke takes a seat beside me.

"He's really out cold," Sophie concludes, looking up.

"The best thing about this is that he starts mumbling things in Spanish," Zach chuckles.

"Alex speaks Spanish?" Sophie questions, her eyebrows shooting up and Zach nods.

"How do you understand what he says?" I ask.

"Siri," Luke replies instead.

"No, mamá, necesito usar mis calzoncillos de Spider-Man hoy," Alex murmurs with his eyes still closed.

I furrow my eyebrows and look at the guys. "Alex has Spider-Man boxer shorts?" The girls, Zach and Luke snicker.

"We bought them on his birthday," Luke explains.

"He seems to really like them," I comment, laughing slightly.

"Well, we bought them for him, so of course; he does," Zach grins.

That's when Alex shoots up and Sophie literally jumps in her place, while Zoey, Abby and I let out a squeak from surprise and I see Colette reaching for the cross on the chain around her neck.

Alex blinks a couple of times before he squints his eyes at us and looks around. "When did I get here?"

"You sleep-walked again, buddy," Zach pats his shoulder.

"Again?" I question and I see Sophie shifting to the left, leaving some space between her and Alex.

"He's kidding," Alex rolls his eyes and places his head down on the table. Sophie moves to the right, closing the space between her and Alex again.

"I'm not. He did it before," Zach tells Sophie lowly and Alex glares at him making Zach grin in response.

"Where's Jennie?" I suddenly remember.

"With her friends," Luke replies. "Already checking the place out with them."

"Speaking of checking the place out," Zach says. "You guys wanna come with us?" He grins widely.

"Sure," Abby shrugs.

"I'm in!" Zoey joins, smiling.

"Same," Sophie, Colette and I sync.

A loud snore comes from Alex and we all turn to look at him.

"How does he fall asleep so fast?" Abby wonders.

"Nobody never knew." Zach stares off into space for a dramatic effect and Luke gives him a dry look.

Later on–after everyone finishes breakfast and changes into more suitable clothes–we start walking around the forest with the Google Maps app opened on my phone, so we wouldn't get lost and end up stranded in this all-green-no-other-color place, then we will get eaten by a bear and the bear will probably eat me first because life's just like this.

"Let's sing the road song!" Zach suddenly pops up.

"No," Luke replies with an emotionless expression.

"When I'm on the road, I see stuff going by-" Zach starts to sing.

"I said, no," Luke deadpans.

"Party shitter," Zach mumbles.

"Okay, so..." I start, grabbing everyone's attention as I look down at my phone. "Apparently we are fifteen minutes away from our campsite. If we go right, Twin Peaks hill will be there and if we go left, there will be another waterfall, only it's bigger than the one in our campsite or we can just keep going straight and see where it leads to because there isn't anything appearing on Google Maps, so right or left or straight?"

"Right."

"Left."

"Left."

"Right."

"Straight."

"Right."

"Yeah, that's not going to work," I say.

"I have a good idea, we should go right then left then straight and like that, we will go in all three directions," Zach suggests.

"That's actually not a bad idea," I reply.

"What?" Almost everyone sputters out.

"Rude," Zach scoffs.

"We can go to Twin Peaks, then walk to the left from there in which we will eventually make it to the waterfall. I'm not sure if we will have time to go straight though. It's a twenty minute walk from here to the hill then a thirty minute walk to the waterfall and we will have to head back just in time for dinner," I explain.

"A professional Dora the explorer, everyone," Sophie jokes and I let out a small laugh.

"So, shall we, ladies?" Zach fixes the backpack on his shoulder and starts walking to where I pointed earlier.

"Did he just call us ladies?" Alex points at Zach with his thumb.

"Just ignore him. We've dealt with him long enough," Luke sighs, then he turns to me. "Lead the way, Cherries."

I smile and we set on our journey to the hill. Walking through the forest, I keep my eyes focused on the phone as I follow the blue route that's drawn along the phone map, but I can see Luke walking beside me. He looks a bit occupied with his thoughts with the way he constantly frowns.

"What's up?" I ask and look at him, hoping it would be a boost for him.

"Nothing. Why are you asking?" He replies, putting his hands in his pockets.

"I don't know. You seem off," I remark.

"I'm fine. I'm just thinking about a few things."

"Like?"

"College. The girls. Mom. Work," he lists. "And a few other things."

"You applied in Rome, right?" I look down at the phone for a moment to check the route.

"And Melbourne," he adds on.

"Did they reply back?"

"Not yet," he answers. "Did they reply to you?"

"Nope," I sigh, kicking a rock that's lying on the ground.

"Don't sweat it, Cherries. I'm sure they will accept you," he smiles softly.

I smile back. "I hope so."

"I feel bad for your future roommate though. They're going to have to deal with you for a whole damn semester," he smirks at me.

I stop walking for a moment to give him a dry look, then I walk away quickly for him and as I do so, I speak up. "I'm leaving."

I hear him laughing and I smile to myself.

| | | |

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