Chapter Fifteen

Some people wake up to birds chirping outside of their window, a few to their mothers snatching the blanket from them and yelling about having slept in, others with the sound of their screeching alarm clock. As pleasant as the first sounded, I hadn't once experienced it. The other two were the norm for me. Today? Today I woke up with something else quite entirely.

I rubbed at my eyes with the backs of my hands. "Tell me again why you're here?"

"We just told you," Axel trailed off looking surprisingly rather concerned. "Several times actually."

"Well obviously I can't quite recall so would you mind repeating it?" I squinted at the harsh sunlight, shying away from it behind the safety of my front door that I was leaving open just a crack in order to communicate. All I wanted was to crawl back into bed. I was beyond groggy and had absolutely no idea what time it was but judging from the sun that looked as though it had barely risen, I reckoned it to be ridiculously early. Certainly too early to have been dragged out of bed by the sound of banging on the door, stones being thrown at the window - not the romantic kind - and loud arguing from outside, that's for sure.

"We're going camping!" I heard Matthew shout enthusiastically from behind him.

"That's nice to know." I responded before attempting to close the door. A combat boot clad foot got in the way and I glared at it, following the line of the person's leg up until I'd reached the foot owner's face.

"Can we come in?" Topher asked. It sounded as if it were a genuine question but the foot wedged between the door and its frame stated otherwise - it wasn't optional.

"Why?" My sleepy stupor was gradually wearing off only to be replaced with crushing embarrassment. It was one thing having Parker see me in my childish cupcake pyjamas consisting of a thin tank and boy shorts but I didn't need his equally attractive friends seeing me this way too.

It made it worse that Topher was there. It wasn't that I was attracted to him - even though he did have that Greek god look going for him - but he owned that type of intimidating beauty. The sort that made you feel like you had to present your best self in front of them or else you would look like you'd just ran through a spiky, hundred metre long bush in comparison - such as my current state.

As if reading my mind, Topher smiled and shook his head. "I've seen you in your cute pyjamas before, remember? I still think your legs look killer so stop being all self conscious and let us in."

I let out a reluctant sigh and swung the door open, inviting them inside. "I'm surprised you guys used the doorbell instead of picking some locks or climbling through any windows." I stared pointedly at Topher once mentioning windows, vividly remembering how he'd crawled through my smashed one after the brick incident had occurred. It also happened to be the horrific day he was referring to when he said he'd already seen my pyjamas. "Did the criminals get bored? Develop a guilty conscience for the poor people being subjected to their forced company?"

"I'm going to ignore your patronising tone because I'm here to discuss some important issues." Axel cleared his throat. After a minute or so of silence he dug his elbow into Matthew's ribs.

The blond cursed under his breath before fumbling over his phone. A few moments later there was faint music playing in the background, some kind of dramatic instrumental piece with trumpets.

"Flora Montgomery, strange girlfriend to our friend-"

"I'm not his-" I began but both Axel and Matthew sent me a glare for interrupting the apparent speech that was taking place. I glanced at Topher - the most sane out of the three - to see that he had his head in his hands as though this was simply beyond his control.

"-and queen of smart ass retorts," axel continued as though the interruption hadn't happened. "We hereby present you with the one time only offer to come camping with us. This is an experience of a life time with guaranteed fun-" He suddenly stopped, shooting daggers at Matthew. "Why did the music finish?"

"It only lasts fifteen seconds." He pouted, checking his phone. "I could play it on repeat?"

"What? No! I need at least another ten to finish my speech and we can't have the same-"

"Guys," I cut them off. "What in the world is happening?"

"I told you it wasn't a good idea." Matthew whispered loudly.

"This was your idea. What are you on about?" Axel hissed.

"For Christ sake," Topher muttered before turning to me, leaving the two to bicker. "Would you like to come camping with us for two nights? The campsite is only a few hours out of town. It'd be us four, Hayden and Parker with the added bonus of tents and," he glanced out of the front door that still hung wide open. "By the looks of it, bad weather too."

I thought it over. Skylar had been avoiding me like the plague and my mother and I had recently had another argument about my therapist. I had a feeling that Parker - the only person I was speaking to at the moment - would get forced into camping by his friends whether I was going or not. Did I want to be stuck with nobody to talk to? Not particularly, no. Did I want a chance to get away from home for a little? I guess I did. Maybe even enough to go on this stupid trip.

The downfall to this was that it was two nights spent outside, most probably in discomfort, without a sanitary bathroom and a hoard of troublesome boys. No, all of the boys weren't necessarily a problem but Hayden certainly was. The only positive aspect of the conversation I was in was that he wasn't present. Would I survive two days filled with his constant lethal glares? Would I survive two nights without him murdering me in my sleep?

I nodded before I could change my mind. "You paint a beautiful picture. I'm in."

Topher raised his eyebrows in surprise but looked relatively pleased. As did his two friends who hollered their appraisal like little kids.

"Go eat breakfast or whatever it is you do at this time in the morning before you get ready for school. Tell your mum, pack your things..." Axel had been counting each task I needed to do on his fingers. He stopped at four, scrunching up his face in thought. "And then you meet us afterward. Not long now!"

I blinked, startled. "Ready for school? Wait, what day is it? What time is it?"

"It's Friday, four in the morning. We figured you wouldn't want to miss school to camp with us so there'd be more chance of you joining in if it was the Friday and Saturday night. Thoughtful, huh?"

"It's- it's four in the morning?" I stuttered. "You woke me up at four to tell me this? Axel, why the hell didn't you tell me in school? I'm in your English class."

"Because I'll be busy trying to persuade Parker and Hayden to come with us." His tone stated that it should have been obvious.

I paused, massaging my temples. I had found it a little odd that Parker was happy for me to accompany them camping after he'd said how much he hated me speaking to his friends. It was mentioned during the hypocritical talk he gave me about staying away from them all because they were bad influences. I had just presumed he'd already at least been informed of the supposed camping trip. "You haven't even asked them yet?"

"Nope. Let's face it, if Parker can't convince you to stay here then there's not a chance he'll let you come with us alone. He'll be a piece of cake to convince. I'll need to leave half way through the day to hunt down Hayden seeing as he doesn't go to school. He's the problem." He waved goodbye as they all sauntered out of my house. "See you later on!"

I numbly shut the door behind them, trying in vain to come up with an excuse to supply my mother with when she eventually woke up from her slumber at a reasonable hour.

***

Things were bad at school.

Giving Skylar space had been my intention from the beginning after my countless apologies, but the silent treatment didn't appear to be ending any time soon. At break and lunch, spotting her was about as rare as finding a Taaffeite gem, and whenever I attempted to ambush her after a class we shared, the glare she sent my way told me that I was about as welcome as a fart in a telephone box.

The reason behind my sudden urgency to speak to her today was nothing short of selfish, yet I couldn't find another way around my predicament. One of the many positives of having a severe shortage in friends, I guess.

"Skylar-"

She cut me off with a withering look that'd give Medusa a run for her money as I tried to catch up with her in the hallway. This time, I ignored it.

"Skylar, I need your help."

She raised an eyebrow and let out a humourless laugh. "Really? And why might that be?"

I hesitated. "I was going to go camping with Parker and his fr-"

"Parker and his friends are all that ever happens with you anymore. Can't you see that this is the reason I'm mad?" She snapped. "What happened to it just being me and you? Partners in crime?"

I bit my lip. "Sky..."

"Don't Sky me," She shook her head. "I'm hurt, alright? Not just because you completely ditched me in that stupid café, but because it's becoming a daily thing for you to do. It's been a big change since that jackass waltzed into your life and don't pretend you haven't noticed. From spending basically every minute of every day with each other to suddenly just finding someone new and abandoning me is pretty crappy, Flo. We used to be all the other had and now you bail whenever I try and make plans, not even attempting to make up for lost time. I'm sick of it."

I was terrible at confrontation, especially when I knew it was me who was in the wrong. "I'm sorry-"

"Yeah. You've said." She fiddled with the shiny bracelet looped around her wrist. "What was it you wanted?"

My cheeks flamed, feeling even worse about what I had previously been about to ask. "It doesn't matter."

She sighed. "Spit it out, Flora."

"I was going to ask if you'd maybe cover for me whilst I went camping with, um, Parker and his friends. So I can say I'm at your house for the weekend. Just in case my mum called you or something silly. You know, so that I'd have a back up plan if she didn't believe me or anything. I- just, I-"

She cut off my rambling. "Right, no problem."

I blinked. "Really?"

"What are friends for, right?" Her voice lacked any enthusiasm. Then she spun around on her heel, stalking off in the other direction as fast as her legs would carry her.

I was officially a horrible, horrible person.

***

Axel had been right. When Parker realised that I had made up my mind about camping after school and nothing he could do would convince me otherwise, he let out a long and exasperated sigh before saying that he would go too. He had muttered something along the lines of not letting me out of his sight before attempting to give me the silent treatment. It lasted all of ten minutes.

To my utmost disappointment, it turned out Parker wasn't the only one who caved in. Hayden had agreed to go. His reasoning (which was rather creepy if I did say so myself) was apparently to keep an eye on me. It was followed by glares in both my direction and Parker's when we eventually all met up. Parker had sent him one of his own to match it and so the air of his pick up truck had been unbearably thick with tension for the first hour of the journey that no amount of eye-spy on Matthew's part could get rid of.

"Why did we all have to squash into the back?" Matthew whined. "There isn't even four seats back here, there's three! And why is it always me that's forced to sit half on someone's lap when there's too many in your car?"

"Will the complaints ever end?" It was as if Axel was asking the heavens.

"Because you're always the smallest out of our friends." Parker sighed as he tiredly eyed the traffic before him. He was driving below the speed limit today but I reckoned it was because we were a seat short. If we were to be caught speeding I highly doubted we'd be able to wriggle our way out of trouble if they saw Matthew roaming wild and free, lounging on people's laps in the back.

"Not anymore I'm not. I bet Flora would fit in just fine and dandy between Topher and Axel. She'd probably even have room to move she's so tiny." I turned around to send him a scowl but when I saw the gap that he could only half fit into himself, I realised that he was right. Matthew was sort of gangly, he seemed to just have too many limbs for his own good even though he had four like the rest of us. Though the other guys may have had broader shoulders and wider chests, it didn't make Matthew's legs and arms any shorter. I felt kind of bad for having claimed the roomy seat up front.

"Flora doesn't like touching. What if the car abruptly stops and she slides into one of them? Do you think she'll enjoy that?" We were at a red light so Parker turned around to raise an eyebrow at him. "Common sense to have her up here."

"I bet the no-touching-permitted rule applies to you too," I glanced at Hayden in the rear-view mirror, the wicked smile on his face unsettling. "Right?"

"That's different." Parker and I said at the exact same time.

Topher let out an exasperated groan. "There's plenty of room for her next to me, she doesn't need to sit next to Axel too. How about she sits between me and the car door so that if there's any sharp turns, I can move one way and she can move the other next to no other human, just door. Better?"

"Fuck sake, get over the stupid touching. She's all you guys ever go on about now." Hayden grumbled in annoyance.

"Don't talk about her like that." Parker growled.

"You just want her up there with you so that you know there isn't any funny business happening in the back when your eyes are on the road." Hayden sighed, looking out of the window with great disinterest as he had been before his interruption.

"That's not tr-"

"I'll move to the back." I cut him off. "We need to be quick before the traffic lights change again. Matthew can swap seats with me, we'll do Topher's plan."

"You don't have to-" Parker began but I was already unbuckling my seatbelt and opening the door, as was Matthew.

It took around fifteen seconds for us to change seats and get comfortable again, however, it took only five seconds for the light to change back to green. By the time Parker had started up the engine again there were several honking horns behind us.

It was a much snugger fit in the back and I was certainly more conscious about how I moved my body, but other than that it was fine. I knew it was better this way. It would have only been more dangerous for Matthew if we continued our previous way of driving and by doing this we'd surely saved our sanities from the complaints that never ceased to escape his lips on every bump in the road.

"You alright, beautiful?" Topher asked with his ever present charming smile.

I glanced at the space between us, about the width of the average hand. I nodded. "Coolio."

I felt Parker's gaze on me and looked up to see yet another one of his continuous glances in the rear-view mirror. "Have you even got a seatbelt back there?"

Axel frowned. "Since when did you care about seatbel-"

"She can share with me." Topher shrugged, clearly trying to avoid more tension. He stretched over me to tug the seatbelt across us both and clipped it in at his side. The space between us never lessened so I wasn't bothered about his nearness, it was clear he knew his boundaries. His flirty talk was just that - all talk, no action. Like the first time I'd met him.

Parker didn't seem overly fond of the offer but didn't complain either, just grunted something unintelligible under his breath and continued to grumble for the rest of the drive to the campsite. The only person who seemed completely happy with the arrangement was Matthew, and though we hadn't been subjected to complaints, we were most definitely subjected to far too much singing.

As soon as we had pulled over and had all clambered out of the vehicle, Parker grabbed my hand in his and I jumped, startled. "Is this alright?"

I stared at our entangled fingers, surprised he wasn't sticking with the usual kiss-on-palm gesture I'd become accustomed to in recent days. It was odd seeing his pale, calloused fingers intertwined with my small, feminine ones. I hesitantly nodded and he smiled, swinging our hands between us slightly as we approached the guys at the trunk who were trying to take out the things we required for camping. Axel frowned curiously at our linked hands but said nothing.

My lack of experience with camping meant that I had no idea what the average time was to put up three tents, though I was almost positive the answer wasn't four and a half hours. Alas, it was four and a half hours later that we'd managed to assemble them and roll out sleeping bags. By then I was seriously contemplating why on Earth I had agreed to go on the little expedition of sorts. The sky had darkened considerably and though it was only around nine o'clock, I could feel my body wanting to shut down. This was around the time that I snuggled up in bed to binge watch a favourite television show on Netflix until the early hours of morning; cosy, comfortable and not by any means outside. On top of that, I hadn't consumed any chocolate milk yet. I could run on that stuff like people ran on caffeine. Coffee was better, but chocolate milk was vital if I didn't want to fall asleep before ten.

The sleeping arrangements had been organised into groups of two: Parker and I, Axel and Hayden, Matthew and Topher. Parker and I went together because Parker apparently didn't trust his friends not to try anything stupid. I had retaliated by threatening to kick his manhood if he tried anything stupid himself. The other sleeping arrangements were based on Matthew. Topher didn't seem all too happy about being put with the spritely boy but nobody trusted Hayden not to murder him if they were alone together for too long and apparently Axel turned into a child if kept in Matthew's company for an extended period of time. Nobody wanted to handle more than one Matthew.

"You're tired." Parker observed, tipping his head to the side as he sat opposite me. There were no wooden trunks, broken branches or logs lying around. No form of natural seat that just seemed to conveniently be in the area like you tended to see in films where they'd all gather around the campfire toasting marshmallows. Everyone was sitting on the grass a couple of metres away from our tents whilst Axel tried to unsuccessfully light a fire.

"And you're human. Your point?" I stared at his mud caked combat boots. There was mud smeared on his jean clad shins too. I couldn't say my own jeans or Chuck Taylor's were looking any better.

"Are you finally running out of witty comebacks? I take back calling you tired, you must be exhausted because that was a lame retort even for you."

"I haven't had my daily dose of chocolate milk." I admitted sheepishly, stretching my arms skyward and arching my body backwards to pop my bones.

When I met Parker's gaze he was grinning at me in obvious amusement. "Christ, you're adorable sometimes."