The morning came sooner than I expected. My body was still enjoying the comforts of my warm bed and snugly pillow when the alarm clock blared through the room. Who the heck saved an alarm when it was my vacation? A groan left my mouth, frustrated by the loud noise piercing the air, and scrambled up to find the damn clock in a haze. The ringing stopped as I slammed my hand on it. With a content sigh, I snuggled back into the bed, and prepared to go back to sleep.

Occasionally, the sounds of feet shuffling marred my sleep induced bliss. What is the commotion about?

The question formed first. I investigated the mystery in my head, conjuring up different scenarios that could explain the occasional grunts and groans. It couldn't be that... I giggled, covering my face with the blanket, having very naughty thoughts about what those noises could mean.

The noises continued. This time I gave it a serious thought. What are the boys doing? As if struck with electricity, I threw the blankets away from me, and opened my eyes.

Competition.

Today was the competition day. I flew out of my bed like some reincarnation of Kungfu panda and made a disgraceful landing on the floor. Wincing in pain, and rubbing my knees, I checked the time. Don't be late. Please.

On time. Relieved to see that I had enough time for a quick shower and some dressing up, I headed straight to the bathroom. Like my kitchen space, my toiletries resonated with the food theme. So, without regret, I picked up the vanilla scented shampoo and lathed it onto my head. The sweet scent uncoiled the tiny bit of stress the alarm clock had given me. Though my stomach still fluttered with that tingly feeling which made me all giddy.

God, it was their competition and here I was getting nervous.

A white maxi dress hung on the dresser, and I looked at with a smile. I didn't own many fancy clothes, there wasn't much occasion to wear them, so I made a note to thank my mother for lending it to me. The reflection in the mirror was satisfying.

I was halfway through drying my hair when I heard a knock on the door. The sound of my hairdryer was so loud that whatever the other person had been saying drowned out in the noise. I shut it off with a wince.

"What?" I asked.

"Ty? Are you in there?" Another knock followed on the bathroom door.

"Yeah?" I turned on the dryer again and gave a last blast of hot air to my hair. This would have to do. The door opened slightly, and Brandon poked his head inside.

"Do you have some extra towels? Oh." He blushed, the ends of his ears tinging pink, and cleared his throat, looking away.

With a quick glance around that confirmed that nothing was amiss--like my undergarments on full display--I asked, "What?"

"Y-Your strap." He pointed to the tiny bra strap peeking out from under my dress and I rolled my eyes.

This was seriously making me doubt his personality.

"Umm.. thanks?" I said, not understanding the big deal about it. Was this really the reason or was he making this up? Or wait, he's not embarrassed about standing in the bathroom with me, is he? Is he thinking about the last time? I shook my head. That was one incident I wanted to forget. Feeling peeved by his excessive staring, I blurted out, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah." He coughed and stuttered with his words. "You just look real pretty. Oh, I have to go, bye!"

Brandon rushed out of the small space. His shoulder grazed the door a little too hard but he didn't pause for a second. I heard my room's door close behind me and fluttered my eyelids to make sense of the situation. The words registered in my head after a minute. I swallowed, and had difficulty in closing my mouth. That was a compliment, right? The insides of my stomach squeezed together and I couldn't help but notice the grin I was sporting in my reflection.

Hadn't he come here for something though?

Applying minimal makeup, I slipped into my golden-brown sandals. My reflection confirmed Brandon's compliment and I knew I looked pretty today. I grabbed my purse and opened the zip in such a flurry of excitement that it came out. Leave it to me to ruin the moment.

"Great," I muttered, as all my attempts to join the zip resulted in failure.

Giving up, but having no other choice, since it was the only purse that matched my sandals, I put my lip gloss and a pack of gum in it before hanging it loose on my shoulder.

It would have to work like that today.

I checked my watch again and noticed that it was almost eight a.m., close to our meet up time downstairs.

Not waiting anymore, I hopped down the stairs two at a time. Almost tripping a few times before I rushed into mom downstairs.

"Oh! Watch out!" she shouted, but I collided with her anyways, making all the letters in her hand fly away.

"Oops!" I said, and quickly helped her pick up the letters. Noticing one addressed to me, I picked it up, curious to read who had sent it.

"Tyler, Richard is leaving outside. If you don't want to walk, then maybe you should hurry up!"

"What?! I am going, bye!" I shouted, cramming the letter inside my bag to read it later.

"Okay, I'll meet you at the Annual Trade Fair tonight," she shouted back and I nodded before I ran outside the house.

"Wait up!" I shouted and all of them looked at me, their hands frozen in the air, full of stuff they were shoving in the car deck.

"We are clearly not running anywhere, girl. Calm down," Richard said to me as he closed the deck and walked over to the driving seat.

"Yeah, okay," I mumbled, embarrassed.

The three of them continued to stare at me and their looks made me feel even more embarrassed as I stood there.

"Stop staring." Brandon elbowed Liam, who elbowed Seth, who elbowed Leo.

But it still took them a minute to settle down.

Brandon called shotgun and I had to squeeze in with the three of them in the back seat. It was fine, because I knew Brandon was still more or less injured.

Liam and Seth crushed me from both the sides and I was comfortable, really. While politely ignoring the fact that Liam had his arm looped around my neck or even that Seth was quietly resting his head on my shoulder.

Brandon kept grumbling on and on about something like an old man and Leo was biting his lip, clearly nervous about today.

"Hey guys." I started, and everyone looked at me. "They probably won't let me in the changing room, since it would be all boys and stuff."

Brandon snorted, and I glared at the back of his head, before clearing my throat and continuing.

"So I just wanted to say best of luck to you guys. I know it has been tough and quite an eventful past week. But believe that you guys will rock. Don't let any force stop you today, okay? Victory is ours! " I shouted. No one batted an eye. I cleared my throat and added, "Free cakes if you win!"

"Woohoo!" Seth immediately hooted and others grinned with much less enthusiasm. I sighed. Only food could move them.

We reached the stadium and the boys shuffled inside to get prepped up and ready for the competition. I hung outside for a while, taking in the fresh sea air and the decorations put up outside for the Fair to take place tonight. There were already a line of stalls setting their items up for sale.

By the time I was seated inside, the benches were sparsely filled and the preliminary round had just begun.

Everyone had to pass a certain level of swimming test to be allowed to participate and most of the teams present had already cleared it.

There were three pools where the competition was going to happen. Liam, Leo and Seth were all competing in different competitions, so it was getting hard for me to keep track of them.

Liam and Leo both won the 200 meters and 500 metres race repetitively, while I watched Seth competing for the 200 meters backstroke competition. He finished in third, making our school rank second in the scoreboard. We only needed a victory in the relay race to win the cup today.

Brandon was yet to be seen by me and it was close to twelve p.m., and I had already gone through three buckets of popcorn.

I never knew, swimming and popcorn had such a great match. It really made the race interesting because you could boo the other team by throwing popcorn at them.

Yes, I officially had no team spirit or manners, if I were to go by the looks people were giving me. Guess I looked like a wild goose between them. Oh, well.

"Commencement of the 400 meters freestyle relay race, with Teams one to eight would start shortly in Pool B," the voice boomed inside the area, and a flurry of excitement went through the whole crowd.

I could see many high school students, coming to support their teams, and some ex-team members of our school's swimming team too. I stayed clear from them, glad that no one else had made the trip to watch the competition in this small town.

My eyes were glued to the four of them, standing on the opposite ends of the pool. I had learned yesterday that the line up would be Brandon, Leo, Seth and Liam for the relay race. They were sending in Brandon first, so if they were lagging behind, the three of them could swim to cover it up. But by the looks of it yesterday, Brandon was clearly unhappy about that decision.

Few minutes before the competition started, I noticed Liam whisper something in Richard's ear. Richard listened with a grim face, his mouth set in a hard line before he nodded at Liam.

Liam grinned, and ran to the other end of the swimming pool and started saying something to Brandon. I watched like it was some sport in itself.

Brandon looked away sharply from Liam and towards Richard. He waved his hand to get Richard's attention, and got a thumbs up in return.

I watched with wonder, as Brandon now, walked to take Liam's place as the last swimmer of the relay race. It was as if the whole audience had watched the entire scene because from everywhere I could hear the same thing.

"Oh my god, are they changing their line up last minute? No one does that!" Someone spoke behind me whereas other one pointed out that Liam was such a sweetheart.

Another even concluded that this was all drama for the audience to root for them to win. I rolled my eyes at that one.

Now totally nervous about the whole outlay, I bit my nails out of bad habit and waited for the event to start.

"On your mark, get set, GO!" The whistle rang loud as Liam and others jumped into the water and started swimming.

I watched with satisfaction that Liam was leading the troop and completed his lap in record time. Leo jumped in next, and with a head start already in his pocket, zoomed past before anyone else.

Seth and two more people jumped in simultaneously, other teams having caught up midway. My nerves were too much for me, and I stood up, all my belongings falling down as I started screaming.

"Seth! Get those little pieces of ass! Faster, God, faster!" Now I was literally throwing popcorn down other people, who were thankfully as busy as me to notice much.

There was some confusion as Seth touched the side, completing his 100 meters of freestyle swimming and between Brandon jumping in.

I could swear that everyone's eyes were engraved on Brandon as he jumped a little shakily inside, falling head first inside the water.

"Brandon!" I shouted, running down to the fence as other people started exclaiming too.

"God, he's not coming up! Is he drowning?" I heard someone whisper and I shouted his name again. I swore to myself I was going to kill him if he was going to die on me today.

On the verge of breaking the fence and kicking some sense into everyone who were just staring at the unmoving water, I stopped short when someone shouted, "There he is!"

Everyone turned to look at him as he came up for a breath and then submerged himself in the water again. I frowned. Why was he coming up for such short intervals and disappearing for so long? Was he really okay? Before I could ask someone, the loud whistle blew again.

I looked around, as confused as everyone when I noticed that Brandon was standing at the finish line as the coach congratulated him. Swear to God, my jaw was making a hole in the floor, just by the velocity from it dropped.

Brandon had just won the race?

But he was drowning just seconds ago!

"He only came up every fifteen meters and swam underwater the whole time. Smart. He trained well to time it that close," a swimming contestant commented.

I shut my mouth as I overheard him. So he swam underwater most of the time? He had done the same when he had pulled that prank on me. He must be really fast to pull that off and win the race.

It was hard to believe my eyes as the four of them hugged and celebrated the win. I ran back up to my seat, and hurriedly collected my spilled belongings. I shoved in the lip gloss and other stuff, when I noticed the letter again.

Opening it this time, I recognized the logo in the left corner right away. I sat down on the seat, and with shaking hands scanned over the letter.

Miss Tyler M. Anderson,

Welcome to the Senior Baking Championship! This is an exclusive opportunity given to our top three finalists in their respective Junior Baking Competition.

Hereby, you are invited to compete in the Senior Baking Championship 2015, gaining direct entry into the third round.

All the details are enclosed in the next page. Thank you for participating.

Bake away!

I angrily crumpled the paper, having it ruin my life enough already.

Throwing it away in my bag and not giving it a second glance, I stood up again. The speaker announced the starting of the award ceremony, and I quickly looked over to our team receiving the first prize.

*****