On the first day we were woken up by a teacher to get ready for our promenade we were assigned to our roommate as partners. We'd work on this research report together and Jackie was my partner for this project.

"Hey Nadine look at this" she called out for me, I walked to where she was standing. There was cute little mushrooms in all different colors, they were so tiny and I wanted to touch one but she quickly grabbed my hand.

"The prettier the shroom the deadliest" she warned me, I sat in front of the small plants and started drawing them as well as writing whatever Jackie said, she seemed to know about them and we could use her information in our project.

"Do you need help?" I heard someone ask me, I looked up and Alex was hovering over me. She bent down so her face was right in front of mine. Her hair was pulled into a half bun and it looked nice, because you could see more of her face. And I was probably staring at her face for too long.

"No thank you" I said then softly pushed her head away from my face, I was done drawing the mushrooms and I had more than enough information about them so I went to look at different plants.

"Jackie?" I called for my roommate who was writing on her notepad, she was writing about trees and I was going to take care of the plants section.

"What's this one called?" I said pointing at a reddish flower with yellow tips. It was so pretty I wanted to draw it as well, she cut one and handed it to me. I smiled and took the flower from her hand and stared at it intensely.

"That's one of the blanket flowers species, a firewheel flower to be exact." She went on explaining where it came from and different species of blanket flowers that existed. I made sure to note everything without forgetting anything and making sure to draw it at the end.

"Nice drawings" a voice said startling me, Alex was standing next to me with a smile, how the hell did she get here. I'm pretty sure she just teleported to this location, because I just saw her next to Harley.

"Jesus Christ Alex, stop popping out of nowhere" I said putting my hand over my heart, I felt a hand wrap around my wrist and pull me up on my feet. I looked at Jackie who was giving a smile and pointing to something a few feet away.

"Come with me, I found another pretty flower" she said dragging me away from Alex, I looked back and Alex wasn't there anymore. Huh? Where did she go?

The rest of the journey went surprisingly good, Alex was nowhere to be found and I spent time with Jackie studying flowers and plants I even had lunch with Harley at some point, she complained how she was the only one doing the work because was distracted and then disappeared.

We went back to the cabins to shower and have some rest because tomorrow was another long journey of exploring.

I was laying on my bed when someone knocked on the door, Harley pushed it open and came to lay next to me. She was the closest to a friend that I had hear, she laid her head on my lap and we were both busy using our phones.

"Don't you think Alex is acting a bit weird lately?" I asked putting my phone down and randomly started putting tiny braids on Harley's hair. She locked her phone to hear what I had to say.

"What do you mean?" She asked curiously,

"I don't know, these past few days she's been oddly nice to me and I've known her all my life and she's always been mean to me. But now she's happy to take me to school and she even asked when my birthday is, she never cared about anyone's birthday let alone mine" I said with a long breath, I looked up and Jackie was out of the shower and staring at Harley and I but mostly at Harley.

"Wait how old are you again?" Harley asked, She sat up and turned to look at me. Jackie sat on her bed and started drying her hair while listening to Harley and I's conversation.

"Out of all of this, that's all you had in mind?" I asked confused, she smiled and patted my leg comforting me.

"That's not what I meant Nadine, I just thought we could throw a party for you and we can have lots of fun that's all" she answered, I looked at Jackie and she nodded in agreement.

"I'll be 18 in a couple of weeks" Harley looked at Jackie for a second and then back at me. Why do they keep looking at each other like they knew something I didn't.

"Maybe Alex wants to apologize for what she's done? I don't know, she's still the same to me" she said again and when I didn't reply, she sighed and scooted closer to me. I kept thinking of reasons why Alex would be nice to me after years of being mean but I couldn't find any.

"Or she has a crush on you?" Jackie smirked wiggling her eyebrows amusingly, my eyes widened in horror. There's no way she'd have a crush on me, it's either my mom has scared her to death and made her act nice or she's falling on her head and forgot that she was supposed to be rude to me.

"Alex?! Likes me?! Apparently you don't know her that good, because she hates me!" I laughed, Harley and Jackie stared at each other again with smiles.

"We can test that, we have a whole week to see if she does." Harley said with a smile, but do I really want to play Alex's feelings just to see if Jackie's theory is right or wrong.

"I don't want to play with her feeling Harley, yes she's mean and all but no one deserves to be played" I said, my heart was stuck in my throat at the thought of playing with someone's feelings, just like I'd hate it to happen to me I wouldn't do it to someone's daughter.

"You never know, you might have a crush on her as well" Harley said with a chuckle, my cheeks started to get warm and I knew I was blushing so hard, the thing is I didn't know why.

"Awwnn look at your cheeks, so cute" Harley grabbed my cheeks and pinched them and I groaned burying my face in my pillow.

"I don't have a crush on Alex!" I yelled in the pillow, I heard them chuckle which made my blush grow more. But everything she does is so attractive for some reason, how she'd lean on her elbow while driving or how her arms would flex when she picking up something, I can't possibly develop a crush on her out of nowhere. It's impossible...

*************************************

Few more chapters and we can end this one so we can go write the sequel about Alex! I'm excited...

-S