Summer and Forever

I woke up after a perfectly peaceful sleep and stretched my arm out to hug Kevin but for some reason my arm only hit sheets. I slitted my eyes open, half annoyed half concerned, and found him on the edge of the bed talking animatedly into a phone.

“She’s really nice. Yeah I’ll talk to her about it. I just…Yes I’m going out with her. No, the promise I made to you hasn’t been broken. It’s not like that. I know. I know. I love you too. Bye.”

My heart clenched. He had another girlfriend somewhere up where he lived. I felt physically sickened and started to panic. What the hell was I doing here? I sat up and stared at him as he turned to face me.

“Who was that?” I asked as calmly as I could. A fearful pain crept up from my stomach to my throat and I could taste something bad in my mouth.

“Oh that? Uh…well…” Kevin rubbed the back of his neck nervously which, incidentally, made ME nervous. “That is…uh…”

“It kind of sounded like another girl.” I prompted. His eyes widened and he stared at me for a full second before bursting out into loud laughter.

“Sari…That was my mother.” I breathed out a rush of air I hadn’t even realized I was holding and flopped back onto the pillows.

“Then why were you so nervous?” I laughed.

“Well…I was just talking to her about you coming to stay with us…” I held my breath. “She said its fine but you have to call your parents and talk to them about it.”

My heart stilled and my stomach rebelled instantly. I clutched it as I thought of the conversation I was going to have to have with them.

Mum would start screaming about how I was letting a man take control of my life and Dad would be screaming for me to get as far away as possible from her but come visit him. Jordan would somehow come into the conversation and suddenly everything would blow up, they’d come find me and drag me back by the hair to their place where they’d drill into me the reasons why it wasn’t a good idea to just split up from the family.

I scrambled from the bed and hurtled into the toilet where I chucked up everything in my stomach. I gripped the edge of the toilet bowl and squeezed my eyes shut as a wave of nausea ran through me.

Soft hands brushed the sides of my face and held my hair back as a stronger wave of nausea riddled my body and I vomited into the toilet again. “Sarai? What is it?” Kevin’s worried voice was on the verge of panic and I knew he’d start blaming himself if I didn’t stop throwing up and speak to him.

I spat a few more times into the toilet, flushed it and stood up. First I washed my face in the sink and dried it. Anything to procrastinate telling him how I felt about talking to my parents.

“Sarai? You’re kind of scaring me here.” He admitted. I sighed and put a hand on his chest.

“Sorry, sorry. Its just…my parents, okay? Telling them where I am and why I’m leaving is just…its…its like chucking a bull in a china shop. They’re going to go stark raving mad, chase me down and drag me back home by my hair. Then they’re going to torture me to death, bury my body and get together again whilst pretending to grieve for their only child.”

Kevin stared at me. “You’re that afraid of one phone call?” I nodded. “Wow.” He rubbed the back of his neck for a second and opened his mouth to reply when Nick burst into the room.

“Quick…come…Melina…” He gasped. We ran from the room and into where Joe and Melina had slept last night. Melina was crouched into a ball, sobbing her heart out. Joe was in the corner, rubbing his eyes and he just looked tired.

“What…what…what?” Was all I could get out.

“He…BROKE UP WITH ME!” Melina screamed angrily into the room. Then she burst into hysterical sobs once again and buried her head in her knees.

Kevin and I looked at each other before moving across the room. I knelt in front of Melina while Kevin grabbed Joe and hauled him out of the room.

“Mel? Are you saying you really had no idea it was going to happen?”

“I…I just…I thought maybe he’d want to take me back with him like Kevin is going to take you.”

I breathed out slowly. “But what about your family?”

“What about Joe?” She replied stubbornly.

“He’s just a boy.”

“Is Kevin ‘just a boy’ to you?” Melina hissed. Her eyes were puffy and she looked slightly demented, not that I would tell her that.

“No.” I replied quietly.

"Exactly!" She wailed. She began to sob again and all i could do was comfort her.

****

Melina left soon after that. She took one of the earlier buses and didn't say goodbye to me or anyone when she left. Joe sat on the steps of the cabin, his head in his hands. I sat next to him. "Hey." I said hesitantly. "You alright?"

"I just don't love her. Sure we had a great time but she's not my 'one true love' or whatever. I didn't wan to lead her on."

"Yeah." I replied. We sat like that for a few seconds. "I'm going inside to pack." He said glumly. I nodded and grinned when he offered me his hand to pull me to my feet. "Come on. Kevin has finishe dberating me, I think."

I laughed and followed him inside where I saw Kevin holding something terrifying in his hand. The phone. He held it out to me as soon as he saw it. "I'll be right here." He said simply as he pushed it into my numb hands.

"I don't want to do this." He kissed me on the side of the head and wound his arms around me. "Just do it." He breathed into my ear.

"You should be a representative for Nike." I grumbled as i dialled.