Just Breathe

“Noooo! Leave me alone!” I say covering my face with a pillow as someone shakes me up. I eventually give in and when I do, I’m just plain confused. Greg was the one shaking me up and then I follow with him with my eyes; he is now shaking up Katie? What the hell? Oh shit! The night barely comes back to me, but I put the pieces together. We slept at Greg’s! To make me even more confused I don’t even have a major hangover headache.

“What time is it?” I ask Greg in a sleepy voice.

He takes a look at his watch and answers me, “8:33”

“Holy shit!” Katie and I say in sync. We both immediately hop up.

“Shit! We have to get to Lacey’s house as fast as possible!” Katie said already having a plan in mind. See we both knew that one point in our life’s we would need to wake up and get changed fast because we were wasted the previous night and over slept. So we have two bags at my house one for me and one for Katie with the necessities we need to hide our hungover-ness as fast as possible and as easy as possible. I run outside with Katie just to see that my car go fucking towed for parking in the yellow. Shit! Katie runs back in the house
to tell Greg.

“No problem. I’ll drop you off at Lacey’s house and then we will all drive to work.” Greg tells Katie as they walk out the door. I hop in the backseat with Katie.

“Thanks so much Greg!” I tell him.

“No problem.” He replies as I start to ramble off directions. When we get to my house he says, “So I’ll just wait outside of the house until you guys are ready.” We hop out of the car and head to my room where we keep our bags. I throw Katie hers as we start to throw on the clothes in our bag without even looking at it or going to the bathroom for privacy. Once we change we head to the bathroom to brush out teeth and pull up our messes of hair.

“How do I look?” We both say in sync finishing getting ready in a record time of fifteen minutes. I grab three muffins from downstairs before we head back to Greg’s car and toss one to Katie.

“Oh my gosh! Why did I have to choose a sweatshirt and jeggings as my wasted outfit! It’s hot as fuck out here!” I complain to Katie as we shut the door to my house and then go back in the car.

“You’re mental.” She says shrugging. I hand Greg his muffin in the car and he thanks me before driving off to camp. I check my phone for the time. Shit it was 9:01.

We get to camp in literally a minute due to Greg’s crazy driving. He parked right next to Connor. Oh boy this will be interesting today. We all get out of the car walking next to each other in a line which would have looked cool if we weren’t hung-over or tired as shit. I walked inside while Katie and Greg stayed outside on the swings. Patty immediately came up to me, “Why were three of my consolers all late today? I mean I know your getting minimum wage, but that is just unacceptable!”

“I know and we are all so sorry. I was supposed to drive Katie, but my car got towed. So, Greg had to come get us both which wasn’t planned so we had to wait for him causing us all to be late. I’m sorry it won’t happen again.” I say making up somewhat of a lie trying to still look innocent.

“Just don’t do it again.” Is all she said before walking away to the library. I walked over to Connor who was doing bead creations with the kids.

“Hey.” I say in a monotone voice.

“How come you didn’t answer my text this morning?” He said kind of annoyed.

“What text?”

“I texted you if you wanted a ride to work, but no answer.” He said.

“I’m so sorry! I went to a party last night and I fell asleep at a friend’s house and woke up late.” I said and after hearing his words I felt bad that he probably waited around just to see if I would reply.

“There was a party last night?” Is all he said.

“Well yeah, kind of. It was a college party.” I said.

“So, you went and spent the night at Greg’s?” He said now he did sound pissed, but I don’t
know why.

“Well I went with Katie too, but we were too drunk to drive home and we walked to Greg’s so we didn’t mean to.” I said leaving him with no response so he just got up and left the room. He really has no reason to be pissed. I’m not his girlfriend so why should it matter to him what I’m doing. Katie came in a few minutes later and had a happy look on her face.

“Guess what!” She said in a too cheery voice for the morning.

“What?” I say in an emotionless voice.

“Shaun just asked me out on another date!” She said smiling like crazy. I guess she really does like him a lot.

“Congrats! Where you guys going?” I say giving her a hug.

“I don’t know, he said it is a surprise!”

“Aww, surprises are always so romantic and fun!” I say excited for her. If only I had a
boyfriend, well I might just have to work on that one.

“I know right! So how is it going over here in Lacey’s romance world?” That is when the look of happiness for her turned into sadness for me.

“Not so good.” I say as I pick out more beads for the kids. “I was just talking to Connor he seemed in a bad mood when he was talking to me. So, now I don’t know because I think he might have just asked me out on the double date because he had no one else and ugh boys are confusing!”

“Well maybe he is just having a bad day and I doubt he would do that. You just have to wait and you’ll see you’re wrong.” Katie says trying to raise my hopes back up, but really doesn’t work out that well. She can tell that too. “Well how about today we go out to lunch and talk about all the possibilities then?”

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll treat you to lunch this time.” I say with a smile. I head outside where only Connor is now.

“Lacey! Lacey! Push me! Push me! Lacey!” I hear one of the annoying kids, Lily, saying. Normally I would say, “You know how to swing yourself.” But it is a kid who is right next to Connor who is pushing another kid so I decide why not. We both push the kids in silence. Then, Lily decides to get on my nerves even more.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Lily asks. I see Connor look at me.

“Nope. I wish, but no I’m eternally single.” I say in a fake sad voice.

“Oh, well you should get one.” She says.

“I should, shouldn’t I? You have any ideas?” I say being sarcastic, but apparently kids don’t catch on to that.

“Greg.” Is all she said.

“Nope, I would NEVER date Greg. He is ugly, but don’t tell him I said that.” I say emphasizing on the never.

“Fine. Shaun.”

“Shaun is dating Katie and he is not my type.” I said.

“What is a type?”

“Never mind about that. Any other ideas?” I say hoping she would say Connor.

“Hmmmm. How about…Connor?” She said taking a while to answer me.

“I could deal with him.” I say once again sarcastically.

“CONNOR! CONNOR! LACEY LIKES YOU!” Lily says screaming it to him even though they are less than five feet away from each other.

“You think so?” He asks her pretending he didn’t hear our conversation.

“I know so.” She says. I was waiting to see his reply to that, but Patty came outside yelling it was time for a craft so all the kids ran inside leaving Connor and me to go in after them.

“So, you like me?” He asks as we walk in.

“Are we in the fifth grade here?” I ask with a laugh.

“Maybe.” He replies.

“Well if I liked you would I have kissed you the other night? The real question is do you like me?” I ask him.

“Well that is my little secret you’ll have to wait to find out the answer to.” He says walking into the room and over to Shaun to do whatever they do or talk about.
It takes a good chunk of time just to do this stupid craft, but when we do get done Patty announces that is time for a game. We set up chairs in a circle like we were told and the kids all take a seat. I’m the last one to find a seat. I see there is one between Greg and
Katie and then one next to Connor.

“Lace comes over here.” Katie calls out to me, but I nod my head no and decide to sit next to Connor instead.

I was hoping to talk to him during our game of charades, but instead it turned out a horrible fail. I could hear Katie and Greg laughing up a storm having fun while I was sitting next to Connor who was just texting during the whole game. Every time I was going to say something my voice always got muffled by the sounds of Patty and the kids or the laughs of Greg and Katie. Ugh!

Today just sucks ass period. That’s why I’m glad for once that twelve o’clock finally came around and the moms came for their kids and we started to clean up. I vacuumed for once while the others folded up the chairs and took the crafts that we put outside earlier to dry back inside in case of the rain. I was planning on walking home on Katie, but she got a ride from Shaun and then mouthed to me to meet her at her house. How am I supposed to do that when you live to far away for me to walk and I don’t have a car? I was going to ask Greg for a ride, but decided no, since I didn’t want to be in a car with Patty.

“Lace, you need a ride?” Connor asked me as I stood there like an idiot deciding on my options. It took me one second to say yes to him.

“Yes, please since my car got towed.” I said following him to his car.

“Now, how did that happen?” He asked.

“I parked in the yellow.” I said sheepishly. “Hey, can you drop me off at Katie’s today? I’m meeting her there.” I ask him. He nods. I was about to give him directions, but he told me that he remembers from the one time he had to drop me off.

The rest of the car ride was a kind of sort of awkward silence, but I survived the whole five minutes. When, he pulled up in front of Katie’s I took my seatbelt off and thanked him before getting out of the car. After he just drove off without any word. Bad mood still? I think its PMS. I walked in the house and saw Katie was already dropped off. She went upstairs to change so I just sat down next to Jack on the couch and waited to go off to lunch.