Unwritten Pages

“I can't believe that you're both done high school already! Children grow so fast these days!”

We're sitting at the kitchen table. I don't even know why we're still here. I mean—we're done our breakfast, but we're still sitting here.

Desiree catches my eyes and smiles nervously. She honestly doesn't know what to say after my mother's sex talk yesterday. I know we don't want to hear it again.

“Yeah,” I say. Then it's silent.

“Um,” Desiree begins, “may I use the bathroom? I'm just going to take a shower.”

Before my mother can get into that lecture again, I announce, “and I'll be in my room by myself—and not near the bathroom at all.”

Desiree nods vigorously, desperate to avoid another awkward talk with my mother.

She frowns. “Well...if you—”

But Desiree and I are out of the room before she finishes. We head upstairs and when we're sure that my mother can't hear us, I say, “she's never letting her guard down.”

Desiree shrugs. “But she let them down with Liane.”

“How did you—”

“Arianna told me. She thought I deserved to know that you hated her and that everything was a mistake,” she says.

“Desiree—”

“Don't worry. I'm not jealous. You hate her. What's there to be jealous of?”

Before I can say anything else, she smiles, which I take as a sign that means that she's okay. Then she heads straight for the bathroom.

I enter my room. I know Desiree's going to take forever in the bathroom...girls. Since I have nothing to do I reach in my drawer and take out that green notebook again. The pink ribbon seem to beckon at me to open the book and start reading. I fall to the temptation and open the book.

September 18th

So it's Sunday... Anyways, I edited the songs and then I recorded it again. Time to give it to Andrew—he loves putting my composed songs on his iPod...don't really know why though. At least my music is on someone's iPod though. It's a nice thought. If I'm not an astronomer when I grow up, I'll probably be a singer. Though I haven't told my friends that. I actually like singing and music better than Science.

Anyways, I basically just stayed in my room and came out for breaks—like using the washroom (restroom) or eating.

Yep.

September 19th

I thought today was going to be like any other day. You know—all that signing up for Universities and other stuff like that. It had started last week—those stuff. Yep.

Anyways, I just realized! Next week is the ninth grader's 'break the ice' camp. I can't remember the name of the camp, but I know that it was pretty darn fun. They needed some senior leaders, so the eleventh and twelfth graders were able to sign up.

SO! I made Arianna, Andrew, and Desiree sign up with me. I got to the boys too late, so Con, Tomas, and Peter didn't have any spots left. Too bad.

So the cabins are split between the girls and boys. And a girl and boy cabin are paired up as a 'sister' or 'brother' cabin. More often know as Group One, Group Two and so on. I'm with Arianna and one eleventh grader girl.

Guess who the leaders for my brother cabin is?

They're cabin 21. The leaders are three twelfth graders...one of them is called...Drew.

Great...

Well, hopefully nothing horrible will go on.

Also, Desiree and Andrew are lucky because they were put in the same brother and sister cabin...lucky... I'm with Drew... I guess that can be considered lucky, but I don't really think so.

He's so confusing. Oh well. Until tomorrow!

September 20th

So today was alright. Basically, all the senior leaders were called during first and second period to discuss what we were going to bring and our schedules.

So yeah...

Drew was there, but thankfully, he didn't look at me. Or at least, I didn't think he did.

I don't know if camp is going to be awesome but...I have to get over the whole Drew thing. It's not like he was trying to get me. He was just being friendly. Right.

September 21st

We had a fire drill practice today. And unfortunately, it was cold outside and I was wearing a t-shirt. Silly me. SO I went outside and stood for ten or so minutes and was shivering.

I knew I was going to get sick. Then I couldn't go to camp. I didn't know if that was a good or a bad thing.

It was during second period, so Drew was there. He had a sweater.

And guess what?

He borrowed it to me. So... Uh...

The only thing I can say about it without being all flustered is: I guess chivalry isn't dead. So yep. Thanks Drew, even though he isn't even reading this.

September 22nd

After school today, I went to the corner store to buy some sweets for camp (you can do that). I was still grounded, of course. But I was quick. It wasn't like I was gone for one hour.

Thank goodness I was home before my mom. I'm pretty sure she would get angry if I came later because I was grounded...

September 23rd

It's Friday! Next week is the camp! I can't wait!

When I came home from school, I told my mom. Apparently, I was still grounded, but it was too late to back out of it now. They needed the senior leaders.

“Mom, I'm going to the camp with the ninth graders,” I said immediately after she got home. She looked surprised and then angry.

“I thought I told you that you were grounded,” she said.

“You did,” I told her, “but they needed senior leaders. I've already paid for it too.”

“How much? Can't you still withdraw the money?”

“It was around a hundred, and you can't withdraw because it's Friday. It's too late to.”

I thought my mom was going to yell at me. But she didn't. Though it was obvious that she was angry, she didn't yell at me. She just gave a weary sigh.

“If you get injured on the way, call your father, not me.”

“Alright,” I said. I left the room and that was the last time I spoke to my mom today.

September 24th

Because I was grounded, I couldn't do anything today. It was almost like my mom had put a security camera in my room. Basically, I just practised playing my instruments. Guitar, violin, and piano. Though I'm not very good at piano or the violin, guitar is my best.

September 25th

I started packing clothing in a small luggage for tomorrow. I didn't bring an extra pair of shoes because the weather forecast said it was going to be sunny for the next five days... Hopefully it stays that way.

Anyways, I bought five leggings and five shirts. Then I bought four shorts four t-shirts for pyjamas. Is that too much? I'm going to be staying there for five days anyways and it was better to have more clothing than have less.

I added four water bottles and I packed my undergarments. I also remembered my towel and some hygiene items for showering.

I had to look through my list again to find what I was missing. I just needed a sleeping bag and a pillow. I grabbed one of my pillows and stuffed it in my luggage. Then I put my sleeping bag beside the luggage.

I had put so much in my luggage. The luggage was small too!

So yep, I prepared for tomorrow!

Well...I guess I have to prepare for...Drew now...

September 26th

I left early because I didn't want to be late. If the buses left before I arrived that would have been horrible! So I came about ten minutes before school started.

I wasn't the only one who was early. There were plenty others too.

So I found Andrew and Desiree and we talked for a while. I didn't see Drew yet.

Arianna came soon and in a few minutes we were getting loaded onto the buses. So we got those fancy coach buses...There was about three buses. One bus for four cabins. Two female cabins and two male cabins. But those were for the students. The senior leaders got a bus to themselves—with a few teachers, of course. So obviously, Drew was in my bus.

Luckily, my friends were with me, so I had someone to talk to instead of staring at Drew the whole bus ride.

So halfway, Andrew fell asleep, which I found quite funny. I had brought a bag on the bus and I had brought a black marker. Yep, drawing on other people's faces was the point of that marker. I am secretly evil.

Anyways, I handed it to Desiree but she didn't get it. So I just took it back and started to draw marks all over his face myself.

“Winter! He's going to be so mad at you!” Arianna said, but she was laughing so hard, that half the people on the bus were craning their necks at us and seeing what we were doing.

“Hush! He's going to wake up!”

“That's not permanent, is it?” asked Desiree curiously.

“Nope, I'm not that evil,” I said. “Aren't you going to make me stop? You're his girlfriend, after all.”

Desiree shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “I may be his girlfriend, but I want to see his reaction when he finds out.”

Arianna made a face at her. “You are so evil.”

“Would you do the same to Con?” I asked innocently and Arianna gave me a glare. Luckily, she had nothing to hit me in the head with.

“Can I use that after you're done?” Desiree asked. She had a look of mischief in her eyes.

“Sure. You can have it now,” I said. I handed her the marker. She took it and started to write on Andrew's forehead.

“What are you writing?” Arianna asked.

“You'll see,” Desiree told us. When she was done, she gave the marker back to me. “Ta-da!”

We read what was on Andrew's forehead: 'I LOVE UNICORNS, BUTTERFLIES AND MY GF DESIREE.'

I gave Desiree an amused look. She looked proud of herself. “Seriously?” I asked. “I wonder what Andrew's going to say when he sees that.”

Desiree shrugged. “He'd probably be mad, but I'm pretty sure I got one thing right.” She pointed to her name on his forehead.

Sigh...if only my romance could be like that.

Anyways, we had cameras with us on the bus. So each of us snapped a bunch of pictures before we stopped bothering Andrew.

Anyways, he woke up just as we were pulling in at camp. Ari couldn't hold it in and she burst into laughter which made us laugh too. Andrew stared at us like we were being idiots, which we probably were.

“What's so funny?” he asked—clueless. That made us laugh harder. Arianna doubled over, clutched her stomach and almost fell off her chair.

A bunch of students on the bus with us stared at us.

Anyway, we got off the bus last. Our bus was the last to pull in. We finally pulled ourselves together (kind of) and got off the. The moment Andrew stepped out, people started to stare at him. He noticed.

He scowled. “Why are they staring at me?”

“Maybe they know your drug history,” I whispered. Andrew glared at me. I shrugged. “I didn't tell them.”

I knew it was kind of mean, but I wasn't the one giggling every four seconds. (Cough, cough, Ari, cough, cough)

“Don't worry,” Desiree said, smiling. “You look lovely.”

That made Arianna double over and start choking.

“Don't mind her,” I said, “she choked on her own spit earlier and she's still feeling it now.”

One of the ninth grader girls pointed to Andrew and their group started laughing. I tried to look at Andrew with a straight face, but it was hard to do that while he had drawings all over his face.

“Alright,” he said, “did you draw on my face while I was sleeping?”

“I did!” Desiree said immediately. Andrew scowled at her. “What?” she said. “You look so cute!”

“Make up or pen?” Andrew asked me.

“Which one do you prefer?”

“Pen.”

“Alright, I'll keep that in mind next time,” I said.

“So you put make up on me?” Andrew sounded incredulous. “I must look like some sort of freak.”

“Hey!” Desiree said, “are you doubting my skills?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I am.”

“Calm down guys! It's just pen,” I said. “It's not permanent so don't worry.”

“Where's the washroom?” Andrew asked me. I shrugged.

“You can go ask the teachers later,” I said. “It's been four years since I've been here. You...you didn't come to this camp, right?” I asked.

Andrew shook his head. “Drug business,” he said, utterly serious.

“You're probably going to get scolded,” Arianna said, “for having stuff written all over your face.”

“It's not inappropriate, is it?” he asked me. I shook my head. “Good,” he said. “That would be embarrassing.”

“You already are being embarrassed,” I pointed out. “In front of a bunch of ninth graders.” The girls were still giggling and Andrew groaned.

“Are you sure it's not permanent?”

“Do you want it to be permanent?” I asked.

Andrew sighed. “Alright, I get it. It's not permanent.”

We took our bags and started to head down to our cabins. “The girl's cabins are near the fields,” I told Andrew. “The boy's cabins are in the 'forest'. Girls aren't allowed to go there, and since the girl's area is right by the fields, the guys can obviously come here.”

“It's not fair!” Arianna said, “I wanted to see what the 'forest' looks like!”

“Life's not fair,” I said absentmindedly. “You can get injured and then you'll be taken there for the first aid or whatever materials they have in there.”

“But it's a forest!” Andrew protested.

“A 'forest',” I said, air quoting the 'forest' part. “Really, it's probably the most developed place in this camp. I think we can go there, though, if one of our students get hurt, the senior leaders can escort them there.”

“I know this is selfish of me...” Arianna started, “but I hope one of my students hurt themselves!”

“That IS selfish,” Desiree said.

“I know,” Arianna said.

It felt nice to hang out with my friends. Usually, Arianna was never around at lunch to chat with us. That left Desiree and Andrew with the boys. And the boys—Peter, Con, and Tomas were always off somewhere playing some sports.

Plus, my mother wasn't here to scold me every second, which felt great.

We split ways and threw our luggage in our cabin. Then we came out and ushered our students to the Mess Hall.

Our cabin, cabin 1, was the last to arrive. We had the last choice in seats and were placed beside cabin 24, which is Andrew's cabin.

Andrew had washed his face, but there were still traces of black marks all over his face. I could read one thing clearly on his forehead: DESIREE.

Well, I guess Desiree had left her mark.

“—this is why you should never let your guard down. Actually, you shouldn't sleep on the bus while a bunch of girls surround you. You never know what they'll do,” Andrew said. He was talking to a bunch of ninth grader boys and the other two senior leaders of his cabin.

“Hey Andrew,” I said as I took a seat beside him. “You still have Desiree's name on your forehead.”

“I know,” he groaned. “Are you sure you didn't have a permanent marker when you wrote that?”

“Desiree wrote that,” I said. “And unless she brought a permanent marker and wrote that while we weren't looking, no, I don't have a permanent marker.”

“You wrote on his face?” A ninth grader boy was staring at me like I was insane. I nodded.

“Yep. His girlfriend did the other half,” I said, “including that part you still see on his face.”

“You have a girlfriend?” one of the senior leaders (I think his name is Boris. Or maybe that's the fidgety boy) asked. I knew he was joking.

Andrew scowled. “Very funny.”

Anyways, lunch passed quickly and we did some activities with our group. I was in Group One.

Our first activity was archery. I love archery—it's just that I sucked at it. Anyways, it was down by that far field behind the cabins.

Lina(the eleventh grader senior leader with us), Arianna and I arrived there with our students. Drew and his group was already there. Apparently, all his friends were in the same group with him, so he was happily socializing with his friends.

He looked up when we came and then continued to talk. I convinced myself that he was completely over trying to hit on me.

Anyways, we did archery for about one and a half hour. Then we did some co-op games. I only participated in the less embarrassing ones. The embarrassing one was the wall—if you weren't pulled up properly, your shirt will come up. That was the super embarrassing thing that happened to me in ninth grade. I didn't want to relive that.

Afterwards, we had dinner in the Mess Hall. Drew didn't bother me once so I must have been imagining things going horribly wrong with him.

After dinner, we didn't have any night games, so we went back to our cabins and could do whatever we wanted. Arianna and I left the cabin to go outside and we hung out with Desiree and Andrew in the dark.

When it turned nine, we were all told to get back inside our cabins. We counted our students to make sure no one was missing and then some of them went to take a quick shower.

Since I wasn't smelly or sweaty, I decided to take a shower tomorrow night. Anyways, while Arianna went to take a shower, I took our this notebook and wrote all this.

My hand is hurting because I wrote so much in this time. Until tomorrow!

September 27th

Arianna yelled in my ear to wake me up this morning.

It was horrible, really. My ear was ringing until the afternoon came.

We took the students to the Mess Hall for breakfast before going on with the activity. Mainly, we just did campfire cooking and canoeing. Arianna and I almost tipped our canoe over, seriously.

We had lunch and did two more activities: sports. It was volleyball and then soccer. Arianna and I hated sports, but we had to play along so our students wouldn't sit out. Soon, Arianna found interest in it and she was playing like a mad woman. I think she saw soccer as foosball, but just larger.

She's amazing when it comes to foosball. She pretty much destroys the 'girls can't play foosball well' stereotype.

So while I was sitting on the bench and watching them play, Drew came and sat down beside me.

“Hey, Winter,” he said.

He remembered my name!

“Hi,” I said as nonchalantly as I could.

“Is that your friend...?” he asked.

“Yeah. Arianna.” There was an awkward pause before Drew spoke again.

“Oh.”

Yeah, great. A great way to continue this conversation. Just then, Arianna came over to us with a smile on her face.

“Hi there!” she said to Drew. “You are?”

Drew was silent for a while as he looked at Arianna. The smile looked more forced now. The he said, “you look like the typical dumb blonde.” He smirked, got up, and left.

And Arianna and I just stared after him.

“What. The. Eff. Was. That?” she asked. I shrugged. This was...odd... Drew was kind to me and then he was a jackass to Arianna.

“You're not even blonde,” I said. “You don't even look close to blonde.”

“He must be colour blind,” Arianna agreed.

After that incident, we had dinner and we started our first night activity. This one—we had to run around in the designated forest area at night and look for items to help them find their way out. We blind-folded them and walked them in the clearing of the forest before taking their blind-folds off. The group was separated into three groups—two leaders for each group.

Anyways, Arianna and I were in the same group and it was pretty fun to watch them scramble around.

We got back afterwards, our group was the second group to get out of the forest (us leaders couldn't tell them how to get out because that would be cheating).

Afterwards, we headed back into our cabins and I took a shower because I was sure I probably smelled really bad from the sports earlier.

Yep, then I took the last few minutes to write in here.

September 28th

It's the third day already! I got revenge at Arianna from screaming in my ear yesterday by hitting her in the face with a pillow today.

So today was normal... Drew didn't bother us, which I suppose is a good thing. The whole 'dumb blonde' thing still had me in shock. I think it was the same with Arianna. She may be forgiving, but she isn't THAT forgiving.

After breakfast, we played tennis and then moved onto Capture The Flag. It's a pretty fun game. But it was pretty windy today, so we constantly had to run with the wind blowing hard against our face. It was kind of hard to breath.

Lunch came and Arianna and I were greeted by the sight of Andrew and Desiree playing tonsil hockey. I mean, yay for their relationship and all, but just something about the sight of your two best friends making out makes you cringe. It's like seeing your parents make-out.

Desiree seemed to notice our presence, and luckily, she pulled away before Arianna could say something really embarrassing.

“You're allowed to do that?” I asked once we reached our seats beside them.

“To do what?” Andrew asked.

“You know, what you just did. Make-out in front of a bunch of niners,” Arianna said.

“Um...” Desiree said, “I don't know.”

Arianna and I started to laugh randomly just because we thought it was funny. We got odd looks from other people.

“You'll make them jealous,” I told Andrew.

He smiled. “Of course I will.”

Desiree punched him lightly in the arm. “You are so arrogant!” she cried. Andrew rubbed his arm like it hurt a lot. I knew what was going to happen next, Andrew ALWAYS did that trick in Desiree.

“That hurts a lot!” he said, “Desiree, I had a bruise there!”

“Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry!” she said and she lifted up his sleeve to check the bruise. She scowled once she saw there was nothing wrong with his arm. “Jerk!”

“You know you care about me,” he said and they seemed to pull in for another game of tonsil hockey. But I interrupted them before they could start.

“Guys! Niners!” I said. “Get a room! You'll probably get scolded by teachers if you make out in here.”

After lunch, we had kayaking and we played some games like dodge-ball in the gym further down by the fields. Drew avoided us. He didn't look at us once.

Dinner came, we had another night game, but this was for the ninth graders only so the senior leaders got together at our designated area and we talked about how our cabin was, how we were doing, etc, etc.

After that, we headed back to our cabins. I took a shower before sitting back on my bed to write in my journal. The ninth graders just came back a few minutes after I've started writing. Well, lights-out is in one hour and I'd rather communicate with Arianna than write in this for one hour. No offence to you, journal.

September 29th

It's Thursday! We leave tomorrow! Time flies!

So since today was our last full day at camp, we had a special activity for the night. We were going to have a dance! But the ninth graders voted us out, so sadly, we weren't welcomed.

For the morning activities, we played rugby and went to the climbing wall. Drew didn't approach us. Jerk. After what he said to Arianna, I was still expecting an apology.

So after lunch, we were free to wander around and do whatever we wanted. The climbing wall was open, so Arianna and I tried that since there wasn't enough time for the senior leaders. It was pretty fun. We met up with Desiree and Andrew. They were sitting on a bench by the fields. Luckily, they weren't making-out. We dragged them to the wall with us. It was funny to watch Andrew attempt to climb up the wall, mainly because he had a secret fear of heights. Seeing a seventeen year old guy freak out is quite funny.

Dinner came and went. To prepare for the dance, we went cleaned the Mess Hall and pushed the tables away. Then it was set up with tables, food, etc.

The senior leaders were ushered away as the ninth graders came streaming in. It was pretty dark by then, but we could do whatever we wanted for the next three hours. Arianna and I had an idea and we dragged Desiree and Andrew with us.

In the fields, they had set up an activity—the zip-line. There were a few people there already. So for three hours, we just went on the zip-line over and over again. Extremely fun.

When we got back to our cabin, the dance was already over. A bunch of students were using the showers and one of them was dead asleep. One girl had lost her voice from screaming the lyrics to some songs.

Pretty wild night for them.

So after Arianna and I took a shower, I wrote this quickly. And...yep. I'm going to go talk to Ari now. Bye!

September 30th

Today was the last day at camp. I'm on the bus right now. Basically, we just ate breakfast and played predator and prey until it was time to leave.

They brought us to the part in the forest and we were marked by the painting on our faces. I was a herbivore...for the fifth time.

Fortunately, Andrew was the disease so I basically hung around him and looked for the water and food supply that was hidden. Whenever someone would come close, I would run to Andrew and he would catch them. A win-win situation.

Anyways, Desiree was a omnivore and Arianna was a herbivore with me. It was a fun game. After that, we grabbed our bags that we had packed earlier today and threw it on the bus and we started to get home. Goodbye camp.

Andrew learned his lesson and he isn't sleeping. He's just staring out the window right now. Desiree is sleeping, but Andrew has his arm around her, so I'm pretty sure he'd stop me from drawing on Desiree's face.

Arianna is sitting at the front because the teachers said we were too loud so they separated us. So I'm just sitting in my row alone right now. Yep.

And...is it just my imagination, or is Drew glancing at me?

Must be my imagination.

October 1st

Firstly, we arrived back at school yesterday at around five. I went home instead of going out to eat at a restaurant with my friends. I made something to eat and took a shower, etc, etc. I didn't have to face my mom once. I wasn't as upset at her as much but I was still feeling a bit mad.

So today I just stayed in my room like usual and only came out when necessary—same like most weekends.

And I was finishing last week's homework too—yep.

I close the book. I've been reading for a while.

There's...there's nothing really important here. I had hoped there would be some indication on why she committed suicide, but there isn't.

It's only October, I remind myself, there's nothing there yet.

But still. I don't think there's anything there other than Winter's love life. It feels like I'm prying—which I am. Because there's nothing really worth reading in there. Sure, I may be able to read about myself in her eyes, but it's not important. It's nothing that relates to Winter's death in any way. There's nothing in this journal. That thought it so frustrating. I'm losing hope that there's anything in this journal. And seeing the amount of pages left—I'd hate to spend my time reading about her love life. It has nothing about the reason of her suicide. Nothing.

Just pages full of rubbish.