A High School Trip! What could go wrong? The students mingle for dinner and evening activities but there's pain and pining. Will the lone chaperone be able to handle all the hormones and drama?!
PART IV - DINNER & GIRL TALK
After a day at the hot springs, evening settles on Three Lakes. The teens become downright ravenous and the entourage of private and public students end up dining at the Three Lakes Plaza.
Alex, despite the relaxation the sauna provided, is yanked back to an uncomfortable reality made all the more clear whenever he talks. His lip smarts terribly, and even though he's cleaned it up the best he can, it's still puckered and swollen.
What's more is that, somehow he finds it less of a hassle to just sit with his sister, and his best friend for dinner–both of whom now he has no idea how to talk to after witnessing them smooching next to the changing booth. Luckily, Angelo is none the wiser and can carry on a conversation–he's always been good at that when he's not sleeping.
It makes for something mildly distracting, not having to pay attention to the way Alice hangs on Ryder's every word with a look of absolute puppy love.
Alice, on the other hand, notices Ryder has hardly said anything to her since he yelled at her. He never made a promise to take her out on a date–just seemed to shut her out. She has to fix this, she has to make him realize she can be good for him.
"Principal Hart, what if we had a joint promenade this spring?" Lai's topic of conversation startles Caleb somewhat. Each being the mature and respective teacher's pets at their schools, it's no surprise they are dining with the lone adult.
The unlikely trio of quiet girls find themselves quite chatty for just having really met that afternoon. Colleen tells about her favorite books, Noire tells about her favorite spots in the city, and April tells them about learning guitar.
"I think it could promote more goodwill and a chance for more students to mingle," Lai goes on to explain after their food is served.
She glances at Caleb quickly, looking for backup.
He is quick on the uptake, "Absolutely! It's a great idea and I think my father would agree as well. He would sign off on it, I'm sure!"
"Right, if you want, Principal Hart I could give you a report on the benefits of people interacting outside their social bubbles."
"That's quite all right, Miss Kapitha," the principal looks weary and seems to just want to finish her ribs, "I'll consider it."
"You should play your guitar for us," Noire suggests to April. It makes April beam, being encouraged since none of her family does it regarding her musical aspirations.
"Hey man, wanna play darts after dinner? I saw a board in the front room when we came in," Angelo addresses Alex, noticing the guy is caught in a thousand-yard stare to nowhere. Something more than being punched is on his mind.
Alex considers, "Yeah sure, that sounds fun."
He really needs to take his mind off whatever is going on to the right of him. Alice is trying so hard to be relevant to the conversation that isn't even being had. He pretends to ignore the expression that Ryder makes at Angelo's offer to play darts.
That's usually something they would do together in one of their many playful competitions.
"You play a lot, Angelo?" Alex asks, swiping up the darts, and begins to throw them.
"I mean, I dabble in it," Angelo confirms. He dabbles in a lot of things.
"Great! Let's see who can get a score of 100 first!" Alex goes into his competitive mode, but Angelo seems put off by it.
"Are you...okay?" Angelo asks. He may not be as close to Alex as Ryder is, but is enough of a friend to notice something is off with Alex.
"I'm great!" Alex lies through his teeth as well as his blood-crusted lips.
"Mind if I have a turn?" he hears Ryder's voice and catches himself from meeting Ryder's eyes. It would be too easy to crumble and let him join, but then would that signal to Ryder that Alex was A-OK with what went down earlier?
He wasn't okay with it. Seeing Ryder and his sister together like that was jarring. Alex wasn't okay, despite what he'd told Angelo.
Before Alex can be forced to answer else just stand silently brooding, he is saved and yet cursed by his sister.
"Hey Ryder, I noticed you kept grabbing at your neck earlier. If you want, I can try to work out the knot–people tell me I give really good backrubs!" she saunters into the room and offers, ignoring her brother's aghast expression.
Alex turns his back before he can witness Alice put her hands on Ryder.
Not all is forgiven but Ryder's neck had been irritating him since they got off the bus that afternoon. Alice turns out to be great with her hands and Ryder can't help but let that fact slip out of his mouth in the form of a small, satisfied groan when she hits the muscle in his neck just right.
Alex decides that turning his back and trying to ignore them isn't enough.
He finds his way to the small dark space on the top of the Plaza that looks down upon the restaurant. It's a good place to think in silence.
Ryder had seemed so into him during the end of last summer and they'd chilled out plenty of times since then with no issues, no indications of romantic interests in anyone else. Alice, of course, was always lurking nearby but he hadn't thought much of it because Ryder paid no attention to her annoyingly obvious advances.
Why now?
What changed?
What in the red glow of aspirational Hells had he done to deserve this?
He hears the sound of paper rustling and turns to see something he didn't expect...
...but not surprised to see.
The Pint-Size Puncher has found herself a book. Of course, she has.
That's all Colleen Cosgrove has ever done. She always holed herself up in the quietest corner of school with her nose shoved in a book. Why would a vacation be any different? She didn't play, she didn't laugh with other kids.
All Alex wanted to do was try to push her to be more interactive with them.
But in doing so, he'd pushed her too far.
And now she was banned from all the activities when it wasn't even her fault.
Colleen is much too invested in reading to take notice of Alex standing nearby, so he leaves, feeling tremendous guilt. He thinks maybe Ryder losing interest in him is some karmic punishment for stepping over the line with Colleen.
He quickly exits the mezzanine in despair when he almost bumps into the principal.
"Oh! Sorry, my bad," he quickly apologizes and sidesteps her.
"Did she apologize?" the Principal asks, referring to Colleen, who is in her line of sight.
Alex pauses, then nods and says, "Yes. Yes, she apologized to me and it was very sincere and I accepted it."
"Good. Good. I'm glad she didn't let her pride ruin her trip. How's that lip?"
Alex sticks his tongue out and lets the tip poke at his bottom lip. It's still tender. "I'll be fine."
Lai and Caleb use the evening activity hour to retreat to the outdoor fire place on the top deck. Lai pokes around and starts one before joining Caleb on one of the couches.
They let the fire get toasty; it warms their faces and the night air doesn't seem as cold anymore.
"Thanks for backing me on my Prom idea," Lai says. He can tell her mind is racing a thousand miles per second with ideas on how to join the schools together in the grandest of high school dances. "It would be so cool to have it at the country club or something."
"Sure, not a problem but why do you want a joint dance, anyway?" Caleb asks, genuinely curious. "You never seemed interested in anything related to the Academy before."
"Well you know, it's nice to see you every now and then ever since you went off to the Academy. Besides, didn't we talk about having prom together when we were kids?" she giggles, seeming to think on the memory but Caleb knows that memory well, and she is misremembering it.
"We talked about going to prom together. You said you wanted to wear sneakers with your dress to dance better," Caleb amends her statement, "and I still can take you, if you want me to."
Lai finally looks at him, she giggles at her past self's idea and their whimsical childhood plans for high school that seemed so far away but were so excited for.
Caleb isn't laughing. He's serious about still taking her to prom. And she suspects that's even if they don't have a joint one.
The firelight dancing off his pretty blue eyes makes her take pause, and she realizes he's been staring at her for a while now.
She blinks, and it breaks the spell. She suddenly stretches and mumbles something about being tired. Caleb lifts himself from the lounging position he'd been in, and says, "Yeah we should probably get back to the motel. Another early morning tomorrow."
She can't help but notice his voice sounds more tired than she feels.
"Okay so, I guess tomorrow I'm just going to stay in the room since I can't do anything else," Colleen tells Noire as they get ready for bed.
"It's pretty fucking unfair that you are the only one who is getting punished for this," Noire seems a bit riled and it's probably the most emotion Colleen has ever seen the gloomy girl exude as of yet on this trip.
Collen shrugs because she knows. She just can't really do anything about it.
They hear a knock on their door and look at each other. It's past midnight.
To their surprise it's April! But she doesn't have her guitar...not that she could even play it this late.
"What's wrong? Why aren't you asleep?" Colleen whispers. Hoping their chaperone doesn't wake up and see them since she's in enough trouble as is.
"Sorry, Alice won't let anyone sleep until we all meet up and have 'girl-talk', whatever the fuck that means," April says with an unamused yawn, "Let's just get this over with so we can get on with our lives."
Ryder knows he needs to explain to Alex what really happened. It's plain to see his best friend is affected by what he thought he saw. He just doesn't know how to go about broaching the subject.
"Are you going to make me sleep on the floor?" he tries to start with what he hopes is a light-hearted joke. They had opted for the double bed, after all. He hopes he doesn't have to sleep on the floor, like some naughty partner who was caught cheating.
"You can sleep wherever you want," Alex finally says, quietly, calmly. There's no hint of the playful banter Ryder is used to and it leaves him profoundly saddened.
"You can also date whoever you want, I can understand that, but Alice...she's my sister, man, and I thought better of you," Alex finally says and slips under the covers; immediately shutting his eyes.
Ryder is kind of stunned at the disappointment in Alex's voice. They hadn't been anything official, just very good friends who sometimes kissed each other when the mood struck. Ryder is left wanting to say something, anything...
...but Alex has made it clear he's not interested in hearing what Ryder has to say.
Angelo is busy showing off to Caleb how he can juggle. Caleb is wondering where the heck Angelo had gotten some random espresso cups and wonders if Angelo dabbles in being a kleptomaniac.
Before he tucks in for the night, Caleb reflects on his time with Lai that evening. To think...her whole proposal for the joint prom was so she could spend it with him like how they wanted to years ago. It touches him but still doesn't prove she feels anything for him other than just a platonic friendship. With a sigh, his head hits the pillow and he turns out the light on the nightstand.
What exactly is 'Girl Talk'?
It's when teenage girls sneak into one consolidated area, in this case, a motel room, to gather and talk about their favorite topic: Boys.
It's a time of bonding and intel gathering.
Alice is a social butterfly and clearly knows how to keep discussion going. Games are her preferred method, but she gets right to it once the subject of boys as been brought up, "Lai, have you ever kissed anyone?"
Lai thinks; it's not hard to remember her first kiss. She was lucky enough to catch the attention of an older student, a dreamboat named Cedar Wellington. He asked her out on a date and it was perfect and ended with him kissing her. However, despite the 'perfectness' of it all it just didn't excite her all that much now that she thinks about it. It was all just very...nice.
"Oh, plumbobs! We can't stay up all night waiting," Alice huffs.
Lai finally answers, she is so tired, "Yeah I have, and it was nice."
"Who did you kiss?"
"You wouldn't know him, he's at uni now."
Alice looks impressed and suspicious.
"You're seriously telling me you've never kissed Caleb Cosgrove before? You've spent like every waking moment on this trip with him. He looks at you like you're the last oxygen tank on a spaceship."
"What? No, he doesn't and no, I've never kissed him–I mean...not seriously," Lai chuckles at the absurdity of her and Caleb at eight years old doing 'kiss science' to try and figure out why adults were so silly about them and how cooties were transmitted. They were brave. They were taking one for the whole of second graders everywhere.
"Anyway, Have either of you ever been kissed?" Lai deflects and throws the subject to Noire and Colleen like a hot potato.
Colleen's knowing look at Lai changes to that of shock, "No! I'm saving my first kiss for someone special."
"Anyone in particular?" Noire asks.
"I don't know, just someone who is nice to me and loves me for me," Colleen thinks it out, obviously not having planned that far ahead. She doubts she will ever be kissed with those standards though. Who could ever love a shut-in like her?
"What about you?"
"I have not kissed anyone but someday I would like to kiss the boy that lived next door to me. He moved away, sadly," Noire says, with a hint of a forlorn smile.
"Oh, that really sucks," Colleen says with empathy, just a bit angered by the unfairness of it.
"And you, April? Ever kissed a boy?" Alice prods the last girl in the room for answers, though she hasn't answered yet herself. Nor will she at the risk of being labeled something unpleasant.
April has been sitting quietly and is nearly dozing off. This topic of conversation is inane to her.
"I kind of...would rather not kiss boys in general."
"Oh! So you have kissed a girl?!" Alice is wildly curious but April just rolls her eyes,
"Yeah, several times. They have soft lips."
Alice thinks about that fact.
"Unlike your brother, whose crusty lips won't be kissed for a long time thanks to Colleen."
"Whaaaat? What does that mean?" Alice is shook and delighted.
They all look to Colleen for an explanation. Though Noire and April already know the answer from that afternoon.
"Well the Jerk was teasing me again and I just got so angry...that...I...punched him in the face."
"Holy shit!" Alice exclaims but the rest of them shush her adamantly. She lowers her voice with amusement, "He tried to pass that off as a fall. What a liar."
Then a little plan forms in her head. If she can get Alex to be interested in someone else, there's no more chance of him screwing up her chances with Ryder. He's not the only one that lies in their family.
"You know, he only teases you because he likes you. He's always been that way."
"What?" Colleen nearly growls, unbelievingly, "If you like someone, you should be nice to them! He's always been mean to me!"
They shush her too for being so loud after midnight.
"Now that you punched him, he probably likes you even more. Alex is dumb in that way. If you be nice to him he'll lose interest."
Alice knows that's the complete opposite. Alex hides all his big feels behind sarcasm and banter and all it takes to melt his rough exterior is utter kindness, the kind Colleen seems capable of if she would make friends and not be such a shut-in.
"I think it's time we all went to bed," Colleen grumbles in malcontent, though Alice can hear the consideration in her voice. The seeds of change are planted.
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