Getaway

Chapter 2

There is a fine line between enjoying your holiday and abandoning your only daughter/sister and it was quite clear to me, as I lay alone on a set of sun-loungers for the second day in a row, that my Dad and brother had crossed it.

To say the least, I was not happy.

I applied another layer of sun-tan lotion, swearing that I could already feel my skin burning. Whilst Kyle had been lucky enough to inherit my Dad’s ever-so-slightly tanned skin tone I was as pale as my Mum had been. If not paler. And that was difficult; my mum looked like she could be Edward Cullen’s mother.

I stretched ever so slightly; insanely self-conscious in the bikini I was lying in. I was actually quite happy with my body, years of sports had kept me thin and it wasn’t like there was nothing to look at in the chest department – there wasn’t a lot but there was definitely something – but I still wanted to cover myself with the lime green towel dad had brought with us (“It’ll make our sun-beds easier to spot Nell!”), run off and change.

That wasn’t an option though; I needed to go a slightly darker shade of pale if for no other reason than to prove that I had actually been on holiday.

My I-Pod battery had died this morning (Damn Kyle for dropping it on the floor causing it to no longer display when I had low battery) and so I was bored despite it only being half-ten in the morning. I couldn’t go back to the room to charge it though, I was conscious that the rest of the stuff may be stolen – what? I’m a paranoid person – and I definitely did not want to haul it up all those flights of stairs with me. That was not going to happen.

For some reason I was thrilled to see Dad approaching from wherever he’d retreated to earlier. Finally, I would have some company. I may not have liked to socialise but that didn’t mean that I liked to be alone.

“Are you having a good time Nell?”

From the smile on my dad’s face I knew that it might as well be a crime to tell him that I actually wasn’t having fun, and that I was – in fact – bored out of my mind.

“Yep.” I tried to smile back at him.

We sat in a comfortable silence for a few more moments before he decided that he needed to continue the conversation – I didn’t personally think it was necessary but you tell my dad that.

“The mini-golf course here is really good.” He explained, “I think you’d like it.”

I bit my tongue, stopping myself from telling Dad that I hadn’t played mini-golf since Lauren Hepworth’s birthday party when I was eleven. The same birthday part where Jasmine Owen got travel sick and threw up all over the girl sitting next to her (who just so happened to be me), instead I made a noise that didn’t confirm or deny that I would play mini-golf during the trip and turned back to the magazine in front of me (which I’d already read five times but so what?).

Dad was about to tell me something else when he was interrupted by several of the entertainment staff – or at least that was what they’re T-shirts said they were – heading towards us.

They greeted us with a high-five, something which Dad was evidently uncomfortable with (I don’t think he’d ever high-fived anyone before in his life, like ever).

“You want to play volleyball?” They asked, looking in my direction.

The answer – at least for me – was a simple no for a number of reasons.

        1) I did not want to spend my holiday getting sweaty playing volleyball in the scorching sun.

        2) I did not want to play volleyball with a group of people who would no doubt be thirteen year old boys just trying to look at my boobs when I jumped for the ball