the connection (on hold authors block)

Campsite

I had sat at home all excited about my big camping trip with my 3 best friends. My twin brother Carter leaned against the corner off the room playing on his phone while I rambled on about everything we were going to do each day and night.

My mum came into the room with a pleading smile on her face. "Teddy, honey," she turned her wide eyes on me. "Would you mind terribly if you took Carter with you? It's just that I'm exhausted after these last couple of weeks of school, and I called up Tristan so you wouldn't be alone, Carter." Wow. She thought of everything, not that I was complaining really. I just picked where I had left of with my rambling.

"We can roast marshmallows, and you could bring your guitar, and Tristan's a pretty good singer, right? And-"

"For the love of all things holy, shut up," Carter laughed at me.

The next day arrived, and I literally lept out of bed. Bouncing on the balls of my feet, I swept my gaze around the room.

"Bag; check. Torch; check," I listed on my fingers. Carter stuck his head in my room.

'Marshmallows? Lighter?"

"Check, check!" He grinned and dashed down the hallway.

"Come on! Sarah's here!" he called.

We all packed into Sarah's Dodge Ute, picking up Tristan, Lucy, and Alexandra on the way, all taking turns to sit in the tray with the bags which was actually the best seat. We had food for two weeks and there was a motel only 8km away from where we were camping if we needed shelter from any super strong storms. We drove for 3 hours before we reached the spot we had decided to camp at it wasn't a proper site but it was very close to one so we could use the toilets. Once the Ute pulled to a stop, Tristan and Carter fell from the tray.

They had both taken to sitting back there together once us girls starting belting it out to the radio.

"Dear god, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop," Tristan screamed, falling to the ground in a fetal position.

"I can still hear it, the blood curdling voices of screaming banshees in my ears," Carter proclaimed dramatically, clutching his hands to his ears and stumbling around like a drunk person.

"Stand up straight, Boy Lawson, you look like you just finished your third bottle of wine," Sarah said to my brother, smacking him up the back of the head as she walked past him to get to the Ute tray.

Unloading the car was torture in the heat but luckily we set up the tents pretty quick with the practice we had done at home. We had 4 tents and none off us liked the idea off sleeping alone in a tent. Well, the boys said they would be fine with it but we all know they were just acting tough so we had found a way to conjoin them whilst keeping the tents waterproof. We got our gear sorted, we had the smallest tent for all of our stuff and also a change room and we all slept with two to a tent.

The sun started to fall in the sky, so we all collected a few try branches and stick and lit a campfire. We cooked and ate dinner in an excitable blur, conversation flowing easily. Once the noodles were all done, we broke open the first of many, many bags of marshmallows we had packed. Each stabbing the puffy white goodness with a stick and searing them until they were charcoal black or burst into a little blue black, we munched happily, not a care in the world.

I sat back, out of conversation and looked around the circle. All of us we eighteen and just finished high school, so we were camping to celebrate our temporary freedom.

To my right was Lucy Andrews. She had long straight red hair and dazzling blue eyes. She was a little bit quiet and shy at times, but never around the group of people we were with now. Right now, she never ran out of things to say.