Her Safe Haven

Chapter 43 - Lakeside Festival Preparation

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'm back! My internship is finally over and I finally have more free time to write! Now it's back to 1-2 chapters per week! Two chapters today to make up for lost time! Thank you for all of your continued support. Enjoy <3

Previously on Her Safe Haven: Winter got stabbed by one of Sasha Brown's accomplice as the aftermath of the mysterious attacks on her. To recover, her parents suggested she came to her family home in St Louis. There, she had a breakdown, after which she fought with Gray who insisted she stopped going to school. Her father then interfered and decided that she was to return to St Louis to live with her parents immediately after summer holidays. Winter wondered how she would ever be able to leave Rohan.

On the other side of the story, Seth told Jonah that he had no chance with Winter because of Rohan, and Jonah thought it might be time to move on, after all. To refresh your memory on the "Love Polygon": Dylan -> Riley -> Kai -> Helena -> Jonah -> Winter <-> Rohan. An arrow symbolised romantic interest.

Nothing happened again in her parents' house after that day, except that Winter did not see Gray again anywhere after the night they fought. And she also did not see him on the flight back to Lakeside at the end of the week.

She went back but Gray did not. In fact, Gray had disappeared completely.

'Las Vegas?'

Caleb paused from unpacking his things and looked up at her standing in the doorway to his room. "Yes. Father asked him to meet a business partner."

She furrowed her eyebrows at that. 'Weird. He didn't send you?' and at Caleb's lack of answer, she slowly realised why. '...Gray asked to go.' It wasn't a question.

And he did not disrespect her with a lie. "...Yes. He did."

+++

As they arrived back in Lakeside it was early July. Winter had almost fully recovered and tried to slowly get back to her normal life. And now, with Lakeside Festival just a month and a half away, Lakeside High was busy with its preparation.

Winter was grateful for the distraction, and more importantly, the Festival preparation meant that she got to see Rohan more often. Because the Garrisons were one of the biggest sponsors for the festival, and as to promote collaborations between the two high schools, the Garrisons had a lot of say in the festival planning. Rohan and his siblings were now here every three days of the week, from Friday to Sunday every single week.

Winter was happy to distract herself from her relapsing illness and Gray's absence with the presence of Rohan. But the more she spent time with him, the more she was also getting worried. Because after the festival it will be summer, and after summer holiday she will have to go and leave him. She will have to move to St Louis. Away from him.

She watched as he gave directions alongside Jonah to the joint student council of Lakeside and Dews. His voice ever firm and charismatic. Then his eyes caught her but just a moment and she saw his eyes softened with a smile.

How on earth was she going to tell him that she had to leave? And more importantly, how on earth was she ever supposed to leave him?

+++

Rose thought that there were five types of popular people:

1. They knew they were popular and flat out used it to their advantage. Like Kai, for example, who knew that he was a handsome jock and used it to flirt and sleep with every female in the student body.