Let me take care of you

Into the woods

"Oh my god how long did it actually take you guys to leave the house and walk over here!" Darcy shouted as she saw the two boys finally arrive. Nick pointed directly to Charlie,
"He took forever to get out of the god damn bathroom, something about his hair or whatever." Nick said, backing gestures with his hands. Charlie scoffed,
"You don't get it! If you cared about your appearance you would know the struggles of keeping your hair tidy." Charlie stated, running a hand through his flattened hair,
"Your hairs always messy though!" Nick replied,
"Yeah, and it takes a good while to make it look messy in my style!" Charlie said, doing a pretend hair flip.

The group laughed,
"Okay now that everyone's here we can finally head into the forest." Tao said, starting to walk to the forest. Charlie's eyes lit up,
"Oh yeah! I remember when we were younger we would always- Oh this is going to be great!" Charlie said, quickly following Tao and dragging Nick along with him by the hand. Elle chuckled,
"Oh god yeah I remember those days, are we going to the are down by the river?" She asked Tao, who nodded and smiled like he had accomplished something by thinking to come here (granted with the help of Nick). Elle and Aled shared a glance. Aled laughed,
"Hang on isn't that the place where Tap tripped over a route and grazed his knee. He couldn't stop cryi-" Tao snapped his head back at Aled,
"Shut up!" He shouted, making everyone laughed. Tao flushed red with embarresment.

The group followed Charlie and Tao who were in the lead, at first the boys used a small squished leaf covered path to guide the way. After about ten minutes of this the boys stopped, looking around them. Tara raised an eyebrow,
"What's up? There's no way we are lost cause like we've been following this path." Tara said, earning a nod from Darcy. Elle suddenly realised what was going on,
"Oh! I know what they are doing. You guys are looking in the wrong place. It's over here." Elle ran of to the right straight of the path, past a couple of large bushes. The group followed, Nick, Tara, Darcy and Isaac being quite confused. Suddenly they stopped,
"Aha!" Elle pointed to a tree. The tree had four ribbons on it, a red on with a C on it. A purple on with the letter E on it. A dark blue on with the letter T on it, and a yellow one with the letter A on it. Under that was all of their anitials with a large hard around it.

Charlie felt his hand over it,
"Oh my god I remember this, we were like twelve when we did this." Charlie said, looking at it with awe. Elle chuckled softly,
"I still have the knife I used to carve it with..." Nick spoked,
"What is it if you don't mind me asking." He knew it was some sort of friendship thing, he didn't really know what though,
"It was right before we were beginning highschool. We went here for one of the last times since now, back them we all had these little ribbons we would wear around our wrists to signify our friendship. We all didn't know wether we would still be friends through highschool, so Elle said we should make a pledge. She made us wrap the ribbons round the tree and vow that no matter what, no matter who we ended up being. We would all stay friends."Charlie finished.

"I'd say that worked out pretty well." Aled said, gesturing to the group around him. The others laughed in agreement nodding. Charlie traced his finger down the tree, now revealing an arrow pointing to the left,
"And that should be..." Charlie ran down towards the left, leaping through some bushes, the group chasing after him.

Nick pushed the bush out of the way, looking in awe at the beautiful view,
"The river...." Nick finished Charlie's sentence. The river was a beautiful blue colour, fished swimming happily through it and jumping in and out of the water. There were really tall trees above them, separated by the river to give a beautiful green light as the light tried to shine through the leaves. The sound of the river was calming and birds chirped all around, hiding in the tall trees. It almost seemed like a jungle, not just a forest on the edge of a small estate.

Tara and Darcy laughed,
"Woh-ho-ho! Look at this place!" Darcy said, extending her arms to gesture at the beautiful landscape. Elle glanced at Charlie and gave him a kind smile,
"We are going to have some fun back here."Charlie grinned, Tao and Aled grinned back, fun was an understatement.

It really was a good choice by Tao, coming back to this place. For the rest of the day, lunch till the darkness started to show, the group just had fun. Darcy tried to climb the trees, failing and falling but always getting back up and trying again. After she for bored and her and Nick made sure there was no way the could get up. Darcy went towards a flimsy old wood bridge and a small stone path that led across the river to get across. Elle, Charlie, Alex, Issac and Tara all made it across safely, while Darcy, Nick and Tao fell into the water. Nick and Darcy laughed while Tao got mad and started swearing at the water and fish.

They threw stones to see who could skip them the longest, a tournament which Nick won. Then Darcy spotted some vines and smiled to Elle, jumping up quickly and clinging on to them. This inspired another challenge to see how far they could swing and if they could swing across the lake. Charlie, Aled and Tara took no part in this challenge, watching the group of idiots as they tried out the knew idea. Nick made it second try, first time falling and banging his back on the wooden bridge. Darcy did not fall once, claiming the title of Tarzan. It took Tao four attempts to make it, but the only time he hurt himself because of they was when he hit his knee on the stones on the river floor.

It was overall an extremely exciting and fun day, which all of the group would remember and certainly do again. But alas, these things have to come to an end, and the skies started darkening, signalling to them that they had to quickly head home for tea. They turned around and left, the sounds of the river dying away as they walked away from the bank and out back to the original path.

They ended up one by one going separate ways, all saying goodbye and hugging eachother, thanking for a great day. Tao was the last to leave,
"Bye Charlie! Thanks for a good day. See you later Nick." Tao actually bothered to say goodbye to Nick. Smiling at him slightly, Charlie looked up at Nick in surprise, they were getting along, that was new,
"Cheers Tao, see you around." Nick said, waving goodbye. Charlie said goodbye to and he walked off.

Nick wanted to stay at Charlie's but wasn't allowed, so they parted ways and Nick waved Charlie goodbye as he stepped into his house,
"Bye Char' love you!" Nick said, blushing. Charlie blew Nick a kiss,
"Love you too!" Nick smiled and closed the door gently. Letting out a content sigh. What a nice feeling it was, knowing how much care he had for the other boy, how much he loved him. He was just so glad to see him happy, so glad to know that he was okay, and with him. He was just so glad he loved him.