Rêveries

Chapter 18.

We look at each other and sigh heavily before shaking our heads but getting dressed anyway. We change into training clothes and put our hair up, grabbing shoes and water bottles before walking out of the room, down the stairs, through the living room and to the kitchen to fill the bottles. The boys are outside waiting for us and when we walk out they start clapping and cheering as if getting out of bed was a big thing for us. We smile sarcastically before walking past them.

We walk all the way up to the lookout point, which takes me and Evie a lot longer than it should, and the athletes have to stop and wait for us a lot. But from the lookout, you can see most of Monaco and it's absolutely beautiful. I had gone up there with Pascale and we had looked over the whole city for an hour, just talking. Now we sit down to breathe for a while, we still need to get down again. I down most of my water and breathe heavily. Charles takes a photo of me and chuckles to himself without showing it to me.

"If you post that on Instagram then I'm suing you for defamation," I tell him.

"I'm not," he says, putting his phone away, "I'm saving it for later."

But since they all have thousands of social media followers, they all wanted to take a photo in front of the view. I've gained a little bit of a following through the years, but they're nothing compared to theirs and I never post regularly. We set up a phone on a rock and they told me to get in a photo with them. I hesitate for a moment, but then just go to stand next to them. I stand next to Arthur and Charles, while Evie and Pierre are on the other side of Arthur. We smile and then Pierre goes to check it and tells us it looks good. I don't want to see it because I'll find something wrong with it.

Then we're on our way down again. My feet begin to hurt when we're almost home and I sit down on a small rock to adjust my shoes. Arthur stops in front of me and motions for me to stand up. I motion at the shoe I'm tying and he chuckles.

"Jules t'a toujours porté d'ici," Jules always carried you from here, he says and looks around a little. This is where a few tracks connect, including the one we used to go on with Jules, the one we won't go on anymore.

"Eh bien, c'est là que mes pieds ont tendance à abandonner," Well, this is where my feet tend to give up, I sigh as I stand up, getting ready to walk the rest of the way so that I can take a cold shower.

"Tu es un danseur," You're a dancer, he points out, meaning I should probably be able to use my feet a little bit more than this, but I just shrug. It's not the same ground when you dance on a floor and when you go for an uphill hike. Arthur stops me and leans down in front of me, "Saute, je te porterai," Jump, I'll carry you.

I chuckle at him before walking up behind him and jumping up on his back, "Un tel monsieur," Such a gentleman, I tell him as he begins walking me down the rest of the way. Evie is walking a bit in front of us with Pierre and Charles, they seem to be ganging up on her, making fun of her, because she keeps looking at them with a murderous look. I feel bad for her. They all look back up at Arthur carrying me down and they laugh at him, Pierre taking a photo.

"Send that to me," I yell at him, "Ceci est mon nouvel écran de verrouillage," That's my new lockscreen, I tell Arthur who just laughs tiredly.

Down by the house, we walk around the house to the backyard and collapse on the grass, breathing heavily. I didn't even walk the whole way by myself, but I'm still exhausted. We lay there in silence for a moment before Charles suggest just packing our things and going down to swim in the ocean to cool off. I think about the salt in my hair I'll have to deal with after, but I agree because we don't really have that much else to do.

Evie and I change into bikinis and just throw whatever easy clothes to change in and out of we can find around the room. We get our books, sunblock and towels and bring it all down to meet the boys who are ready to go in their swim trunks and t-shirts. We all get into the car Charles got for his 20th birthday last year by Ferrari, he treats it like his baby, so of course he's the one who drives. Pierre gets into the passenger seat. I think that's totally unfair, but that means that Evie, Arthur and I have to squeeze into the backseat together.

We get to the beach and leave our towels in the sand. While Evie and I put on sunblock, like intellectuals, the boys just run into the water, diving into the waves before their heads pop up above the surface. When we're covered in sunblock and not that likely to get burned, we start to walk into the water, that's a lot colder than the air above it. I struggle as soon as the water reaches my thighs.

I look at the guys further away and I hear them yelling something, probably for us to hurry up, but it's way too cold. Then I see Arthur beginning to swim towards me and I realize that I much rather get in by myself than being pushed by one of the guys. I just close my eyes and dive into the water, feeling the cold water surround me and making me gasp for air as I get up. Arthur laughs at me and splashes me with water even though I got in the water.