Heartstopper Future

Chapter 36: Kayaking

Date: Friday 9th August 2024

Nick’s POV

It’s the twins birthday today, so I get woken up at the crack of dawn by them running into our room and jumping on the bed. I sit up quickly, to make sure they don't jump on Charlie, as it looked like they were about to.

Charlie began stirring though, and slowly sat up and subconsciously went into the draw beside the bed, and got some ginger biscuits out.

“That’s not fair! How come you get biscuits before breakfast and we don't.” Tilly argued.

“Because I'm a grown up, but for a special treat you can have one each, ok?” Charlie responds, before passing them each a biscuit.

After everyone’s eaten their biscuits, we go into the living room, to find everyone else already sat on the sofa, clearly waiting for us.

We quickly find a place to sit, so the twins can start opening their presents, which have been laid out for them, in two distinct piles.

Somehow, it takes them almost 2 hours to open them all, but once they’ve finished we all go into the kitchen for breakfast, which Uncle Rich has been preparing for the last half an hour.

As we enter the kitchen, we see a huge buffet of food, which we all begin helping ourselves to.

There are pancakes, sausages, bacon, eggs in various different forms, toast, baked beans, roasted tomatoes, as well as pots of tea and coffee and a lot more. We let everyone else get their food first, so when it was our turn, there was less pressure on Charlie. 

He ended up getting a cup of tea, a spoonful of beans, a piece of toast, (for beans on toast) scrambled eggs, a rasher of bacon, and 1 tomato. I'm proud of him for getting such a big variety, even if it is still in small portions – although it is a lot more than he would usually have. I then quickly get some of everything, and we join everyone at the table.

After we all finish our hearty breakfast, everyone except Charlie goes and gets changed into some swim stuff, as we agreed to go in the pool as we had some time to kill before we go kayaking.

Charlie’s POV

While everyone else was in the pool, I had a little doze on a sun lounger for about half an hour. However, when I woke up David was lying in the sun lounger next to me sunbathing. Not going to lie – it was kind of awkward.

“Hello Charlie.” He says, suddenly, kind of making me jump.

“Hi,” I say awkwardly back to him, unsure where this is going.

“How are you today?”

“I’m fine thank you. Um … how are you?”

“I'm fine. Are you … excited … about later?”

“Um, I guess,” I reply, dying from the awkwardness of it all. “David, what’s this all about? Why are you being … nice to me?”

“Um, I guess I want to make things right with Nick. And I guess you. I haven’t been very nice to you over these past few years, in fact I’ve been horrible, and I just want to prove to people that I’ve changed.”

“Yes, but why now? You’ve had plenty of time in the past to make things right. And for all I know, you could have left it a lot longer than you already have.”

“If you must know, I met someone.”

“What does that have to do with everything?”

“Well, to begin with I thought she was just a normal girl. We met online, went on a date, and then continued seeing each other. Only, on the 6th date she told me she’s trans and I freaked out. Like properly freaked out. So we argued, and didn’t see each other for a week. After the week had passed, she came to mine and issued me an ultimatum. I either accepted and embraced who she was as well as the rest of the community, or I never got to see her again. I guess the week apart that her identity didn’t matter to me, I still cared about her. I still loved her. So, I obviously chose to accept her, and on that day I promised to myself that I would make amends with you and Nick.”

“So that’s what this is all about, some girl.”

“That’s not what I mean. She was the reason I reflected on my behaviour towards you and Nick, and well everyone. I'm not apologising just so I can continue seeing her, I'm apologising because she made me realise what I did was wrong.”

“Have you told anyone about her?”

“Not yet, I'm planning on doing it. When the time is right. Can you not tell anyone? It’s not that I'm ashamed or anything, I just want to make sure it will definitely work out before everyone finds out.”

“Ok, but you have to keep proving that what your saying is true, and not some made up bullshit.”

“Deal.”

At that point Nick came over, as he must have seen us talking and gotten worried. I assured him that there was nothing to worry about, and he went inside to go have a shower and get changed.

When he came back, everyone else was starting to come out as well, as it was almost lunch time, so while they were all showering and changing, Nick, David and I went into the kitchen and made our lunch, so everyone else would have the space they needed to make theirs.

After everyone had finished their lunch, and tidied away, there was still an hour before we had to leave, so we all went out and had an ice cream or ice lolly pool side.

I opted for the ice lolly, but, hey, at least I still had something. That’s at least progress.

After, we then began a mad rush to get everything ready so we could be there on time, and we ended up leaving a couple of minutes late, although, due to lack of traffic, we still made it there on time.

We then got kitted out with everything needed, eg helmet, head torch, life jacket etc before being allocated a kayak, carrying them to the water, getting in and starting paddling. As we were such a large group, we had an instructor to ourselves which meant we were off rather quickly and soon came across the caves we were going in. 

The caves were amazing, and it was like nowhere you had ever been before. Unfortunately, time flies when your having fun, so before we knew it, we only had half an hour left so we had to paddle back to the mainland.

Once we had put everything that belonged to the company away, and collected our stuff, we went to the restaurant next door for dinner.

After dinner, we went back to the villa and played one of the games the twins had received that morning, before retiring to bed, after a long day.