Vacation Blues

Chapter 39- Ice-cream or Cameron?

I had never been fond of the quiet. And to find myself in the quietest of quiets now was driving me insane. It wasn't one of those moments where I could just say anything random and break the ice.

We were all scared. None of us wanted to entertain the possibility of being lost. And yet, if we made one more mistake, that possibility would be a reality.

As Dave drove, I thought about the phone in my hand. What could Cedric's password be? I hoped he had kept it something easy enough for me to guess. After all, this wasn't his credit card or Facebook password that he needed to make sure nobody could guess it. This was just a simple phone password. Hopefully that had been his train of thought before setting the password.

Around fifteen minutes of silence later, I turned around and asked Cameron,

"Any luck?"

He had told me he'd try to guess Sean's password. If it didn't work, then I would have to try my luck with Cedric's.

"Nope." He answered.

His eyebrows were creased in frustration. And when he jabbed in letters, I could see his anger from the way he typed. When another of his tries failed, he groaned and threw the phone on the seat.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Damned thing locked itself again. It has a limit for tries." Cameron replied.

I had forgotten about that feature almost all smartphones had now. Another wave of frustration washed over me.

"You think I should try to guess Cedric's password now?" I suggested.

He simply nodded in reply. I reached out and took his hand in mine, squeezing it supportively. He smiled at me, and my heart sank even further at the sight of that pained smile. It wasn't the usual dazzling one. It was a dull smile, reflecting his mind's state.

Why are people so obsessed with keeping passwords on their phones? I wondered as I thought about Cedric's phone's password.

Cedric had once told me the password of his laptop and that was the only clue I had to try and guess what kind of passwords he kept. His laptop's password had been Gatsby1105, a word from his then favourite book and his birth date.

So my first try was his current favourite TV series, Orange is the New Black. Having not watched the series myself, my knowledge of the show was limited. I knew the name of the main character, and a synopsis of the plot, and that was pretty much all I knew about the series. This limited information wouldn't have been a problem if I had my phone with me. A quick search on Google would have told me all I would have wanted to know about OITNB. But then again, if I had my phone with me, I wouldn't have had to try and guess my brother's phone password.

I took a deep breath and punched in the name PiperChapman. It didn't work.

I sighed. I could keep guessing the password and never get it. The possibilities were endless. But I had to try.

I typed a few more combinations with the words OITNB and Piper, none of them working. Then I tried words related to Fight Club, the book my brother had just finished, and The Passage, the book my brother had just started reading. Again, my limited knowledge on both these books didn't aid my guessing endeavours.

The phone locked itself for five minutes because of so many incorrect tries.

I let out a cry of frustration. This wasn't what I needed right now.

"Blue, relax. Now use this time to think. What could be Cedric's password? You know him. Use that knowledge. Use these five minutes. Relax." Cameron said, calmly.