Falling

Chapter 14: The Wreck of the Storm

"Um...," I began, looking back at Olive, who wasn't looking at me, but straight at Bailey. She smiled and nodded to Bailey, which made Bailey look instantly relieved. I threw a confused glance at Olive, hoping she would get my unspoken message that perhaps I didn't speak girl as well as I thought I did.

"Of COURSE you can hang with us!" Olive replied, sliding over so there was more room on the border of the lake that we were sitting in. Bailey jumped up and down, her smile as wide as if I had just told her I had cast a spell that would make it so she could eat as much candy as she wanted and never get full. She scurried over to the spot that Olive had created for her, and I trudged my way over to the both of them, still confused as to how Olive understood what Bailey had said when she had in fact said nothing.

Shortly after we had arranged ourselves, the boys finally did appear with the sunscreen in their hands, but frowns on their faces.

"What's wrong?" I asked the three of them. Hunter dropped onto his knees and then flopped face first into the sand.

"Itch gta ruen stson" Hunter said, his words greatly muffled due to his position in the sand.

Austin wasn't much help either as all he said was, "What he said," jabbing a finger in Hunter's lounge on the ground, before swiftly copying his position. I turned to the now only capable man still in our group, aka Axel, and questioned,

"Could you interpret what any of that meant?"

He expelled the symphony known as his laughter into the air and replied, "We just got word from our parents that it's gonna rain soon. They advise that we leave now before it gets too intense, but said that they trust us enough to figure out what our next step is going to be. As long as we keep a careful eye on Bailey, we should be okay. I mean, what's a little rain going to do when your already..." with that he shoved me into Olive and forced the both of us into the grimy lake water. Dusting off his hands for a job well done, he finished, "...wet?"

Olive and I shared a look and we each grabbed one of his arms and pulled him into the water with us, Olive going a step farther and dumping a handful of moss covered seaweed the same color of his eye onto his head. Bailey, who thankfully had a waterproof liner inside her cast, yelled Tarzan style and jumped into the lake, her brother catching her in midair before she landed. After her initial shock of not being wet wore off, she quickly started yelling at him to put her down, which he only too happily obliged a mere millisecond later, dropping the surprised Bailey into the lake.

Hunter, forgetting to look sad, slithered his way across the sand until he was almost completely submerged in the pretty shallow water. Austin laid in the sand for another five minutes, most likely expecting one of us to come and grab him, but soon realizing that we were too busy having fun to be bothered by him.

We played in the lake for about an hour, where many things suggesting even further that Austin liked Olive and Axel liked me, including an impromptu chicken fight and quite a long hug after we won. Soon, us girls climbed out of the lake, claiming to want to tan, but we were simply appreciating the subtle abs each of the boys had. Thankfully, our wandering eyes were completely hidden by the sunglasses we had brought with us.

It was a great day.

And then, the first raindrop fell.

We could feel the rain falling but no one wanted to ruin the perfect day and so everyone pretended the water droplets were from the boys splashing and shaking their heads. But as the rain grew harder around us, it was made obvious we wouldn't be able to ignore it for much longer.

Since it was just rain, we decided we could just stay outside anyway, because rain never killed anyone. I wish we had just ran back to our tents by then, but instead we stayed outside, stupidly ignorant of what was to come. And what came you might ask? Well, a whole storm.