forever fades away

chapter 12

Rachel pulled her sleeping bag back from her face, groaning as she tried to sit up. She’d slept horribly the night before, and she had muscles sore that she didn’t even know she had. 

She could hear Maria and Michael arguing and Isabel and Alex trying to run an interference, so she figured everyone else was already awake. She grabbed a hair tie out of her bag, quickly throwing her hair back in a ponytail. 

She crawled over to the opening of the tent, happy when the zipper didn’t get stuck again. 

“Morning.” Isabel said, sounding way to cheerful for Rachel's liking. 

“Yeah, whatever.” rachel grumbled, making her way over to the fire and plopping down on a log next to Alex. She slipped her arm though his, resting her head on his shoulder. “Can we go home yet?” 

“We’re leaving later today. Don’t worry, you won’t have to sleep outside again.” Alex confirms, laughing as rachel throws her head back, and starts yelling. 

“THERE IS A GOD ” rachel yelled, throwing her arms up in victory. “No more having to pee in the woods, and then getting lost on the way back ” 

“Wait, you got lost in the woods?” Maria asked, giving up on helping Michael with breakfast. 

“Yeah, at like three something this morning. I went to go pee, and I kept hearing things and I got lost.” Rachel admited. “I thought I was just being paranoid, hearing things in the woods because I was scared, but I wasn’t just being ridiculous. Finn followed me into the woods and was all creeping around.” 

“What?” Michael also gives up on breakfast, suddenly interested in the story. 

Rachel looked at Michael, Maria, Isabel and Alex, noticing that she had everyone’s undivided attention. “Well, I was walking back, and I heard something. So I stopped, and looked around, didn’t see anything, so I kept going. A few seconds later, I heard something again, and so I stopped, then I felt something touch my shoulder and I started screaming and turned around swinging and I kinda... uhm, punched Finn in the  face.” 

“You punched him in the face? ” Michael balked, but still burst out laughing like everyone else. 

“Well, was he ok?” Alex managed in between fits of laughter. 

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask him. I was pissed, so I came back here and went into my tent right away, haven’t seen him since.” Rachel said, grabbing a soda, popping the top and taking a big drink. She hoped a little caffeine would wake her up and get rid of the groggy feeling she had. “He’s a big boy, I’m sure he’s fine.” Rachel flippantly said, raising her soda can to take another drink. Just as the soda poured into her mouth, she glanced over, seeing Finn coming out of his tent... sporting a huge shiner. She immediately spit her soda out, bringing her hand up to her mouth, sputtering. 

Everyone looked at Rachel in concern, but followed her line of sight. Everyone’s mouth dropped wide open when they caught sight of Finn. He had major bed-head, his hair sticking up in every direction, and his left eye was almost completely purple, and quite swollen. It looked like he’d gotten jumped. 

Finn walked over to the fire pit, dropping down on the log across from Rachel and Alex, glaring at Rachel. Rachel's eyes got really wide. “Ohmigod, I did that?” She asked, finding it unbelievable. She’d never hit anyone before, let alone given someone a black eye. 

“Ya think? ” Finn asked, tilting his head to the side and regarding Rachel  with a squint. 

“I didn’t mean to ” Rachel tried to defend herself.