Godless Girl

Chapter 12

Aurora's POV

My eyes slowly open and I groan as I stretch my legs out. After blinking for a moment, I check my phone and see that my alarm was set to go off in 5 minutes. I take this opportunity to gaze at Hope who is still close to my chest, with her mouth open slightly and her hand gently holding the front of my shirt. Smiling, I give her a soft kiss on the forehead and recall the memories of last night.

Is this real? Did Hope really kiss me? And then tell me she liked me? Surely it was just a dream from me being drunk beforehand. There's simply no possible way that Hope, the number one Catholic girl had feelings for me. No way. But could it be? Just then my alarm begins to ring loudly, causing me to jump and Hope stirs beside me.

She yawns and opens her eyes while I turn off the alarm and look back at her. As her eyes focus on me, she smiles widely and quietly says, "Good morning." My heart does a flip for no reason and I sigh. "Good morning, Hope. Sleep well?" In response she shifts closer to me and whispers, "Very well, I was hugged up to you." and then she kisses my exposed collar bone in front of her.

So it was real, she really did like me. I lift my hand and run my fingers through her messy golden hair, smiling like an idiot at her. "So what do you want to do today? There's no activities scheduled that are required, so we can do pretty much whatever." I say to her. Hope stays silent in thought for a moment and then I hear a loud growl from her stomach, making her giggle, "Maybe we should get breakfast first and figure it out later."

I nod at her and we both get up and begin to change into different clothes. Hope is turned away from me as she pulls her sleeping shirt up and off of her and I look at her smooth back where I see some freckles. "I didn't know you had freckles," I chuckle. She turns her head over her shoulder and blushes pink. "They're just birthmarks actually, I don't have them anywhere else." she shrugs. "And stop staring at me, you perv." For a moment I'm afraid she actually thinks I was a peeping tom, but then she giggles and turns away again.

After we finish changing and pulling on our shoes, we clamber out of the tent and both stretch our arms to the sky. The tent was pretty large, but we still got a little achey inside of it. "Ready to go?" I ask. Hope steps towards me and wraps her hand around the back of my neck, pulling me into a quick kiss. "Now I'm ready," she smiles. "I just wanted to do that before we're in front of everyone and can't."

My heart is yet again doing flips and I take a deep breath. This beautiful girl was going to kill me. I wrap my fingers with hers and we start down the path back to the eating area. We don't talk for a while, but Hope breaks the silence saying, "I'm worried, Aurora." My eyebrows furrow and I look at her as we continue walking. "What are you worried about?" I ask her. She sighs and runs her thumb over my knuckles, making me smile. "I'm worried about my friends. Last time I talked to them we weren't well... on speaking terms." she scoffs and presses her lips into a line.

She stops walking and turns to look into my eyes. "Aurora... I said some sort of mean things to them about you. Not anything about us kissing before, just..." Hope sighs deeply and her eyebrows knit even closer together. "Just some mean words and I said I had only been talking to you out of pity. I'm sorry, Aurora, I really am. I want to tell them I didn't mean it, but I'm a little afraid." Her eyes then turn down and she stares at her feet.

Grasping her chin, I pull her head back up to look at me and I give her a kiss on the cheek. "It's okay, Hope. I forgive you. Plus that's really not that bad, people have said way worse about me and done a lot worse too." I smile at her. "It's really okay." She breathes a deep sigh and smiles back at me. Then we continue to make our way to breakfast, still hand in hand.

When we get close to the eating area, Hope drops my hand and begins nervously playing with her fingers. As we go through the line and then walk to our table, I notice Hope's friends staring at us, most likely wondering why she's sitting with me again. Some of them whisper to each other and shrug in confusion. Hope sits with her back to them and stirs her soggy eggs with a plastic fork. She looks tense and refuses to look anywhere but at her tray.

"Hope," I say quietly. She continues to stir her eggs with her jaw clenched. "Hope." I say again, but louder. Her neck snaps up and she shakes her head. "Sorry, I was just thinking about things," she whispers. "Do you want to talk about it?" I whisper back. Her tensed shoulders drop and she says, "It's just that I can't help but-" "Hey, Aurora." Autumn suddenly appears next to the table and slides onto the bench with me, smiling. "And Hope, I see you're back again."

Hope glares at her and clears her throat. "And you are?" she asks, annoyed. Autumn places one hand on my leg and reaches her other out for Hope to shake it. "I'm Autumn. I'm friends with Aurora." I shift uncomfortably and swallow, looking at her hand on my thigh. Hope doesn't shake her hand, but instead continues to glare at her and looks down to where her hand is resting. I see her fist clench around her fork, slightly bending it.

"Hey, Autumn..." I say, slowly sliding her hand from my leg. She gives me a questioning look and holds the hand I used to move hers. "Are you okay? Have a hangover or anything? Thanks to you, I managed to avoid one." Autumn smiles. Hope continues staring in anger, looking back in forth between us. I cross my legs and try to subtly slide a little farther from her, saying, "Yeah I'm fine, no hangover. I didn't drink nearly as much as you did." I give Autumn a small awkward chuckle.

I take my hand out of hers and pretend I need it to take a sip of my drink. My eyes shift and meet Hope's which look angry. I try to plead at her with my gaze and her eyes soften, her hand letting go of her now completely bent plastic fork. Autumn slides a bit closer and then leans to my ear, whispering, "Are you sure you're okay? You look really uncomfortable. Do you need me to make Hope leave you alone?" I scoff at the irony and shake my head.

"Thanks, but I'm okay. Actually Hope and I were feeling a little sick so we were about to go to the bathroom and leave." I give Autumn a weak, but hopefully convincing smile. "Talk to you later?" Looking at Hope, I start to stand up and then she follows suit. "Oh yeah, sure." Autumn grins back at me. "See you around, Aurora." and then she winks. Quickly I rush to the trash can and dump my tray, with Hope right behind. I motion with my head to the bathrooms and she nods, following me to them.

As soon as we're inside and check that no one else is, Hope breathes out deeply. "God, she pisses me off," she hisses. I smirk and walk over to her slowly, then grab her hands in mine. "Are you jealous?" I whisper. She narrows her eyes at me and purses her lips. "No, she just kept touching you and getting really close when you were obviously uncomfortable," she shifts her weight to her other foot and doesn't look directly at me. "Anyone could see that."

I smirk at her again and raise my eyebrows, nodding. "Whatever you say, Hope."

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Sooo, quadruple update? Couldn't help myself. Hope you guys are enjoying it :)