Seven (Completed)

CHAPTER 12 ~ The lake

The air felt warmer close to the water, the insects were louder too.  As Anne's bare feet touched the first slippery pebbles at the lake's edge, she instantly froze but overcame her hesitation and moved deeper into the refreshing water. Her sweatpants were rolled up, just over her bony knees that were shivering from the cold.

'Are you sure this is a good idea?' Lucas asked from the distance but she chose to move even quicker. When the water had reached up to her knees and had relieved her aching feet, Anne stopped to enjoy the peace of the moment.  The ripples of water she was creating all along had now stopped moving and the lake's surface seemed like an immense piece of magnifying glass.

 Anne smiled at the sight of her blurry reflection, created right next to her feet. She looked tired, sick almost but her smile would not fade away. She washed her face to remove the tension and she only left the water when her mind was finally quiet and her body warmer than ever before.

When she returned to the tall grass, she hastily put her shoes back on, not bothering to roll her sweatpants back down and she reached her co-travellers' side.

'Did you enjoy yourself?' Carlos asked with his usual childish curiosity.

'Yeah, actually. The water was just so welcoming, so serene ... I couldn't help it,' she answered, in kind of an apologising way.

'So,' Lucas said, 'I don't want to make any decisions alone so, how about we spent the night around here?' he proposed. 'There's clean water, some trees and we can find food should we search patiently.'

Everyone agreed, as he had hoped, and the boys decided to go search for anything edible while the girls washed themselves inside the lake.

'Nah, I think we should stick around for now and go look for food later.' Victor suggested with a sly smirk as he looked over to Felicity who was testing the water with the tips of her toes.

'I think the girls would appreciate a little privacy,' Lucas said, almost blushing.

'In other words, you pervert, we should get going,' Pierre jumped in the conversation and threw Victor's backpack on his open arms. He unwillingly put it on, returned the wolfish stare to Pierre and followed the rest of the boys into the forest.

***

'I can't believe Victor actually said that,' Sonia said and Anne shook her head in disappointment.

'Said what?' Felicity asked as she approached them. 'The water is fine by the way.'

'He wanted to stay here and watch as we bathed!' Sonia replied in fury.

'Well, I doubt he'd want to watch you,' Felicity remarked bitterly while flicking a strand of straight hair behind her shoulder. Sonia could not see her face but she easily imagined an arrogant smirk was formed across her lips.

Sonia chose not to fight over some hideous, egotistic boy so she rushed to remove her clothes behind the tall, brown grass and plunged into the cold water. As she moved slowly, her body felt warmer and warmer and at one point she managed to block Felicity's loud complaining out of her mind.

The water was as serene and liberating as Anne had described. A few minutes inside it seemed to be enough to relieve even the last bit of tension on her body. She took a deep breath and dived under the clear water. Her hair felt heavier for a second but silky and light after a while. As she took her head out, water was dripping from the end of her chin and the hairs of her eyebrows to her eyes but Sonia did not mind.

It had been a long time since she had felt like she belonged somewhere. And at that moment, Sonia could swear that she would rather drown at that very spot than have to face the troublesome world she lived in again.