"I won't let you die"
"I don't think that's how it works"
Natalie Parker and Zachary Mitchell were best friends. Upon first meeting them, you would think they hated each other with how much they argued. And they did hate each other at first but now...
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People talk about 'mixed feelings' like it's an exception, but for Natalie, it's the norm. She was scared to try and scared not to. There were days she felt so drained from trying to impress Zach, she failed to put her own needs first. Her happiness, for the longest time, had been tinged with sadness for what she wanted so desperately. A want she was beginning to realise would never be obtained.
Could she live a life always caught between feelings so antagonistic to one another? It was a question Natalie asked herself as she stared at Zach, whose full attention was on his phone.
"Lift me up. I can't see!" Gray's pleading with his brother finally pulled Natalie away from her thoughts. Gray was on his toes, trying to peek over the other kids to get a look at the baby dinosaurs.
"I'm not Dad. And you're not five." Zach chided, not taking his attention away from his phone as he carried on tapping away.
"I can still ride the Triceratops. I'm 47-and-a-half inches." Gray argued.
"How about we go do something else? Something we'd all enjoy?" Natalie offered, interrupting the bickering brothers and finally drawing their attention to her, "Don't know if you noticed, Gray, but not all of us can ride the dinosaurs with you." Gray's laughter gave away Natalie subtle attempt to point at Zach and making a rounding movement in front of her belly. If it wasn't for her quick reflexes, she would have received a hand to the back of her head.
"Yeah, okay." Gray nodded in agreement, pursing his lips to hide his grin from Zach, "Wanna go on the spinning dinosaur eggs?"
"Yeah, that's not what Natalie meant," Zach's eyes zeroed in on Gray's brown fanny pack laced through the loops of his shorts, "Cover up your dork pouch."
"It's not a 'dork pouch', it's a survival kit," Gray retorted, gripping the fanny pack protectively.
"Really? Because it looks a lot like a dork pouch,"
Natalie huffed with annoyance as the boys continued to bicker. She knew way before coming on this trip that the two boys tended to argue a lot but over the past few months, the fights have become incessant. It annoyed Natalie greatly, especially because Zach was almost always the initiator. A part of her, however, understood why he was like this. No matter what she tried to do to cheer him up, there was always underlying anger because of his parents and there approaching separation.
"Because it's my wedding... No, Alec's not having a bachelor party... Because all his friends are animals."
Natalie's eyes were drawn to Claire's personal assistant. The dark-haired woman was standing a few feet away, her back turned to the small group as she argued with whoever she was speaking to on the phone. Natalie remembered when her cousin got married last year - when a soon-to-be bride is on the topic of their wedding there is no pulling them away from it.
"Hey," Natalie whispered as she turned back to the boys, one hand shaking Gray's shoulder and the other tugging Zach's sleeve. "Let's go," she nodded her head towards Zara.
