Brook’s POV:
Hard lips pressed against mine and I closed my eyes as his hands caged my hips and he pulled me closer to his chest.
I kissed him back, my hands resting on his chest, to stop my breasts crushing up against him and told myself to get Jack out of my head.
I was thankful when Rick pulled back and smiled down at me, “I love you,” he said as he brushed a piece of my hair back behind me ear.
“And you,” I smiled, not able to actually say those three words to him anymore.
“Have a good trip and I’ll see you tomorrow night, hopefully,” he said now and I smiled, nodding with fake enthusiasm.
“Ok,” I said as I picked my backpack up off the floor and headed over to the coach.
“Bye, baby!” he called and I turned and waved before getting onto the coach.
I hadn’t slept much last night, tossing and turning with images of Jack and Katie in my head. I’d been up by six, packing, showered and eaten breakfast by eight and left with my mum and Jack an hour later.
It was now nearly ten in the morning and the coach was due to leave in five minutes. Jack had said bye to my mum and then vanished and I hadn’t seen him since.
Now, I scanned the seats and seen he wasn’t on the coach yet. He’s probably with her, my mind murmured and I mentally shook my head to clear away the thought. It was none of my business who he dated!
“Brook!” Larissa shouted, standing up, “come sit here,” she beamed. Getting to my seat was easier said than done. Everyone seemed to be debating where to sit, or standing in the small walkway talking to each other.
It took me all over two minutes to get from one end of the coach to the other!
“Hey,” I smiled as I sat down next to Larissa. She was nearly bouncing in her seat.
“Hey. I’m so excited, I’m going camping,” she laughed her face lighting up with an eagerness I hadn’t seen since we were little and she used to get excited every time she seen the Ice Cream Man.
Laughing I shook my head, “Calm down or you’re going to piss yourself,” I teased.
“Oh my god, I can’t believe you remember that!” she cried in fake horror, covering her face she grinned a second later, “I was really excited that day,” she said in self defence.
“Yeah, I know,” I laughed, “you got so excited about the Ice Cream Man, you pissed yourself,” I grinned.
“It was a hot day!” she cried out, laughing so hard, tears streamed down her face.
“Yeah, sure, make up some lame excuse why don’t you,” I said now, smiling brightly at the easy joy of laughing with my best friend and letting all those other thoughts drift away.
“Yeah, I will. Thank you very much,” she said now, pulling her tongue at me, “and if I remember correctly, I wasn’t the one who throw up all over that hot guy two years back,” she said now and I gasped.
“That was an accident, I was ill, I had food poisoning,” I said now and she just shook her head.
“Yeah, yeah, make any lame excuse up, why don’t you,” she shot back and I laughed, I couldn’t help it, I rolled my eyes and shook my head and then, I froze.
The smile slipping from my lips as I watched Jack walking down the aisle of the coach, holding Katie’s hand and pulling her along behind him.
“And I also remember the time you...” Larissa was saying, oblivious to the fact I was unable to move.
His eyes met mine as he passed and something flashed across them, but it was gone again before I could get a grasp on what it was.
He took a seat to rows down to the left, while Larissa and I sat to the right; it was as if he was deliberately taunting me.
“Are you listening?” Larissa said now and I looked at her.
“No, sorry, I zoned out,” I said now and she rolled her eyes, repeating the question. I answered her, but suddenly, I didn’t feel like talking, I didn’t feel like laughing. In fact, the only think I wanted to do, was get up out of my seat, grab a fist full of Katie’s hair and throw the bitch off the coach, of course, I couldn’t do that, so I sat for the next hour and a half, resisting the urge to turn and look behind me.
All the while, listening to Katie flirt with the man who held my heart in his hands, a heart he was slowly crushing the life out of.
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I’d had enough; I was minutes away from attacking the little bitch.
Larissa was asleep, she always had a bad habit of falling asleep when she was travelling and this was no exception, excited or not.
Suddenly, I can’t take it any longer and I look over my shoulder.
Katie is leaning into him, her hand on his chest, her face tilted up as she smiled at him, but none of that really registers, because my eyes are drawn to the one thing that finally breaks me; Jack’s looking down at her, nodding as she says something, his fingers playing with a lose strand of her hair. Such an innocent, unthinkable action and yet, it hurt me more than anything else he had done.
I ripped my gaze from them and I was suddenly glad Larissa was asleep as my eyes filled with tears, but I didn’t shed them, I wouldn’t cry anymore for him.
If he was happy with Katie, then I’d let him be, he’d made his choice and he hadn’t chosen me.
Larissa shook me violently and my eyes flashed open.
“What?” I asked blinking the sleep from my eyes as I tried to regain my focus, though with it brought all the memories from earlier flooding back. I didn’t have the urge to look behind me anymore; I didn’t want to see him playing with her hair again.
“We’re here,” Larissa grinned, “Come on, let’s get off,” she shoved and I nodded.
Grabbing my backpack, I got out of my seat and waiting for Larissa to follow.
“Mr Rochdale said there was going to be something of a hike to the tents, but that the tents were already set up for us,” Larissa gushed as we left the coach.
“Cool,” I muttered, as I breathed in the fresh air, the scent mixed with that of pine.
“Hey, you two!” Cole called as he, Kristy and Jane came over to us.
“Hey, you guys survived the trip here then,” Larissa grinned. They had come in a different coach, late comers.
“Just about,” Kristy smiled.
“Have you seen, Jack?” Cole asked now, looking around.
“Here,” Jack said as he came towards us, his arm around Katie’s shoulders.
“Hey, man, you good?” Cole muttered.
“Yeah, I’m good, you?” Jack asked.
My attention was drawn to Katie. It wasn’t that no one liked her, because most of the guys really did, but Katie was, in the nicest way possible, a whore.
She had probably slept with the whole school by now and after Keith, Jane’s ex boyfriend, whom Katie had slept with behind Jane’s back, our group didn’t like her.
So the fact Jack had even brought her over here was an insult all in itself.
“Hey, guys,” Katie chirped as she looked at Larissa, Jane, Kristy and me.
“I-I’m just going to find the bathroom before we head up to camp,” Jane said suddenly and she was gone before anyone could stop her.
“Wonder what got her knickers in a twist,” Katie laughed, as the two guys continued to talk a little distance away.
“Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea,” Kristy said now, which was so unlike Kristy, who was always nagging Jane for being too confrontational.
“Kristy, why don’t you go see if Jane is ok,” I advised now, seeing a bitch fight happening between the two of them before it had even begun.
Though they fought like cat and mouse most of the time, Jane and Kristy where best friends, just like Larissa and me. They looked out for each other, stuck up for each other, and slapped each other silly.
“Yeah, I think I will,” she muttered now, before turning and heading off in the direction Jane had headed.
“Is she still holding that grudge against me after all this time?” Katie asked now, a bitchy smile on her lips.
“You slept with her boyfriend,” Larissa snapped now and Katie held up her hands in a mock show of surrender.
“I did her a favour, he was really bad in bed,” Katie smiled.
I grabbed Larissa’s arm when she would have lunged at the bitch and held her back.
As much as I wanted to see Katie getting her ass kicked, I wasn’t about to let my best friend get into trouble because of it.
“Jack,” I said now and he and Cole broke their conversation to look at me.
“Yeah,” he asked moving towards us. Katie immediately took his hand and I refused to allow that to hurt me.
“Take your skank away from my friends before she makes another dumb ass comment and I let Larissa kick the shit out of her skinny fucking ass,” I all but snarled.
He seemed to freeze, momentarily shocked at my words, before he grabbed Katie’s arm and pulled her away.
“Did you hear what she just called me?” Katie gasped, “Are you going to let her speak to me like that?”
If Jack replied, I didn’t hear him and taking a deep breath, I turned my back on them and looked at Larissa and Cole, who still stood staring at me.
“What?” I snapped.
“You are scary when you’re angry,” Cole muttered and Larissa nodded in silent agreement.
“Then don’t get me angry and you’ll never have to see me like that,” I offered and Cole burst out laughing.
“I like this side of you, where have you been hiding all these years?”
Jane and Kristy came back a few minutes later and Cole and Larissa were only too happy to replay the whole thing for them.
We hung around for a few more minutes just talking and laughing, before Mr Rochdale and Ms Bryan’s called for us to get ready to hike to our camp.
And so, the hike began.
I seen Katie and Jack near the back of the group, but they didn’t rejoin our group and I was glad. I don’t think I would have been able to stay and pretend everything was fine if they had.
I just hoped they kept their distance.
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