Derek is walking next to me, his grey t-shirt brushing my hand every time I take a step. I tuck my hair behind my ears and I can sense him looking down at me.
"You ok?" He asks, I nod quickly. Too quickly.
"You totally like him!" Whispers Rose in my ear. I hear Penny scoff and feel Lucy tense up. My cheeks flush and I walk quicker, the girls following.
"I do not like Derek, he's so obviously Lucy's." I mutter. The small alleyway opens up into the main street, and the group rejoins. Lucy insisted that we spend a day together, since we're going to be spending the next month in close confinement 'like little birds'. Her words, not mine.
"So where first?" Asks Jackson, trying to walk up next to Penny. She elbows him and stomps on his foot. We laugh as he cries out overdramatically.
"Violence is never the answer!" He calls out as we walk away from him. Penny turns round, grinning maniacally.
"Tell that to violence," She says. Derek fakes a pained look.
"You have got to work on your comebacks!" He protests. Penny turns to him and I have to keep myself from bursting out laughing at his stupidly fearful expression.
"Would you like some fist with that stupidity?" She asks. Aaron lets out a low whistle and I turn to face him. It's the first noise he's made all morning, and we lock eyes.
"Anyway," Lucy says, attempting to clear the tension, "we are at our first stop. Milkshakes!"
Penny groans, Rose, Jackson and Derek look like excited puppies and Aaron smiles. I find myself half smiling too.
"You should smile more." It's Aaron, whispering so close to my ear. He's so close to me I can hear the steady rhythm of his heart. It's in perfect time with mine. Before I can respond, Derek is in front of us, tugging on the front of my Rolling Stones t-shirt.
"Come on lovebirds, they've got chocolate!" I laugh at this, and Aaron smirks. We walk into the very American shop. It's large, but cosy with red and white leather booths, and bar stools across the counter doubling as a bar. There are a lot of neon signs and, surprisingly, the shop is nearly empty. We take seats on the uncomfortable stools, and order our milkshakes. When I get my medium vanilla with chocolate chips, Derek is already halfway through his large chocolate. I look to my left, where Aaron is playing with his dark, almost black drink. I bump his elbow and he looks up.
"Black, very badass." I say, he smirks and puts his finger in mine, scoops some up and puts it on my forehead.
"Technically, it's just vegan chocolate. Oh, and now, you've got warpaint," he says. I gasp, faking hurt and scoop some of his up, putting it on his nose.
"MILKSHAKE FIGHT!" Derek yells. The obnoxiously pink-haired woman behind the bar starts to protest, but there is already milkshake everywhere.
"Ok, you lot, OUT!" She yells, and we bustle out, laughing like idiots. Penny cracks a smile, and there's milkshake dripping from her forehead. I run to catch up with Derek, who's laughing with Lucy.
"Hey, do you insist on having food fights with everything we drink?" I ask. He smirks at me.
"Firstly, its 'drink fight', and second, it's all part of the job." He winks overdramatically at me, and I cringe.
"Ok, never wink at me again." I say. He laughs and goes back to talking to Lucy.
"Hey," My heart jumps, and I spin around to meet the tanned skin of Aaron. He smirks and I frown at him.
"Why did you do that?" I ask, he smiles.
"I wanted to see if you would try and kill me like Pen, or attack me with a 'surprise hug' like Derek," He says. I laugh a bit, and fall into step beside him, my converse scuffing the pavement.
"How did you get all the milkshake off?" I ask, as I notice he is completely spotless. He winks at me, a lot better than Derek, and does a fake hair flip I wince at.
"You will never know,"
"What's with the hair flip?" I ask, he winks again. I raise my eyebrows.
"For dramatic effect, did it work?" He asks. I nod sarcastically.
"Totally, maybe next time you could make fireworks appear behind you." I say, trying hard not to laugh.
"Maybe I will." Aaron says, and we walk in silence before Lucy dramatically holds up a hand for us to stop.
"Attention little birds," She says.
"Only if you promise never to call us little birds again," protests Penny. Lucy huffs, and crosses her arms.
"I think it's a great name," Says Derek.
"At least someone has great taste," Lucy says pointedly at Penny.
"Anyway, next up is an Escape Room!" She calls out, Pen looks pleased, Derek and Jackson look terrified and Aaron stuffs his hands in his pockets.
"Sweet," he says.
"What's an escape room?" I ask, Derek spins around and stares at me ferociously. I take a step back, with a probably extremely confuse and slightly terrified look on my face.
"Guys, I think it's time to bust out the clingfilm and wrap her up, abandon her in a ditch and bury her." Says Jackson. My eyes widen, I know he's joking, but this is one messed up kid.
"Wow guys, or we could just kindly explain to the poor girl what exactly an escape room is," Offers Rose. I thank her, and Derek looks at me with a serious look on his face.
"An escape room is a fun attraction where you are locked in a room, or series of rooms, and you have to get out." He explains, and I nod, sounds cool.
"Sounds like fun, let's do it," I say. Derek grins and Lucy points toward a large building.
"To the room of escapingness." She says.
"That's not a word," says Penny.
"Oh well,"
-three hours later-
"How much is group therapy?" Asks Jackson. Aaron pulls out his phone.
"Three hundred dollars," He says.
Let's just say, when it comes to escape rooms, you need brains. Which is something none of us have, other than Penny but she seemed to take immense pleasure in standing and watch us be idiots. Not gonna lie, it must have been entertaining. We were like a flock of out of control, arguing geese. Not that geese can argue.
Lucy pulls a silver key from her pocket and opens the door of the hostel, almost falling over as we all bustle inside. Derek flops onto the sofa, covering his face with a pillow. The action makes me laugh as I flop down on the other sofa and pull out my phone. I wince, as a reminder to do the dishes pops up. My mind floats to my mum and I getting soap all over each other whilst washing up. I feel a tear threaten to fall, but I wipe it away angrily.
"Hey, you okay?" Rose's soft voice breaks me out of the trance, and I look up to see her and Penny standing over me, sympathy plastered over their faces. I shove my phone in my pocket and nod, smiling.
They don't buy it, and Penny sits on my legs while Rose sits on the floor.
"Kennedy, we've known you for a month, and in that time you have shown us what an amazing person and friend you are." Rose says, "You didn't deserve what happened, and every day I wish the pain away from you, but we're still here for you."
Penny nods.
"I'm usually one to push away my feelings, especially after seeing what happened to you but you should know that today Lucy didn't do it to get us to know each other because we come here every year. She did it for you, because Derek told her you weren't okay." She says. The words ingrave themselves in me, and I find myself smiling widely at them.
I pull them into a hug, and over Rose's shoulder I can see the others watching us, Derek with a hand over his heart like a proud mum.
"Get in here!" I say, and they all grin before joining the hug.
It really is going to be okay.
==
So, I have realised something here. This story is in fact worse than the original, even though I am trying to be very much clever and think of ways to start weaving in the incredibly complex plot. Until I figure out how to do that, I'm taking chapters from the original and turning them into ones I can use now, but the problem is the original has all these fun fillers from the start so the relationships forming actually MAKE SENSE, but now I've got like one where they don't know each other and then the next they don't and in this one I took for this chapter Kennedy's parents hadn't died and she seemed too happy and in the one before skipped like a month but she wasn't sad and I realise this doesn't make any sense so yeahhhhhh. Anyway, rant over.
Sorryyyy
K byeeeeee.