We arrive at the air bnb around 8:30. Zach booked us a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment with an amazing view of the ocean. Every room has a breathtaking view. The host made sure to leave the apartment lit for us so that we can see its beauty as we walk through the door.
I walk around looking at the little details in every room. This is a beautiful apartment I wouldn’t mind waking up here every morning. It’s a pity I’m not moving to Durban next year; an apartment like this would be my first choice.
Everything is perfect. From the beautiful kitchen with a huge island, the bedrooms are big and have plenty of storage. And the bathrooms are incredible; they look like something out of a very expensive hotel.
“Do you like it?” Zach asks me when I come back to the kitchen after I toured the place.
“It’s incredible.” I say smiling at him; he did great with picking this place.
“I knew you guys would li
“Good morning.” Golden says to me when I walk into the kitchen. She looks cheerful for someone who didn’t get much sleep. She’s sitting at the island having her breakfast, I didn’t hear her get out of bed this morning.“Moring.” I say sitting on one of the stools.“I ordered breakfast on Uber eats.” She says pointing to the spread on the counter opposite the island. I stand up and look it over. I am starving and the food is still warm. I make myself a plate of food sit back down.“I would ask you how you slept but.” I say and she laughs.“I had the best of my life.” She says making a face and I laugh. My mind drifts to what she said to me last night. My mind is still blown. That was a lot of information and I don’t know what to do with it.“We should go to the beach after this.” I say clearing my mind of thoughts about her virginity. I don&rs
“Are you driving?” I ask Leo as we walk to our assigned UTV.“No, you are.” He says helping me get into the driver’s side.“Cool” I say feeling excited about driving around the sand on the beach. Leo walks around gets in the passenger side. We get ready to leave; we’re the last UTV on the line that are parked and ready to go. I wait for the ones in front of me to load up and drive away. They start moving after a short while and then I set off when it’s my turn. The drive starts slowly at first but eventually we pick up speed.I put my foot down on the accelerator to keep up with the group. I concentrate on navigating the trail, feeling alive. I love this; I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. I’m so glad Zach thought to book this for. I almost went crazy with excitement when he told us we were going to be doing this when we got back to the house this morning.When
11 pmI walk out to the apartment balcony leaving the others in the living room. I want to get one last view of this beautiful ocean at night. The cool breeze touches my skin leaving goose bumps, I really love it here. I take out my phone and take a picture, I want to show it to my parents when I get home. Maybe we can come back some time as a family. I know my mother would love it here, she loves the beach like I do.A text comes in as I take the picture.AmaraHer name is appears on the screen and disappears. My heart sinks at the thought of what she could have sent me in that text. We haven’t spoken in such a long time that it’s hard to believe we were best friends at one point. We went from spending so much time together to not even looking at each other.We’re complete strangers now. I open the text and see a screen shot of a picture from Zach’s instagram. It’s one
“Did I mention I’m terrified of heights?” I say to Leo who is hanging next to me in a harness next to me. Zach had the awesome idea to go parasailing. And let’s just say I’m not excited at all, as a matter of fact I’m terrified. The idea of hanging in the air, the ocean below us and with a boat pulling us at high speed feels like the fasted way to die.Zach was my favorite person this whole weekend but right now he’s number one my got to kill list. When he declared we have one last activity to do today before we have to head back home I didn’t imagine he meant this. He did so well with the UTV tour but this is a miss.“ You did mention it a few times.” Leo says looking at me. He convinced me to do this. I was going to sit this one out but he gave me some speech about avoiding regret and facing my fears; I know now that it was a loud of crap. I can’t believe I fell for it, I’m regretting saying yes.
We get home around 5 pm. We dropped Lana off first and then now Zach and Leo are dropping me off. Leo pulls into my drive way and parks the car. The front door opens and my father walks out. My mother follows shortly after. We get out of the car and greet them, Leo shakes my father’s hand and then he moves to the boot to take out my bags. Zach goes with him and they help each other out.“How was the trip?” My dad asks me but he’s looking at Leo. They walk back to where I’m standing with my parents. I’m nervous about Leo meeting my parents“It was incredible.” Zach and Leo say at the same time.“Good. Well we’re happy you got home safely.” Dad says looking at me but that doesn’t last, his eyes move back to Leo. Why is he acting like this? He usually doesn’t give this much attention to boys I bring around the house. He didn’t give Zach a second the first, second
“How are you this glorious Monday morning?” Zach says walking toward me in the school corridor. He looks so happy, I know he’s an all round happy guy but he looks particularly joyful today. Or maybe I’m the happy one and I’m seeing happiness where there isn’t. I smile at him to show him that I’m having a pretty good morning too.“I’m doing well this morning thank you for asking.” I say and we start walking to homeroom.“Where’s Leo?” He asks noticing he didn’t come in with me this morning.“He texted me...” I start to explain to him when Amara comes walking our way full speed.“Well if it isn’t the fake little Miss Golden and her minion… uhm… what’s your name again?” She says standing in our way. The whole corridor falls silent and they watch what is about to go down. Some of them take out their phones and start to re
I sit at the kitchen island staring at her. I can’t believe she’s here, I look at her trying to figure out if I’m dreaming. Or if I’m dead and this is my hell; all of my demons are haunting me. “I know this is a lot but I was hoping that we could talk. You know try to figure out a way forward.” My mother says moving to sit next on the chair next to me. I look at her my heart in my throat; I wasn’t prepared to see her.I guess I had made peace with the fact that I would never see her again. I had convinced myself that she was dead. How could I think otherwise? She left her three children to fend for themselves without any thought. In my mind no sane, normal and human being would do that their children. She left us alone, three kids under the age of 18. We should be dead; it’s a miracle that we’re all still breathing.“How did you find us?” I ask when my brain starts working
Zach“Where is my brother?” Mina asks looking at me her little face wrinkled with worry. I can’t get over the fear I saw on her face when I showed up to pick them up instead of their brother. She looked like she saw a ghost, my heart broke for her but I’m all she’s got today. When Jon saw her face he started crying, I had to think quickly and calm him down.Mina did a good job of helping me calm him down. She switched so quickly from being worried to comforting Jon. She’s so young but she has such grown up reactions to stressful situations. I get that it’s because of how they are growing up but it’s unfair that they have to go through this. Every kid deserves to be just that, a child.I hate that Leo is hurting this much. I didn’t tell Golden but I saw Leo’s mom leave his apartment when we got there earlier. I recognized her from when we were young, it took everything I not to fre