The Survival

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

I'm sat down next to Sarah. Lucy and Beth are on the seats ahead of ours. I was acquaintance with the fact that this was going to be a long journey and I wish I was feeling tired so I could close my eyes for a while and reduce the hours.

I slump farther into my place and look outside and see what is surrounding me. Even though we are on a road you can see the outline of trees that will most likely be the beginning of woods. I ask myself what could be in there. A completely different world that is for sure, a world called wild nature. The wind stronger and fresher than any other, the wolves howling at the moonlight, the squirrels playing around, the leaves crunching, the magic in that place.

Not that I know, but I've always wanted too. When I was younger I believed that somewhere in the forests and woods there was a portal to another dimension, but not the creepy kind of way, but one that would lead us to a magical place that we humans have no knowledge about.

I begged so many times to my parents to let me go camping, because I was determined to find this mystic paradise, but they never let me.

Now looking at the trees I realize that I don't share the same thoughts that that little me did, so long ago. I don't believe that inside the woods exists some kind of gateway that will take me to a fairy land, but the woods and forests itself are portals to a dimension that we, human beings, still don't understand, a place that we can't control and we don't rule, like the cities. It's habitants being the wild animals there.

One day I will get my chance to go camping. Hopefully.

"I can't feel my butt." I turn my head in Sarah's direction and see here shifting with a frown on her face.

"It's there, I can see it, and you didn't leave it in Belfast." I answer her with a ghost of a smile on my lips.

"Ha Ha, you’re so funny."

"You finally admit it, took you long enough." I totally knew that she was being sarcastic, but hey, I don't care.

"Now seriously talking, I think that I have a cramp on my butt." She is slapping her butt cheeks, on a bus, full of students, where 70% of them are perverts. I don't know her.

"Can that happen? I mean is that possible?"

"Do I look like I know?" She is getting edgy.

Lucy's head appears in the middle of her and Beth's seat to see what caused such agitation on her backseat, she is received with a tense Sarah still slapping her butt. She looks my way and I shrug. Don't even ask.

I decide to call my brother and kill some time since this travel is going to be really tedious. I dial his number and wait. 'Call Me Maybe' by Carly Ray Jepsen receives me and a gasp of laugh escapes my mouth. My big bro is not gay. At all, even though it would be hilarious if he was. Long story short, my big bro does not know how to use his waiting ring or how to change his ringtone, one day he played a prank on me and this was my payback. 'Call Me Maybe' as his waiting ring and 'Baby' from Justin Bieber as his ringtone. A malicious smile appears on my lips while I wait for him to pick up.

"Hey, hey shortcake."

"Hey, dickhead." We are lovely admit it.

"How is my little sister?"

"Good, you? Still haven't burned the house?" He takes around a minute to answer me, and I know that he is remembering the last time I stayed away from home more than three days.

Not funny.

"I'm fine, and I've been ordering pizza and Chinese, I don't want to repeat the same the tragic thing." I hear voices on the background which puts me immediately on alert.

"Who’s there with you?" Please tell me it's not girls, before he answers me I say, "Keep the hoes away from my room."

"C'mon shortcake, it's just Sam and Rick, you know that I don't have money for hoes." He ends his phrase with a heartedly laugh.

"Keep them away from my room also. Last time they were there they decided to take a trip to my underwear drawer."

"Uhh, bad move." No shit...

"Tell them if they come close to it again, I'm going to cut their balls and give them to feed Rex."

Rex is our neighbour's dog, he is fierce, violent and crazy, oh yeah and he chews and rips anything that comes in his way.

"Ouch, jezz girl, you don't know how painful that is." I can imagine my big bro right now with his free hand protecting his balls.

"And you do? Last time I checked you still had your peas." His ego is so going down with this one.

"Hey, they aren’t peas at all, more like baseball balls."

"I don't want details, thank you very much." Ugh.

"Really? And here was I trying to think about something the same size of my coc..."

"You know what, just, shut up."

"Maybe an anaconda may be the same length."

"I gotta go, love you big bro." I make a 'muack' sound like a kiss on the receiver so he can hear and try to finish this chat as quickly as I can. He mimics my kiss and replies with a simple "Bye little sis."

I put my phone in my pocket and readjusted myself on my seat to try and have some sleep. The odds are against me because before I close my eyes, I see a mop of curls ahead of me. Those curls that are in someone's head, which are fixed in someone's shoulders, which belong to a sexy body. That someone is named Nathan.

I look around franticly for something that could hide me. I can pretend that I'm sleeping but I suck at it, I get tense as f**k and stop breathing, which is stupid because I want to give the illusion that I'm sleeping not half dead. My eyes look at Beth and I see her with a magazine, without a second thought I yank it from her hands and hide myself with it covering my face.

I hear Beth reclaiming and Nathan's footsteps getting closer, but I remain frozen. I don't even know why I'm acting like this. Maybe I just don't want to see his ugly face?

Ugly is your ass.

Hey, you shouldn’t insult me, stupid conscience. Wait I'm calling myself stupid, because the conscience is part of myself, so technically I also called my ass ugly and that...

"Hello there." A hoarse voice greats me. Oh f**k, I don't share the same skills as a chameleon. Slowly I let the magazine fall and my eyes connect with his.

"Um, hey?"

"What are you doing?" He has a grin on his face.

"Reading. Isn't that obvious?" I state as natural as I can, he nods with a fake serious face.

"Care if I ask you what you’re reading about?"

I withdraw just a tiny bit from the magazine so my eyes can scan it and the page I'm supposed to be in "Um, the 10 best ways to restrain your hairs in your body to grow?" I'm shocked and I can't hide it, Nathan laughs, and my cheeks start to blush, I look pointedly at Beth, but she does not understand it. Damn you.

Her hands take the magazine away which leaves me completely unprotected from Nathan. "Next time you want my Cosmopolitan ask, don't steel like a cave woman." she says harshly. I see Nathan trying to contain his laugh and at that moment I want to strangle him.

Gaining my courage, I finally speak. "What do you want?"

"I was just thinking that Dylan introduced us, me and Ed. But you didn't. It doesn't seem fair to me." He says slowly enjoying his time.

"Kate, Lucy, Beth and Sarah," I say really fast and pointing at the person whose name belong while I'm spelling it out. "Done."

He gives me a satisfied smile. "Kate."

My heart skips a beat and I can't dismiss the way I like how my name sounds from his lips. Why did he only say my name? I'm sure I said also the girls' names. Didn't I?

"It fits you." He says, "And your last name?" He has his elbow on Sarah's seat which supports the rest of his body, so he doesn't fall, his thumb and forefinger are pinching his lower lip and my eyes lower from his eyes to his mouth. Such a simple movement that makes me so entranced.

"Blair. Kate Blair." I say in a low voice not moving my eyes once from his mouth. I want to believe that I'm looking at his finger, more specifically the one that have a ring on it, but I would only be lying to myself.

His hand leaves his mouth and with it my trance ends. I'm expecting him to turn around and leave but instead he extends his hand to me. Does he expect me to shake it? Nope I'm not doing that. But am I not being rude if I don't? Oh, forget it.

My hand leaves my lap where it was resting just seconds ago and touches his. Sparks fly from my hand to my arm and down my spine. I look at Nathan and I see that he also experienced it but hides it almost promptly.

"Turner." He says so smoothly, "Nathan Turner." He keeps his gaze on me while agonizingly slow lowers his head in the direction of my hand. I can't tear my eyes from his. The green in there not letting me. He presses a single kiss, so soft, so tender, so feather like on the back of my hand, never breaking his gaze from mine. "I'll see you very soon Kate, you can count on it." His lips grazing my hand while speaking. He straightens up and releases the hold on my hand and before leaving me sends me a wink and a smile that takes the air from my lungs to somewhere in China. Making me totally forget the fact that he was super lame with his approach towards me. Trying to seduce me ‘James Bond’ style… seems to have worked though.

I watch him go to his seat and by the corner of his eyes looking at me once before sitting. I can hear the girls bombarding me with questions, which means they saw what happened between Nathan and me. But I can't answer them. At this moment I'm just too absorbed on what occurred to even give a damn of what is taking place around me.