His Second Chance Mate

Chapter 8

25th May, 2021

Katie and I parted ways from our roommates, quickly climbing into our respective buses. It was almost noon by the time we left the hotel and got back en route. As we got closer and closer to our destination, my excitement steadily increased.

We still had about 12 hours of driving to go and adding about 3 hours for lunch. At this rate, we’d only be able to get there past midnight. The moon was scheduled to rise at 1942 hours, so around 8-ish, so I knew I had no chance of seeing the temple appear in front of my eyes today, but I wan't that upset. After all, I would see it appear tomorrow. And, tonight, I’d finally be able to step foot into the temple after years of waiting! It was the night before the full moon, so the temple would be nearly fully solid and was safe to enter.

Still, it would be really late by the time we got there and set up the tents. We might not even get a chance to enter! 

I pushed the depressing thought away, deciding to focus on positive things only.

I halfheartedly cursed my travel mates. The night before, we'd settled on a 10 o' clock departure, but it was almost lunch time! I’d woken up a lot earlier than my roommates- courtesy of my parent’s strict timings I wasn't really used to sleeping in, but the rest of them slept like they were dead until 8 in the morning. Even then, they were reluctant to wake up and it was only my insistent annoying that got them out of bed.

After they woke up, it was a different story. It was a five-way fight for the bathroom, something that was hilariously entertaining to watch for the one person that was already showered and dressed. Everyone from our room was ready by 9:45-ish, which I could tell was a record- considering how long it took them to get to dinner last night.

Last night, Katie and I had almost given up on waiting for them and were about to dig in when the four of them stumbled in, each of them blaming the others for the delay. Still, it was one of the best nights I’d ever had. We stuffed ourselves full of different pastas, each of us swiping from each other’s plates. It had been forever since I had a group of girl friends, but they were exactly how I imagined they would be. They refused to let me be shy and pulled me into all their jokes and laughter until I felt like one of them, for real.

Honestly, even if the temple turned out to be nothing special, which it wouldn’t be, I was still happy I’d gone on this trip, if only because I made such amazing new friends.

The restaurant kicked us out a little past midnight, in the nicest way possible. We wandered around, drunk on laughter and only arrived at the hotel after 1 in the morning. I was ready to crash, in preparation for the early morning, but none of them would let me. We sprawled all over the two beds, just talking about everything and nothing, gossiping our hearts out until one by one, we all dropped into a deep sleep of pure exhaustion.

It was the first sleepover I’d ever had, with someone other than just Katie, and it was hands-down the best one too. I regretted not meeting these people earlier in my life, but as they say, better late than never!

We scrambled out of our rooms in a hurry only to see that only a couple of people, other than us, had woken up and gotten ready. Most of our classmates were still snoring away.

We learnt only that morning that only half the students were staying at this hotel, seeing as they were unable to accommodate 120 guests all of a sudden. The other half of the students were at another hotel nearby.  

We figured the situation there was probably the same as it was here and there was no use hoping we'd actually leave on time. Instead, we decided to head down to the hotel's restaurant for the complementary breakfast buffet. We stayed there until it was time to leave, laughing and eating until they'd emptied the buffet.

More and more students slowly wandered into the restaurant towards the end of the buffet, barely snagging something to eat, but there were still a lot of those who hadn’t made an appearance until just before the buses set off. They shuffled onto the buses like half-dead zombies, clearly still half asleep. I wondered how many of them had forgotten something in the hotel rooms. A fair few was my guess.

Our group had leisurely gone back to our room to use the bathroom one last time and to check for anything we’d left behind and then comfortably strolled down to the buses with our luggage. We stood around in a group, chatting comfortably until the drivers started herding everyone onto the buses. Katie and I were settled into our seats with loads of time to spare. It was almost a half an hour later that the now familiar bus engine roared to life.

“Finally!” Katie groaned. “I thought we’d never leave.”

“Me too.” I grinned at her only to receive a glare in return.

“What?” I looked at her cautiously.

“I remember you being awake by the time I fell asleep and you were woke up earlier than the rest of us too. Why do you look more refreshed than I do? What magic are you using?”

I laughed. I hadn't been expecting that. 

“It’s not magic. I’m just such an amazing person on the inside, so it’s obvious on the outside. Unlike some people...” I trailed off, elbowing Katie, who shrieked and tried to tickle me. I caught her hands, successfully fending of her attack, sticking my tongue out at her. I only released her after she tried to headbutt me, both of breaking down into silent laughter.

“Want to watch something?” I asked.

Katie nodded, pulling up her Netflix on her tab. We closed our eyes and swiped randomly, trying to pick a movie until we landed on something we both agreed on. We took one earphone each, getting lost in the movie easily, watching until the tab ran out of charge. I quickly plugged it into the charging plot, but the tab quickly shut down. Since, it was nearly two in the afternoon and we would be stopping for lunch soon, so we didn’t bother restarting the tab. Instead, we fiddled with our phones, sharing funny memes and giggling until the buses rolled to a stop.

We couldn’t get off quickly as we were seated closer to the back. We waited impatiently, almost jumping off the bus in our haste. I really wanted to go to the bathroom, but there was probably a huge line again. I wanted to cry at the thought of standing in line for so long. Maybe going to the restaurant further away would be better? If we hurried, at least we'd be able to avoid the line for the bathroom. Apparently, we only had two hours at this stop, so we had to eat quickly and get moving soon.

“Maaddddyyyyy! Kaaaattiiieeee!” A voice sounded out over the crowd, several heads turning towards the voice. Unashamedly, Dani continued bouncing up and down, waving her arms like a mad woman. We hurried over to her with grins on our faces. Behind her, Shriya seemed to be trying to turn invisible.

As soon as we were within arm's reach, Shriya latched on to my arm, pulling me away from the crowd. Looking back, I saw Dani had Katie in a similar grip.

“She’s so stupidly loud and stupidly confident.” Shriya groaned, with a look of annoyance on her face. She refused to look back at Dani, instead focusing on putting distance between us and them. We were almost running, and let me just say, that was the fastest I'd moved in my life.

I guess being dragged around by a track star does things to your speed. I looked back to see Katie panting as Dani caught up with us. We gave each other a look of understanding at our misery. Neither of us ran anywhere, ever, and that was the way we liked it. 

I mean, who even ran for fun? Other than these two demons apparently. They only slowed down as we reached our destination. Soon enough we entered a Mexican restaurant, heading straight towards the restrooms- which blessedly had no lines.

Dani’s voice sounded from behind.

“Mackenzie had our food stops all planned out. She’s really good at all this planning. But, like, only when it comes to food.”

“I heard that. Besides, you'd be lost without me.”

I waved hi to Mackenzie, still way too winded to even attempt to speak. Katie and I were barely standing upright, still panting at the sudden unexpected workout. My legs felt like jelly, even though all we did was speed walk for a few minutes. I really needed to work on my focus on my fitness if this is how these people walked. 

Mackenzie returned my wave with a smile, glared at Dani before turning to the mirror to work on her eyeliner. Shreya stepped out of a bathroom stall, smiling in greeting. I waved back, still kind of amazed at this camaraderie. Katie and I had been fending for ourselves for most of this trip, so this level of teamwork was kind of surreal. If it were up to us, we’d probably have entered the closest restaurant and spent the entire two hours waiting in line for the bathroom.

“Don’t care if you did.” Dani answered carelessly, whooshing past me into a bathroom stall. There was no crowd in this restaurant. At least, not yet, so only the six of us were in the bathroom.

I slipped into another stall, finally able to relieve myself. By the time I exited, only Dani, Shreya and I were in the bathroom. I looked around curiously but Shreya answered my question before I could even ask.

“They’re ordering. When we said Mackenzie has it all planned out, we weren’t kidding. We figured Katie knew your taste best, so we kicked her out too.”

I nodded, moving forward to wash my hands. Dani was checking her makeup in the mirror. As soon as I finished drying my hands, they linked arms with me and we all marched towards the door together, making me smile to myself in delight.

I felt like I was a kid again, and I knew I was probably getting way too over excited about something as simple as having new friends who stayed and waited for me, but to me, it was a really amazing and novel feeling. Not that Katie wasn’t enough for me or anything. But, truthfully, I hadn’t been a part of a group of friends since grade school and I'd forgotten how it felt. And it was a nice feeling to know that four other people had my back, rather than just one.

I kind of felt like I was being disloyal to Katie, but I also liked these girls too much. Not that anyone of them could take Katie’s place. She was and always would be my best friend. I suppose, this is how she felt about the rest of her friends. Suddenly, I felt kind of bad about getting jealous in the past.

Katie saw us first, waving her hand wildly. I grinned, speeding up to the table and sliding in next to her in the booth. Dani settled in next to me, while Shreya settled in next to her twin. It was almost funny how unalike they looked. I wouldn’t have guessed they were twins if they hadn’t told me.

Mackenzie raised her hand, as if asking for permission to speak. When we gave her our attention, she cleared her throat importantly, making a big show of it, before listing the entire order without stopping for breath.

“Thank you for your attention.” She ended primly, putting her hand down. I stared at her, wide-eyed. Katie had a similar expression. The others broke into laughter at our faces. That was an interesting experience, for lack of a better word.

“You’re okay with spice, right? Katie said you were.” I nodded, still kind of lost for words.

Dani spoke up. “You’ll get used to it. Don’t worry. She’s a bit different when it comes to food. She’s an amazing cook too. I can’t wait to see your faces when you try it.”

I couldn’t contain my excitement. That implied that we’d still be friends after this trip. I was ridiculously happy at the thought. I grinned widely. “I can’t wait!”

Mackenzie really had chosen amazing dishes. We polished off all the food in record time, stopping at the restrooms once more before heading back to the buses. We reached the buses just in time and had no extra time to chat, splitting up and heading to our seats.

The buses started 15 minutes later. I supposed the drivers wanted to get there faster instead of having to drive all night either. They were probably sick of being behind a wheel after almost three days of semi-continuous driving.

Our dinner experience was identical to lunch, and Katie and I were less shocked this time around. Our new friends were waiting for Katie and me to dismount, before whisking us away to another great restaurant Mackenzie had unearthed. There was a small line at the bathroom this time, but we slipped in between Shreya and Mackenzie, finishing up in record time.

Everyone wanted to get there as early as possible, so we didn't have long for dinner. We scarfed down ours, and hurriedly boarded the bus. Several people hadn't gotten the chance to eat and had just gotten it to go instead.

It was past 12 when we got back on the road and according to Google, we still had around 4-5 hours to go. Driving at night was more difficult to. Honestly, I didn’t envy the drivers in the least. The drive must be grueling for them.

Katie dozed off soon after the bus started, but I found myself too wired off to sleep. I halfheartedly flipped through my phone, watching the hours slip by. With each hour, I was getting closer and closer and closer. I watched the miles disappear on Google Maps, until finally, the buses rolled to a stop.

We’d reached our destination.

I’d reached my destination.

Finally.

We were here.