Fight on Fighter

Where It All Started

Thursday, July 30

I tapped my foot impatiently as Father Mixie said the Closing Prayer. Finally, they processed out and I met Nathan, Aria, and Avery at the foot of the steps outside the church.

"I can't wait," Nathan said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

"I know, right!?" Avery replied. I smiled and messed with the straps of my sandals.

"Alright!" Carson shouted. "Everyone needs to go get their luggage from the Borromeo Room!"

Talking with Nathan, Avery, and Aria, we grabbed our bags from the room.

After what felt like hours - but was maybe twenty minutes later - it had been decided (we had no say): Nathan, Carson, Harris, Michael, and Jacob would ride in one car. Avery, Aria, Meghan, and I would ride in the other, with Mrs. Janeen. We climbed into the car: Avery and I in the back, and Meghan and Aria in the front.

Twenty minutes in, Meghan took out her phone and let us read her Snaps. We snickered our way through her breakup messages, giggled through the love messages from the boy that liked her, and laughed at the pictures.

"This would never have happened if the boys were here," I gasped after looking at Meghan kneeling on a porch, with ripped jeans, a hat on backwards, a yellow shirt, and a jacket. Her hands were in a peace sign.

"Y'all want a piece of gum?" Aria asked, pulling out a package of Orbit gum. Avery reached over the top of the seat to grab one. So did Meghan.

"Are we allowed to have them?" I questioned, "I mean, like, with braces?" Avery said thoughtfully, "Well, no, not exactly... but I do anyway," I laughed a little, reminded myself that I was going on vacation, and grabbed a piece of gum.

"Look, there's an Arizona license plate," I pointed out the cactus-decorated license plate.

"And I see an Ohio one," Avery said. For the next half-hour we played license plate bingo, occasionally waving at the boys behind us, who looked like they were singing. Was that Harris' head on Nathan' bag? If he noticed, he didn't show it because he was too busy reading a book.

I remember drifting off during a particularly boring fifteen minutes. And then I woke up and found us on a road, which passes through a small but thickly forested area, until we reached a road that looked over the brown-blue bay.

Finally we reached the beach house: a building two stories tall, with stairs leading up to the door. I groaned inwardly at seeing the amount of stuff we had to carry up.

"I think there's an elevator," Mr. Robert said, and then told us to put all our things on the floor near the island while they looked for the elevator.

"Are y'all going to swim in the bay or just the pool?" I asked as we examined the tiny pool.

"Probably just the pool," Nathan replied.

"Yeah," Avery and Aria said.

"I don't know," Meghan responded. "Have you seen it?"

"It's so tiny!" I exclaimed and reached out to dip my finger in the water. It was lukewarm. I wiped it on my light pink church shirt.

In a few minutes, it became clear that there was no elevator.

"So we have to carry all that stuff upstairs?" I said.

"Great. And of course, my mom overpacked me.," Nathan groaned.

"Your mom overpacked?" I asked, pointing at Aria's suitcase, duffel bag, three or four blankets, and - I wasn't sure if it was hers - another duffel bag.