The Ocean

Chapter 19

The next few hours were the worst. After Samantha left me wondering why the hell people would think I liked Ava, Iris came there and saw me. She was kind of cold, I don't know why. She came and sat on the swing on which Samantha had been sitting just a minute ago.

"So you know about Peter?" she asked.

"What about him?" I asked back.

"About him and Serena."

"Yeah," I said, "yeah I know."

"She's an idiot. I don't know what he saw in her." she said, rolling her eyes.

"What? Can't you see? She's wonderful. She is good-looking, she has a beautiful voice, she is kind, and she's understanding. Most of all, she's fun to be with." I said.

"What? I don't get it. What's with everyone liking that weird girl? She's an idiot. That's it."

I got furious and stood up. I looked at Iris and said, "Look, if you don't like her, that's your problem, okay? Just stop messing with me and don't ever badmouth her again."

Iris gave me an angry look and left.

Around an hour later, it was time for the first session and I walked over to the meeting area. It was an open hall, with trees lining every corner. Kids were already here and I took a seat beside Snakey.

"Dude, where the hell were you? I woke up and you weren't in bed." Snakey asked me.

"Uh nothing... I just went for a walk."

Just then, I saw Peter. He was sitting on the table next to mine, and he had a big smile. I felt bad for feeling bad about him being happy, but I couldn't be positive about him dating Serena. I loved her, and I couldn't see her with anyone. Not even my best friend.

Peter was wearing a black t-shirt and jeans. He looked really cheerful. That was when I noticed Serena walk into the gathering place. She too, was wearing a black t-shirt.

Wow. Couple things. What the hell.

It made me want to die. They were wearing matching outfits. They had planned it. Next, I noticed Serena wearing a necklace. It had half a heart and the words 'LO,' and I didn't take a second to guess who had the other half. I looked at Peter and he had the 'VE' necklace. I wanted to just go away from this shit. I couldn't stand it.

The first session was quite a nice one. They taught us stuff in German. After 2-3 more sessions, we had lunch break at 1 AM. I had only Snakey with me right now, cuz Peter was too busy ignoring me. I don't know why. But anyway, I didn't even want to see him. It was a self-service thing there. We took the plates and got the food. We then got seated at a table on the corner near the lunch hall entry. We just started eating when I heard a familiar voice call out to me.

"Damn it, Ray! You're here too?"

I turned around and saw a girl. She had spects and she was a little taller than me. I recognised her right away.

"I could say the same thing, Arya!" I said and gestured her to sit next to us.

Arya was my senior. She was one year older and she was a pretty nice girl. I have no idea how we got into contact first, but it doesn't matter. She was a good friend and was into books, just like me. At that time, I had been trying to write a story, which was supposed to be a big novel, and I had once asked her to read it and give me some suggestions.

I could see 2 other girls with Arya and I think I knew one of them already. She looked cheerful. Arya and those two got seated next to us and I turned to the familiar girl.

"If I'm not wrong, you're Sydney, right?" I asked her.

"Yep, you got that right. And you're Ray. You won the JSS thing last year." she said.

The other girl introduced herself as Sierra, and she was quite nice too. We all got along pretty well. All this while, I sort of forgot about Serena and felt relieved. I was happy to have finally found more people to hang out with.