More Issues In Aruba | ✔️

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

"May I borrow your pen?"

I handed Max my felt-tip pen with a warning look. "This is my favorite pen. You better give it back."

"Okay, Haley, I literally have to write my name on this paper. I swear to you, I'll give it back," He laughed. "You're sitting right here watching me, it's not like I can steal it."

"Because that stopped everyone in high school," I rolled my eyes jokingly.

"Still holding onto that?"

"I will never let it go," I shook my head, giving a moment of silence to the favorite pens I've lost throughout the years.

"Did they ever pinky-swear you?" Max held out his pinky.

"Not since third grade," I laughed, wrapping mine around his.

"Ugh, choke me," Nicole rolled her eyes in her seat next to me. "This is almost as bad as watching Tony feed Bessa."

Both of us turned to Nicole.

"Cynicism works on you, Nicole. It doesn't on most people, but you find a way to make it work," Max joked. "You almost make it attractive."

I snorted at the sight of Nicole pretending to gag. "She owns the word cynical."

"No wonder you're both single," She huffed, staring back down on her phone.

"Who's that?" I eyed her fingers flying across the keyboard on her phone. "Riley?"

Nicole cleared her throat, tilting her phone away from me so that I couldn't see the content of her message. "No. It's actually Steve."

My eyebrows shot up. "Steve? From the art gallery? Geeky Steve?"

"Wow, you're so quick to judge," She narrowed her eyes at me.

I snorted at her. "If I remember correctly, you're the who gave him that nickname."

"Well, whatever. He wants to take me on trip to the Hampton's for a weekend when we come back from Aruba."

"How...romantic," I almost stutter. It was unlike me to associate the word with anything to do with Nicole, but Steve was making it happen.

"Don't insult me. I'm only taking this trip because it's free," She seemed almost offended I would even consider that.

Deep down, I wouldn't be surprised if Nicole was actually internally screaming that a decent guy saw past her bitchiness and found an actual human soul.

I mentally sent my prayers to Steve for embodying the word 'unconditional'.

"Of course you are," I sighed, letting her have this one. I knew better.

Throughout the day, Nicole and Max stayed by me and we attended a few more seminars, that worked more on the technical side of writing - fluid sentences, paragraph lengths, all the tedious stuff we learn in school. While it was important to refresh on the mindless parts of writing that do tend to get a bit sloppy if they weren't practiced consistently, after about the fourth hour, it began to feel like I was back in school rather than retreat.

I could tell the other two were feeling the same because Nicole was focused more on her Instagram feed and I constantly had to nudge Max awake. I tried to focus and set an example by taking notes, but I too, eventually found myself dozing off and daydreaming about the beach.

We were literally acting like a bunch of students.

When the speaker of the current seminar we were at released us for a break, I knew that we wouldn't be coming back. While I appreciated refresher courses like this, I longed for the creative workshops, ones that challenged us to think outside of the box and really delve deep into our range of emotion as writers.