Playing with Fire

22

"Wake up guys!" Toboni shook my shoulder.

I wake up and I realise my head is no longer on Adam's chest but on his legs. He is on the floor as well, sleeping peacefully.

I rub my eyes and stretch my muscles but I groan as I keep stretching. 

Toboni grabs my hand and pulls me up from the earth and she drags Adam up as well.

"I can see you two have a strong relationship going on..." Toboni smiles.

"What are you talking about?!" I ask nervously as I realise that question makes me tense up.

"You love him, don't you?"

I hesitate.

(So that was the feeling I felt last night. I love him.)

Colour rushes to my face and I just before I notice, Toboni blurts out "YOU'RE BLUSHING YOU'RE BLUSHING!!!"

"N-N- NO I'M NOT!" I yell back at her with embarrassment. 

She raises an eyebrow at me and folds her arms. "Really? Then why were you letting him stroke your hair last night and letting him embrace you in his arms?"

He hugged me?

"He might of tried to... Um... He liked my hair." I lie.

She sighs and shakes her head. "You like him."

I look back at Adam who seems wide-awake even though he had just woken up and he stares back at me, smiles and grabs my bag, passes it to me and begins to head off along the forest.

I sling the strap around my shoulder and I run after him.

Toboni rolls her eyes and walks alongside us.

"Adam, do you have feelings for Lawrence?" Toboni asks.

He is completely silent and would not answer me.

I walk by Adam's side and I keep seeing him looking down at me then back up at the road ahead of us.

"Why do you keep looking at me?" I ask him eventually.

He just smiles at me in response. "I don't wanna say." 

Boy I wish I had Daniel's power...

Toboni peers over our shoulders as we delve further and further and further into the forest and so far, I haven't set fire to anything-

Yet.

"I sure do wish that Jeanine wouldn't have existed," Toboni says out of the blue.

I shrug my shoulders and I stuff my hands in my pockets as we continue to walk. 

For once, it's actually peaceful-

For once.

"I mean, we wouldn't be in this state otherwise-"

"What about our bonding? If Jeanine didn't exist, we wouldn't have met each other." I interrupt Toboni before she says anything else. "Like, Adam wouldn't have actually worked behind the bar, you would be writing books and..."

What would I actually be doing if she didn't exist?

"I would be with Nat." I feel my chin crumple and my eyes fill with water but I ignore it.

Adam looks down at me, frowning with empathy and I see his arm twitches and puts it back down and focuses on the road once more.

I honestly do not know why Adam is doing this to me now. He wasn't like this before I was with the rest of the group...

I think Toboni's right-

I love him.

But I don't know whether I do.

I'll see.

"Hey look!" Toboni says pointing ahead of us. We look ahead and we see another town to our right, hiding behind trees, down a road which is down another hill.

"How many hills do we need to go down?" I ask.

No one answers.

"Excuse me, I giving you all an asking!" I tell them but I think they're both engulfed into the sight and in true fairness, I don't blame them.

The buildings are made of wood, a river boarders it so they can fish - I believe - and crops around it. People are scattered around the river with sticks in their hands, some smaller ones with their arms out, running like they were soaring through the skies like a bird, some are holding hands down the concrete which separates the houses.

This is the ideal town.

I grab my map and I see the words which are scrawled upon it. 

R... Ran... ch.

"Ranch," I read with difficulty. "Ranch. We're at Ranch. We're near Brockelsby!" I then think of my mother.

Will she have brown hair like me? 

What about the hazel eyes? 

Will she look like me?

"We just need to walk through the town and follow that path," Adam says.

We walk down the path and we enter Ranch.