Climb | ✔

Chapter 9 | Sardines and Suspicious Teens

The girls awoke in the damp tent huddled together like sardines to ward away the terrible cold. Gina had her leg hooked over Daisy, who was sandwiched in the middle, her arm draped limply over Winter's torso before switching up violently and slapping Winter along the side of her head.

"Uhngh!" said Winter. She wiped a small patch of drool from her cheek.

"Sorry," Daisy whined, rolling over to her side. "I feel so sick." The words practically bubbled out of her with a belch.

"Hmm," was all Winter could manage in her state. She blinked herself awake. After a beat of silence, she giggled. "Hear that?"

"Yeah." Daisy smiled, bringing a hand up to stifle her laugh as Gina's snores grew louder and louder.

In the time that lapsed between listening to Gina's snores and finally waking her up, Daisy took on a notably serious expression.

"What's with your face, Daze? You look constipated," Gina yawned, stretching widely and bringing the clump of blankets around her as she sat up.

"Don't steal all the blankets," Winter protested, yanking them back her way.

Gina harrumphed and seized the blankets once again.

"I think Fletcher and I kissed," Daisy confessed between the scuffle.

The tug of war continued for a few more seconds before it dawned on the girls.

"What!?" Winter and Gina yelped in unison. "Explain everything," Gina ordered.

"I can't! I don't really remember. I was too drunk." She covered her blushing face. "But I'm pretty sure we did."

"That's amazing!" Gina hollered.

Daisy was not nearly as excited, Winter noticed. She sympathized with Daisy; she sympathized with the way her black eyes vibrated with her thoughts, from one useless try at recovering her memory, and the mortified expression she wore once she did. What would have been her first kiss was now just an uncertain glaze of drunkenness.

Gina, on the other hand, was over the moon, celebrating on her lonesome in the corner of the tent as she packed. Had she stopped to look at Daisy in all of her excitement, she too would have had the mind to console her. Still keeping with her unintended ignorance, Gina instead popped out of the tent to help Luke wake Louis.

All the while, Daisy sat in place dejectedly and all Winter could manage in that moment was to watch on in silence.

"I'm okay," Daisy said to her, noticing her concern.

"Really?" Winter didn't believe her.

"Really," she whispered. Though, she really didn't believe it herself.

Come Monday, the hangovers from the party had faded, but the stories and drama persisted.

"And Alix went off on him. I swear, if they're still together after all that, it'd be ridiculous," Gina gushed, recounting a couple fight she and Louis witnessed in all their drunken companionship.

"It was wild," Louis confirmed.

As expected, Daisy seemed completely spaced out whenever the topic of the party was brought up. She'd yet to even see Fletcher since that night, let alone talk to him.

"Hey, you good?" Winter asked during art.

Daisy nodded. "Yeah, all good," She said despite being mute for the remainder of class--a characteristic which was ill-suited to her usual bubbliness.