if by chance | ✓

14 | different is beautiful

[ 14 ]

C O R A

✦

The first thing, or rather, person I see when I open my eyes to the blinding morning sun was a chestnut haired girl poring over me with concerned eyes and crinkled forehead.

"Acacia?" I squint, recognizing her face after a minute.

I look around in an instinct for Rhys Crawford. He was still soundly asleep. His remarkable mop of hair was a mess and he looked like a tired kid who had been playing all day in the snow.

"Yeah, we were out for a search and I found you. End of story. " She explains, smiling softly.

"Wh---where are the others?" I ask, yet not fully awake.

I figure that we had survived the snow last night. And it was pretty warm now as I stand up to stretch my legs. My throat was charred and I figured the empty water bottle lazily resting on the bench won't help.

"In the vicinity. We were so worried." She says, sighing.

"Yeah, apparently we were up for some adventure." I say, trying to be funny.

Rhys was awake by now, processing the entire situation with droopy eyes. I find it amusing, how he sat there not speaking even though I was kind of taunting him. It was cute, on a completely unimportant note.

"Eh, true." He mumbles, much to my surprise.

Sure, I had expected him to fight me.

"When we return home, you're grounded." Noah calls out to me as soon as he spots us. His face resembled relief after a long period of extreme anxiety. Twin thing, I muse.

"I'm not in high school." I groan.

"That doesn't matter to mom! You have no idea how scared I was!!" He almost yells, making me flinch.

Even though he was just two and a half minutes older than me, he sure gave the big brother vibes. And I wasn't exactly in the mood to bicker.

"You know what, it was a bad idea to study in-state. I could have accepted the offer Boston was providing solutions readily." I declare angrily before plodding forward. Needless to say, I didn't know where I was going.

"Seems like you really wanna lose yourself again." Rhys comments this time, making me turn around.

"Thanks to you, idiot." I mutter.

"Yo kids, how'd y'all lose yo way?" Mrs. Thurman, who has appeared along with Amber, Riley and Nathaniel, shouts out in her heavily accented voice.

"Uh, that's kind of a long story." Rhys answers.

I wanted to say, it's not a long story, it's just as simple because Rhys decided to intervene my rest period on a rock by starting unnecessary small talk. But it wasn't exactly favorable enough to say that, so I kept my mouth zipped.