Pinn - Memories

Chapter 41

Saturday

Piper's POV

5 short-sleeved shirts? Check. 5 long-sleeved shirts? Check.

Dance clothes? Of course! Check!

2 pears of jeans – check. Trackies – yep, got them.

Shorts? Yeah, I'll pack a pair. I grab my best pair from my cupboard and carefully place it on top of my pants pile.

Ooh – I should take something smart-casual in case we go out on the last night. After 20 minutes of deliberation, I choose a skirt, pair of sandals and a matching blouse.

Undergarments – check. Socks, 3 pairs of shoes... yes I've got all of them.

Ug boots and an oodie for when Amy and I chill in our hotel room.... Oh wait, there's no way an oodie will fit in my suitcase with everything else, no matter how big my luggage space is.

I rummage through my toiletry bag to make sure I have everything, and set a morning alarm to double check that every item in the bag that I have to take out to use from now until I leave returns to where it is right now.

I scroll down my checklist on the notes app to see what else I need.

o Plastic bags for dirty clothes

o A book

o Pillowcase

o Jacket

o Earpods

o Phone charger

o Wallet

After two minutes, my everything on my list is crossed off.

Wait. I should pack an umbrella.

I grab my red and black spotty one and return to my backpack when I halt.

Wait. I'm going to be indoors pretty much the entire week. That's stupid.

After 10 minutes of dwelling on the ramifications of the extra weight of packing an umbrella vs the risk of being outside and not having one, I decide to pack it just in case.

Ok. That's everything.

Should I take my journal? I haven't written in it in a while.

I head to my drawers and open the second one. I take out the lined book with its beetroot red cover and scan through the first few pages full of my deepest thoughts. Emma once told me that I should start writing out all my worries, as a way to filter them out of my mind and let go.

On second thoughts, maybe it wouldn't be such a good idea to take it. I don't want anybody stumbling across it accidentally.

I clasp my hand onto the draw's knob to close it, when something catches my attention. My sketchpad. I dig it out and flick to my latest drawing and grin at the memory I drew. It's the one I started when Finn came to my house. The day I told him about my anxiety.

I never finished it. Maybe I'll have some free time in-between nationals rehearsals to do so. It would be nice to be able to get some alone time at nationals and just focus on sketching for a while, instead of the pressures of the competition.

I gather some pencils and a sharpener, placing them in a thin pastel pink pencil case. I spend a good two minutes struggling to fit the notebook and pencil case into my already full backpack, before giving up and tipping thee bag up-side down so I can pack it better. Eventually, I'm able to fit in everything without the book getting bent, including the pencil case, the umbrella, my The Fault in our Stars paperback, my phone charger, earpods, hand sanitizer, a water bottle for nationals (which is currently empty as I know that bottles full of water aren't allowed on a plane), and the sketchbook itself. In the front pocket are bandaids, toothpicks, mints, and a bunch of things that I probably won't use at all but are solely there for comfort in case of worst-case-scenarios.