Halftime

chapter 24

We'd been at the lake house for almost a week now, and sadly, we were headed back to New York city this afternoon.

I could have stayed here forever, but Jenny and Clarence were lending it to the friends that they'd had to organise flowers for their wedding. They were coming up tomorrow for their honeymoon which meant we had to clean and be out of the house by then.

As a group we spent the full morning cleaning, throwing out empty alcohol bottles, vacuuming and wiping down tables. Zack and Ophelia were tasked with buying air freshener to get the smell of marijuana out the house since those two had been the one to stink the house up the most.

Me and Hayden went around to each room, stripping linen off beds, putting them in the washing machine and then putting them back on. Even then, doing boring house chores I was still smiling. In fact, my smile hadn't been wiped from my face basically since we got here.

I was beyond happy. I'd managed to make new friends, date someone I genuinely liked and someone that liked me back.

We still hadn't gone the full mile, sexually speaking, but neither of us minded. We liked the pace we were going at, and for me especially, it helped with my previous fears. He made me feel safe and like I always had the option to say stop and he would.

And knowing and realising that made me think of how gross it is that I was made to feel like saying no wasn't an option. Or that other people felt that it wasn't an option.

I spent the past few days either in the pool, tanning, or in bed with Hayden. The weather had been nice for the whole time we were here and I'd managed to go from my usual pale skin to a slightly more tan colour. The sun had also made my freckles come out more, and now the usual dusting of them across my nose and cheeks were clear as day.

The sun had also made parts of my hair go a little lighter, adding some dark brown to my usually black coloured hair. Hayden seemed to enjoy my sun kissed face, with my freckles standing out, and took countless photos of me.

I spied his phone once seeing that he'd changed his background to a photo he'd taken of me. I was sitting on a lounge chair wearing one of his shirts. My hair was hanging around my shoulder, wet and slightly wavy from the pool water. My cheeks were slightly burnt and the freckles on my face more prominent than ever. I was laughing at something someone had said when Hayden snapped the photo.

I looked happy. And I was.

Seeing my photo as Hayden's lock screen definitely helped. It pulled on my heartstrings. And I secretly changed my background too. It was a photo of me and Hayden. Harley had taken it when we weren't looking. It was a picture of me hugging Hayden, my chin resting on his chest as I grinned up at him. He was looking back down at me, smirking and probably saying something about how I was staring.

It was my favourite photo.

Finally, after spending most of the day cleaning, we got into the cars and started the drive home. It made me sad to leave but the thought of hopefully coming back next year made it all the more better.

We stopped for dinner on the way back, getting burritos and eating them in the car, before continuing back to the city. By the time we were back, it was close to seven o'clock at night.

We had swapped the driving arrangements around, Ophelia joining me, Hayden and Zack on the drive back. Mainly because I'd ended up packing most of Ophelia's clothes in my bag after sharing around different shirts and jumpers with her and Harley.

Also Ophelia had wanted to come in the car with us since Zack was the one who'd had the drugs. They had a few drags when we'd parked to order some take away for dinner but they'd managed to tone it back as we pulled up in front of the dorms of NYU.