The head boy

Part 53 - The men's path

(Ida's POV)

It's not fair. Now he's nice to children, now he wanders around only wearing t-shirts and shorts which let appear more of his body, a body which looks even more athletic than it used to, it's not fair, he's not supposed to be more attractive now that we're not together.

I watch him talk to his little army of devoted children, he stands tall in front of them as they're laughing. Tom is making someone laugh...

It's been what? Four days, and they already love him. "Look at Tom, he's so damn hot," I hear a camp instructor say.

"I know, now that we're so close to water it would be a shame not to...force him to take his shirt off..." another girl answers and oddly enough, I don't even feel jealous, who could blame these girls for feeling extremely attracted to this boy?

"Ugh!" Kala announces her arrival with a grunt. "You know that girl, Karen? She says my bikini is inappropriate! I'm sorry, did we come here to have fun in the water or to preach the Almighty's word? Tonight at the party I'm gonna wear more skin than fabric if you know what I mean, just for her, for Karen."

"What did you expect, her name is Karen," I shrug, and look at her. I must admit that I had anticipated this kind of remarks and put on a less revealing bikini for today, Kala being Kala, didn't. She doesn't look vulgar though, she looks like a woman at the beach.

"What does her name have to do with anything?"

I gasp, "don't you know the legend around Karens? They keep an eye on their neighbourhood, they demand to see a manager, they want to make America great again, you know? I even found an Instagram account with many videos of Karens being Karens."

Kala frowns, "I don't get it..."

"That's because you're dumb, honey," this comment earns me a slap on the shoulder.

Suddenly, the sound of people screaming echoes and as I turn around I see Tom literally junking the two girls from earlier in the water, junked, indeed. "Hahaha Tom, join us now that you're all wet!"

Tom turns around and walks away, mumbling under his breath, scowling.

"I think we'd better join them now, Laura! Put your lifejacket back on if you want to go in the water!" Kala shouts.

"But it feels itchy!"

"Drowning feels worse than itching!"

"I know how to swim!"

"You also know how to talk back apparently!" She walks towards Laura, it's weird to see Kala act so protective, weird but cool, weirdly cool.

"Ida."

A tiny little voice echoes from right behind me and when I turn around I find Tim, his eyes wet and his nose running a little before he sniffs. Did someone make fun of him again? I'm gonna break some necks!

"I can't put my lifejacket on..." he sniffs again before rubbing his little eyes with his little hands to dry the tears off.

Cuteness overload...

"Come here," I kneel on the ground, Tim takes two steps forward until he's standing right in front of me, "you put it on like that, the bigger hole for the head and then you let your arms bloom like two flowers, look, boom, bam," I accompany every action with a sound effect to make it more entertaining.

I feel something burning on my right temple and somehow I just know that someone is looking at me, when I look up I find Tom staring in our direction with his lips slightly parted but as soon as I look at him he almost jumps and walks away.