"You know that question people would always ask you? 'If you were stuck on an island, who would you want to take with you?' I never really knew the answer to that, but I do now. I wouldn't want to be stuck an island with anyone else but you."
In whi...
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"Aren't you supposed to go on that retreat thing?" The tall, dark skinned boy asked his friend, who he spotted sitting on the sidewalk in front of her home on the south side of Chicago.
The girl snickered at him, taking a drag from the cigarette she was holding between her cold fingers, slowly breathing out the smoke before answering. "I'm not doing that shit."
Dale, the only friend the girl had known in sixteen years of living, shook his head at the dirty blonde, sitting down on the cold tiles next to her. "You should go Lana, it'll be good for you."
"Fuck that." Alana cussed, flicking away the tabac-filled stick with her index finger.
Dale let out an annoyed sigh. He loved the girl dearly, but at moments like this, when she was acting so damn stubborn, he silently wishes reality to smack her in the face.
"Your mom knows you're not going?" He turned to look at her, noticing the heavy bags underneath her eyes and the paleness of her skin. She looked exhausted.
The last few months have been hard to handle for the girl. She didn't admit it though, but she's slowly turned into an overly anxious insomniac who smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day. It all happend after the incident, that one night she would never forget, the night she would relive every time she closed her eyes. She never told anyone about what happened, she couldn't get herself to, but the people closest to her knew something was up, they just didn't know what.
Dale and Mia, Alana's mother, noticed how the teenager didn't eat, sleep or even talk for weeks. They both tried to talk to her, they tried everything they could just to hear a single word leave the girl's lips, but it only led to arguments.
After a while she finally started eating and talking again, pretending nothing was wrong, but Mia saw right trough her daughter. So, that's when the woman signed Alana up for this all girls retreat in Hawaii, thinking it'd be good for her, hoping she'd get better. But Alana hated it, she kept convincing both herself and her mother that nothing was wrong, that she hadn't changed and didn't need this retreat.
And even though deep down she knew she was wrong, Alana would never admit it.
"Fuck no." She snorted, knowing all too well that her mother would drag her to Hawaii by her ear just to make sure she'd go. "I was hoping I could crash at yours for a bit? Tell my mom I'm at the retreat and return back home after a few days."
"Not gonna happen." The boy shook his head, earning a loud groan of annoyance.
"So what, you want me to sleep on the streets?" Alana asked with a scoff.
"No, I want you to stop being a bitch and go to this retreat." Dale cussed, surprising his friend with the sudden anger in his voice.
Dale and Alana lived next door to each other for as long as they could remember. When they were just kids they played around in the streets, making up their own games, having the time of their lives. As years went by the two never left each other's sides. They went to school together, took the same classes and hung out at each other's homes. No one was allowed to join their duo, it's always been just them. They told each other everything, knew all about their family drama and whatever relationships they experienced.
But Alana never told him about that night.
"Too late. Plane's leaving in 30 minutes." She shrugged, a small smirk tugging at the edge of her lips.
"Then we better hurry."
___
"Obviously, I missed the plane." Alana explained to the two men in front of her. She buries her face into her hood, hiding away from the cold in the heavily air conditioned room as she fidgets her fingers.
"So, I assume that's how you ended up on a plane with the boys?" One of the men asked sternly while the other scribbled something down into his notepad.
"Yeah" Alana nodded softly. "At first they didn't let me, saying it was an all boys thing, but after negotiating for like, an hour, Dale finally convinced them to get me on board. They didn't let me in the same space as them though, which I thought was kinda weird, but I didn't complain, I wasn't comfortable around unfamiliar men anyway. I had to sit in this small room all by myself until we landed."
