WOMEN |H.F|

15

HAVAN FLORES

"Life is a highway! I wanna ride it all night long!" Our voices mix together.

"There was a distance between you and I. A misunderstanding once, but now we look it in the eye." Luca taking his solo.

He gazes at me, signalling to have my moment, I return a grin.

"Ooh Yeah!!"

The roof of the car was down, feeling the Californian breeze drifting through our hair. The blistering sun on our shoulders. No clouds in the sky, manufacturing it as a perfect day.

We take the turnoff to Santa Monica, the closest beach we've got from where we live. The song ends when I turn to look at Arden. Her sunglasses on top of her long dark hair, her eyes closed, she's so very delighted by all the actions that are taking place.

She seems to be out of this world, living in one created of her own. If only I could hear or see what's going on inside that head of hers. Arden seems like a careless soul, but that's not true. That one afternoon at Dana's showed me that she's been through some wilde point in time.

I squint my eyes shut, blocking out the blazing light. The feel of another hand touching mine, causes my eyes to shoot open. The image of Arden blindly lacing her pinky with mine, warms my heart.

"We're almost there!" Dana shouts from behind the steering wheel.

We pass a sign with 'Santa Monica' written on it in huge letters. Dana tries to find a spot to park the car as I can only focus on the waves crashing against the shore, the laughing of kids and the smell of sunscreen. Once the vehicle was parked, we made our way to the sandy beach. Terrence found us a perfect spot to lay out our stuff.

"Relaxation time starts now." Dana sighs happily with her arms crossed behind her head.

"Can someone rub in my back please. I get sunburned very easily." Arden asks, holding sunscreen.

I take it from her and sign her to turn around. I got her hair out of the way, put some sunscreen in my hands to warm it up so it wouldn't be too cold for her. I start at her shoulders and work my way down the rest of her smooth back. Intentionally, I take my time

"Is it because you're English?" Luca asks with a goofy smile.

Arden's shoulders slack; "Yeah." It came out quite annoyed.

"You're all done!" Handing back the sunscreen as I lay down on my own towel next to her.

"Thank you," she smiles looking at me, then back to Luca, "It's just irritating that whenever I want to sunbath, I turn out looking like a tomato."

My smile grows at the word 'tomato', just the way she pronounces it is so chic but also funny. A giggle slips out of my mouth. Arden gazes at me and pushes herself up with her elbows.

"What's so funny, Miss Flores?" My cheeks turn slightly pink because of how she addressed me.

"Tomato." I repeat the word in exactly the same way she said it.

She raises her eyebrows and out of the blue she wipes a handful of sunscreen on my face. I gasp and jump up, putting both of my hands on her shoulders, pushing her to the ground. She gapes at me with those olive green, filled with joy, eyes as I hover over her. Both of our smiles grow until we laugh like there's no tomorrow.

After we lay down for a bit most of us start to grow bored. Right now I'm trying to build a sandcastle with Luca and Terrence, emphasis on 'trying'. Dana and Arden are floating around in the water, chit chatting about other things they want to do.

"How's it going?" Terrence questions, running up to me and Luca, a bucket gripped in his hand.

Luca looks up, sunglasses on the bridge of his nose that are about to fall off.

"It's going great, I'm working on the master bedroom and Hava's almost ready with the moat.

"Alright, you can put the water in the moat now, Ter." I glance up at him, to see him staring sheepishly at the empty bucket.

"I shouldn't have run."

He runs back to the sea, stopping to talk to the girls, who are making their way to us. Terrence continues on his way, going in the opposite direction from the girls. He must accomplish his mission and fill the small bucket to the brim and not spill one drop.

Arden takes a seat next to me on the sand, inspecting our master work. We worked hard on it but it turned out to look just like a pile of sand without even water in its moat, in conclusion: we suck at building sand castles.

"Do you guys wanna join in and have a chicken fight?" Dana asks, drenched by the salt seawater.

Luca eyes me and we both shrug; "Sure, why not."

Arden grabs my hand, she starts running, pulling me with her. As we run we pass Terrence. With his bucket. Filled to the brim with water.

"Where are you going?!" He screams.

I laugh and yell back 'going for a swim'. He groans out of frustration and drops the bucket, following behind us. Luca races with us and hops into the cold, fresh, blue ocean.

"Dee Dee, get on my shoulders."

Arden climbs on Luca's shoulders by placing her foot on his thigh and swinging over the other leg. Terrence helps me onto his. Dana watches from the sideline, she's the referee.

Arden smirks and cracks her knuckles. "You ready, lad?" She asks him.

He nods and responds; "Could you please tie up my hair so I can see better."

A weird feeling forms inside of me when I see her hands rake through his long chocolate brown locks. I shake it off and clear my throat then sit up straighter, which earns Dana to furrow her brows and shoot a questioning glance. When his hair is tied up in a bun, the game can start. Arden laces her fingers with mine, we wait for Dana to give the signal. Arden keeps staring at me with this glint in her eyes, from which I could deduce that she's very competitive.

"Three, two, one, go!" Dana shouts.

With all the power I've got, I shove Arden, in the hope she'll fall right off but she's stronger than I thought. With all the training I've had, I must get her off his shoulders.

Come on Havan, hang on.

Arden's scream took me off guard, as she fell down. Realisation hit, I jumped off of Terrence's shoulders, high-fiving him afterwards. I won! Dana helped Ard on her feet as we made our way to our stuff, ready to gather it all and go home.

We are back in the car, driving on the now streetlight-lit highway. The soft breeze is colder, making Arden shiver. She leans closer into me, nuzzling in my sweater I put on earlier before we left. I watch her eyes close, her long lashes resting on her rosy cheeks. Soft breaths leave her cute nose, she's out like a light. I wrap one of my arms around her, keeping her warm. Leaning my head against the headrest, I get comfortable and shut my eyes and am immersed into the cozy darkness of sleep. But still, I'm aware of the picture that has been taken by one of our castmates.