Trouble Times Two

Chapter Twenty-Four

Monday

While we wait, a girl walks up to us and sits down next to Arthur. The silence is louder than the one that usually sits between Donovan and I.

"What happened?" Donovan asks and for once, I am curious to know the answer too.

"He kissed me last night." Courtney says as she folds her arm in disdain.

"And you didn't consent to it?" I ask.

She shakes her head.

"You don't like him?" Donovan asks and I know that's hardly true, she definitely likes him because she blushes.

She thinks before she shakes her head.

"It's because he's mean, isn't it? I bet he ran away after." I know I've got it because she nods sadly.

I whack Arthur with my hand.

"Courtney, he didn't mean anything rude by that." Donovan says and I agree with that in my mind.

"Yeah, I ran away because I was nervous. Probably wasn't the nicest thing to do though?" Arthur awkwardly rubs the back of his head.

"Nervous, why were you nervous?" Courtney asks and Donovan and I both look at anywhere but her.

"Gia?" She asks and I have to look at her.

"Oh come on Courtney, you're a smart girl." I think she starts to get the hint and I sort of shuffle away and Donovan doesn't get it until Arthur is giving him a look.

I watch as Courtney and Arthur talk and I watch as they hug, I walk back slowly and sit down and Arthur and I converse with our eyes.

I can tell that he told her than he likes her and she's happy and he's happy, which I haven't seen in a long time. I've seen him happy but not genuinely elated.

We all go grab a bite from one of the restaurants and I just sit there quietly and eat my food while looking around.

Everyone else at the table is eating a lot more food than I could and I so wish that I could eat a normal amount of food but my appetite was ruined permanently for me a long, long time ago. As I was still a child when I essentially started being starved, I never really learnt to eat big meals.

I finish eating my small portion and give Arthur the rest of it and then wait for everyone to finish.

Having a small appetite meant that people judged me, some accused me of having and ED, some accused me of being attention seeking.

It was one of the things that people could probably tell I was insecure about and I was glad that Donovan hadn't picked up on it yet but with all the time we'd be spending together, I know he would.

I had to prepare myself because I don't want to be upset or angry in front of him because he intentionally provoked me.

Maybe he wouldn't care because for all the qualities that he is, one thing he isn't, is caring and neither am I so I'm fine with that.

Eventually, we get called to board and we wait for all the parents with children to go first before we board.

Courtney hands us all our tickets and our passports which she asked for us to give her because she knows we are not organised and then we all check in and go to our seats.

We're all in the same area but our teacher insisted we sit next to our partner so even though I could be sitting next to Arthur or Courtney, I have to sit next to Donovan.

Howlett literally insisted we sit next to each other and we had to prove it too.

We take a group picture where I look throughly uninterested and am just scribbling on a piece of paper, not drawing, just scribbling.

"Hey Gigi, can you fix this for me?" Arthur hands me his iPad and gets me to listen to what he's compiled on garageband.

"What do you mean fix... never mind I hear it." He's creating a song and one of the many layers that he has, he's left an audio clip of something, like background noise, in it.

I hand his airpods back and connect my headphones to his iPad and remove the audio clip after a bit of tweaking.

"Can you please change the melody, I need it to be... bouncier." I know what he means after some thinking and we fix it together with him telling me where he doesn't think it sounds right. Some parts of the song before were far too melancholy for the tone he was going for and for a beginner, I'm super impressed.

I give it back to him and disconnect my headphones.

"I'm super impressed Art, you did a really good job." I think about the song but connect my headphones to my own iPad and start playing some music.

Eventually we take off so I turn on airplane mode and then continue listening. I'm sitting by the window and Donovan is on the aisle seat. It was a weird layout for a plane but I have a feeling Courtney's dad, who works for the airline, upgraded us slightly from economy to premium economy, especially to keep us together and respect our teachers wishes to sit next to our partners.

Her dad is really nice and all their parents knew each other so getting the funding was quick, it was just who would get the tickets first and Paisley won that time. She got a partial refund AND an upgrade essentially because we were nepo babies.

It was kind of weird, being in a culture where parents were valued so highly knowing you could never see yours again.

I look out the window and try to peacefully enjoy the flight when but when clouds start to form and the flight path starts to get bumpy, I know we're in for a long ass journey.

Arthur turns to me.

"This is going to take way longer than we originally thought." I can tell that he's a little bit scared.