the summer camp of 2012

15. santa monica [m]

the moment mark asked that question, all my suspicions were confirmed. they had known each other. lucas slowly stood up, and opened his mouth to answer. he shut it, opened it, and shut it again. he wanted to say something, yet the terror in his eyes and the uncontrollable shaking spoke for itself. 

"okayy mark, if you need to throw up again just use this bag." i crouched down in between them and handed him a paper bag. mark gave him one last glance before we went back to our seats.

we didn't speak for the entire ride. 

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we arrived at santa monica at around 3. we first had to settle into our beach houses, then we had the entire day to spend at the boardwalk and the fair. surprisingly, me, kayley and francis are sharing a beach house together, while the kids and the adult are sharing a much larger beach house. but hey, i wasn't complaining, because the beach house was much more spacious than the cabin. 

the problem was, there were only 3 rooms. as francis went upstairs to check out the rooms, she shouted from the balcony, "we only have 3 rooms!" kayley immediately rolled her suitcase up the stairs like a madman and claimed the one furthest from the stairs, "i call dibs on this one!" francis chuckled as she retreated into the room she came out of, "then i'll be in this one. you two can stay in the other one together." she gave me a smug smile before she closed her door. 

the moment she did, lucas walked in with his suitcase. he still had a blank expression on his face, clearly startled from the bus ride. but not that i care or anything. 

"um," i said as i lifted my bags up on my shoulder, "we're sharing a room. they called dibs on the other rooms already." he buried his face with his hands and let out a groan, "whatever." 

i opened the door, only to find out each room only had one bed. one. singular. bed. 

"what the fuck." he said while staring at the bed. 

in a second, i shoved his bag onto the ground as i threw mine on instead. i looked at him with my arms crossed with a smug look, in hopes of cheering him up because he had this grim look on his face that i felt weirdly uncomfortable looking at. 

for a moment, i could see his eyebrows raise and the corners of his mouth tilt upwards, but it disappeared very quickly. all he did was simply grab his bag and put his stuff on the pullout couch near the windows. 

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we let the kids roam around the boardwalk and fair for the entire afternoon while me and our team went to somewhere else for ourselves. we walked along the boardwalk and came across an ice cream parlour. 

"two rocky roads in sugar cones, a vanilla in a cup and a chocolate chip in a waffle cone please." francis told the man while i fetched the dollar bills from our purse. we had agreed to all put money in that purse and spend it this summer. 

francis handed everyone their ice creams. we continued to walk along the harbour to the fair. we came across a hoard of surfer boys that cut between me and lucas who were at the back and francis and kayley who were way up front. one of the boards the boys were holding was so huge that it knocked lucas' ice cream off his hands. 

after they all left, he stared at his ice cream cone on the ground. "shit." he mumbled to himself. i bent down to pick up the ice cream with tissues the man gave from the ice cream parlour and threw it in a nearby trashcan. 

"here." i handed my cone to him. "i haven't ate it yet." he hesitated, but still reached his hand out with the same blank expression on his face. "thanks." 

we finally caught up to them and we decided to play carnival games. we had a blast. the entire fair was lit up with bright neon yellow lights, with red and white tents everywhere. the rides were fast but not too fast, and the fair food was to die for. this, was the epiphany of summer. this, was summer. on the roller coaster ride, i felt the sea air brush through my face as the coaster dips all of a sudden. 

if only life could feel like this forever.