24 Hours (Wattys 2016)

Hour 1

Prologue

Change is inevitable, just like the tides of the ocean, or the turning of the globe. It creeps up on us when we least expect it to, it forces us to accept the reality that we have been banishing to the deepest pits of our mind. Change is something that no one wants, but everyone gets. It limits your time and makes you rethink your choices. Change crept up to me one summer day, just before I went off to college. One day before I went off to college, to be exact.

This is my story of my 24 hours before the change came. My little break from reality.

Hour 1

(7:00 AM EST)

"Harlyn. Harlyn!" A voice shook me out of my sleep, and I opened my eyes. I blinked away the sleep-induced fuzz and looked up to see Beckett. Beckett is my boyfriend. We've been dating since the summer before sophomore year. Now we're in the summer after senior year. Today's Beckett's last day here in Florida before he goes off to North Dakota and I go to Texas for college. We made a plan to spend the last twenty-four hours we had together doing stuff that we wouldn't normally do, taking pictures after every thing we did so we could remember today years down the road.

"What?" I groaned, rolling over so my face was pressed into my pillows.

"We have 24 hours and counting." Beckett said, shaking my shoulders again. "Remember, we'd spend it together!"

"Five more minutes." I mumbled, my voice muffled by the pillow.

"That is five minutes you are wasting when you could be spending them with me." I could hear the pout in his soft voice.

"Fine." I groaned, sitting up so my back was against the wall. I made a pouty face at Beckett and he grinned.

"You will thank me later." He leaned over and kissed my cheek.

"For depriving me of sleep, I doubt it." But I was grinning too. Beckett leaned in to give me a kiss and I slipped my hand over my mouth, stopping him.

"Morning breath." I shook my head.

"I don't care." He laughed, leaning in again, but I slipped off the bed running to the bathroom.

I heard him run after me, but I shut the door in his face, hearing his laugh.

I scrubbed my teeth and washed my face before I opened the door again. I was expecting to find him right outside waiting for me, but to my surprise he was gone. I walked back into my room, stepping around boxes I had packed for college.

I walked around the room, looking for Beckett. He had a habit of surprising me at random times. He liked the satisfaction of scaring the hell out of me.

When he was nowhere to be found, I assumed he had gone downstairs to have breakfast with Jamie before her last day of camp.

I walked over to my closet to find something to wear. I opened the door and shrieked. There was Beckett, standing between two of my shirts, laughing his head off.

"Beckett." I half laughed half cried, holding my hand to my heart trying to calm it down. "You know I hate it when you do that."

"And that's exactly why I do it." He grinned leaning in to press a kiss to my cheek, but I moved away at the last second.

"No kisses for you." He pouted and I laughed, he knew I was a sucker for the puppy dog look.

I kissed his pout and he grinned.

"You can't resist my charms." Beckett smirked, pulling me in for another kiss.

I pulled away and shoved him out of my closet. "Go away and let me get dressed."

He pouted again but I just shoved him gently out of my room, closing the door behind him.

()()()()

I dashed down the stairs when I heard the blender, Beckett's signature shakes were to die for.

"I want one!" I cried over the blender, slipping into one of the stools under the counter.

"But of course, my lady." Beckett said gallantly, turning off the blender and leaning over the counter to kiss my cheek.

"God get a room." Jamie teased from her seat next to me, a bowl of cereal in front of her as she rolled her eyes.

"Okay!" Beckett joked making me laugh and Jamie scrunch up her nose.

"You ready for your last day of camp, J?" Jamie shrugged as Beckett pulled out two glasses and a plastic coffee cup. He poured the shake into the cups, handing one to me and keeping the other for himself. He placed the to go coffee cup in front of Jamie and she grinned.

"You are forgiven for the get a room response!" Jamie said quickly, laughing as she stood up to put her cereal bowl in the sink. She grabbed her mug and shoved it into her bag.

"Yum thanks Beck." I grinned.

"Wait we need to take a picture." Beckett stopped me from taking a sip of the drink.

"Why?"

"So we never forget any moment we spent together today." Aw I love sweet

Beckett. I just smiled along as he pulled out his polaroid camera I had given him for his birthday last year. We took a picture and watched as he printed two copies of it. I kissed his cheek as he handed me mine before I finally took a slip of my smoothie, and groaned in delight.

"Why do I hear moaning in here?" My mom asked, walking into the kitchen and making me blush.

"Just a smoothie." I muttered to my mom, fanning my hair in front of my face.

"Just kidding." My mom laughed, walking over and giving Beckett a quick hug. "No smoothie for me?" She asked him, faking hurt.

"Wouldn't want to spoil your breakfast would we?" Beckett asked, hinting at something.

"No I wouldn't want to spoil my lovely cereal breakfast." My mom teased, her voice sarcastic.

"Cereal?" Beckett asked, feigning shock. "Does Brenda's even sell cereal?"

"Why does Brenda's have anything to do with anything." My mom asked, no longer joking and now just confusion written on her face.

"Why, Harlyn and I are taking you, Mr. Snow and my parents out for breakfast at Brenda's."

My mom beamed, and I just looked at Beckett in confusion. Was he going to tell me about this?

"Well then I better not have any breakfast." My mom said, making Beckett laugh. My dad then called my mom and she disappeared.

"We are taking them out for breakfast?" I raised my eyebrow.

"We are."

"Okay and what else are we doing, Mr. Prepared?" I teased.

"We should go to the lake, and play golf, and go to a yoga class." He appeared to be saying the first thing that came to mind.

"Yoga?" I laughed. "I never knew you were one to float with the butterflies."

"I'm not." He chuckled, walking around the counter to stand next to my chair. I spun around to face him so our legs were touching. "But I don't know all the things we won't be able to do together after we leave. And in these next twenty-four hours I want to do everything we could possibly do, together."

And so, I wrote a list of all the things we were going to do in our twenty-four hours of being together.

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A/N: We hope you like our first chapter! We're going to update this short story every Tuesday. Bye for now!

- Eliza & Scarlett <3