Have We Been Here Before? 《Experimental Story》

Chapter Four.

The water from Thea’s hair dripped down her back as she walked down the dirt path with Charlotte and Joey. After swimming for about an hour, the trio decided to go back to Thea’s cabin to play uno of all things, because Joey had never played. Joey walked ahead, talking about his friends from his school. She slowed her pace as she listened and Charlotte noticed and slowed as well.
  “What do you think?” Thea whispered as she leaned over. Charlotte glanced between the two of them, her blonde hair bouncing as she did.
  “He’s cute.. And nice.” she whispered back, humming slightly.
   “But?” Thea pursed her lips, knowing that there would be a statement following.
  “I dunno, I feel like he doesn’t talk much about himself.” Charlotte shrugged.
  “What?” Thea nearly snorted. As much as she enjoyed Joey, he did talk a lot.
  “I feel like he talks, but not about himself very much.” she nearly stopped in the path as she thought that over. Did he not talk about himself? Thea talked about herself, why didn’t he?
  As they approached the cabin porch, Thea pushed forward to be next to Joey as they walked in. They made quick work of finding the uno cards in Thea’s things, before going back to the porch and sitting down on the steps.
  “Okay,” she sighed as they settled in their spots, Charlotte and Joey sitting at the top and her in the middle. “Just because it’s your first time playing, we’ll do it so you only have to pick up once, and not like more if it's two pick up cards in a row or whatever.”
  “What.?” Joey blinked.
   “You’ll figure it out, she just sucks at explaining.” Charlotte smiled kindly and Thea made a face at her, pretending to be offended even if it was probably true.

  It took under ten minutes before Charlotte and Thea had already lost to Joey, and Thea was almost pleasantly surprised at how quickly he leaned, even if she hated losing.
  “Kay, wait, so you went to a public school until you were ten and then your parents randomly decided to send you to some boarding school?” Charlotte asked him and Thea listened with rapid interest.
  “Yeah, they said they were tired of the public school and went on about how they weren’t doing enough for me.” He shrugged as he placed a pick up two. Thea cursed to herself as she had to pick up more cards and Joey smirked at her. She stuck her tongue out at him.
  “Oh did you need extra help sometime or something? I needed some when I was little because of my ADHD.” Charlotte asked and he glanced at her for a moment before going back to focusing on the game.
  “No, my parents are just overprotective.” Joey said after a moment. “Uno.” He put his last card down, and Thea huffed before putting her cards in the middle.
“Oh, okay.” Charlotte hummed, also putting down her cards. Joey picked up the cards, his stubby and tremulous fingers shuffling them messily. After watching for a quick moment, Thea’s attention was grabbed by distaint yelling.
  “Felicity!” There was a high pitched yelp and Thea traced the sound to cabins close by, across from them actually. There she found two people, a boy and a girl who looked her age. The boy was tall with mousy brown hair and warm eyes, and he leaned over a girl who looked a lot like him, just with lighter hair and eyes. Joey and Charlotte followed her line of sight and Joey smiled upon seeing them. He lowered his hands, the cards forgotten within them temporarily.
  “Felicity, Finnick!” He called to the two of them, and as they looked over, Thea would see they were almost identical, just with the boy having sharper features and the girl softer.
  “Joey!” Felicity smiled, bringing her hands back to her sides, after having held them behind her in an attempt to hold a book away from Finnick. He grabbed the book from her quickly, like it would disappear if he didn’t, Felicity seemed to give him a quick look as she did and he only narrowed his eyes at her in response. Thea felt that familiar knot in her stomach tighten, Felicity was very pretty and seemed very familiar with Joey. She was the girl from earlier, wasn’t she?
  Felicity turned back to Finnick, seeming to bark orders at him as he just watched boredly, before allowing her to pull him over to the trio. Joey leaned down to Thea, as both her and Charlotte watched silently.
  “That’s Felicity and Finnick Crane, their twins. Finnick’s the oldest, but you wouldn’t guess it from how Felicity orders him around,” Joey smiled wider, amused by his own words. “Not that he listens. They're nice.” He promised, whispering, and Thea nodded in response. The two siblings reached them quickly, reaching the bottom of the steps and everyone fully turned to them.
  “What’re you guys up to?” Felicity asked as she scanned over Charlotte and then Thea.
  “Playing uno, what about you guys?” Thea’s eyes scanned over the twins as Felicity had done and as she did, Finnick did a half wave to them with pursed lips. Thea smiled, finding the indifferent and slightly awkward gesture to suit him well so far.
  “Finnick only wants to read and I’m bored out of my mind! I don’t even really know people here, so I’m stuck with him.” Felicity huffed, crossing her arms, and Thea suppressed a grin as she looked at Charlotte who looked just as amused.
“He is right here!” Finnick scoffed.
  “Well, I’m sorry, but your interests are so so boring at times!” Thea had a feeling that ‘at times’ was only thrown in for Finnick’s sake.
  “Anyways..” Joey chuckled, trying to ease out any tension. “Wanna play with us? It’d give you something to do.”
  “Sure!” Felicity chirped, sitting down on the same steps as Thea. “Finnick, please?” she looked to her twin pleadingly, and he nodded.
  “Alright.” Finnick sat up about a step from Felicity, closer to Charlotte, who smiled welcomingly at the two siblings.
  “Felicity, Finnick, this is Charlotte and Thea. Charlotte, Thea, this is Felicity and Finnick.” Joey began to pass the cards around.
“Hey.” Thea said shyly, glancing at them as she picked up her cards when they were passed to her. Finnick looked at her for a moment.
  “Hi.” the twins said at almost the same time, Felicity’s more upbeat but Finnick’s more genuine. Joey placed a card from the deck down, starting them off with yellow. It was Thea’s turn first, so she placed her card before looking at Finnick and Felicity again.
  “So how long have you been going to the camp?” she asked politely, but she was genuinely curious and wanted to learn about them. Maybe they would be friends.
“Oh, this is our third year.” Felicity smiled.
  “What about you guys?” Finnick asked, but he was mainly looking at Thea as he said it.
  “This is mine and Charlotte’s first year.”
  “And last for me.” Charlotte chipped in, before playing her card.
   “Same, but you guys know I’ve been here for a while.” Joey placed his next card, glancing at Thea and both twins looked at him.
  “Right! Crazy it took us so long to bump into each other, I feel like I’ve known you forever.” Felicity smiled, while Finnick stayed quiet.
  “So what did you guys do for Activity day?” Charlotte said dramatically, just as the instructor from the night before had when he explained it. Thea giggled and Joey smiled. Felicity looked at her for a moment, as did Finick, but he snorted in response.
  “Archery.” Felicity hummed.
  “There’s archery?” Thea asked excitedly, always having wanted to try it.
  “Yeah, it’s pretty fun.” Finnick smiled.
  “He only says that because he almost never misses.” Felicity playfully rolled her eyes, nudging her brother’s leg with her elbow.
  “You're just mad that you have a terrible aim and I don’t.” Finnick teased and Thea smiled at the siblings' interaction. Thea felt someone’s foot softly connect with her back and she turned her head to Joey, since he was the only one behind her.
  “Nice, Right?” he mouthed to her and she nodded with a smile, which he almost seemed relieved to see.

  They group played for a bit longer, before their attention was grabbed again, but this time it was Maya, Josie and Leah coming back to the cabin.
  “Hey, guys!” Maya greeted with a stack of papers in each of the girls' hands.
  “Hey Maya!” Felicity and Joey greeted, while Charlotte opted for a smile and Finnick and Thea just watched.
  “What do you have there?” Joey asked, eyeing the papers as Thea had done a moment earlier.
  “The flyers for the volunteer jobs.” Maya passed one to him. “Keep that one here, we’re putting one at every cabin. Anyways, gotta go!” Maya moved along, her friends following as they went on to slip flyers under the doors of every cabin.
  “Volunteer jobs?” Charlotte repeated and her and Thea’s eyes met.
  “Oh yeah, you guys have never done this before!” Felicity smiled and Joey passed the flyer to Thea. She scanned over it, finding it to not have much information on it, before looking to Joey.
  “Okay, so in exchange for town nights and fundraising, the camp will assign campers volunteer jobs for like.. Five out of the seven weeks here. You go every other day and just help out wherever you're placed. That’s why they have you take that quiz, so you can get placed somewhere you’d enjoy and be useful.” Joey explained and Thea nodded along as she processed the news. Charlotte smiled.
“That could be fun.”
  “Yeah, I think they let you log it as volunteer hours for high school too if you're fifteen or fourteen.”
  “They do, yeah, not at first though. They started to do it in like.. 2011 but the camp started doing volunteer jobs in the 90s.” Finnick added to Joey’s statement and he looked at him when he did.
  “That’s pretty cool.” Thea hummed, placing her card. “Uno.” she smiled.