DAY TWENTY
"Day twenty," a husky voice warmed her ear, minty breath icing her lungs when she breathed in his scent too much.
"Day twenty," she agreed, her voice unenthusiastic compared to his.
"Ten more days until I win,"
Win. Win. Parvati sunk deeper into her pool chair, the thought of this all ending, this whole vacation coming to an end and becoming a distant memory in her boring life frightened her and punctured a hole into her withering heart. Ryerson University didn't seem so great anymore. Toronto wasn't where her life was anymore. Her heart, her life, was here in a four bedroom hotel suite with three hormonal boys. Had she warned herself about the fact she might not want to leave? Of course not. At the start, she wanted nothing to do with the resort's pool or the shaggy haired celebrity. But now, all she wanted was to be sitting in her wobbly pool chair, Chaz and Ryan but a few meters away in pool toys, with Justin breathing on her right arm, looking at her skeptically. This was her life. Her home. How could she leave this behind and go back to her one bedroom flat with her orange feline, Huckleberry, who was as boring as her? And what she also didn't understand was that she was hoping Justin would win, that he wouldn't leave her alone forever. Because she had been alone for so long, the only company she ever had that of a cats, lonesomeness had never pried at her heartstrings so much before, but after twenty days of being accompanied non stop: how was she going to go back into the life of being lonely, where the phone would only ring if a telemarketer was on the other end?
And even worse, with ten days stuck on the calender, how was she going to tell Justin that she wanted him more than the future she had planned since she was six?
"You seem distant today. I can almost hear you thinking," Justin commented, picking at his peas with a plastic fork in distaste.
"Eat your peas, there good for you. And I have a lot on my mind," Parvati chewed her food twenty times, counting in her head, absentminded to the fact that Justin stared at her in a way a lover would another.
"I'll only eat them if you feed them to me," he offered with a waggle of his eyebrows. "And a lot on your mind? Like what?"
Parvati plucked his fork out of his hand, wadding peas onto the sharp ends of the metal. "Open," she instructed. He opened with a smirk, laugh lines spiraling out onto his sleek skin like when a rock hits the surface of water.
"And it's nothing. I'm just thinking about school, life, what is going to happen when I get back to Toronto.."
Chewing, Justin opened his mouth to reply but Parvati shot him a glare. He rolled his eyes, chomping down onto the peas unpleasantly before densely swallowing. "I'm going to miss the Bahamas. It was so private, no paparazzi. So secluded. And I'll miss Chaz and Ryan. And you," he smiled, making Parvati's cheeks light up and heart repeat a beat.
"I'm.. going to miss you too."
"How much?" Justin asked seriously, the sound of the cutlery scraping against the plates suddenly stopping.
"I don't know. I haven't left yet," Parvati scathed a smile, the thought of the future devouring her insides.
And at that moment, as the sun was depleting into the murky horizon, their thoughts intertwined.
They both wished this wasn't a bet. They both wished thirty days could turn into forever.
