Charleston, Because some people hate this story

The Story

So on behalf of the hated "Charleston story" it shall be told.. It was September of 2016 and cross country season was kicking off to a rocky start for me having to run a race sick and to place horribly after. Luckily I had my team with me and the feeling of being sick was lessened and the thought of this weekend was exciting me as I rode the bus up to Spartanburg with our bus full of music and hype.

The plan was to run the meet and head to Charleston where my life long friend, we'll call her Laney, stayed and her birthday was two days from now. I was going to leave after the meet with my friend Ethan, I'm not changing his name, who I deemed worthy enough to bring with me to meet my "second family". Now me and Laney have never been on "good" terms and have more of a brother and sister relationship but sometimes things go well to some extent.

Let's just say while warming up and cooling down for cross country meets is the most fun you'll have, running a 5k while sick is not the best thing to be doing with your Saturday morning. I placed horribly and was outrun by a freshman who I should've beat. After the race we did our new tradition of jumping in the public fountain and dried off to go back to the bus, when we got back Ethan and I grabbed our bags and headed to my moms rental car, yes, we don't have licenses. The drive down explaining a lot of need to know basis to ethan was fun such as their personalities and tidbits to get on Laney's nerves. For example the time we went to Monticello and she asked if Thomas Jefferson was alive. We assured him he'd have fun and that he'd fit right in.

Now Laney was with her dad who lived elsewhere in Charleston and wasn't getting back until the next morning which was her birthday. We made it to the house after a hot car ride sitting in the sunny side of the window and already he seemed impressed at the location and surrounding area. They lived right on the Wando river and it was sunny and a flat terrain. We were instantly greeted by her family and while me and my mom walked in like we owned the place hugging them ethan kind of shuffled in and looked around, while I assured him he was fine and went to get the bags he pulled out a kendama to no surprise and began doing tricks on it until Tracy's husband walked up and greeted us, which it's always great to see him. I lead him upstairs to where we were staying despite it being Laney's sisters room which was right across from hers. This layout will play a part later, horrible foreshadowing.

After we got settled and changed we introduced Ethan to the family that was there and he instantly grew accustomed to them. We decided it would be a good idea to walk around the neighborhood to get the lactic acid out from the meet. We walked down the nearby dock and walked along the edge while pointing out the different areas of interest. Two hours had passed when we decided on dinner and drive up the beach area to a nice restaurant except for the wait being an hour. Long story short here we hit the beach and he did some parkour while Tracy asked him about gymnastics and who he knew at the local place in Augusta. Short term separating led us to wandering through a really loud beach party and finding them walking through an alley over. After the short walks of Pokémon Go and waiting outside the restaurant we sat down and began talking in general sharing all sorts of stories ranging from Ethan's life to really funny family stories between my family and Tracy's. When we got home after the meal we cracked open a Wando yearbook and scrolled around through the clubs, the best one we found was the Wando Feminist club.

As we settled in for the night after plenty of stories and dessert from Toffino's me and Ethan were told to get up in the morning and run the mile to a nearby Harris Teeters for balloons to decorate the fence outside of Laney's house for the party.

The next morning we woke up and I had to battle ethan to get him awake enough to go running. After finally procrastinating we got out of the house and jogged to the store, little did we know we didn't have enough money for 27 balloons. We made it to the store and sat at the Starbucks inside for breakfast which is probably where we should've saved the money. Afterwards we went over and bought balloons and apparently did the math wrong because we were 75 cents short and we couldn't return helium. We stood there awkwardly until someone gave us the remaining money and we walked home only popping two balloons and looking like idiots when Laney and Tracy passed us on the road, so much for the surprise but I mean, balloons. We got back and tied the balloons to the fence posts and accepted my moms offer to go and roam around downtown Charleston in the market. After the ride there we parked and made our way to the market with ethan constantly stopping to do tricks on his kendama, it really gets annoying. When we got there we strolled through the shopping centers and walked around downtown mostly playing Pokémon go despite that sounding cringy. I'll go straight to when we got back because my memory contains more then i want to type. So we got back and grabbed what we needed from upstairs and Laney's friends began arriving, luckily she had a parkour friend who ethan got along with and amends were instantly made between all of us. At the time there were six of us, three guys and three girls so we went for a walk around the neighborhood which included us walking all the way to the far dock only for it to be locked. Luckily jumping the gate is easy if you don't fall in so it wasn't an issue. We sat on the dock for a little while and just shared stories and current events until it got darker so we began our walk back. Dinner was great and we sat on the porch for about an hour till we decided to head down to the park only 100 meters away.

Once we got there the six of us decided it was a good idea to jump into the pool despite not having towels or bathing suits and we took it over for a good hour and half freezing our butts off in there. After the younger kids joined we jumped out and it became a mad dash to get home as our new friend Andrew, ethan, and I all sprinted back due to it being cold out. Once we got back we all changed and sat on the porch sharing different songs and lighting candles to try to summon Satan. I left to go for a pizza and coincidentally Vicky went for a shower. The other four didn't know that and assumed I was showering with her until I got back with pizza and got yelled at till I explained that I didn't fuck Laney's friend.

Andrew left about thirty minutes later and it was about 11:30 at this point. Little did we know that without Andrew to keep the gender balance things would get a little weird. You see at the time ethan and I had girlfriends and neither of them knew what we were really doing down there, except we couldn't tell them because we didn't know what would happen ourselves. We put on Netflix and I was offered a spot on the couch with the other four. Despite really wanting to sit between both Mya and Vicky I decided to continue to sit in the armchair. After the movie finished and having Tracy yell at us to keep it down we couldn't find the show we wanted on Netflix so we called up the service and complained using different accents and reasonings. Even making them switch to Spanish service and back to English all while dancing to the call waiting music. At about 1:00 AM we decided it was time to call it a night, or so me and ethan thought.. Mya and Vicky decided to sleep over in Laney's room which happens sometimes when I'm over it's not an issue, I've never been in while they've been over but since I had a friend somehow it was deemed okay and we had one large Snapchat group where we were told we could join them. Now you see these are southern beach girls so when you walk in a room at night with them don't except pants.. except we weren't excepting it, long t-shirts and underwear while we only had shorts on. So I mean we sat there and laughed our asses off for a bit and went back to our own room to keep the noise down since Tracy had her door open. As awkward as it was we continued snap chatting till about 3:00 AM after her husband yelled at us for sneaking around in the halls as a joke, that was my fault.

The next morning Ethan, Mya, and I decided to go for a run as she had also run in the meet on Saturday. Laney had woken up by then and asked us to bring her Starbucks. Now we grudgingly agreed since she does almost no exercise and is still skinny af but we did it anyways. The run there was pretty good and it was cool out. Once we made it to the Harris Teeters we walked to the Starbucks and ordered her coffee, I have no clue what the fuck it was but here's Mya, a basic tall white girl, now carrying a Starbucks drink on the way back so I took the cup and trust me when I say I looked like a huge hypocrite for being a good runner just carrying Starbucks down the street on a run. We got back and decided to take a walk where we had to jump another gate due to some asshole not letting us in cause we didn't bring the key with us. When we got down there they all had bathing suits so me and Ethan didn't bother jumping in although another couple brought golden retrievers down and we got to pet them as Laney and her friends were jumping off the docks. After a bit and Laney had dried we got a bad idea and managed to throw her in after she dried off. Unfortunately after this adventure it was time for us to leave despite our attempts to stay for another day and just miss school, which would've been great no problem.

I mean our Snapchats continued throughout the trip home and until Mya lost her phone and Laney stopped contacting us. There was only one other time we had an adventure such as this but it was without Vicky and Mya so no hate. I feel I typed this pretty fines. You know that other one would be a good short story.