Every rose has its thorn.

Chapter Five: Watch the waves

January 21st

By twelve o'clock, we were up, dressed, and ready to go. After a passionate kissing session, we left the house and began making our way to meet Samantha at hers.

"Whichever of your parents thought that having a house at the very end of Wickham would be a good idea needs to try walking the entire length of the area, to teach them a lesson." Laughed Anna, staring at the long street which bridged each end of Wickham front street.

"Need a piggyback? I must warn you, people will likely think we're insane." I said, walking in front and pointing my back towards her.

"That's a risk i'm willing to take." She replied, leaping up and coiling her arms around my neck. I felt smooth legs wrap themselves around my waist, and I took a second to enjoy the sensation, before hoisting her completely onto my back. She weighed next to nothing, and I was able to move just as quickly as usual with little to no effort. I walked closer, every now and then stopping to appreciate her soft, peaceful breathing in my ear.

"So why exactly can't we just meet Sam there?" She asked, breaking a five minute long silence.

"Because Joe, Ryan, Lauren, Jake, Andrew, Daniel and Lucy are already on the train, and Sam doesn't want to travel all the way there alone, so we're going to go together and meet everyone at the beach." I answered, craning my neck as best as possible to look at her.

"Why, is this long walk killing you or something?" I joked. She laughed, kissing me on the forehead.

Mercifully, we didn't have to go all the way to Sam's. We found her standing patiently at the bus stop, checking her appearance in a small, hand held mirror. To the rest of the world, she would have looked to be incredibly vain, flicking out the mirror every five seconds to readjust her hair or something mediocre. However, anyone that had a decent knowledge of the true reason; she had been born with quite severe OCD, and her constant fixing-up was commonplace in her life. he was moderately attractive, with deep black hair which came to around half way down her back. She had a dazzling set of aquamarine eyes, and all of her features were petite and rounded.

"Sam!" I yelled as as she came completely into view, prompting her to break the cycle and tear herself away from the mirror.

"What took you so long?" She asked, flicking her hair ever so slightly.

"Sorry, Wickham is a long place and I have an Anna on my back." I replied. She laughed, and turned to look as the sound of a bus hummed in the distance. I sped up, running at just the right speed so that as we reached the stop, the bus would pull up alongside.

"See, perfectly timed!" I said, triumphantly.

"That's not our bus, genius." Said Anna, dropping from my back onto the rough, beaten path. I gave a melodramatic scowl and crossed my arms in a similar fashion.

"Quiet, you."

The bus arrived after around 15 minutes, in the timespan of which we had managed to scale the steep wall situated behind the bis stop and sat patiently in waiting.

"Here it is. Need a hand down?" I asked, offering my arm to Sam. Anna, easily the most athletic of the three of us, dropped down without any trouble and signalled for the bus to turn in.

"It'd be appreciated." She replied, grabbing my hand. I dropped swiftly, landing on the tip of my feet. I stuck my other arm out, allowing Sam to fall clumsily into my arms, before I released her and let her touch the floor. We hopped onto the bus and paid the fare, walking instinctively to the back and sitting down. The sun was blisteringly hot, only made worse by the thick glass of the bus window. Even Anna, who was wearing only a short denim skirt and a low cut t-shirt with a bikini underneath, seemed to be feeling the heat of the day. Sam however seemed to be distracted by her OCD, too busy brushing her hair with her fingers over and over again to concentrate on how hot it was.

"I forgot to ask, what happened with Lauren and those chavs that were practically hunting her down?" Asked Sam, turning to me.

"No idea, last I knew is that she put one in hospital. Whether that made them lay off, or just pissed them off even more, I'm not entirely sure." I said. Anna's attention was far off as Sam attempted to ask her knowledge of events.

"Hmm? Oh, I dunno. I think they fucked off, and rightly so. Lauren could kill them all in a heartbeat." She said, still looking quite vacant. Her phone lay in her hands, the screen filled with a half finished message. I went to look, but she quickly locked it and hid it in her pocket. I was confused, but made no other attempts to find out what she had been writing. The rest of the journey was filled with idol chit-chat, and I quickly forgot about Anna's peculiar behaviour. As we got closer to the train station, we departed from the bus and dashed down to the platform. It was twenty one minutes past one, and our train was due at twenty five past. We raced through the crowds after getting our tickets, and managed to reach the train with little over thirty seconds left.

"Well that was cutting it slightly fine." I admitted, out of breath. Anna and Sam nodded in agreement, worn out from running so much.

The train tore along the track towards it's destination, leaving nothing but emptiness in it's wake. The heavy roar of the engine engulfed any other sounds within an instant, and the sheer speed left little for the eye to see but blurs. I found myself transfixed on the colours, unable to do anything but sit and stare into space.

"Alex, we're here!" Came Anna's voice, which had cheered considerably in the short space of time since we had last spoken. I stood, grasping her hand and following Sam off the train.

The sea air was crisp and refreshing to my all-too-polluted city lungs. Despite not being far from the hustle and bustle, the seaside seemed to be a different place entirely. The sun shone constantly, everyone was smiling. It was practically unnatural how little it shared with the town in terms of society and, more importantly, weather. As we emerged from the metro station, I easily spotted the others; Lauren's height stood out in any crowd, only outdone by her beauty. Jake seemed to notice us first, waving for us to come over. They had congregated by a small cafe, and most of them had already prepared for a dip in the sea.

"Glad you could make it, finally! We've been waiting for like an hour and a half!" Shouted Ryan, seeming quite angry.

"Shit, really?" I asked, slightly taken aback by his attitude.

"Nah, kidding, we only got here ten minutes ago." He replied, his face changing from an angered snarl to a friendly grin. Anna slapped him on the arm playfully, and I laughed, brushing my hand through my hair,

"Right, i'm going straight in the sea. You coming?" Asked Lucy, her taking her short brown hair out of it's ponytail.

"In five minutes. Right now, I just want to watch the waves." I said, staring calmly out into the horizon.