I ended up sitting next to Ellie on the coach and as soon as I got the chance, I brought up the subject of her family. When we were in secondary school her parents were abusive and, from what I'd heard, she'd stayed as far away from home as possible since leaving for university.
"How's your sister?" I asked.
"She's all grown up now, can you believe she's 18?" she replied.
"Wow, in my mind she's still this 12 year old girl asking you to curl her hair," I said laughing.
"Does she still live at home?" I questioned.
"Yeah, she does, but she's moving out for uni in September. I haven't seen her in person for about a year now because my parents won't let her out to see me and I don't want to go home," she explained.
My heart sunk a little. Ellie and I had history and I felt bad for her.
"Makes sense. But you still talk to her right?"
"Oh yeah, we FaceTime at least three times a week and I'll see her more often when she moves out."
Suddenly, I noticed that Muhammad was listening in to the conversation and I gave Ellie a look that said "we'll talk later".
"Hi," I greeted him, "you're Muhammad right?"
"Yeah, but call me Mo," he replied.
"I'm Emma," I introduced myself. "I know Ellie from secondary school."
"Uh, cool," he replied awkwardly.
"So you're in the dance group with Ellie," I prompted. "Can you dance?"
"I don't know, I mean yes," he answered quickly.
'Oh dear, that means no,' I thought.
"What do you work as?" I asked him, changing the subject.
"I'm a pizza delivery man," he said, "what about you?"
'Wow, talk about doing nothing with your life,' I thought. Then, I immediately mentally slapped myself. 'Shut up brain, you don't know what situation he's in!'
"I work at my family hauling company," I answered but he was looking at Ellie.
"I'm a software engineer for Google," she replied, "but I love to dance in my free time and I perform at least once a month."
'Nice!' I thought, 'she did well for herself unlike some.' Another mental slap.
"That's amazing," he said, his eyes glued to her lips as she spoke.
I internally rolled my eyes and took my phone out of my pocket. Of course I already had loads of emails from work but I ignored them and went straight to my text messages. I opened a new message to Ellie and wrote: "He's flirting with you big time." A moment later her phone pinged and she read my message. Without looking up she replied, "I know, save me?".
"I need your number," he suddenly blurted at Ellie, seeing our phones.
"OK, give me your phone and I'll put it in," she replied.
"Do you want mine as well?" I asked knowing he didn't.
"Um, OK," he reluctantly agreed.
After that, they started talking about memes and anime which I knew nothing about so I joined in a conversation about cats with Rose and Oliver, who had ended up sitting next to each other, across the isle from me and Ellie.
"OMG, you have cats!? I love cats too!" exclaimed Oliver. "I have a black rescue cat called Jasper."
"I have two white and ginger cats called Custard Cream and Pumpkin," replied Rose. "And Pumpkin just had a litter of six kittens.
"Oh my goodness, that's adorable
Can I see pictures of them?" I asked, grinning with excitement. "I love kittens so much!"
Rose showed Oliver before passing her phone over to me and I practically beamed with happiness.
"Aww, they're the cutest little beans!" I exclaimed.
"Do you want me to send you some pictures?" Rose asked.
"Yes please," I replied eagerly.
Oliver, Rose and I exchanged numbers and Rose sent us both the kitten pictures.
Suddenly, Mo turned to me and blurted, "It hurts my neck to turn around but it's worth it to get girl's numbers."
There was a moment of silence and confusion before everyone around us burst out laughing.
'What the hell! This guy is weird!' I thought.
"Mo, let me tell you something," said a guy who I didn't know yet. "That, is definitely not how to flirt."
"Um, how do you flirt then?" asked Mo.
"First of all, don't make it that obvious," the guy replied, laughing. At this, Muhammad turned bright red and sunk into his chair. "I'm Alexander by the way, Alex for short. And this is my obviously inferior twin, Edmund."
"Oh for God's sake Alex, would you stop that already. We're 25 not 15," complained Edmund, rolling his eyes. He turned to the rest of us and added, "call me Ed, Edmund makes me sound like I'm straight out of Narnia."
Power by Little Mix and Stormzy came on the radio and Ellie suddenly grabbed my arm and shouted, "oh my God, I love this song," before starting to sing at the top of her lungs, "hold up no you didn't bow, bow."
"I ain't the chick to walk behind you round town," I joined in and we sang together for the rest of the song.
"Motorbike, motorbike, motorbike, motorbike, bike, bike, bike, bike, bike bike bike bike bike bike whoop," we finished, high fiving.
"I forgot how beautiful your voice is," Ellie complimented me.
"Thank you," I replied, slightly embarrassed.
Three hours, a whole load of traffic, lots of singing, introductions to many more people and hundreds of conversation topics later, we arrived at where we would be staying, an activity centre in the middle of the peak district. We were split up into groups and assigned a tent per four. I ended up with Rose, Ellie and a girl called Mia. After putting our suitcases down and setting up our beds, we all met in the common room for a talk from Zayden.
"Now that everyone is settled," he began," I have to go through all the boring stuff, rules, etc. Firstly, we're all adults here but I'm afraid no alcohol or drugs are allowed to be consumed during this first week of the course. You should have been told this before but it's just a reminder. If you are a smoker there is a designated smoking area outside, that is well signposted. Secondly, you must be aware of how much noise you are making at night and be respectful of the neighbors. There is a curfew of 11pm, I know you're adults but it's centre policy, so this means you have to be in your tent by 11pm. There are toilets by the tents but I recommend holding until the morning if you can. You can use the main bathrooms and toilets from 5am - 11pm. Thirdly, breakfast is at 8am and activities start from 9am. You will be told what your group is doing that day in the morning. Any questions?"
I was getting excited.
'This week is going to be amazing,' I thought.
YOU ARE READING
Connected
Romance"My name's Oliver," he said looking around at the group. 'Wow, his voice...' I thought. "I'm 25," he continued, "and I work at an animal shelter." 'He works at an animal shelter? That's cute, I would never have guessed.' "I have a cat which I adop...
