Five Girls, One Mission

Chapter 9

 Alex’s POV

Izzy tasted her own marshmallow and she felt like throwing up. She’s so pathetic! I mean, of course, when you smell something, don’t try tasting it. Nothing would make a difference. It’s just the same even if you flip the world all around, it would never change. “Oh, man, it was gross, wasn’t it?” I started to crack up.

“Alex, you didn’t have to rephrase that!” Izzy yelled, her mouth looked like it was about to throw up. “It was horrible! It tasted exactly like charcoal!”

“That’s because these wood we gathered were turned into charcoal by exotic combustion means and therefore, your marshmallow stayed in the fire too long and don’t forget that the smoke creates its smell. Of course, it would smell like charcoal, genius!” Courtney explained like a professional scientist of all sorts.

“Eew, that was just so gross! I think I need to drink some water…” Izzy ran inside and tried to look for her bag.

I looked at my marshmallow. It was perfectly golden and so I chugged it into my mouth and I digested it in just one big swallow. “Oh, that was delicious!”

I walked away of the logs and laid myself down on the grass a few meters from the camp fire. My eyes met the stars shining and lighting up the sky together with the moon.

Unexpectedly, Addison laid herself down beside me. “It’s a beautiful night sky, isn’t it?”

“I know. I never seen this many stars in years. I could barely see any of them in New York. We have way too many neon lights”, I explained.

“Hey, Alex…?”

“What is it, Addison?”

“Look, I-I’m sorry for earlier, acting too immature to you. I’m sorry if I didn’t trust you and being awkward and mean to you the whole time…”

I never expected that as much as the part when she just lay right next to me. “Woah, woah… Addison, settle down. It is okay, I forgive you. Besides, you wouldn’t even be acting like that around me if I wasn’t so confident about myself. I get too far sometimes. And it’s okay. You don’t have to be guilty, anymore”.

“Wow, well, you actually do have a soft heart, too… Thanks for forgiving me, Alex. I didn’t know a bit about you before and I just jumped right in. I haven’t got a single idea how hard your life already been”.

“I told you, it is already okay”, I tried to insist her so that nobody would make a noise to disturb my stargazing.

“I guess it only took a matter of hours for us to be friends after so many school years we’ve been ignoring each other”. Well, she does have a good point.

“I was just shy”.

“Why should you even be? You have great responsibility in you, even how many times you steal just for the good of another person”.

“Is that really how you see in me?”

“Well, that’s what I see”, she stood up and reached out her hand. “Come on. We have to go back inside. It’s getting cold”.

I took her hand and we went inside. “Okay, so, how do we sleep?” Izzy asked, sitting on our sofa.

“We’ll be sleeping on the floor”, Courtney suggested. “Hey, Alex, do you have any sleeping bags?”

I thought about it. “Actually, we do. It’s right in the attic”.

“How many do you have?”

“I didn’t have enough time to count them all but I think we have enough for all of us”, I pulled a string hanging from above and sleeping bags poured into the room. “Okay, so I’m just gonna take five from here”.