Blackpool: Ever After

Chapter 2

So the next day was a “travel day”. The group had to go from Blackpool to Patterdale, Lake District. The start of the day went alright. But at one of the train stations, at the beginning of the Lake District, it went wrong with Jasmine. She was already faking her happiness to make it comfortable for the people around her. At the train station, the trains started to look like an way out of the horrible world she was in. She started to walk away from the group, to the end of one of the platforms, to the edge of the platform.

Since the beginning of the day Elisabeth was keeping an eye on Jasmine, to see if she was doing okay. Because of this Elisabeth saw that Jasmine was standing on the edge of the platform. While Jasmine stood there, Elisabeth saw that she was going up in her thoughts and looking at the train. ‘You aren’t going to do that, girl!! Please don’t!’:yelled Elisabeth at Jasmine while running towards her. When she reached Jasmine, she gave her a big hug.

The hug ended when the train had left the station, just to make sure Jasmine wouldn’t jump in front of it. While she was hugging Jasmine, Elisabeth told her: ‘You aren’t alone, there are more people like you. You can talk to someone if it helps, a professional or me. You can ramble to me about everything. Not only this vacation but also when we’re back home.’ When she let Jasmine go, she looked at her and you could see how sorry she felt for Jasmine, because of what she had to go through and been through. There train arrived and they continued their journey to Patterdale.

When the group came in Patterdale and found there youth hostel, they had to wait for an hour before they could get a room because there wasn’t an employee around. The whole group took place in a living area, most of them went to sleep because it had been a long, intensive journey. At one point the only people that were awake, were Keith and Jasmine. They were sitting next to each other at one of the couches, both listening to their own music. After a while Keith looked at Jasmine, patted her on the shoulder and asked her if he could let her listen to a song. It was a song that means a lot to him, it had a special meaning, a message. Jasmine agreed to listen to the song. She paused her own music and plugged her headset in Keith’s. While the song played, Jasmine listened very good to the lyrics. It were some amazing lyrics, it had a really clear message in it. It was about needing somebody around you, someone you could stand by.

When there was finally an employee, they got their rooms. Jasmine shared again with Elisabeth and Ann, Keith with Alex and Cole.

They both went to their own parts of the hostel. Unpacked their stuff, made the beds and gathered at the living area for dinner.

While having dinner the other half of the girls, Bella, Lin, Suzy, Caroline and Mariah, had something to say about the relation between all the girls. They found that Jasmine, Ann and Elisabeth didn’t communicate with them like they should. They found that there were two groups of the girls. Jasmine, Ann and Elisabeth said that they were right, but that it wasn’t their fault. Bella, Lin, Caroline and Mariah were the girls that had said from the first night off that the room layouts were set, that meant: Bella, Lin, Caroline and Mariah in one room and Jasmine, Ann, Elisabeth and Suzy in another. Lin, Caroline, Bella and Mariah wanted it like that for the rest of the vacation, not that Jasmine and the other girls didn’t like that but it was for them very clear that there were going to be two groups. But because of the discussion it felt for Ann, Jasmine and Elisabeth being back in primary school, a discussion going on about nothing, about something that you could see coming. With that said they all continued their dinner.

After dinner Cole went with the girls to their room. Elisabeth was the girlfriend of Cole so Jasmine and Ann didn’t found it weird at all. When they were at the room, Ann spoke out first about the discussion that had taken place at dinner. It brought her back to her time at primary school, a time that wasn’t that pleasant, same for Elisabeth. With two out of three girls crying and telling how they felt after what was said at dinner. Cole didn’t know who to choose of the girls to comfort so Jasmine helped him by comforting Elisabeth, maybe not the smartest choice because Elisabeth was his girlfriend. After something that seems like an hour, Liz walked in. She found the group sitting in the middle of the room comforting each other. Liz sat down with them, and talked with them about what happened at dinner. Ann and Elisabeth told their side of the story whilst crying. Jasmine and Cole just said there, listening, just like Liz. Liz told them: ‘We as staff also saw that the group of girls was getting divided in half. You girls, are like the quiet once and they are the loud once. They are more spoken out then that you are, they don’t care about what others think about them like you do. This makes you more vulnerable than others, an easier target or something close to that. That doesn’t say that you girls, are weak or anything. You are amazing, girls, you have been through a lot and still keep strong, you can be proud of yourself!’ After those words were said, Jasmine started to tear up, she could relate to that. Also Keith walked in, he was done with being in one room with Alex. Alex was hyperactive, so that started to work at Keith’s nerves. When Keith walked into the room, Liz left, knowing that it was going to be okay with the girls. When she was gone, Jasmine, Ann, Elisabeth, Cole and Alex talked some after.

Ann wanted to cry some more but couldn’t ‘find tears’ as she called it, well Elisabeth knew something on that. She put up a sad song that meant a lot to Ann, in seconds Ann was crying, so were Elisabeth and Jasmine. It was something in the lyrics they could all relate to. Keith sat down next to Jasmine and started trying to comfort her because she was the only one sitting by herself, not close to someone who could comfort her. He couldn’t really do that, he felt something for Jasmine couldn’t really put his finger on what and now he had to comfort her! After some little instructions of Cole, he could put his arm around Jasmine, while doing this he had to put himself over a big barrier. After 15 minutes everything went back to how it was, a little bit more joyful. Time to still make something good out of the stuff that had happened that day. After they had played some happy music, they decided to go to sleep. They said the boys goodbye with a hug and went to bed.