Forked Roads Back

71 - ARCHIE

THE LAST FEW WEEKS have been exhausting, to say the least. But it's been a good kind of exhausting.

After so many months of doing very little, going backwards and forwards to class, Millie's overly-detailed timetable was so much busier than any of us had anticipated.

Every day was packed with activities and every evening we got back thoroughly exhausted. From dawn until dusk, we were exploring every nook and cranny the east coast had to offer.

The first couple of weeks we spent in New York.

After a lazy day recovering from jet lag, we explored campus, all the buildings and all of its secrets. We covered that in a day before moving on to museums, Central Park, Brooklyn, Liberty Island, Empire State Building and all the other other tourist hotspots Millie could think of.

But after a couple of weeks, we took the party down the coast to Florida.

We've been here for two weeks, and we've visited every beach and every theme park three times over, and in the evening we've visited bar after bar.

We were having the time of our lives... spending the days laughing as we all got soaked with water, and screaming our heads off on rollercoasters. Laughter in the day was then followed by laughter plus drunkenness in the evenings. We ate too much, we drank too much, but we finished every evening out on the beach, looking up at the stars. It was pretty much perfect.

But despite all that, there's always something still on my mind: Tessa'a phone call.

It's been a few weeks since it happened, but it's been playing on my mind as if she called yesterday. It kept replaying it, wishing I had said something meaningful, or actually said something.

I hadn't told anyone it happened, mainly because I wasn't even sure it even had happened.

I wondered if Tessa was okay, because something must have prompted her to do it. She wouldn't have done it lightly, and it was taking all my strength to leave the phone be, and not call her back to check.

To help, I've been leaving my phone at Ollie's when we go out. It's a bit ridiculous, I know, but I felt as though these flood gates had been opened. Four years worth of water was now torrenting out, and I just wanted to talk to her and tell her everything that's happened.

Currently, my phone is upstairs. We opted for a rare night in because today's activities have been particularly exhausting, having involved a tour of Ollie's childhood, gritty details and all, most of which leaving us scarred for life. We'd been on our feet all day, so none of us fancied another night on the beach. Despite it being a good day regardless, I feel like I'll need my strength for California in a couple of days time.

"You okay?" Ollie asks, piercing my spiralling inner monologue.

I turn my head and nod as I pull myself up into a more upright position. "Knackered. Didn't know you had so many childhood haunts," I joke.

"I can't believe I got dragged round them again," Aurora says. "They were bad enough to revisit the first time round!"

Ollie feigns a hurt expression and she blows him a kiss. "You guys loved it really."

I admit he did take us to some interesting places, but there were also some stops that could be considered as overshares.

"I can't believe you're going already though. It feels like the time here has gone by in a blink."

"I know. It's hard to believe we've been here for two weeks." I pat his shoulder suddenly noticing Millie, Greg, Jared and Pete were nowhere to be seen. "Wait, where'd everyone go?"