Undaunted

Epilogue

"Mine!" Antheia shouts as she dives for the volleyball and hits it across the net to the other side of the court, sand flying in the air in the process and her white and red ruffled bikini's ruffles fluttering in the wind.

From the other side, Ezra grins as he hits it back to us and Spade jumps up in the air, spiking the ball back down over the net and scoring a point for our team as Solstice dives to catch the ball and fails.

"I say it's cheating to have them on the same team," Solstice frowns as she looks between Spade and Antheia, who high-five the current victory.

Three months have went by since I got out of the hospital. Ryder made sure I was well taken care of when I stayed in our dorm for a few more days catching up on my make up work. Ace would occasionally stop by and check on how the two of us were doing and Spade would frequently come over to see Antheia and Flinn. Spade and Flinn ended up growing surprisingly close and now the three of them all get along great. Flinn has been more of himself ever since the curse was lifted and I've been glad to have him back. Ezra ended up expressing an interest in Solstice about two weeks after I was out of the hospital and they've gone on three dates since then. Ezra asked her to be his girlfriend on the second date and she said yes, which she told me all about as soon as the date ended and she came over with two pints of ice cream for a girl's night.

Ace and Katrina have also been doing well together and Ace plans to propose next year. Selia ended up moving into the dorm with Ryder, Flinn, Antheia, and me. Selia is actually pretty witty, even though she appears to be somewhat timid at first, and she gets along great with me and Antheia. She almost acts like a motherly figure to Ryder and it's kind of funny to witness. Apparently while I was still in the hospital they held a funeral for Augustina. Nobody admitted what truly happened to her but they claimed that she had a magic accident when she went to practice her spells down in the catacombs. Harlow returned home to continue her studies in private and she comes by the academy from time to time to see us. According to Ace, she apparently told their parents to shove it about Ryder and that he's just fine on his own. I was pretty impressed by that and the recent changes in Harlow's personality. I still don't think we'd ever be best friends, but we're on neutral terms now.

Tempest woke up about two months after I did and Solstice has been guiding her into recovery. Solstice enrolled Tempest into therapy for her to talk about her problems. I don't necessarily find the idea of talking to someone who barely knows you as helpful, however, I know that some therapists actually really care about their clients instead of just doing their job. Solstice assured me that there are actually a decent amount of therapists who actually care, it's why they entered the job in the first place, and she told me that the one Tempest is seeing is a family friend of Solstice's.

About a week ago, Ryder surprised me with telling me that he got us a trip to the beach again, the same one we visited before. Solstice, Ezra, Spade, Antheia, Flinn, and Selia came with Ryder and I. Ace and Katrina had things to do at the academy, Tempest was still too uncertain to hang out with all of us at once, and Harlow declined coming with because she claimed she's working on something extraordinary at the moment. So, it's just been the eight of us. Our trip is supposed to last for a week. Today is the fourth day of the trip. On the first three days, we went sight seeing and also went to an amusement park and hung out on the beach. This morning, Antheia suggested playing beach volleyball and we've been playing since then.

"Don't worry Solstice, we'll pound them into the sand," Flinn grins from beside Selia, pointing his thumb at his chest.

"Please, don't encourage her," Ezra sighs.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Solstice tilts her head to the side once she climbs to her feet and looks at her boyfriend.

"I believe he means to imply you can be quite scary once you are serious," Selia offers, getting back into her volleyball stance as the wind blows her long red ponytail with a red ribbon in it around, which also matches her red bikini and white beach skirt that's tied around her waist.