After the Crash ✓

12| Team Feelings

"What about Team Feelings?" Christopher arches his eyebrow with a smile, as if he's come up with the greatest name ever.

Shauna snickers.

"Aren't you meant to be looking at your knife when you're cutting?" She adds, laughing and definitely not looking at her knife.

Christopher bows his head in shame at Shauna's comment. He wasn't looking at his knife while he was carving a sharp point onto a stick.

I dig my knife into the wood, trying to make a dent in it. My weak and flimsy hands fail me and my knife slips and cuts my fingertip. I gasp in pain shaking my finger.

Murphy produces his stick, perfectly carved with a sharp point jutting out the end. He sees my finger staining the brown dirt red with blood.

"You okay there, Bradley?" He asks

Everyone else looks up too.

"I'm fine. Just a cut." I say. "I'll go get it bandaged." I get up and walk towards a first aid station, littered with band-aids and antiseptic, leaving Christopher attempting to convince everyone about the name Team Feelings.

I begin sprinkling a few drops of antiseptic on my finger, it stings like a swarm of bees. I grab a plaster and attempt to peel the covering off. Unfortunately, for me, mum insisted that I cut my nails until they were minute squares on my fingers. I spend a few minutes struggling with the plaster.

"Need some help?" A voice says behind me. It's sweet and mellow.

I turn to see a substantially shorter Nicole- not in her usual six inch stilettos.

"I figured I owed you for the seat." She says, smiling. Her pearly white teeth contrast her red lips.

She walks towards me and begins peeling the plaster with her long painted nails. With caution, she places it on my wound.

"That's nasty." She clenches her teeth and applies some pressure.

I let out a groan of pain.

Nicole smiles triumphantly, stepping forward. She's so close to me. Her red lip come together. They're inches from mine. Her nose almost touches mine. Her eyelashes overlap with mine.

"Take care of yourself, Bradley."

She takes a few steps back and returns to the Jamestown High tent, where Mares demonstrates how to use the knife with care.

I'm going to do my best to forget that.

So, I walk back to the Support Group tent, where Christopher demonstrates (with a shaky hand) how to carve using a knife, and is failing miserably. By the time I get back to the large tent, it's Murphy demonstrating.

On account of my disfigured finger, I decide to sit the rest of the activity out. Christopher immediately sets Shauna and I to work, collecting wood for our dwindling fire, while Jamestown's is roaring with more wood beside it.

"What were you doing with Nicole?" Shauna asks, while we go on a trek through the thorny woods.

"Nothing." I say, my cheeks are aflame.

"You like her don't you?" Shauna replies. She walks ahead and her high frizzy ponytail is once again in my face.

"Well, I like the new her." Shauna swivels around. "But as a friend." I quickly add, pulling my hand through my brown hair.

"Okay, I never said you liked her as more than a friend." Shauna arches an eyebrow, smiling. Somehow, she's torn information out of me. Information that even I can't fully contemplate yet.

Shauna points to a log and begins to pull it out of a bedding of moss and branches.

"A little help?" She asks, pursing her lips and grunting.

I immediately get to work trying lifting the log, but with my crutches, it's impossible. I heave, before dropping the weight onto it's previous spot on the shrouded forest floor.

Until, Jared suddenly appears like a saviour.

And, Shauna drops the other side of the log. I'm guessing the weight isn't the problem.

"Would you guys like some help?" He asks. His perfectly conditioned muscles and tight shirt carefully fitted around his abs have Shauna staring.

"Yes. Please." Shauna says not taking her eyes of him. "I'm Shauna." She puts her hand out for him to shake.

He grabs it and completely sidelines my presence.

After what feels like an eternity, they begin moving the log back towards our camp. I trail behind them, listening to Shauna endlessly flirting with Jared and him being too naive to notice it.

"Where do you work out?" Shauna tightens her ponytail.

Jared, thinking Shauna actually cares about where he works out, goes into a full-on lecture about sports equipment and good and bad gyms.

Shauna just keeps nodding and flashing him smiles.

By the time the log has been emptied into the fire, I feel like gagging from the conversation I've had to hear.

"Bye." Shauna calls to Jared. He smiles and waves.

Shauna looks back at me with her mouth wide open.

"Why did you not tell me he was so hot?"

Murphy joins our conversation.

"Yeah, Bradley, why did you not tell me he was so hot?" He adds mockingly, knowing it will make Shauna annoyed.

"Eyes off Jared, Murph." Shauna replies, narrowing her eyes.

Murphy steps back with his hands up in surrender.

"I've never seen you so serious about some guy, Shaun." Murphy widens his eyes, while Shauna completely ignores him and walks back to the camp, leaving me standing alone.

●●●

Night in the camp is beautiful. You can actually see the stars, unlike the pollution shrouded city. I manage to block up all other noise and look up at the stars. I imagine my father's up there with them, shining and giving us light in the darkness of night.

My moment is cruelly interrupted by my phone pinging with a call from Dr Chris. Trust him to ruin my moment of peace.

I answer it.

"Hello. Bradley?" He says into the phone as if I'm the one who called him.

"Yeah?" I return. "What do you want?"

"Oh! I have some wonderful news!" He flurries.

Last time he had wonderful news, it was that I would spend a day cleaning a hospital.

"What?" I ask.

"Markus wants to meet you for coffee." He says, and I can hear his wife in the background asking what he wants for dinner.

"Markus? Who's Markus?" I ask.

"Oh! Isla's brother!" Chris replies to answer my question.

Wait. So, the guy who's sister I put into a coma wants to meet me for coffee?

I sigh out loud.