Where to Begin

Chapter 10

"I'll get the blindfold!" he shouted as he ran upstairs.

"You'll want to get into that skimpy one-piece from last night," Max winked at me.

"It wasn't skimpy, Max,"

"Whatever, that's not what we thought," he said grinning at Calvin. Max was like a mini Chase and I don't know if I liked that or not. I went up to my room and desperately wanted to find Aubrey but she was long gone.

Luckily it was probably 30°C outside so anything to do with water would have been fine.

"Celine!" I heard Max call from downstairs.

"You look nice," Calvin whispered next to me as we stood in the lounge, just in front of the patio doors. Sage was sitting at the table. The boys were both in swimming-trunks and Max came up behind me and put a blindfold over my eyes.

"What are we doing?"

The two boys lead me outside and handed me a bat.

"What the hell?" I couldn't help but laugh.

"Ok, now there is something in front of you and you need to swing the bat to hit it," I heard Calvin's voice backing away from me.

"What? Like a piñata?"

"Something like that." Max laughed. I felt a cold hand on my back push me forward.

"Ok, when you're ready...just swing." Calvin said. So, I took a swing in the air and felt a burst of freezing cold-water splash over me.

"Ah! What the hell!" I yanked off my blindfold and realized I hit a water-balloon piñata.

"Water fight!" Max yelled and him and Calvin started shooting freezing cold water at me with water guns. Suddenly, all the other boys came running from around the side of the house and over the hill and started throwing water balloons at each other. I tried running away and hiding but Noah found me around the side of the house and broke a huge water balloon over my head.

"Ha, ha, ha!" He shouted running away from me.

"Why is this water so cold!"

"I don't know, you tell me!" Chase came up behind me and broke another freezing cold water-balloon over me.

"Hey!" I ran to a bucket in the middle of the garden that was filled with water-balloons and grabbed one and hit Chase in the stomach.

"You wanna go?" He shouted playfully at me.

Jackson ran up behind him and smashed a water-balloon on his head, which bought me time to get more supplies. I threw another two balloons at Max and one at Calvin for making me hit a water-balloon piñata and then I was even able to pick up a water gun and start shooting Noah.

"Ok, ok I give up!" I said holding up my hands and started walking back to the patio. That water was really cold and so was I.

"You can't give up that easily!" I heard Max run up behind me and he grabbed me around the waist and held me up so all the other boys could throw more water at me. Eventually, after Max let me go and my face was red (again), I grabbed my towel, that Calvin left for me, from the chair. I dried off outside while the others ran up the hill and jumped in the pool.

"I'm going to go warm up a bit," I said walking back inside as some of the boys came to the patio to dry off.

I walked to the bathroom to have a shower and I passed Connell's room; his door was open. He was sitting on his bed with a laptop in front of him.

"Connell?"

He didn't look at me.

"Why didn't you come to the water fight?" I asked quietly, leaning on his doorframe.

"I didn't feel like it," he mumbled lowly, still not looking at me.

"Oh, ok," I was about to start walking away. "What's wrong?" I stopped myself and went back to the door. He'd been mad since that morning. You could see it on his face but he didn't say anything.

"Please tell me what's the matter?" I asked softly.

"You know what? Just stop acting!" He slammed his computer shut. "Stop acting like you're this innocent girl who just randomly showed up on our doorstep! What's wrong with you? Huh? You're the new girl around here! You haven't told us anything about yourself, not how you got here or why you're here. Where the hell are your parents? Huh? And why did you wash up on Nelscott Beach alone?"

He was yelling – loudly. Tears started welling up in my eyes but I stood there and took it, my feet glued to the floor.

"Don't ask what the matter with me is because you're the one that no one knows anything about and yet you're living with us!" He turned back to his laptop. "Chase was right," he scoffed. "You are basically a refugee."

He opened his laptop again, hinting that he was finished with me, so I turned around and stormed off to the bathroom. I slumped down in the corner of the bathroom; between the towel rack and the sink, and started crying. I didn't realize that I actually hurt Connell.

I thought back to the conversation I had with Aubrey that morning and thought maybe Connell did like me, that's why he was acting so hurt. The thought made me stop crying for a bit so I quickly got in the shower. I had a nice long, hot shower and wrapped my body in a warm towel after I got out. I still looked like I had been crying so I splashed my face with cold water to try and get the puffiness to go away. I quickly left the bathroom with my towel wrapped tightly around me and tried to get back to my room without any of the boys seeing me.

"Celine?" I heard as I opened my door.