SPLASH

Chapter two

I fetched out my headset to drown out the noise around me. I would rather wish for a headache any day than this chaos in the bus. I've never liked to ride in buses with a bunch of noisy kids.

“You're one to talk,” the voice in my head sneered. “They're your age mate.”
I could literally make out the scowl on it's face.

Rolling my eyes at the act of sheer rudeness has become my constant reaction to this voice. We don't get along at all. In fact, I can't even remember the last time we agreed on something even remotely small that should've had no problem being agreed on.

I shook my head in mock disgust, dumping my headset on my head and adjusting it to cover my ears as music blasted through my ear drums.

After my mom left, all I could hear around me were snickers and then some. Hardly controlled laugher turned coughs made me want to whirl around and hurl a fist into the nearest resemblance to a face.

Just not today. I whispered, telling myself  to simmer down. I was just on the brink of tipping over my newly improved 101°c boiling point.

Today isn't the day I'm feeling my inner badass fighting spirits. Maybe, they've all been swallowed down to the pit of my stomach with the rest of my lunch I'm trying so hard not to let bubble up from within me.

Besides, my best friends who're supposed to be here with me, fighting off all these insolent kids decided to sit out on this one trip. Which left me with absolutely no back up either. According to them, they'd much rather spend their summer holidays lounging under the sun somewhere on a beach with ripped guys of all institutional levels than sit around a camp fire, sharing stories from a Good News Bible.

Not that camp is really bad that they couldn't find something to keep us occupied. I know we wouldn't have gone without some sort of distraction for long but I had genuinely cried, begged, bought them ice cream–which they unashamedly ate right in front of me before rejecting my offer yet again–even grovelled.

And still here I am..

All alone.

In a bus.

Where I'm trying to calm my ragging Kung Fu beasts.

But this fight certainly is not gonna happen in the bus either.

My stomach keeps churning even at the sight of a mere vehicle. My state of acute motion sickness is ridiculous and the vehicle hasn't moved an inch. I also wanted this day to end already without openly advertising the contents in my gut and further embarrassing myself.
I will forever not be able to show my face to the rest of the universe.

I winced when I felt the oncoming spin of a massive headache and decided to take a sip of water. For a moment, I thought of being a little selfish and wishing that I could just be the only person to occupy this seat.

I wasn't in the mood to play real nice and any intruder will only force me to not be rude. I'll have to do real conversations, play along every word with honey sweet smiles and generally act like I'm a glorious daughter of a saint on a trip to a Christian camp – which I was, technically, I mean, the camp part.

But oh boy did someone out there have utterly different plans for me..

“Hey..”

I heard beside but you know I'm not in the mood to talk so I just made it easy.. just ignore.

“Hey, can I have a word with you..?” The voice came again. This time much closer. A little too close in fact.

Now I feel like being robotically rude.
“I can give you two. F*ck. Off.”