The Green Labyrinth

Nightmares

I wake up, groggy and still half asleep. I rub my eyes and look out the window of my bunk. We're parked. 

I get up and open the curtain to the living area.

"Morning sleepy head." Derek jokes eating his waffles.

"You guys got waffles without me?" I groan sitting into the booth. 

"Nah, we would never." He grabs a container of food, banana waffles with syrup, my favorite. I chow them down faster than I can breathe. 

"Slow down bud, you'll choke." Derek laughs, the door opens, my mouth full of waffle.

"AY! We're gonna go to the waterfront park if you guys wanna come. It's a cool spot here we wanna show you guys." Venti walks up the stairs. A sleepy eyed boy makes his way in behind him, his hair is messy, his eyes have dark circles around them. 

"Yeah we can check into the hotel and head over!" Derek laughs, I swallow my mouthful and nod. I hop up and grab my bags, heading into the Best Western. We check into our rooms and head in to freshen up and change. I pull out a pair of jeans and an off the shoulders top, cardigan and sneakers. I check my hair and makeup quick, fixing my eyeshadow. I hear a faint knock on the conjoined door. I open slowly. It's Collin.

"Guess we got lucky having conjoining rooms huh?" he jokes, his face a half smile. He leans against the door frame. His tall body illuminates in the sunlight. God he's so sexy, but..

"Let's go guys!" Venti yells from the hall. We head out and make our way to the park.

There's a huge roller coaster, bumper cars, food stands, and a big Ferris wheel. I grab Derek and interlock our arms, keeping some distance between Collin and I. 

"Ride the Ferris wheel with me?" I ask. He nods back. We hand the guy our tickets and start our way up. We stop almost at the top and I sigh. 

"So what's up Dora? You're acting weird." he turns his body to face me. 

"I have feelings for Collin.." 

"I KNEW IT!" he yells, his hands in fists in the air, like he won the lottery. 

"But I can't..." 

"Can't what?" 

"I can't be with him. I need to be alone for a while." I say looking at the view. 

"Why? You've been good for so long, and everything is in the past." Derek gives me a disappointing side eye.

"I know. But I just need to fix myself. And I can't be with someone who also has nightmares and demons. I can barely deal with my own, let alone deal with someone else's." I look down at my hands and back at Derek.

"I'm broken. He's broken. You can't fix two broken toys with missing pieces." He smiles.

"Well, then you need to be each others missing pieces until you find them all to fit the puzzle. Kyle is gone, he's in the past and he can't bother you. You're on tour with the band, we'll see Lex in a few days. Collin's a good guy, he means well. You're both broken, but so is everyone in some way or another. You can't blame yourself or him for that. You both need to be happy and if that means figuring out the hard stuff first then, you gotta do it for you." He's right. But not right now. I just wanna be friends. Plus, I wanna see what Lex thinks. 

We get off the Ferris wheel and head toward the others. Jake, Ben, and Logan are sitting around a big piece of fried dough. Faces stuffed. We sit at the table and Ben smiles, his face full of dough and powered sugar in his beard.