| 𝒊 𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒉 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒂𝒍𝒍 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒃𝒆𝒔𝒕 |

Pt. 9

I wake up in a hospital bed. My head is throbbing really hard, but not as bad as my ankle. I see Maverick in a yellow chair next to me. He talking on his phone, looking out a window.
"Yeah no I'm fine. No she's not awake yet. Her name's Avery. No mom, we're not dating....I don't know...we just met today.....alright. I love you too.....I will be careful I promise...bye." He hangs up the phone and sighs.
"Hey." I say. He jumps and turns around.
"Oh hey, your awake. You scared me a little." He chuckles.
"Sorry about that..."
"It's all good. How are you feeling?"
"Like I just got hit by a car." I laugh.
"Haha...yeah."
"How are you? Are you okay?"
"Me? Oh yeah I'm fine. I just sprained my wrist a little."
"Only a little?"
"Haha yeah.."
I look at his left hand and see that he has an Ace bandage on his wrist. Then I look down at my right ankle and see that it's in a boot.
"Well there's good news and bad news." He says.
"Oh yeah? Tell me the bad news first then."
"Whew okay well, the bad news is that you have to have a boot on your ankle for 6 weeks."
"So basically all summer?"
"Well, you get it off two weeks before summer ends so..." He trails off.
"So the good news is?" I ask.
"Oh yeah," he says snapping back to attention as if he forgot we were talking. "You can get discharged whenever you'd like."
A wave of relief flows through me. I was worried I might have to stay here and camp would have officially started without me.
"Well in that case let's go!" I say. He smiles. "I was hoping you were gonna say that."

After I get discharged from the hospital I have to walk on this huge boot that makes my walk uneven. It's annoying, but I try to brush it off. Walking through the hospital doors, I ask Maverick where we're off to next. "Well," he sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. "I figured that we could swing by my house so that I could pack. I talked to my mom while you were asleep and explained everything about camp to her. She said that I could sign into camp today if I wanted too..."
"Really? That's great! There's on two other campers there besides me. Roman and Jace."
"Yeah I know Roman but I don't remember Jace."
"Yeah he's nice. He got us these friendship rings." I show him my ring.
"That's nice. Hey, my cars this one right here." He says, pointing to a black BMW about five feet away from us.
"Kay." I say. He opens the door for me then walks around to the driver's side. His car smells like coffee and vanilla and the seats are hot because the sun was shining on them. "Sorry about that." He says jumping in the car and closing the door. "About what?"
"The heat."
I laugh. "Oh no it's fine..." He starts up the car and rolls the windows down. We pull out of the hospital parking lot and I start to wonder how his car was here because we were walking to the community center when this happened. I ask him.
"Oh, the doctors just gave me a quick little check up and then gave me this bandage for my wrist. I walked to the community center and turned in the trash. It was worth 30 bucks. Then I realized that I totally forgot that I had a car. I couldn't remember where I left it but then I remembered that we walked from the beach and that it must still be parked there. It was, so then I drove back to the hospital to pick you up and then my mom called...but yeah."
"Oh." I say. I put my arm out the window and soak in the warm sun and the salty breeze.
Soon enough we come to a neighborhood full of huge beach houses. Maverick pulls into the fifth house and and shuts of the car. We get out and walk to the front door. Maverick punches in a combination and the the door unlocked. Fancy.
His family must be wealthy.
We walk in and it's huge. The kitchen is to the left and a huge living room is to the right. It's cool and calm in here. There's a grand staircase that winds up to the second  floor. "Wow." I say.
Maverick chuckles. "Yeah it's something. I've grown up in this house and it still doesn't really feel like home. Like, the town is more like home than home is, you know?"
I nod, though I wasn't really paying attention. I take in the nice hardwood floors and the perfect kitchen with two ovens and a huge sink. The white cabinets and white marble countertops. "You can stay here if you want I'll only be a moment. I already have my bags packed." He dashes up the stairs. I stay by the front door. I hear what sounds like nails hitting the ground and a little white poodle comes walking around the corner. When it sees me it starts barking. "SHUT UP ROWAN!!" I hear Maverick call. I laugh and pet Rowan. I see that all of Rowan's paws are painted a sparkly hot pink. "Ooh I like your nails Rowan!" I say to her. I'm complimenting a dog on her nails. Huh. I'm assuming it's a girl. She calms down and licks me. I see Maverick coming down the stairs with a dufflebag. He squats down and licks Rowan up. "Can you say hi to Avery Ro-Ro? Huh? You're a good girl, yes you are!" He says in a high-pitched sing song voice. He looks at me and Rowan licks his cheek. "Rowan's the only other girl in the house so her and mom sometimes have a 'girls day'" he says, as if to explain the hot pink nails.
"That's cool" I say.
"It's weird." He sets Rowan down and we walk back to his car.

On our way to camp I think of how Roman and Jace are going to react when they see who I've stumbled across. Well, apparently only Roman and Joe know him.
When we get to camp Maverick shuts off the car. "I'll have to call my mom and arrange for her to come get my car. I don't want it staying out here all summer." He sighs.
"Yeah..."
"Well. This place has not changed a bit." He laughs. "But that's okay. I like it like this."
I smile at him.
"Well I guess we should get this show on the road." He says. We get out the car and he gets his duffel bag.
"You ready?" I ask him. He comes over and stands by me. "Yeah, I'm ready."