14 Days✔

day 5

•trigger warning, talk of sexual assult•

I spend the morning with my family, just waiting until 1PM to see Noah again. Me and my family spend the day at the arcade bowling. Obviously I don't win because of my weak arms, my dad completely destroyed us in the game.

We walk back to the caravan happily as a family, after getting some chicken nuggets for lunch. My parents are holding hands I walk next to them, talking about my school life at home.

"Mum, can I go out with Noah?" I smile, turning to look at my mum. I see her face go pale as I ask and my dad looks down at her.

"Because you've spent so much time with us this morning, yes. You're spending a lot of time with this boy, is there something going on?" My mum asks, stopping walking to look at me seriously. 

"Nothings go on you and dad told me to become friends with people why we were here so I have!" I say and my dad nods next to me.

"She's right, we did tell her to make more friends," he mumbles, causing my mum to stare at him before he continues walking. My mum catches up with him again, holding his hand again as we keep walking.

2 minutes later we reach the caravan and Noah's already stood outside. He smiles brightly at me and my parents walk over to them, causing Noah to shake my dad's hand and introduces himself. I smile to myself, seeing him awkward is definitely something new to me. 

Not long after we start our walk through the woods, I look up at all the towering trees and the scuffed up dirt on the floor, kicking it around.

"Smells like rain." He suddenly says, shoving his hands into his pockets.

"You can smell rain?" I turn and look at him, he nods as a reply. "You're weird, Noah," I laugh softly. He turns to face me, and smiles.

"I love the woods...there's so many trees," he says, looking around at the tall pine trees and picking up a pinecone.

"You sound like a serial killer," I mumble as we follow the path deeper into the woods as we get further and further away from the loud resort.

We walk for a while longer, deeper and deeper into the woods until we reach the picnic benches just in time as my legs are starting to hurt a lot more. He looks over at me and helps me sit down on a bench carefully by lifting me slightly.

"Mei, can I ask you something about your legs? Why do you struggle to walk for a long time?" He whispers, sitting next to me and staring at me curiously. 

I sigh heavily, "part of my past. It's why I refuse to tell you what I've done."

"You can be honest with me, Mei. It's only for two weeks. I'll always remember you positively," he says, jumping off the bench and kneeling in front of me instead. He stares into my dark eyes for a brief moment before standing up again.

"I know you're right but it's hard to talk about...I can barely tell my therapist." I mutter.

He nudges me slightly. "We're best friends, you can tell me anything," he smiles and sits next to me again, unable to sit still as he keeps nudging my arm with his elbow.

I look around the forest again, the sun shines through the crack in the trees and onto our faces. I sigh heavily again, turning to look at him with little expression on my face.

"When I was 13, I was sexually assaulted." His expression turns to worry pretty quickly. "I didn't say anything about it for a while, it was slowly eating me up," I continue, taking stops between each sentence. "Then I did and no one believed me, a few months later my legs gave in one day when I was walking," I breathe out and look up at the pine trees. "I shrugged it off the first time it happened, it started happening all the time so eventually I went to a doctor and they said I had trauma... it gets worse every year. I don't think it'll ever be right again. They hurt whenever I think of what happened" I glance over to him. "Obviously not being able to walk for a long time isn't the only side effect but it effects me to the most physically," I finally finish, looking down at the floor.

He frowns at me and wraps his arms around me, he pulls me close to him. Hesitantly, I wrap my arms around his upper body. I close my eyes and try to relax.

"I'm so sorry, Mei. One day you're gonna be okay again. Thankyou for telling me, I can't comprehend how hard that must of been to go through," he whispers, his voice soft as he squeezes me a little tighter. I feel tears start to form in my eyes and quickly blink them away, refusing to go through the pain again or even think of it.

"My parents struggled with it too- my mum didn't come to terms with it because of the Chinese culture but eventually she did... my dad's been protective of me since," I say, adding more on.

He looks down at me sadly. "So that's why you didn't want to tell me what you had done?"

I nod. "Since it happened I haven't kissed anyone or done anything. I barely hug to be honest," I shrug, making him suddenly move his arms away.

"It's okay, Noah. It's-it's you, you can hug me all you want." I whisper, putting my hand on his to get his attention. He smiles brightly at me, pulling me towards him again and hugging me once more.

After sometime of talking more and jumping around in the woods, we start to walk back together.

"Do you want to go out tomorrow?" He suddenly asks as we walk slowly down the dirt path.

"We go out everyday, that's out thing, Noah," I laugh.

"I mean like for food? At night?" He continues, scratching the back of his neck.

"A date, Noah?" I look over at him, my eyebrow raised slightly.

"No- not a date. It's just friends getting food at night..why does that have to make it a date? Because of the dark or because of the fancy food or bec-"

"-Of course I'll get food with you at night. And it won't be a date," I turn around and wink at him.

"It's not a date! And when did you get confident? I'm the confident one here!" He says, in a high-pitched voice.

"No, your right it's not a date," I giggle sticking my tongue out at him.

"Like I'd ask you on a date..." He mutters, shoving his hands in his pockets.