Give Me Back Whats Mine ➳ David Dobrik

Chapter Twenty One ➳ Please Let This Be Okay

DAVID

The first night of our group vacation had been hysterical.

We laughed and danced and played stupid games and sung stupid songs, all the while just enjoying each others company.

It was utterly amazing to me that we could all still be like this. So together, even after all this time.

We spent day after day together - week after week, month after month - each year sliding happily into the next.

We still found purpose in each others attention and warmth in each other's presence.

When I thought about it too much, when my mind dwelled on the depths of the friendships I had with those around me, my heart always wanted to leap from my chest.

We had all lived so much and yet we were all still very much at the beginning of our lives, and that blew my mind. It already felt like a goddamn miracle, but there was still so much more time to spend together.

It was that very thought that had lulled me into the deepest sleep I'd had in weeks.

That and the fact that I knew Natalie was asleep in the room next door. Alone. There was certainly a level of comfort to that.

The three nights she'd spent in Santa Monica, I'd experienced some of my worst insomnia.

I hadn't been able to stop thinking about the fact that I was in our house, all by myself.

And that her and Fletcher had been alone in a hotel room together.

Even though my mind tried to convince me that they'd spent the entire trip with exactly five feet of space between them at any given time, I'd always known the reality of the situation.

My mind constantly took me back to the conversation Natalie and I had shared the morning after we'd made up from our fight in Las Vegas. The one where I'd asked her why she'd left the club with Riley that night. The one where she'd told me she was feeling lonely and in some desperate need of skin on skin contact.

So, I'd known what the two of them had been likely doing.

Each other.

And it had kept me awake and my mind travelling at a speed that even I wasn't accustomed to.

But now she was here, and Fletcher was still in LA, and I could pretend a whole lot easier.

So, with the happy tiredness that came from our night of fun and the knowledge that I was in much closer proximity to Natalie then Fletcher was, I fell asleep within seconds.

'Dave.'

A whisper soon came through the darkness I'd been comfortably floating in. I tried my absolute best to ignore it, relishing the fact that my mind had finally quieted down.

'Dude!'

A small hand was now wrapped around my forearm, shaking me ever so lightly.

It was soon followed by a sharp pinch.

'David!'

I opened my eyes in a flash, sleep well and truly leaving me.

Rubbing my eyes, I focused in on the dark room, confused for a second by the unfamiliar space around me.

But then my eyes fell on Natalie and I instantly remembered where I was.

'Jesus Nat, what time is it?' I yawned, looking out the window to my left. It was still completely dark out.