Books & a Baller

Hello, Boys - Day 5

Cara

I woke up still wrapped up in Noah's arms, I turned off the alarm I had asked him to set for me. Yesterday had been so emotionally draining, and Noah had been amazing. He didn't even ask about Nathan, I knew he had seen the look in my eyes and knew I didn't want to talk about it. This place was doing my head in, Emma was right when she told me that your emotions run in overdrive here. I couldn't understand that after only knowing Noah for 4 days that my feelings for him could be this intense already. I was in this perfect little bubble, and then Nathan came along and popped it, just as easily as sticking a pin in a balloon. I don't know how I'm going to cope with him being here.

Last night, had left my head in a blur. I was so unbelievably angry at Nathan, that he had shown up here after so long, after no contact, no answers, nothing. I had just wanted to yell and scream at him, and tell him how much he'd hurt me. I wanted him to know how I had felt waking up that first morning, waiting for 10am to come around so I could see his face, and how 10am came and went with no sign of him. I had wanted to tell him how day after day my heart broke just a little more. I wanted to tell him about the look on my dads face when he had picked me up from the airport, how devastated he had been for his little girl. How angry he had been, how he had wanted to fly to Texas and deal with it himself.

There was so much left unsaid, but when I saw the regret in his eyes, and the ache in his voice, in that moment, it had made me forget about the anger, and forget about how much he had hurt me. All I had wanted to do was hold him, and feel the roughness of his hands on my skin. He was hurting too, and seeing him hurting, that had hurt me even more. It had definitely made me realise that the feelings I'd had for him back then had never truly gone away.

I couldn't believe that I had forgotten about Jade. Nathan had told me about her not long after we had met, we'd been out to a bar and both had a couple of drinks, at the end of the night I was planning on driving home, but he'd stopped me and called a cab. While we waited he told me about Jade, and how even after just having one drink he would never drive, because he never wanted to take the risk of ripping someone else's family apart just like his had been. Knowing his reasons, knowing how hard it had been on him, it didn't excuse what he did, but it gave me the sense of clarity that I needed.

I glanced at the time, if I wanted to get a swim in this morning I needed to get up, but laying here in Noah's arms was so comforting. I somehow managed to pry myself from his embrace without waking him, and headed to the dressing room to change.

Slipping into the pool felt great, the chill of the water took away the heat that was already building up from the Spanish sun. I hit start on my timer and pushed off from the wall. It took me a couple of laps to find my rhythm, but once I did, the feeling of the water rushing over my body stroke after stroke was more soothing than I realised. I'd needed this, after yesterday I desperately needed the feeling of good endorphins pumping through me. I lost track of how many laps I'd done, but I didn't care, it felt so good to swim after skipping it the past couple of days and I needed to push myself to make up for it.

I didn't slow until I saw a pair of pale, muscular legs slide into the side of the pool. Gary? He was the only one who's skin could be that colour. I swam another lap, turned at the wall and pushed off again when I noticed another pair of legs slipped in, next to the ones that were possibly Gary's. The second pair were darker, but slimmer than the first, maybe Rocco? No, they were to long and lean to be Rocco's, Bobby. It had to be Bobby and Gary. I pushed myself to finish one more lap before stopping to see what they were doing up so early.

I wiped the water from my eyes, and pushed my hair back from my face and turned to greet the boys.

"What are you guys, wait, what!? Who are you!?" Two new islanders!