Josh taps his nose. ‘Big brains, babe.’
I’m grateful Josh is here for a multitude of reasons. If this clue is to be believed and the next one awaits us somewhere high up, Josh will be essential.
‘Well, let’s head straight there, then. We might still have a lead?’ I add.
‘Not until I’m cleansed, princess,’ a voice drawls behind me.
He’s enjoying this far too much. ‘This isn’t even necessary and you know it.’
‘We’re next in the queue,’ he says indignantly.
I roll my eyes and turn back to our friends.
‘Okay, we’ll just wait for Mr Clean to wash the illusion of pond off him and we’ll be on our way.’
‘Oh,that’swhy you’re so wet? Thank God,’ Hennie mutters.
‘You got in the lake? Oh Elliot, I don’t know whether to be proud or disgusted,’ Owen says with a definite air of pride.
‘You might be diseased now,’ Josh adds, frowning.
Elliot immediately shoots me a look of defiance that saysI told you so. I ignore him and turn to Hennie to discover everything they’ve seen this morning. I see Elliot out of the corner of my eye strip off his shoes and use the tap to rinse himself off. Determined to keep my gaze resolutely on Hennie, I fail to notice when he’s finished and find myself suddenly tugged along once again by the drumstick towards the footpath.
‘Come on then, Miss Impatient,’ he says. ‘Time to go.’
Josh’s voice croons behind us. ‘And someone get some sun cream on that girl!’
16
Elliot and I have fallen into a comfortable routine of letting him lead the way for the group with me in tow, carefully weaving through groups of people and consistently checking on me with rapid glances.
We stop off at a waffle stand halfway through the journey to get an early lunch, as well as iced coffees to cool down and perk up. The sun has started to bear down on my shoulders and the top of my scalp with fury, and I can practically feel new freckles burn to life on my skin. Hennie generously re-applies my sun cream but I’ve never been a girl who thrives in hot weather, and the combination of inescapable heat and never-ending hordes of people has started to make me feel a little woozy. With reluctance, Elliot and I decide to hold a truce over the drumstick while we happily eat our waffles and have a quick toilet break, keeping it in Josh’s rucksack for safe keeping.
‘Don’t lose it,’ Elliot growls at him. Josh tells him to grow up in response.
Elliot and I walk side by side once again, and I feel a lightness in my step. We walk in silence as harsh and elaborate patterns of sunlight cutting through the trees trail over us. I can’t help butnotice how the light illuminates Elliot’s dark locks and the way it moves tenderly across his jaw. My hands itch with the deep, inexplicablewantto follow the shadows with my fingertips.
I swallow hard. Immediately nauseated by where my thoughts have managed to drift to, I wrench them into nothingness, erasing them, like they were never even there.
That kind of deep, inexplicablewantwas just a trick of the mind. A brief stutter in my brain’s functioning.
In my experience, liking any boy in that way is a waste of time. An assured habit that leads to eventual hurt and heartache. I can’t waste any energy on that again.
In Year Ten, a boy in my maths class asked me out on a date as a mortifying dare and half the boys in our year gleefully showed up to watch me get stood up. I had no idea. It took almost an hour of waiting before I realised what was going on. I was teased about it for the rest of the year and I consequently promised myself that I would never try to go on a date ever again.
Until Greg. My horror story of an ex-boyfriend.
If my school experience was the thing that eroded my confidence, slowly but surely, Greg is the thing that made it collapse.
After that, I stopped dating for good. And honestly? Life has never been better. I’ve never looked back.
I don’t doubt for a moment that Elliot would walk away without a second thought if we weren’t bound together by our agreement. Why wouldn’t he?
The festival has welland truly awakened by one o’clock. People lounge on camp chairs redoing make-up and arrangingglitter perfectly on their faces, as others emerge from their tent sunburnt and shirtless, jumping straight into their wellies to embark upon another day in this curious paradise.
The iridescent glitter adorning my cheekbones up to the bridge of my nose is starting to get itchy as it mixes with my sweat. I thought it looked okay this morning – blending in comfortably with my freckles, and also helping to hide the dull skin underneath due to improper sleep and lack of skincare.
The five of us merrily walk together chatting with ease, Elliot and I locked together once again. A lot of tasks have silently been deemed do-able with one hand, but Hennie or one of the boys normally step in to help if I need assistance with something.
