Page 7 of A Twist in Fate
The dining hall is large and has a supply room as well as Charlie’s office off to the side. I walk into the building and instantly find Bailey waving me over to the table where her, Alec, Lucas, James and Abby are all sitting. I walk over to them, suddenly feeling a little embarrassed that I am so late and sit down so I am next to Bailey and opposite Lucas.
His loose blonde waves are falling across his face a little but not so much that it is in his eyes. Now, close to me, in this bright fluorescent light, I can see them much clearer than before. They are much brighter now but at the beach they looked almost navy. The same colour still covers the rim of his eyes in this lighting and the once sapphire blue is more aqua. They are mesmerising, even with his attention away from me and glued to the table. As soon as I sit down, his eyes lift to meet mine and a small smile reaches across his face. I think he catches me staring. I feel my cheeks warm up a little and he shifts his focus away from my face to the side of me and then looks back down.
“What are we eating?” I ask before the subject of my late arrival can come up or even the subject of why I am blushing because I am not even sure I know. It happens far too often, and I can’t control it.
“They’ve got fruit, cereal, eggs and pancakes but the weirdo over here had all those options and chose the worst one. Granola. Without fruit or anything else,” Abby says, with such distaste, you would think she had a personal vendetta against it. Her focus is on Alec opposite her who is holding a spoon in his mouth and there’s a blue bowl in front of him.
“What?” he replies, and I think he is pretending to be offended but I can’t tell. “I have granola like every day at home, but I have it once here and suddenly I am weird.”
“There is no way you have granola every day!” I say in disbelief. I have never liked granola, and I pretty much stick to cereal covered in sugar most days, or maybe some plain toast, but that's only if I have time for breakfast before some of my course classes or work.
“Yeah, it's good and healthy. Do not judge me, I'm guessing this one,” he says pointing to James beside him, “has chocolate or let me guess, Oreos for breakfast every day.”
James, who has been quiet for the longest time since I met him yesterday, says, “First, Oreos are just elite, and you are not. Second, I do not have them for breakfast, I have pancakes most days and they aredelicious.”Everyone laughs and my eyes meet the ones across from me.
“So, what are you having?” Lucas says with his arms crossed, leaning on the table and smiling up at me. His eyes are upon me once again and they continue to make my face go redder.
“I'm not sure.” I smile, before looking away. The hall is a little empty and quiet, but I assume it will get a lot busier when the children arrive on Sunday.
Lucas gets up abruptly from the bench and says, “Let's go look and see what you like then.”
Surprised, I follow him around the table and we both walk to the large area where all the food is. It starts with colder food such as fruit and cereal, with a large jug for milk. I notice the one cereal I actually recognise before skipping right over to it and grabbing a bowl. All of the stacked dishes are mismatched with some block colours and some with odd patterns. The one I pull out is bright yellow with baby pink polka dots.
“Are you seriously going to have cereal when you can have pancakes?” he says, smiling down at me. There was a selection of pancakes with many toppings and sauces, as well as eggs and a basket of bread with a small toaster right next to the cereal.
“Excuse me but I think Frosties are pretty delicious, and they are like coated in sugar so don’t judge me. Your best friend over there is eating one percent pancake and ninety nine percent Nutella,” I say, putting some cereal in a bowl but before I could put more in, Lucas abruptly grabs my hand, stopping me.
“What the hell are Frosties?” He laughs, looking extremely confused. Both his smile and laugh are extremely contagious because every time he laughs, I do too. At the same moment we both realise his hand is still on top of mine. He quickly moves his arm away from me and clears his throat. It feels as though my heart is beating a thousand beats per minute. I must have caught something on my flight over. This paired with the number of times I have blushed, even in the air-conditioned dining hall and then the time I woke up this morning suggests I must be sick.
“Umm… Frosties are the food in my bowl?” I say, partly trying to change the subject but mostly still confused.
“You mean frosted flakes?”he asks.
“How do we both speak English but still manage to have different words for the same things?” We laugh together again, and I pour a lot of milk over the cereal andgrab a spoon. I walk back to the table remembering the feeling of his hand on top of mine, as though it never left.
The first day of training is a site tour, a rundown of our daily schedules and any emergency procedures. After what felt like an hour of emergency drills at the main camp, we all stand in front of Charlie as he reads out our daily schedules.
“Wake up call is at seven for the kids, which means you have to get up before to wake them and then half an hour later you need to knock on their door to make sure they all go to breakfast. The latest they can leave their rooms is seven forty-five. Then morning activities will start at nine until twelve fifteen, which is when lunch starts,” he says looking around at us. “Afternoon activities are on from one thirty until four thirty and dinner is at six. Sometimes there is an evening activity but sometimes there is not. It really depends. If there is, it is usually something everyone does together. They have to be in their rooms by eight, lights out at nine. Make sure this is the same every single day.”
I nod along, making sure I'm paying attention to the words here and not the blonde boy beside me. I don’t understand what is going on. I don’t even know him. We met yesterday.
We need to wake up our groups at seven so that means I will have time in the morning to go for a run or even just a walk. I used to make sure to go out in the mornings at home to calm me down for the day and with all of the loud London traffic, it was never easy. I think the quiet nature around us will be much more relaxing.
“It is very important that we stick to a schedule every day because it helps all the children get more comfortable with staying here, especially the young ones who tend to get home sick,” he continues smiling at us all. He looked scary the first time I met him, but he has become warm and happy within the first few hours of today. “Okay if there are no questions, let's move onto the plan for tomorrow.”
Tuesday and Wednesday were full of team building exercises and ‘challenging behaviour’ practise, where we were split into our groups separated by animals and forced to wear our matching shirts again. Even in the lake. It was so uncomfortable but at some point, I forgot how much I hated it and started to love it. We practised swimmingdrills, played games, and I learnt more about my new friends.
Bailey knows this entire place like the back of her hand, and she told me that when she and Lucas were younger, she often got into trouble by running off or trying to break into the supply closets. She claims that getting into trouble was the only way to have fun after nine when it was lights out, especially as she got older.
James is Lucas’ friend from university. They both attend a college in New York on scholarships. He has black hair to complement his warm, darker skin tone and he is one of the most talkative people I have ever met. He really can make a conversation about anything he wants to and apparently is hungry almost the entire day. He loves to scream random song lyrics that relate to whatever he's doing, which usually ends up being a duet with Bailey. Whilst we were on canoes they started singing ‘Proud Mary’ by Tina Turner, but they didn’t know all the lyrics, so they just kept repeating “rolling on a river” repeatedly.
Abby is extremely sweet and is very close with both Bailey and Lucas, as they grew up together. Her red hair and green eyes complement her complexion perfectly and like Bailey, she is extremely gorgeous. Her hair is straight,unlike my uncontrollable waves and she says that Lake Sylva is more of a home than her home actually is. I think she's not the only one who feels that way, but many would not be so quick to admit it. She's really interested in clothing design and by the photos she has shown me, she's exceptionally good at it.
Alec is similar to James but extremely smart. His entire life has been on a similar course as mine. His mums really wanted to give him everything they could, and you can tell, like James, he was absolutely spoiled when he was younger. Unlike many, this made them just very happy people that saw the good in everything and everyone. I think it's what this place brings out in people. He says that his entire life he's been quite shy and never really made any extremely close friends, so he wanted to spend this summer around more people whilst also doing something that benefits his applications for the future. I understand that. It feels like ever since I was born, everything I did was to benefit my future.
Unlike Bailey, her brother, Lucas, was much less of a troublemaker but still enjoyed trying to annoy his sister whenever he could. That might have just been Bailey's opinion, and not the truth. She says when they first joined camp, he taught her everything she now knows, especiallythe things that got her in trouble. She told me that they enjoyed running off together but as they got older, he became more interested in either sitting alone or looking after the younger children in the camp. This perspective of him seemed different to the Lucas I am learning to know. He seems much more outgoing than how she described him when they were younger. He also looks like he is enjoying the camp the way he was when he was younger. He looks free, as if he is enjoying every single moment of it and I am too.
I have gotten closer with everyone during the past week and as I have, I decided to not get too close to him. He distracts me. I can’t have distractions so that I can give Bailey the perfect summer that she has been wanting since we met. The moment I leave, I have to move into my university housing and work constantly for the next 4 years. I don't want to lose her friendship if I'm busy all the time when she's the closest I've ever been to another person.
