ᴀᴄᴛ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ: ꜱᴄᴇɴᴇ ᴛᴡᴏ

Watching intently, I counted out loud how many shoes Nini was packing. "Six.... seven..." I turn my head rapidly. "NINI? DO YOU REALLY NEED SEVEN PAIRS OF SHOES?" I shout down the hallway, hoping she was the one who heard instead of my moms.

"YEAH?" Was all that I heard, her tone as if to say that it was obvious to pack seven pairs of shoes for a short trip to L.A. After a second of silence, my sister pops her head back through the doorway. "Can I borrow this?" One of my many sweaters are held in her hands while the girl asks me the question.

"Do I get a choice?" I reply, already seeing it getting flung into one of her many piles of 'borrowing' clothes.

"Not really." I hear her say, then walking back to my room.
Mama D, C and Nini were going off to LA for the two weeks. At the beginning, it was my plan to follow, but then something else crept up. I was going to England. Again. To see my birth family. That's what had fucked up my date with Gina. My birth sister getting my number.

"It would be good for you." Mama D had said. "Meeting them would be nice."

"It would be shit for you." Nini had said. "You will probably be disappointed, you know?"

"DO YOU THINK I'LL BE GOING SWIMMING?" Nini shouts from my room.

"I DUNNO?" I shouted back, grabbing my phone off of her bed, mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and social media in general. Wait.
I sit up in Nini's bed I was laying on, eyes taring away from the phone. "NINI?" I called. I wait. No reply. "NINI WHY'RE YOU ASKING ME-" I began, rushing out the door to find her. "THAT'S JUST GROSS, YOU KNOW-"

⊱⊰

"And you know how to work the washing machine?" Mama D asked me- again. I showed her my facial expression to the quiz she was currently giving me, helping Nini put her suitcase in the back of their car while doing so.

"Yes. It's the same one I've been using for the last several years." I smile back, sarcastic tone staining my comment completely.

"And you're not gonna throw any parties." Nini then adds on, slightly mocking our mother's tone.

I chuckle a little as I glanced over at Neens. "Oh hell yeah, with all seven of my friends." I then look back over at Mama D. "We party hard." I say, once again sarcastic as fuck.

She stares at me, then at Nini. Then back at me, again. "I can't tell if you're being serious or not."

Without even thinking, and somehow keeping a straight face, I go on. "Mom, I've never been so serious about anything like my party life." Our front door opens once again, with Mama Carol walking through- dragging her own suitcase.

Mama D looks at me as if I were under suspicion of murder and currently being interrogated. "Mom?" Nini calls for our mother's attention. "She's fucking around. She's going away tomorrow, anyways." Nini then adds a tone to the end of her voice, telling me just how she felt about me leaving for England. 

As she lets out a sigh of relief, I laugh once again, helping out Mama C with her own suitcase- surprisingly heavier than Nini's one. What, did she pack eight pairs of shoes or something?

"I'm gonna miss you all." I tell the three of them, groaning at the same time as I dropped the final suitcase in the back of the car. 

"You could come with us, still." A lecturing sister of mine tells me, which kinda hurt more. 

"You know I haven't seen them in like... five years, right?" I reminded her, leaning against the side of the car, raising an eyebrow up at her as I also then crossed my arms. 

She mocks me, doing the exact same pose. "You know they're like... a bunch of douchebags, right?" Nini then says, mimicking my accent. 

"Nina." We both hear Mama C call, which was her warning to stop being an arse. 
I see her roll her eyes before draping her arms around me for a hug. Nini may be passionately against every human that's ever hurt me, and at the same time argue with me about any petty thing possible, but that just made her my sister even more. 

"If they're an ass," She begins, whispering in my ear. 

"Yeah, yeah." I murmured, shaking my head. "I'll call you the moment I can." 
There was a glint in her eyes when pulling away from my embrace. I couldn't tell if it were a sympathetic one or a scared one. Surely she wasn't scared for me? They were my family across the lake, anyways. 
Nini was probably just be protective- She always had been when it came to me. When people found out I was gay she made it her top priority to basically get every person who called me a slur from that moment onward either expelled or at least in detention. 

"Go see a musical when you get there." She then says, opening up the car door beside her. 

Smiling, I watched her get in the vehicle, waving and hugging my moms before turning back to her. "Which one?" But I didn't get a reply.

⊱⊰

Gina

Gina
hey
ik its late and ur probably asleep
but i have to tell you this
idk if i can do this.
this meaning us...

It still hurt, I'm not going to lie and say I felt completely fine by it all. Nini had said that that was the only positive of me getting out of Salt Lake for a while- no thoughts of Gina. And although I totally understood that, I couldn't help but find my way back to those text messages she had sent every single day. 

I hadn't replied. I couldn't.
No one has ever invented an easy way to reply to a break-up message through the years of the internet and mobile phones, so instead I just didn't reply at all. She could see I had seen the message (exactly one minute after she had sent it) and she knew that I'd accepted it, too, considering I couldn't bare to even stand in the same room as her for more than five minutes, anymore. 

Ash had held a party before we all chose to go our separate ways this summer; Nini to LA, Ricky to the Alps (do not ask), me to England, some of them to a summer camp, and the rest were sticking around in Salt Lake. Gina had attempted to speak to me, but EJ had accidently crashed it by walking into the kitchen and taking a whole bowl of pretzels to himself. He couldn't read the room, so I won't blame him. 
Gina was going to the summer camp, anyways, so it wasn't as though I'd be bumping into her for two weeks, anyways. 

Mum and dad had apologised over the phone in the last few days- telling me how excited they were to finally see me again. We had a lot to catch up on, after all. So there was no reason for me to not be excited. Why was I not excited? 
Why was there this twisting feeling in my stomach that I could not quite understand? 

I was already stood outside of the airport, now. The building was kind of grand for an airport, but was modern on the inside. I remember it glowing when it was dark out, and if it weren't for the loud sounds of planes, it could really set the scene for a movie. 
I glance back down at the phone in my hand. 

Gina

Gina
hey
ik its late and ur probably asleep
but i have to tell you this
idk if i can do this.
this meaning us...

Me
[NOT SENT]
where are you right now?
[NOT SENT]
I miss you, even if its been only a few weeks
[NOT SENT]
jfc casey get a grip. 

She wasn't going to reply, was she?
She hadn't been online since early on in the morning, anyways, so why would I even expect a reply? 
The summer camp probably had some shitty ass rule about phones. They'd all be there by now. 

I needed to get inside of this airport. If I didn't get in there in the next hour, the chances were I was going to miss the flight. It was only a few steps away. Why the fuck can I not just take those few steps?
As every second passed, the twisting feeling in my stomach only tightened more. 

I can't do this. Why the fuck did I think I could just travel all the way across the Atlantic ocean to meet a bunch of people I've met a total of four times? 
No. I needed to get out of here. I should've gone with them to summer camp. If not LA. Just not to England. That was the worst option I could've picked. 

Scrolling through my phone, I go to call for a taxi. It was only the afternoon. I could easily get a taxi from here to the camp if I had enough money. 
My finger hovers over the call icon but stops when I get a notification. 

Ricky

Ricky
hey
u going summer camp ???
shit actually-

Me
wtf how'd u know??

Ricky 
wait 
ur not going eng now???
i just remembered lol 
so ur going camp???

Me
yh i lit just decided...

Ricky
okay
need a ride???

I take a glance around at the empty front area of the airport. No taxis. No busses. No one I knew was around to give me the ride there. 

Me
yh pls lol

Was I seriously about to go on a road trip with Ricky Bowen? Apparently, yeah, I was. Can't wait to catch Nini up on that one. 

⊱⊰

I never knew Ricky was the kind to own an orange Beetle, however, half an hour ago, I did not think I would instead be heading towards a summer camp with Ricky Bowen while trying to find a good way to let Nini know. 

"Hey..." I murmured down the phone, trying to cover up Richard's singing beside me. I'd never heard such a terrible rendition of If I Can't Love her- like ever. 

"It's not been six hours." Nini says almost immediately. "What've you done?" 

"Okay- ouch." I replied, trying to keep this on a positive note. Ricky's singing wasn't ending though. "I have not done anything you would not be proud of." 

"You're coming LA?!" I hated the fact that I was not about to satisfy her excitement. 

"No..." I murmured just as quietly as how I'd greeted her. I hear an exhausted sigh down the phone, after than that. "You were literally the Beast in our production." I then say, diverting my attention to the boy of who was very much going to lose his voice of if he continued for too much longer. "Shut up." 
But he took absolutely no notice. 

"Is that Ricky?" Nini then questioned. Well shit. 

"Maybe..." There's then silence. Shit. Fuck. Crap. Fuck. Fuck. "He was the only ride that was affordable out of town." More silence. "You don't hate me, do you?" 
After another second of silence, Nini begins to quietly laugh. Oh. 

"I don't hate you, dumbass. You're the one dealing with his shit for-" She then stops. "Wait. Case." My heartbeat begins to increase. "Where're you going?" 

Shit. "The Summer Camp..." 

⊱⊰

"I can't believe I agreed to this." The camp was huge. No one was to be seen at the front desk, either, which was great. I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, with a suitcase and Richard. 

"What d'you mean?" He then asked, kicking the back of his Beetle shut. 

"Ricky, this place is like... deserted. And it's cold. And the middle of the night-" As I began to walk, he followed while still cutting me off. 

"It's ten pm." The boy corrected, causing me to send him a stare. Not my point. "Don't panic, Case, we'll find them in no time at all." He obviously did not take a moment to look at the huge map we'd passed on our way to park up. 

"Whatever you say, Richard." I muttered, deciding to just follow his lead, instead. Nini had kind of blown up at me over the idea of going to the Summer Camp. She said it was basically the worst idea I could've made after going to England, because Gina was there. 

I'd almost forgotten about the situation I had with Gina. Maybe it was best that way that I did forget about it completely. 

"Look!" At that moment, he then took off. There were many things I can tolerate in a person. Running off without me is not one of them- especially in a summer camp when its dark, cold and looking like it's abandoned. Ricky really is getting on my nerves now. 

Chasing after him, I tried my best to not shout at him like I would with Nini, because sometimes I can be polite. "EXCUSE ME?" The boy calls to two people as he ran, and I was beginning to have enough of him. Slowing to a halt, he gets a good look at the two people, while I practically crashed into him, nearly sending us both falling over. 
"Do..." 

It was EJ and Gina. Fuck. Why did she look so pretty? Was it the hair? Or maybe just the whole outfit? Fucks sake. 
I wait for Ricky to speak further, but the boy doesn't, eyes fixated on the other boy present. "You got room for two more?" I asked, nervously glancing between EJ and Gina. This'll be an experience...

a/n- [chanting] SEASON THREE. SEASON THREE. SEASON THREE. SEASON THREE. ANGST. ANGST. ANGST-