For Bella
Your endless cuddles will be forever missed.
CHAPTER 1
“Rise and shine, ladies,” exclaimed Ms Mitchell as her high heels echoed down through the dorm hallway. “It’s an exceptionally beautiful day. We meet in the quadrangle in thirty minutes and there won’t be any excuses for lateness.”
Ms Mitchell, our head teacher, was always impeccably dressed and strikingly beautiful, even into her late sixties. She had never married or wanted children of her own. It seemed that her only love was her career and she absolutely adored all her girls at Brightonsfield.
As Lilly struggled to get herself out of bed, I was surprisingly wide awake. Whatever the amount of vodka shots we had carefully snuck in and consumed the night earlier, well, they certainly knocked me out into a deep, comatose state, and thank God for that. I was fortunate enough I never developed any type of hangover, unlike Lilly … let’s just say I did feel sorry for her.
“How can you be awake, so bright and cheerful? It’s six in the morning,” Lilly snapped, as she squinted her eyes at me.
“I don’t know, Lilly, I guess it’s just part of my genetics,” I replied, trying to use my most sympathetic tone.
“Argh! This is serious torture! Who even needs to get up at this ungodly hour,” Lilly moaned as she attempted to brush her wild, frizzy, dark auburn hair.
Lilly’s my best friend, full of wit and humour and a lot of fun to be around, except for when we were subjected to early morning wake up calls.
The bus ride to the breakfast stop was a little over three hours from DC. I listened to my play list most of the way there, and I sensed Lilly was counting down the minutes. That girl needed a bacon and egg roll, pronto! It felt like forever, but we finally arrived and scrambled out of the bus to get a bite to eat.
“Are you going to eat that, Jess?” Lilly asked, as she bit into my half-eaten roll without a seconds’ thought.
“Obviously not now,” I replied, trying to keep a straight face. As Lilly devoured the last pieces of bacon, I couldn’t refrain from giggling, you would have thought she hadn’t seen food in weeks.
Lillian Stone and I had met in kindergarten and, I know this sounds cliché, but I honestly couldn’t imagine life without her. We had no secrets between us and we both shared this unequivocal desire to make our mark in the world. We had sworn that our friendship would last our lifetime.
We relied on each other and it felt comforting, especially with both of us being only children. I guess what we missed out on in siblings, we found in each other.
“Five hours! Are you kidding me?” Lilly exclaimed. “Did you hear that, Jess? We’ve five more hours before we even get there.”
“So what,” I replied. “It’s not like we are in any rush to go camping, pitch a tent, fetch wood and locate a spot in the bush to pee. We may as well enjoy as much civilisation while we can.”
“I guess … you’ve got a point, Jess. Want to stock up on chocolates?” Lilly asked as she looked around at the dreary spot we’d stopped at for our breakfast rolls.
“Yeah sure, good call,” I replied as I jumped up and raced Lilly into the grocery store.
I picked out one of my favourite chocolate bars and could see through the corner of my eye that Lilly had her hands full, indulging with every type of sweet you could imagine.
“I’ll have all these, thank you,” insisted Lilly, as she decided to clear out the confectionary section.
The elderly man behind the register glared at us both, unamused. “That will be $62.35, girls,” he muttered, as he attempted to fit all the sweets into one bag.
“This is an emergency purchase,” Lilly assured him. “We need backup food, we’re going camping and you’re our last stop.”
The man was stunned as Lilly tried to justify her extravagance. “I understand, girls, I was once your age too, you know,” he explained as he waved us off.
You could say we over indulged on our chocolates and sweets on the bus, as we both ended up dozing off. We were knocked out for most of the bus ride and awoke about fifteen minutes before we arrived at the camp. It was a little after three o’clock and, I have to admit, the scenery was sensational. The tall, manicured palm trees, the never-ending ocean and the exquisite white sand; it was picture perfect.
As we drove into the main gates of Palm Centenary Cove, Lilly was in awe and broke out into a huge smile, “This is going to be a blast, it was certainly worth the drive,” she screamed happily.
As we stepped off the bus, I felt the warm sun glowing on my untanned arms. I couldn’t wait to hit the beach. The scene could have been straight out of a tropical island film. It was too good to be true and so much more beautiful than we had anticipated.
“Oh my, he’s cute,” I said as my jaw dropped, eyeing up a young boy. He was carrying backpacks, helping our bus driver unload all the luggage.
Both Lilly and I had never entertained the idea of having a boyfriend, although we enjoyed looking at boys. Boarding school was extremely strict and we were only seventeen, so we were still unable to leave the premises in the evenings. The only boys we saw were the ones that played football on our oval on the weekends, and even then, we only spied on them from a distance.
“He is cute, Jess, he’s yours,” Lilly insisted, as she chuckled.
“Thanks Lilly, you’re too kind,” I joked, as we walked over towards the main campsite.
By the time we assembled our tent and unpacked all of our belongings, the sun was still glistening on the ocean and we were ready to hit the beach. We saw the cute boy carrying paddle boards out from a storage room behind the shower amenities.
“Can we go for a paddle now, Ms Mitchell?” Lilly pleaded, throwing her towel over her shoulder, preparing to leave.
“Girls, you can, if you promise to stay close to the shore and please be careful,” Ms Mitchell urged.
“Yes Jess, let’s go!” Lilly cheered and ran straight towards the pristine ocean.
The water was lukewarm and our paddle boards were in mint condition. There were a few other girls out in the water swimming and we heard them laughing and having fun. Lilly and I kept to ourselves and stayed in the ocean for hours, racing each other up and down the shore and catching a few mini waves in.
The boy we saw earlier started paddling out towards us. He looked like a Greek Adonis and possibly a few years older than Lilly and I. He had dark silky hair, piercing blue eyes, and it was obvious he worked out often as his body was fully toned. I tried to refrain from staring as he came closer towards us.
“Hi girls, I’m Joe. You two are pretty dope, perhaps even good enough to compete,” Joe exclaimed.
Both Lilly and I smiled. So, the cute boy had a name and was very complimentary.
“Thanks Joe, I’m Lilly and this is Jess. We are here on camp for a week.”
“Do you work here?” I asked, as Joe paddled closer.
“Yeah, I sure do. This is our family business, I help out my folks from time to time, particularly when we have large groups arrive,” Joe replied as he sat down on his board. His eyes were even more blue close up and there was a thoughtful warmth to his voice.
“You have such a beautiful place here,” I commented, not sure what to say as I was still mesmerised by his charm.
“Would you girls like to go to a campfire party tonight?” Joe asked us. “A few of the locals are meeting at the end of the bay around eight o’clock. We’re going to boat over to one of the secluded islands and it will be a lot of fun,” he said as he pointed out a group of tiny islands in the distance.
“Okay, sounds great, we would love to,” Lilly quickly replied, before I could get a word