As Joe left, I looked over at Lilly and shook my head. “Are you kidding, how the hell are we going to be able to leave our tent so early, with no one noticing?” I objected, wondering what kind of plan Lilly was instigating.
“Stop stressing, Jess, I’ve got a plan,” Lilly instructed in her usual tone that I had always been wary of.
Dinner was at six thirty, shortly after the sun had set. We all sat around the campfire enjoying our burgers and Hawaiian chicken skewers. Ms Mitchell was busy, preoccupied with handing out the salads to all the girls and making sure we were eating. There had been talk over the past month that a few of the girls had refused to eat so they could lose weight. We were warned of the seriousness of this disease, which happened to be quite common. I heard that Sally Dawson and Emily Drifts from a year above us were caught out. Apparently, they were throwing up after their meals and were punished with detention for a week, which in my opinion was pretty harsh.
As we finished our dinner, Lilly whispered that she was going to let Ms Mitchell know that she had a splitting headache and would like an early night. She suggested that I should mention how tired I was a little later. By then, it wouldn’t seem obvious, and besides, the girls would be settling down in any case.
“Sounds like a plan, ninety-nine,” I agreed, knowing that I didn’t really have much of a choice – Lilly wouldn’t have let me live it down if I said no.
“No, no, no,” Lilly said as she shook her head. “You’re ninety-nine and I’m so much more Maxwell Smart,” she remarked as she rushed off to speak to Ms Mitchell.
At seven forty-five, Lilly and I snuck out of our tent and headed towards the end of the island where Joe had asked us to meet. He introduced us to some of the guys, everyone was in high spirits, and we arrived at the island around half an hour later.
As we stepped off the boat, Lilly grabbed my hand. “Stop stressing, Jess. Everyone is busy doing their own thing, no one knows we are here and we are going to have some fun, we deserve it.”
What the hell, I thought. It was such a beautiful evening, I may as well enjoy the night.
“You girls drink?” A Columbian-looking boy with a large afro and bright white teeth brushed past us while we were walking to the bar.
“We sure do,” Lilly replied. “I’ll have three tequila shots, please,” she said as she sat herself up on a bar stool, eager to begin the night.
“Okay girls, drink up and let’s light up,” said the Columbian boy as he pulled out a large joint and lit it up with no hesitation.
The music was crazy and everyone was dancing around in their swimmers, enjoying themselves. I was approached by a few guys who invited me to dance, but I refused them all. I was actually quite happy just watching everyone else.
“Are you ever going to get off that bar stool,” Lilly finally exploded, after possibly five or six shots, not to mention the copious amounts of weed we had inhaled. She had been dancing with the Columbian boy. I think his name was Jarrah – he was too out of it to even pronounce his own name by the time he told us.
“I’m okay here, thanks Lilly,” I said as I pointed over to the boy behind the bar that my eyes had been glued to for the last half an hour.
“Okay,” Lilly replied, and happily danced her way off again.
* * *
“It’s seven-thirty, girls, breakfast is ready,” Ms Mitchell announced as I heard a loud, annoying ringing noise in my ears. I had a terrible feeling I was about to experience my first official hangover.
“Oh my God, I feel terrible, Jess, this is the worst of them,” Lilly groaned, trying to sit up and shuffling around, searching for her water bottle.
“Urgh, me too,” I uttered, trying to balance myself up.
“I can’t even see straight, we were so wasted last night, how the hell did we get back?”
“I’ve no idea, I don’t remember, but my whole body aches,” Lilly replied, puzzled.
We both had no clue how the night had ended.
We quickly ate all of our breakfast and drank as much water as we could, trying to sober up before anyone suspected us. After we showered, Lilly and I started to feel better and we all went for a walk along the mountain trek, which took us a good hour.
When we arrived back at the campsite, Joe spotted Lilly and me. He waved us over to the storage room where they kept the paddle boards.
“Hi girls! Well, don’t you both know how to have a good time. We are going into town tonight if you are up for it?” Joe asked.
“Hah, there’s no way I can cope with another one of those nights!” I said as I looked straight over to Lilly, hoping she felt the same way.
“Oh, c’mon Jess, we’re on holidays, let’s live a little,” Lilly pleaded.
“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “I’ll see how I feel, Joe, and thanks for bringing us back to our tent this morning.”
Joe looked puzzled and hesitated. “I didn’t bring you back, you girls disappeared around three so I guessed you found your own way back, don’t you remember?”
“No …” I replied.
Lilly looked at me, equally puzzled. “I can’t remember a thing, we drank a lot and we were smoking something strong last night.”
“Oh, I didn’t know you girls were smoking,” Joe said, a little shocked.
“Yes,” Lilly replied, “your mate Jarrah gave us some weed.”
“I had no idea, who is Jarrah?”
“The Columbian boy.” Lilly was getting a little frustrated.
“I’m so sorry, girls, I really don’t know who he is. I’m going out for a quick paddle before I help set up for lunch. Come join me if you like?” Joe said, before he ran over to the water.
“Jess! This doesn’t make sense. Last night Jarrah talked about Joe, he told me they were friends, I don’t get it.” Lilly started to look worried.
“Maybe he’s a local and he just knew of Joe,” I replied. I started to wonder what had really happened. Lilly looked stunned.
“I have a feeling we kissed and made out a bit, but my memory is really vague. Something happened, though,” Lilly slowly sat down, trying to remember the events of last night.
“Well, congrats Lilly, your first kiss and you don’t remember.”
“This isn’t funny, Jess, something bad happened last night, and I can’t remember what.” There was a scared tone to Lilly’s voice.
“Are you sure? You’ve only brought this up now,” I asked. I was starting to get concerned, things weren’t making sense.
“My memory is slowly coming back. Oh god, what did I do!” Lilly shrieked as she started pacing backwards and forwards.
“Calm down, let’s just go for a paddle and maybe we can talk about this later, okay?” I insisted. Lilly needed to chill out a bit and I thought the paddle would do her some good.
As we paddled, Lilly was preoccupied with last night’s mystery. I paddled over to Joe to try and get some answers before Lilly went crazy.
“Joe, something happened last night, something bad, and Lilly is freaking out. Are you sure you don’t know anything about Jarrah? He said he was your friend, we wouldn’t have hung out with him if he hadn’t said that.”
By now, Joe had started to look worried, too. “I’ll have a chat to the other guys, maybe they know him. I don’t remember him there, did he come out on the boat with us?”
“I