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Nine

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"Where were you?" Patrick's voice interrupted her thoughts as she finally made it back to the rest, who seemed to have had a much better time than her. Malia and Nathan were both wrapped in towels, still wet from their swim at the lake. She rolled her eyes at the both of them and faced Patrick.

"Picking berries," she replied, shaking the basket half full of tiny fruit. "I'll go give these to Amanda," she said quickly.

"Wait."

She turned around. "Yeah, dad?"

"Did you put all this together? I saw the tapes on trees and the lake we went to."

She looked up, not replying in the moment, just in case criticism was his intention. He did always look ready to dish out judgement, especially at her expense. It seemed he took her silence as an inability to speak.

"Javier, you did a great job."

That was when she realised they'd gotten company. Javier stepped to her side and nodded. "Thank you, sir but it was all April."

Their eyes met, but only for a second before he excused himself and went to the others, leaving her with Patrick.

"Nice one, April. You really outdid yourself." He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He was impressed.

April smiled back. Though the smile wasn't as real as she wanted it to be, she did feel a tad bit fulfilled now that she'd gotten an actual compliment from him. "Thanks, dad."

"It's a good thing to be prepared and to rise up to the task. It's what I've been trying to teach Nathan."

Her eyebrows moved up in pleasant surprise. Who's the golden child now?

"You could make a great innovator, if you're ever in business. Your ideas and leadership will really benefit whoever you work for."

She gulped. It was no secret that she hated this topic, and since she was in the mood for speaking her mind, she shrugged. "Too bad I'm not going into business, right?"

"Not if you don't get into college, that is."

She nodded, catching sight of Hannah and Paige from the corner of her eye. If only they could be just a little closer to help her out. A light breeze blew, sending a strand of her hair into her eye. She pushed it back and shrugged. "Yeah, I mean too bad I'm not going to college."

"I hope you're just joking again. You're not funny in the slightest."

She fought back to resist glaring at him. She wasn't joking and he had to stop treating her like this. "I'm not trying to be funny."

"You're also not trying to become a failure, I'm sure."

"Does it really matter?" She asked, trying her best to prevent yelling. He had only made a comment, but even something as small as that was enough to fire her anger. "I mean it's not like you've actually labelled me heir or have high hopes for me."

"April!" Hannah's warning was clear. Shut up.

April bit the inside of her lip, waiting for his response. She knew she was pushing it by hinting at Patrick's favoritism towards Nathan, but maybe it was just the tool she needed to push her opinion forward.

"Your brother knows what greatness entails. That you're not the heir doesn't mean you should throw your life away."

She rolled her eyes on the inside. "But what if I don't wanna be great like Nathan?"

He blinked. "How can you be this stupid?"

She swallowed and bit her inner cheek, suppressing the urge to scream.

"That's what you're doing when you say things like that. You're being stupid."

"Patrick!" Hannah hushed him, stepping in between them.

Ah, forget it!

"It's fine, Hannah," April spoke. "He's right. I am stupid."

The basket she had been holding was on the ground in seconds, followed by the declaration of the exercise being over.
She had ruined it, and even worse, she didn't especially feel sorry about any of it. What she'd planned to say was that she didn't want to be great, she wanted to be happy. Was she still going to explain that though? No. He could go shit himself.

She shook it off with a roll of her eyes like she always did when her father attacked her.

"He'll be fine," Paige muttered, falling in step with her. "I think he has other things on his mind."

She shrugged. "Sure, whatever."

•~❉᯽❉~•

Chirping crickets and rustling leaves were once again, the only sources of sound as they sat around later that night. The parents had all gone to bed early, mostly because they all partook one way or another in their boss' grief.

That, April couldn't care less about.

The rest of them had decided to set a bonfire like was earlier planned. It had been Nathan's idea, so while he and his girlfriend were busy setting the fire, she was relegated to sitting and watching them like a chaperone.

He lifted the last pieces of firewood and set it on their altar-like platform, while Malia spread the dry grass on top of it. They looked almost professional, working together like they'd done it every other day. She grabbed the flint out of her pinafore and bent over to strike a fire, letting her long hair whip foreword and into her face. Before she could straighten to fix it, Nathan had already grabbed hold with both hands, securing the hair behind her. She got up anyway, but only to press a kiss to his lips.

April rolled her eyes as the two began laughing. Showoffs.

"Aww, they're not that bad," Paige said, plopping into the space beside her. Amanda took to her other side, completely quiet, watching them just as April had been doing—only she looked more sad than envious.

"They still don't have to be jacks about it," April replied sourly.

"You and Javier were way worse! Remember we all used to shout 'get a room' every five seconds?"

She just had to bring up Javier. "You guys said it for almost every guy I dated." She said it with a half shrug, hoping it made its impression.

"True, but still. Javier has to take the point for most expressive PDA with you." Paige said.

She was about to find something else to say, but thankfully, she got interrupted.

"What game should we all play?" Malia asked, stepping to the centre of their semicircle.

The fire was now blazing behind her, and Nathan was putting away the remaining wood.

"Options?" He asked, being the second most active of the six people in their group.

"There's only one option," Javier announced, arriving with a cooler in his hands. He nearly tripped as he headed to set it down, but he managed to steady himself in time. Their eyes met, but she quickly averted hers.

"We need daring games," Malia pointed out, a malicious smile on her face.

"I'm not playing truth or dare, just so you know."

"Thanks for your humble opinion, April," Malia replied.

Her eyebrows shot up, and a comeback was quickly at the tip of her tongue but she withheld it on seeing Javier's eyes still on her.

"Okay, so what other game is there?" Amanda asked, swatting at the air in front of her.

"Ooh!" Paige squealed with her hand up.

Nathan sighed. "If you say duck, duck, goose, I swear—"

Paige laughed. "It's a fun game!"

"I agree," April supported but only to spite him. "We should just keep it light and fun."

They bickered back and forth for a while before finally settling on one game, thanks to Javier's original idea, two truths and a lie.

"I've gone to Peru, I can eat an entire big belly burger and I hate K-Pop," Malia said with a chuckle, sipping at whatever was in her can through a long straw.

Nathan cleared his throat and faced her with a smile. "The lie is you hate K-Pop."

She wrinkled her brows. "What? No!" She cried out, breaking into a chuckle. "I actually truly hate K-Pop!"

"Big belly burger?" Paige guessed.

"Yes!" She laughed. April rolled her eyes.

"Your turn Javi," Paige announced, passing him the stick they used for taking turns.

He smiled and took it from her slowly, then looked up at the moon, as though thinking of what to say. The air had grown colder as their game progressed, and the fire's glow illuminated his skin with its orange glow, such that April caught herself staring at him and the 'Alan walker' sweatshirt he had on.

She loved his hoodies—used to love, she meant. All of them in their different colors and textures that carried his scent whenever she'd wear them. She still had a few she'd gotten from him, tucked stylishly in the corner of her closet back home. She frowned, remembered wearing them to sleep during the early days of their breakup.

"Uh...two truths, one lie," he started, rubbing both palms together. "I'm a boxer, I have a tattoo and I have eighteen cousins."

Malia was the first to guess. "Boxer?"

It had to be the cousins. She'd witnessed him getting his tattoo of a phoenix and they had been to underground boxing matches a few times during highschool. She looked at his orange filtered face from above the fire, her eyes searching for the tiny dash above his eyelid, the solid proof of their history with boxing.

He shook his head, then turned to April. "Think you know the answer?"

"You don't have eighteen cousins."

"You don't have a tattoo," Nathan said before giving him a chance to answer right or wrong.

Javier nodded.

"Wait, which one is the lie?" Amanda asked to clarify.

"I still like boxing," he said and looked in April's direction. "I do have eighteen cousins and I don't have a tattoo."

"Called it!"

April almost choked on the next breath she drew in. She was more confused than ever. "You don't?"

He shook his head. "Not anymore."

That could only mean he'd taken off the tattoo—their tattoo, and she'd be lying if she said it didn't hurt to hear. The realisation that Javier had taken off their mark from his body was as painful as it had been when she had tried getting one herself.

She glanced down at her hip, where the tiny scar lay from the first, failed attempt. He'd promised to be there when she would finally get hers. He'd even held her hand that night while they apologized to Gio, the tattoo artist, for wasting his time.

She'd talked him through every second while getting his own. She'd even been very specific with the design. And then he'd wiped it off like it was nothing.

It hurt. It really did.

But it didn't matter. They were broken up. They were over, she reminded herself. She couldn't miss it, she couldn't feel bad, it was weakness.

"April, are you okay?"

She was snapped back to reality by Amanda's tap on her shoulder. She blinked away the thin layer of tears as quickly as possible. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"What's wrong?" She whispered.

"Nothing."

"Of course it's nothing," she mumbled, turning back to the game.

April didn't know what she meant, but she wasn't about to ask her just yet. Her eyes wandered around as the others tried to guess whether or not Malia had ever had a threesome. Gross.

Javier was the only quiet one besides her. She knew that because she'd been watching him to be sure he was lying about the tattoo. He laughed and shrugged when they directed the question to him. "I don't know. Yes?"

"Yes!" Malia cackled. "I was sixteen!"

While others erupted in laughter and chatter, his eyes flickered meet April's. "Gross," he mouthed. She looked away.

"Okay, okay, my turn!" Paige sang. "Two truths one lie. I wanna be an astronaut, I hate basketball and I believe in Santa."

"Astronaut," Malia and Nathan chorused at the same time Amanda said "Basketball."

Paige laughed. "Correct, astronaut."

April smiled because she knew for sure that Paige had lied. She hated basketball because she never made the team in middle school, no matter how hard she tried. She still believed in Santa, despite her age, and for as long as she'd known her, Paige had always had dreams of joining NASA.

"April," Amanda called afterward. "Your turn."

She cleared her throat. What was there to say? She needed a dagger, something so hit Javier as hard as he'd hit her with the news of his tattoo.

The fire sparked, sending small flecks of lit charcoal into the air around it. While everyone turned to watch it, she snuck another peek at Javier.

Okay, she could do better. She could burn him.

He'd thrown their tattoo away, and while that drove a thorn in her flesh, she could easily pay back. She touched the metal band in her pocket as she prepared her revenge.

"Two truths and a lie."