Chapter 22 - Rivals in the River, Friends at the Shore

"This is gonna be the best day of my life

My li-i-i-i-i-ife

Oo-o-o-o-o (...)

This is gonna be, this is gonna be, this is gonna be

The best day of my life

Everything is looking up, everybody up now

This is gonna be the best day of my li-ife

My li-i-i-i-i-ife."

I took a deep breath and placed my hands firmly around my oars. I had my rowing suit on, was sitting in my racing shell at the river, in the middle of other rower girls, who were mainly from other rowing clubs. I was ready to race. I was ready to win.

I wanted to make my club proud, my family, and my friends. But mostly I wanted to make myself proud, I wanted to feel the rush of crossing the finish line in first place, the happiness, the freedom.

Someone blew the whistle and the race began. I had good reflexes, so from the corner of my eye I saw that I had managed to be one of the first ones to start the race. From then on, it was just me, the oars in my hands, the water below my shell and the finish line. Nothing else mattered.

I focused on my breathing and kept paddling like my life depended on it. I heard the wind blowing in my ears, the sound of the water splashing, the noise coming from the crowd. I could vaguely hear people calling my name and I smiled to myself. It felt good to be encouraged but it also added pressure into winning. From the corner of my eyes I could see the other rowers right behind me.

But this was my race. Feeling the adrenaline running in my veins, I rowed and rowed and soon enough I was crossing the finish line in first, the happiest feeling in the world filling me. I was tired, but most of all I was not only satisfied with myself but also I was truly happy, like this was one of the best days of my life. I rowed to the river's edge and got out of the shell where Dylan and the girls were waiting for me, along with my parents. I was greeted with smiles, compliments and cheers.

"You were awesome out there, Kiara!" Ellie excitedly told me.

"Yeah, you totally nailed it!" Dylan agreed, giving me a warm hug, despite me being wet by the water's splashes and sweaty from all of the physical effort.

"That's our girl." My dad smiled proudly.

After giving everyone a hug, some other people came to congratulate me, some I knew and some I did not. My coach gave me a bear hug and told me he was very proud of me. Then I spotted James nearby, his arms crossed over his chest and a smirk on his face.

"Well done, Kiara." He said, and his smirk turned into a small genuine smile despite his desire to hide it.

"Thanks." I smiled back. Then his smirk returned.

"You were good but I'll be better."

I snickered.

"Let's see it then."

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James won his race as well, along with Roxy and Cameron, and Lori and Ellie came second in their races.

The medals' delivery arrived and I received a golden medal and a small trophy that had two mini oars crossed over each other.

Afer the races it was time to chill and hang out and that's what we did. We chatted between us and met some new people, mainly other boys and girls from other rowing clubs. We also met some rowing professionals that had came to see the competition. One of them even told me I had been great on the river, which totally made my day.

"Oh, we haven't told you, have we?" Roxy asked me while me, her, Lori, Ellie and Dylan sat in the cafe's terrace at the rowing club. My parents were off talking with some other parents.

"What?" I asked.

"James cheered for you." Lori bluntly stated. I frowned, remembering him saying earlier that day that he would in fact cheer for me, but I thought he was lying as he was smirking and we never cheered for one another.

"He did?"

"Yeah. Loudly. That guy has a thunder's voice, I tell you." Roxy declared.

I shrugged.

"Well, you cheered for him too!" Ellie noticed and I bit my lip while remembering that in fact I had. It had been almost unconsciously, but yeah, I had rooted for him.

"Are you two friends now?" Dylan asked.

I shrugged once more. Talking about James with them felt rather uncomfortable, not only because we were talking about my biggest rival on rowing but also because we had actually shared some good moments and I didn't want my friends to judge him.

"I guess.... I don't know. We have chatted some times..."

"Like in Ellie's barbecue." Dylan indicated and his tone of voice was the same he used when he talked about Matthew or Aiden.

"Yeah. He is actually fun to talk to." I declared, half fearing what would happen next.

They all widened their eyes as I said it.

"What? Just because we are rivals in the river, it doesn't mean we can't be friends at the shore!" I defended myself.

"But you've know him for five years now and you've never been friends with him." Lori pointed out. "What changed?"

"Don't tell me it was because he broke up with Andrea." Dylan suggested in disbelief. Well, yeah, it had been because of that, but Dylan was thinking that I had started talking with James because now he wasn't dating Andrea anymore, when in fact, we had started talking because I unwillingly witnessed their breakup. 

"Actually, Andrea broke out with him. I was there when they ended their apparently perfect relationship so we just started talking! Seriously guys, it's no big deal!"

"Ok, ok, chill out, jeez." Lori smiled. I didn't know why I was getting so defensive towards James, but I couldn't help it. The worst part of it was that I would react exactly the same way as them if it had been one of my friends starting to hang out with James and not the other way around. I recalled what Matthew had told me in the library when he helped me with Maths: Don't judge like society. It was truth, sometimes I did act like it, I did judge like the one thing I despised the most.

"Hello, mates." Cameron came towards us. His eyes darted to Lori and I smiled to myself. He rested his hands on the back of Ellie's chair and finally looked straight to Lori.

"Hey, wanna hang out one of these days?" Well, straight to the point. Nice.

Lori's eyes widened a bit but then she smiled.

"Like a date?" She asked, a teasingly expression on her face and a sparkle in her eyes.

"Can call it that." He smirked and she nodded, trying not to demonstrate how happy she actually was.

"Yes."

This time Cameron was the one to openly smile. They stared at each other intensely, and seeing the happiness in their eyes and the way they talked to each other, like there was no one else there, didn't sound cheesy for me this time like it normally would. Maybe it was because it was between two friends of mine and not between some other random couple, but I couldn't help the feeling that maybe it was because within me something had changed.

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"Calm down, people, please!" The school's director voice boomed in the school's auditorium, on the following Monday. Everyone was talking loudly and had enthusiastic smiles on their faces. "If you don't shut up then there will be no school trip."

The auditorium immediately fell onto silence and Mr. Jones grinned.

"That's better. As I was saying, the school will be doing a study trip to the nearest nature reserve for a weekend. We will be camping and we will also use the long weekend that's coming, so we will go Friday afternoon and return Monday evening. The teachers will now distribute the papers with all the information you need to know and everyone will be willing to answer your questions. Now you can speak, so does anyone have questions?"

Some people started asking, or better, bombarding, Mr. Jones with questions and I turned to face Dylan and Ellie.

"This is so exciting!" Ellie blurted out right away and me and Dylan nodded in agreement.

"It will definitely be great but we'll be missing two rowing practices." I stated.

"Kiara, you won your race and there's no competition approaching so I bet Mr. Yanks won't mind." Ellie noticed.

"I know." I smiled and that relieved me a bit.

"Maybe at the nature reserve there's a lake or a river where you can row at." Dylan joked and I poked him on his shoulder.

"Not funny!" I declared while laughing and a soft laugh escaped from Dylan's lips.

"Do you think we will have to bring our own tents?" Ellie questioned.

"Preferably yes, but if you don't have one, the school can lend you one." I said as I read the paper that had been given to me by Ms. Terry, the Literature teacher.

"I'll borrow Cameron's tent." Ellie smiled and looked at me. "You can share it with me if you want!"

"That'd be great." I smiled. Tents would be shared between two people, obviously from the same genre. After talking some more about the trip with them I rested on my chair to hear the rest of the questions.

With my friends with me, I had a feeling this was going to be a pretty amazing weekend. Maybe even one of the bests of my life.

Music of this chapter is "Best Day Of My Life" by American Authors! So cool (;