Haven

My eyes drooped, Tara couldn't stop talking about Luke and we had been sitting in the bus for over four hours. I was glad it was the last part of the journey, my muscles had become stiff again, my bum feeling like a wooden plank. I really wanted to walk, but we weren't allowed to. The Mcdonalds break had been too short either.

"So, the next thing he said was that he'd never met anyone like me. I rolled my eyes, who doesn't say that, right? But he seemed so genuine, and now I still know it's true. We're dating but he wants to ask me officially in Amsterdam. How romantic?" Tara rambled, staring at Luke, who was now sitting with Louis.

I tried to smile at her. I did feel happy for her, I just didn't trust Luke for several reasons. He seemed like the type to just let her go like that whenever he would've found someone else. I wouldn't say it, though. Last time I had tried telling her, she told me I was just jealous that Zephaniah wouldn't ever say that to me.

Glancing at Zephaniah, I wondered how he felt at this moment. William had insisted that he would sit next to him for the remaining time of the journey, but he hadn't really seemed to like it. His headphones were around his neck, but he wouldn't put them on. I knew it was because he was afraid it would be rude towards William.

Seeing him like that- so insecure, so quiet and so reserved, I couldn't believe what had happened on the ferry. He had seemed so loose, so himself. As if he finally fully trusted me. I didn't know about that, though, I just truly hoped it would be the reason. How else did he come so loose around me? So open, so warmed up.

"Are you even listening?" Tara frowned, roughly nudging my arm, but at the exact same time- I had looked outside, the road sign confirming we had just arrived in Amsterdam.

"Amsterdam!" I cheered loudly, accidentally standing up from my seat. "We're in Amsterdam!" I yelled again, trying to squeeze in a happy dance, the narrow space not really letting me.

William laughed, more students chuckled at me while others scolded me for screaming them awake. "That's right, ladies and gentlemen. We have just arrived in Amsterdam! Now, we're not straight away going to the Amsterdam Central, sorry about that, but we will be driving to Amsterdam Sloterdijk, which is part of the municipality of Amsterdam. The guest families are all in that area, and its only a quarter or so away from Amsterdam Central. We'll have a meeting point where the guest families will bring you to every day, and from there we will travel to Amsterdam together. Now please listen carefully as I'll be naming the groups and the family's name you'll be staying at. Once I've called your names, you can go outside the bus. The right family will be waiting for you."

"Jeremy Smith, Lindsey Anderton, Sophia Hallewell, Ittarah Malik and Dave Blackwood, you'll be staying with family van der Smith. Coincidence, Jeremy? I think not." William chuckled, frowning at his own joke after that. The class laughed, but my heart secretly thumped a little louder. I was way too excited, and couldn't find out who our guest family would be, or more like what they would be like.

Ittarah climbed over me, kissed my cheek but pouted. "Bye, Have. Take care of Luke."

"As if." I chuckled, nudging her arm. "Bye, Tara. You'll have fun!" I grinned at her eye roll.

Focusing back on William, my heart skipped a beat when I heard my name. "Haven Sparks, Luke Leighton, Abel Mitchell, Norah Oakes, Louis Tomlinson and Zephaniah Malik, you'll be staying with family ter Linden. They'll be waiting for you guys outside the bus now. Go get your luggage and have fun!"

Quickly slipping my bag over my shoulder, I left my seat and got shaken by Norah, who had gripped my shoulders. "Have! Have! Have!"

"Stop." I chuckled, softly pushing her away. My eyes met Zephaniah's ones, he seemed to be extremely nervous. More nervous than he had been while meeting my family that time with the so called tea party. I felt bad, I wanted to make him feel at ease again, but I didn't really know how.

"Zeph?" I said quietly, as he was slowly strolling through the bus, his eyes blinking, hands flapping rather fast. "Do you want to hold my beret? So you can touch it.." I trailed off, wondering if that even made sense. But he had said he liked the feeling of it, it reminded him of his mum. It might help..

He nodded quickly, and as I handed him my beret, William held me back, his eyes questionable. "Haven, did his parents tell you about the medication?"

"They did." I answered quickly, smiling when he held his thumbs up.

"What medication?" Zephaniah asked, his eyes not reaching mine. His fingers were slowly brushing over my beret, the other hand slightly tugging at it.

"Oh, uh.. ibuprofen. I wasn't sure if I could cross the borders with it, like, if it was legal." I made up quickly.

"But we didn't- but no one checked it here." He said, his expression uncertain. I felt bad for lying to him, extremely bad. But what would he think if he knew I had the responsibility to give him medication rectally if he would have a severe seizure? I wasn't sure his parents had told him, after all.

Walking further, reaching the steps of the bus, I gave him a sheepish smile. "I thought they would! Oh, look, that must be our family." My heart fluttered, but before I could meet them, I had to retrieve my suitcase. So once we all had our suitcases back, except for Zephaniah who had held it with him for the whole journey, we got introduced to the family we would be staying with.

"You must be our group." The woman spoke up first, her accent sounding quite funny- in a good way. "My name is Nina ter Linden and this is my husband Vincent ter Linden." She smiled warmly at the six of us.

"Vincent! Vincent van Gogh!" I exclaimed, apologising right after. "Sorry, that came out a little too enthusiastically." I chuckled, sheepishly, eyeing the man. His dark blonde hair was a little short, but styled with some hair mousse, his blue eyes bright. The woman had light brown hair, freckles scattered over her nose, a few on her cheeks.

"If only I was him." Vincent laughed, stretching his hand out to me. "What's your name?"

"Haven, Haven Sparks. It's really good to meet you! Amsterdam has always been a dream. I can't believe it's actually reality now." I smiled widely, shaking Nina's hand.

Nina smiled warmly again, she was friendly. Once she had shaken everybody's hand- including Zephaniah, who hadn't looked into their eyes- she looked at me again. "We have been waiting for you guys too. Let's get inside the car, so we can show you our house."

Zephaniah had quickly squeezed into the back, so I sat down beside him, as the other guys wouldn't. I glanced at him, he was still touching my beret, his eyes nervously flickering everywhere. He secretly touched the seat in front of us, then the coating of it. He pinched his nose and sniffed a few times. I wondered if he was getting used to the smell and feelings of the unfamiliar car. Maybe I was completely wrong.

"They seem friendly." I whispered, startling him.

"Yeah." He answered simply, staring outside the window. "Looks different, right? Than home."

"It does look different." I confirmed, watching him relax a bit more. Perhaps, the confirmation soothed him in some ways. "Beautiful, isn't it?"

Zephaniah hummed, but his eyes were on my beret. I let him be, maybe he needed some time for himself even if that was rather hard now that we had no chance of being alone for a week long. I looked outside the window, Sloterdijk was surrounded by the highways and high buildings of Amsterdam, though, Sloterdijk itself was a rather small village.

A small church was placed in the middle of it, surrounded by graves from its cemetery. Few houses were scattered around it, built out of rust brown stones, the orange roof tiles having turned green lightly due to the oldness. It looked extremely cosy, and within no time- the car was parked and we stood in front of one of those houses.

"Welcome to ter Linden's house." Nina chuckled as she unlocked the front door, letting us inside first. "Have a seat in the living room, we'll talk some things through, fine?"

We all agreed, and as my eyes roamed around the quite spacious but cosy house, I took off my shoes and sat down beside Zephaniah on their black leathered couch. Most furniture were black, the floor was a very light brown colour and the walls were white. Blue and white tiles scattered over it, though, decorating the place.

"Those are old Dutch tiles." Nina smiled as she noticed me looking at it. "We also have something called wisdom tiles. They're up in the bedrooms. Basically they're the same white and blue Delftware styled tiles with proverbs or aphorisms written on it."

"That's quite nice!" I said genuinely, my eyes lingering on a few photo's that were hung against the wall as well. Their style was quite modern, but there were also a few historical things such as the old fireplace and the old decorations they had, to, probably, keep the history alive in their house, even when they moved along with the time.

Zephaniah listened intensely, his eyes flickering towards the tiles. I wondered what he was thinking right now, would he like them? He was clearly getting used to the, another, unfamiliar place, his eyes roaming around, his hands resting in his lap as he didn't touch anything other than my beret.

"I like your place. It's very welcoming." Louis mentioned, giving Vincent a small smile.

"Thank you guys. As for the rules, yes, I'm sorry, I know people your age don't really like rules but we've got to get through them. Either Nina or I will bring you guys to the meeting point in the morning, which will be around nine am. Which means we will be serving your breakfast from eight, but feel free if you want to sleep in a bit and have breakfast at eight thirty. However, if you're too late with getting ready, it's really your own problem, sorry about that, as we do not want to be too late for the meeting point. Your University has made a quite tight schedule for the things you're visiting. As for lunch, we will have packed lunches for each day, please tell us if you're allergic or have special wishes so we can take notes."

"He has special wishes." Luke pointed at Zephaniah. "For everything, right, buddy? Showering, sleeping, food." He mocked, Louis and Abel snickering when he nudged their arms.

"Luke." I scoffed, shutting him with a glare. Zephaniah shifted in his seat, I heard a sigh leaving his mouth.

"Rule number two, no bullying, pestering, whatsoever. There's only kindness in this house, thank you." Vincent raised his eyebrow at Luke, which intimidated him. "Anyway, as for dinner, it is said that you guys will have dinner at our house too. We will pick you guys up from the meeting point and serve dinner, however, if you ever feel like cheating and go out for a Mcdonalds or something, please let us know so we don't cook for a whole orphanage and no one joins us." He joked, I laughed.

"Boys will sleep in one room, the girls in the other room. No visiting each other at night, please. We have a son from ten years old and a daughter from eight years old so we would really appreciate it if you guys would get to bed at an acceptable time and of course you can have some fun but please keep in mind that our children are sleeping and have school the next day. I think that should be it. Oh, we also have two cats. Your teacher placed the six of you with us because no pet allergy had been noted down. If you have any problem with them, please let us know! Do you have any questions?" He wondered, his eyes lingering on the six of us. It stayed silent for a while, I think we were all processing his, well needed, rules.

"Where's the cat?" Zephaniah blurted out, which surprised me a lot. He didn't look at Vincent, nor at me. He seemed to be extremely nervous still, but maybe the fact that it was an animal, somewhat close to a dog, comforted him. Besides, the blurting out was a sign of his nervousness too. Just like when he would blurt out that his favourite colour was yellow.

Vincent laughed a little, but stood up. "I'll go get her for you. It's a Maine Coon, she's called Luna."

"Stupid question." Zephaniah whispered, glancing at me. "Do you- do you think he's mad now?"

"No, it wasn't Zeph. It's fine, it really is." I assured him, watching his eyes lit up when Vincent placed the cat on his lap. He had whispered a quiet thank you, carefully stroking the cats fur.

"Alright, I think we're all cleared up. Please, make yourself at home! We're pretty loose ourselves besides the few rules." She chuckled. "We'll show you the rooms so you can settle your stuff, rest, or whatever you guys feel like doing. It must've been a long day, yeah?" Nina said warmly, standing up.

We all followed her towards a room, that wasn't upstairs but rather at the back of their house. "Sorry for the mess, the kids have yet to learn to clean up their toys after they have played with it. Hardest thing to teach your kids." She chuckled, opening a door that led us over to three more doors.

"Alright, on your left there's the boy's bedroom. Two bunkbeds, fight out yourself who sleeps up and who down. Except, I believe there's a student with epilepsy, am I right?" She said softly, Zephaniah looked skeptical. "Love, if you would sleep on the lower one? For safety."

"Okay." Zephaniah stammered, placing his stuff down at the bunkbed that stood left in the room. The rooms were small, but it was only to sleep in so it didn't really matter. Next to their bedroom, there was the bedroom Norah and I would be sleeping in. Two bunkbeds as well, we both decided to just sleep down and leave the upper ones untouched.

The other door led to a private bathroom for the six of us. She advised three could take a shower in the evening and the other three in the morning, unless you wanted to get out of your bed at five am in order to give everybody time to shower. We simply laughed again, she was a nice woman.

Once we were settled, Norah, Luke, Abel and Louis watched some television in the living room while I was neatly placing my stuff in the drawer of a closet they had standing in the room. Soft knocking on the door made me look up, I saw Zephaniah standing at the doorstep.

"Hey." I gave him a smile and stopped what I was doing, eyeing him. He wore some nike shorts, reaching just above his knees, an oversized dark green sweater on top of that. He returned the smile, though, his one was smaller. "Are you okay?"

Zephaniah nodded, his eyes lingering on the floor. "Very tired. Think I'll sleep now. Is that weird?" He glanced at me, his eyebrows furrowed lightly.

"No, it's not weird. I understand. It was a tiring day, I think I'll sleep myself too. Long days ahead." I laughed a little, the same unfamiliar feeling fluttering around. His hair was more disheveled, perhaps because of the long journey. He looked sleepy and extremely cuddly.

He finds safety in the people he knows. His mum had told me that before, and I wondered if that was the reason why he was standing at the doorstep of my room, not really saying much. He fiddled with the beret, suddenly stretching out his hand. "Thanks, Haven."

"No worries, really. If you need it another time don't hesitate to ask, okay? Did it help?" I answered, taking the beret from him, throwing it in my suitcase.

Zephaniah hummed and nodded, started fiddling with his fingers instead and glanced at me. "Goodnight."

"Sleep well, Zeph." I answered back, watching him hesitate for a moment more before he gave me a small wave and left my room, entering his own. I heard the slight creaking of the bed as he lied down and most likely got comfortable.

I wondered what he had hesitated about.

~~~

They're in Amsterdam yeahh!! I'm so excited to show you all what will happen during the trip . . .

Did you expect Zeph to blurt out a question like that?

Haven's beret comforting him?

What do you think he hesitated about..?

Let me know your thoughts!! Feedback, votes, comments much appreciated! ❤️ 90+ votes?