A couple of afternoons after meeting at the lake, I received a text from Rhyse saying his mum had been keeping an eye on him as of late, and so not to arouse suspicion we shouldn't meet for a little while.

With just over a week left in the forest, I was grateful for the time we spent that day. It was fun, and I regretted not taking any pictures so I could remember it later on down the line. It was highly unlikely I'd see him again before we left, especially since we spent much of the days before leaving packing and making sure everything is set for being left alone for a year.

No Rhyse to hang out with didn't mean I was going to spend my remaining time off marinating in the heat of the cabin. I could go out and do stuff by myself.

"Where are you going?" I heard called from up above me just as I closed the door behind me.

Shielding my eyes from the dazzling sun, I craned my neck up to the top floor of the cabin to see Andrew poking his head of his bedroom window squinting down at me.

"Out. Nowhere in particular."

"Can I come?"

"If you want to. Hurry up though, it's hot."

Andrew disappeared and not even a few minutes later he had his shoes on and was scurrying out of the door.

"Is Rhyse going to join us?" He asked eagerly.

"No. He's busy."

Andrew huffed beside me. "Man. I wanna meet him. He seems so cool."

"Well, he's definitely something!" I joked, earning a smile from Andrew.

Perhaps I should've let Andrew tag along with us every now and again. Usually, he woke up long after I was gone, though, he would have likely just complained that he was tired a good portion of the time. Alongside the restrictive heat, no one wanted to hear the constant whinging of a 13-year-old about how he's tired, he's bored, he's hot.

No one.

I spotted a tree in the distance, the same one Rhyse and I had hid from the sun under a couple of days ago. It wouldn't be long before Andrew grew tired of wandering around aimlessly, so I could try teaching him to climb in the meantime. He never really was one for the outdoors.

The tree was easy enough to climb, the branches started low enough to the ground that he could use those to get himself up. Not like when Rhyse had me scaling raw tree bark on my first try.

"Come on up Andy Pandy!" I called down to Andrew as he watched in awe.

"You're annoying when you call me that, you know?" He said, folding his arms.

"Climb up here and I'll pinky promise not to do it anymore, okay?"

He sighed and unwillingly dragged his feet along to the tree.

"Positive thoughts!" I taunted, remembering how much hearing that before had riled me up.

Andrew rolled his eyes and very carefully made his way up to my level, immediately holding out his pinky finger. Not one word left his mouth before our sweaty pinkies intertwined.

That was it. The death of Andy Pandy. But the rise of Drewbert was nigh, and he didn't even know it.

He barely lasted an hour before he started complaining.

"It's hot as hell, Sophia. How do you spend all day outside?"

"I merely suffer, as you are doing right now."

Andrew was unimpressed by my response, made obvious by him pursing his lips. He glanced down at the ground, and I knew he was considering going back to the cabin. Honestly, I had the same idea. Staying out and melting in the heat wasn't as doable when I wasn't there by force.

"Careful climbing down," I warned, watching as he scuttled down the branches. If I didn't know Andrew, I would've thought he was doing it with ease. But I did know him. I knew if he wasn't careful, he would fall. He was just that unlucky.

"Pfft! This is easy!"

A yowl emitted from the boy as I observed him slipping down against the trunk of the tree and then landing face down on the brown bed of decaying leaves below the tree. It all happened in the blink of an eye and I was too anxious to even move to see if he was okay.

There was an eerie silence while I vigilantly kept watch over the still boy.

"Shit! Damn it!"Echoed from the body of Andrew. He slowly pushed himself up and rested his sore back against the tree. A few more streams of very artful manipulations of the English language emerged from his mouth while I worked my way down to get a closer inspection.

The abrasions from the tree trunk had created chalk-white marks down his arms, and his face had little amounts of woodland debris stuck to it.

"Having a safe time in the forest for almost 6 weeks, only to injure yourself in the final week. The RNG Gods are your enemy," I joked once I finally realised he was mostly alright, probably just a little shaken.

He rolled his eyes and brushed himself down. "This is why I hate coming here sometimes. I never can go home without some sort of dumb injury."

I hauled him up to his feet he grunt like an old man.

"If I were you, I would simply just be more careful," I stated sarcastically, earning a glare from my brother.

Andrew didn't join me for any more outings past a certain threshold of the cabin during the remainder of the week. After the way he tumbled out of the tree, I didn't blame him.

The days meandered on languidly while the harsh heat continued its fight against any effort we made to cool down. Although I was eager to get back to the city and have AC aggressively cool me down, I also didn't know if I was ready to leave behind everything that had happened.

Prior to the chaos of everyone packing up was to ensue, I finally checked my social media and my emails to see what I'd been missing out on and evidently, it turned out I wasn't missing out on much. Emails from school about prep and about the impending university application cycle formed a pit in my stomach. I realised that I wouldn't feel that same sense of freedom and adventure that I experienced in the forest for a long time.

The night before our departure before mandatory movie night began, Rhyse had texted me when we were leaving. Exercising not even a modicum of restraint, I replied immediately telling him we were leaving tomorrow afternoon. Then there was nothing, he didn't answer. Why did he want to know?

I didn't have time to feel any sort of way about my message being ignored because I was being summoned to the living room. Everyone already had taken their seats. My mum offered me a small smile and patted the one beside her. I snuggled up beside her, putting my phone face down on the coffee table beside me.

Andrew passed a bowl of popcorn to me. "We're watching In The Heights," he said while sluggishly rolling his eyes. That meant he would be asleep before we got halfway through the film.

My dad chuckled and shrugged as he pressed play. "Lin-Manuel Miranda knows how to compose an excellent score."

One thing about my dad, he loved a musical and he loved them even more so when Lin-Manuel was involved. The songs would hopefully be able to take my mind off the stress of returning back to the mundane.