Hello to all the lovely people reading this. I hope you're all enjoying the story so far.

This chapter is dedicated to DimaEatsApples because she is very a supportive reader. Also she is a great writer. If you haven't read her story 'When words fail you' yet, I strongly recommend that you do it after reading this chapter =)

Also thank you @Elkelly @KaylaPhobia and @Melody2400 in addition to the names mentioned in the previous chapter for voting and commenting :)

Being done with that, here is the next chapter. Hope you like it! 

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I unwrapped the towel from my damp hair, combing it with my fingers.

After Daniel had 'oh so gently' thrown in the lake, I had to take an hour long shower to get rid of all the wet slimy things that had stuck to me. I shuddered at the image of them on my skin.

Letting my hair down and loose, I got out of the room that Shay and I were sharing.

The corridors were narrow and had several photo frames hanging on the wall containing pictures of Shay and her family in them captured on different occasions all through out several years.

The voices of people chattering became louder as I reached the central sitting area where Shay, Liam and Mike were almost done with sweeping the floor and cleaning the walls while Abbey was busy trying to find something to eat in the kitchen. Chad and Sebastian were sitting outside on the porch, talking with each other. 

"I’m really sorry. I should've helped you guys with this," I apologized to the cleaning trio.

"No, it's okay. It wasn't much work anyway," Shay said and went back to arranging the couch in its original position.

"Hey, we will be leaving for the beach soon and it's a lot way down from here so wear comfortable shoes," Liam informed looking in my direction.

"Damn! I really wanted to wear my 6 inch heels," I said faking a pout.

"I know, right? This is such a bummer. I totally had plans to bring out my 9 inch stilettos," Mike joined me in complaining while crossing his arms in front of his chest. Liam and I snickered at Mike's expression.

"What are we talking about?" Chad asked entering the area with Sebastian.

"Nothing, just Mike and his questionable mental state," Shay replied to Chad.

"Nothing new then," Sebastian said looking at Mike who had his tongue out at Shay. Sebastian then turned towards me asking, "You're calmed down now? You looked as if you were going to kill Daniel."

"Oh I am still planning to do so. Just waiting for the perfect moment," I replied and then added sarcastically. "By the way thanks everybody for your help back then."

"Always there for a friend in need," Mike said with a grin that could even put a Cheshire cat to shame.

"I heard conspiracy of my assassination," Daniel declared, coming out of one of the rooms with Juliet tagging along with him.

Hmm...what's the deal with those two? I thought to myself.

Juliet settled down beside Chad and Daniel leaned on the couch, sending a smirk my way. In response, I frowned at him.

"Okay people, no time for any more jibber jabber. Hurry up and get ready," Liam instructed all of us in a loud voice.

"Geez Liam! Calm your tits down," Chad said rolling his eyes. Liam took a cushion from the couch and threw it at Chad's face.

"Before Liam starts PMS-ing again, let's just go," Sebastian suggested walking towards one of the rooms, leaving a mumbling Liam behind.

After returning back in my room, I quickly pulled my still damp hair in a low ponytail and slid my feet in my new pair of sneakers. After checking my appearance in the mirror, I left the room with Shay.

Everyone was already present outside of the cabin with the exception of Juliet.

"Come on Juliet!" Chad yelled looking at the door.

"I'm coming!" Juliet declared running out of the door closing it after her. She was wearing a knee length baby pink dress with along with a pair of flats of the same color.

I heard Abbey, who was standing behind me, take a sharp breath and I soon realized what the reason for her reaction was.

Abbey was wearing the exact same dress as Juliet.

Uh-oh.

Juliet's eyes immediately went to Abbey, and her reaction wasn't very happy either.

You see in a women's world, wearing the same dress as someone else is considered the absolute shame and that other person instantly becomes your sworn enemy. Also you can be sure that a lot of drama is definitely ensued and judging by the narrowed eyes that Abbey and Juliet were looking at each other with, I was sure that one of them was going to lash out soon. 

And if the situation wasn't awkward enough for the rest of us, Mike decided to break out into the Aerosmith song, "Pink, it's my new obsession, yeah. Pink, it's not even a question. Pink on the..."

Fuming, Abbey and Juliet glowered at Mike shutting him up in the middle of the song.

"Anyways let's go," Liam said cautiously, trying not to anger the two panthers in pink.

"Come on Julie, you look beautiful," Chad tried to cheer up his girlfriend who hadn't moved from the porch.

Taking a deep breath, Juliet smiled at Chad coming down the stairs. 

All of us sighed in relief and started walking on a trail as Liam and Shay kept instructing us. As always, taking the roles of leaders both of them were walking ahead of all of us holding each other while Abbey walked beside Shay.

Mike was telling some joke to Chad and Sebastian making them laugh while Juliet had now joined Daniel who was walking just ahead of me. Daniel whispered something in Juliet's ear and she giggled looking at him.

How was Chad not uncomfortable with all of this?

Frowning a little at them, I went back to watching my surrounding. Since I was walking at the last, I moved in a slow pace noticing every single detail of the woods. Birds were still chirping perched on the branches of the trees even it being the middle of the day. Tiny beautiful flowers were growing in a scattered manner all over the place in small groups. The sun was still there but was covered by several clouds which were diluting its heat and glow. My hand accidentally brushed the trunk of a tree which was covered in wet green moss.

Making a face, I swiped my hand on my black jeans and continued to walk.

"Still coming up with the ways to murder me?" Daniel asked turning back while Juliet ran off over to Chad.

"Nope, already done with that. Now I am looking for a place to bury you after," I replied along with a sweet but fake smile.

Even though we were just joking about it, but I still found it strange that given the circumstances we were so lightly discussing about his death.

Lost in my thoughts, I looked at Daniel and found him staring at my face intently.

Did I have something on it?

"What?" I asked feeling self conscious.

"You look different today. I don't think I remember seeing you like this," he answered, his eyes still focused on me.

He was right. I had decided against wearing any makeup as I didn't want to end up looking like a zombie-bride after a swim in the water. I couldn't recall the last time I was sans any makeup outside my home.

"Yeah, I don't have much makeup on just in case if I decide to take a swim," I told Daniel.

"I am really hoping you do swim though. Eager to know how this shirt looks when wet," he said with an amused look. "By the way, cute bra you had on. So fiery!"

I wanted to smack myself in the head for wearing a bright red bra underneath a cream shirt. Let's just say that the decision was not taken in one of the brightest moment of my brain. But, as they say that a person learns from their mistakes, so this time I had decided to wear a deep blue shirt with a black sports bra underneath it.

"Perv!" I pushed him away lightly and quickened my pace.

"Hey, don't you go running away from me again. You were ignoring me for the whole drive too," he said catching up with me easily.

My eyes went wide and blood gushed into my cheeks as I remembered the whole 'mirror mishap'.

"No, I wasn't," I lied looking down in an attempt to hide my embarrassment.

"Yes, you were. What was that about anyway? Did Sebastian tell you to not talk to me?" Daniel asked while shooting glares at Sebastian who was walking ahead of us.

"No, it had nothing to do with Sebastian," I defended my fake boyfriend.

"So then tell me what is it?" 

He was not going to let this go.

"No, you'll think I'm a weirdo."

"Now I have to know about it. Norah, tell me or I'll make you tell me," Daniel warned me with his voice low.

"Fine, but please don't think that I am some kind of perverted freak. Okay?" I said fiddling with my fingers.

"I won't, I promise," he assured, looking at me eagerly.

"Alright, remember in the morning when Mike spilled coffee on you and you went to take a shower?" He nodded, signalling me to go on, "Yeah well, I went to get Shay's wallet from her room and on the way back, I accidentally- remember accidentally- caught a glance of you without any shirt on in the mirror."

I pressed my hand on my face looking down.

This was way too much humiliating.

Raising my head at a slow pace, I looked towards to see his reaction. He was looking at me completely entertained and trying to stifle a laugh.

"That's it? That is why you were acting all weird the whole morning?"

Slowly, I nodded my head at him and that made Daniel let go of the laugh that he was controlling.

Everyone stopped walking and turned back looking at us because of Daniel's loud outburst.

"You're a jerk," I said irritated and walked up to join Sebastian when I noticed Abbey walking towards us or more like towards Daniel.

"What was that?" Sebastian asked linking his hand with mine.

"Nothing," I gave him a tiny reply,

"How far is it? We've been walking for so long and my feet are hurting," Juliet complained with a pout.

"Here, climb on my back," Chad said and crouched down a little to get to Juliet's level.

"Yay! Piggyback ride," Juliet rejoiced like a little girl and climbed on the Chad's back in one movement.

"And he calls me cheesy," Sebastian said shaking his head.

"Shut up! I think it's really cute," Shay chastised Sebastian without looking at him.

"You can climb on me too Norah. Anyway you want," Mike said wiggling his eyebrows like a maniac.

"No one is climbing on anyone. We're almost there," Liam announced looking back at us while Mike kept mouthing gibberish to me.

I looked back to see Abbey being the chatty Cathy that she was, completely unknown that Daniel wasn't listening to a single word that she was saying. Instead he was scanning the place with his eyes and nodding after every few seconds.

The smell of salt hung in the air and grew stronger as we started to approach the beach. I noticed that the mud beneath us was now getting replaced with moist golden sand. The sound of pounding surf reached us as the trees around us cleared to reveal a beach.

It was nothing like the one that you see in movies with the warm California sun giving out a blanket of warmth to hundreds of people lying under their colorful umbrellas trying to get a tan while sipping piña colada in expensive Poco Grande glasses. No, instead of all that, dark clouds hung from the sky over the large cliffs. The dull stretch of the beach was dotted with a couple of tiny shacks and just as few people many people surfing on the waves or sitting on the rocks.

"Well this is a huge letdown," Daniel gave a voice to everyone's  thoughts.

"Yeah, we should have come a month ago," Shay piped in, disappointed.

"We are already here now so we might as well enjoy our time," Sebastian said looking at all of us.

"Yup! I am gonna go and surf," Mike said and ran towards one of the shacks with a semi-broken sign board which read 'Tom's surfboards' with a missing 'a'.

Seriously, the place couldn't get any more depressing even if it tried to.

After everyone else followed Mike to the surf board store, Shay, Abbey and I decided to sit on a rock which didn't have any waves hitting it. 

"The water looks too cold, we can't go for a swim," Shay said resting her elbows on her knees.

"I wasn't going to do it anyway. I can't swim," Abbey stated leaning on Shay.

"Well that hardly makes any difference now," I joined the conversation. "It looked much better when we were here the last time, right?"

"Yeah but it was in the month of July," Shay reminded me closing her eyes.

"Right" I nodded my head and then turned to Abbey smiling, "So why did you even come then if you can't swim." I tried my best to not sound rude asking it.

Shay snickered looking at Abbey. "She isn't here for the beach. She came because someone else was coming too."

Abbey blushed profusely while playfully hitting Shay on her arm

"Really? Who?" I asked even though I had a good guess who they were talking about.

"Shay, you promised you won't tell anyone," Abbey said, pointing a finger at her friend.

"Oh please, as if it’s not obvious enough," Shay said, dismissing Abbey's request and then said to me, "Why do you think she suddenly decided to come after Daniel agreed to come with us? Cause Abbey has got a crush on Daniel." Shay said the last part in a sing-song voice.

Abbey rolled her eyes at her but her smile was openly telling us how happy she felt at the mention of Daniel and her together.

"Aww little Abbey has got hots for Daniel," I teased Abbey along with Shay making her blush even more.

"Well, he is really cute," Abbey said, fluttering her long eyelashes.

"Even though I am dating his step-brother, I do have to admit that Daniel is pretty hot," Shay said after confirming that Liam wasn't in the hearing range.

"I am sure Liam would be so happy to hear that," I said shaking my head.

"What? It's not like I wanna have his baby or anything but a girl can fantasise, right? And besides I would be really happy if he and Abbey end up together."

I nodded my head in agreement even though it was quite difficult to picture Abbey and Daniel together.

"Hey Norah," I heard Mike's voice call my name and turned back to see him and Daniel standing a few feet away from us. "Anyone of you wanna come with us to the cliff?"

"I thought you guys were going to surf?" I asked.

"They didn't have enough surfboards in the shop," Daniel replied, looking at me.

"So we were going to climb up the cliff until we get our chance to use the boards. Anyone interested in coming?" Mike asked again.

Shay replied, "No," at the exact time that Abbey and I said, "Okay."

I jumped down from the rock and joined Daniel and Mike where they were standing while Abbey sauntered over to us smiling at Daniel.

We were walking up the curvy path of stone which elevated into a cliff at a very low angle. Few pebbles of stone kept pushing against the sole of my shoes making it slightly uncomfortable to walk.

Mike was walking with his arms around Abbey's neck while she kept looking at me and Daniel.

"So you aren't going to surf?" Daniel asked walking beside me.

"So you get to see what’s under my shirt? No thank you," I replied in a cheeky manner making Daniel chuckle. "Kidding. I don't know how to surf. But I presume that you do?"

He snorted at my words. "I've surfed just once in my life. Someone made a video of it and long story short, it went on to win jackpot prize of America's Funniest Videos."

"Oh my god, this is beautiful," Abbey stated looking utterly mystified.

My face mirrored her expression as I saw the scene in front of us.

We were standing near the edge of the high cliff which ended up in the middle of the ocean. The water looked vast, spreading in all the direction up to infinity. The air up there seemed crispier than it was down on the beach but it felt nice to have it stroke my face gently.

I walked over to the ending of the cliff carefully making sure not to slip. The big blue waves were crashing against the cliff leaving loud splashes behind.

"Don't stand too close to the edge. Take a step back," Daniel's voice came from behind me.

"Danny boy, I dare you to jump from here," Mike said coming near us.

"If only you go first," Daniel told Mike and added, "You jump, I jump. Remember?"

Water, jumping, Daniel. Hmm..reminds you of anything?

I kept looking at Daniel to see if he was thinking the same thing as me and when he avoided my gaze, I became sure that he was.

"Do you think someone would survive if they jumped from here?" I asked, looking at the two of them while Abbey stood in the background.

"Yeah, I guess. The water isn't too deep and by the looks of it, it doesn't seem that there are many rocks under the surface," Mike said examining the water from his eyes.

"Good, then I wanna try. It seems like fun," I said with an excited expression.

"What? No, it's too dangerous," Daniel scolded me not at all amused at my idea of fun.

"Pssh…as if you're really going to," Mike said, not taking me seriously.

"Don't challenge me, Mike. I am good at proving people wrong," I said a little irritated but Mike still didn't look convinced.

"Fine, but remembered you asked for it," I warned.

“Norah, no!” Daniel warned and tried to grab my arm but I moved just in time to avoid it. 

I knew that it wasn't a sensible decision that I took the next moment but maybe my sister's reasoning in my head triumphed over mine and made me do what I did just to prove myself right.

Giving a last glance to the people standing near me, I leapt forward until the ground beneath my feet was replaced by nothing but air and I started to fall down with the wind deafening my ears but somehow I still managed to hear Daniel yell in shock, "Fuck!"

And then I prepared my self to meet the surface of water, for the second time that day.

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