Hello! Did you notice the new cover? It's so beautiful. Thank you @lostmemoria for making it. You did an amazing job so I am dedicating this chapter to you =)

So here is the next chapter. Enjoy!

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The surface of the water felt like solid concrete as my body hit it and then penetrated the cold water like a bullet.

It took me a moment to control my body which was rolling in all  directions because of the force of the water. A loud splash came from nearby which further agitated the already wild water.

A hand wrapped around my arm which pulled me back to the surface, my lungs relaxed as they were filled with fresh oxygen once again.

Daniel's face emerged from the water after mine with hair was sticking to his head and his breath running rapidly.

"Are you fucking crazy? Why would you do that?" Daniel yelled at me, his breathing ragged.

"It was fun," I replied smiling, but that seemed to take his anger to a higher level.

"Fun? Fun? That wasn't fun! You could've killed yourself!" he growled gnashing his teeth.

"No, I wouldn't have. I've done this before and I'm alright," I said in a gentle voice to calm the fuming boy. His eyes were scary to look at so I decided to avert my gaze downwards which made me notice our proximity. Our chests were almost touching and he had a strong grip on my waist as the water lapped around us.

I moved back away slowly from Daniel to create some distance between us.

"You're an idiot, Norah," he stated with a heave, running his fingers through his hair.

"I know. Now can we please get out of the cold water first, then you can yell at me to your heart's content. It's freezing in here," I pleaded, a shiver running through my body and my teeth chattering, noisily.

Without saying anything, he started to swim towards the shore, his hand firmly linked to mine as if I was going to slip away otherwise.

"Why would you do that, No?" Sebastian asked as we reached where everyone else was waiting. "That was insane!"

"Don't worry Seb. I knew what I was doing," I told him and then looked at Mike who was approaching us running down from the cliff with Abbey trailing far behind.

"Are you okay?" Mike asked breathless running his eyes over my body to find any kind of injury.

"Yeah, I am okay. And I hope you learnt to never tell me that I can’t do something." I smiled obnoxiously. I must've seemed like a total brat to everyone.

Mike gave me look that got me to a conclusion that he either wanted to kill himself or me.

"You're an idiot! I say tons of things everyday but no one is stupid enough to actually act on it," Mike said in a disapproving tone.

"Okay, no one got hurt so calm down everyone and get back to surfing. Except you Norah, you're going to sit with Shay," Liam commanded and everyone scattered away slowly.

We returned to the cabin after two hours of the rest of people surfing- or at least trying to- while I was made to sit quietly and far away from the water.

"There is still some light outside so I guess we still have time for another activity," Liam said writing something on tiny bits of paper.

"Activities? I'm sorry I forgot that we were in kindergarten again." Sebastian said while munching an apple.

"How do you even deal with his lameness Shay?" Chad asked playfully. Shay rolled her eyes at him.

"Are we done with the 'let's make fun of Liam' session 'cause I need to continue," he asked sarcastically and stood up with the folded bits of paper in his hands.

"Alright, these contain numbers 1 to 4. Everyone will pick one and anyone two people who get a same number would be on one team. Got it?" Liam shuffled the folded pieces and threw them on the centre table. "After everyone is paired up, they will be given a list of things that you have to take pictures of. The team which gets it done in the least amount of time wins."

"That is a lame-ass game. Should've guessed that you would suggest something like this," Chad said crossing his legs and placing them on the table.

"Come on guys, at least give it a try. It might just be fun," Shay told everyone, picking a piece of paper from the table.

"Fine let this over with," Sebastian stated picking piece of paper as well. "It says no. 4."

"But we're 9 so one of us would be left unpaired," I said.

"That would be me," Daniel said in a dry voice raising his hand unenthusiastic-ally.

He hadn't talked to me after the beach incident. I tried apologizing to him but he dismissed me everytime making his anger towards me quite evident.

Norah Bishop. Pissing Daniel Cohen off since last Friday.

"Number 1," Shay read from her paper.

Picking from the few bits left on the table, I told everyone that I had no. 3.

Liam was paired up with Sebastian while Shay got Chad as her team mate.

"Great! I get the crazy water jumping lady," Mike said rolling his eyes and showing everyone that his paper read number 3.

"So that leaves you two as team no. 2," Shay said pointing to Abbey and Juliet who were now wearing black and white respectively.

They just couldn’t seem to catch a break.

Without giving either of the girls anytime to lash out at each other, the rest of us rushed out of the cabin again after collecting the list from Liam.

"The list says we need picture of a squirrel, an acorn, an oak tree, a fern leaf, a dandelion, a tree trunk and any animal track. Okay, it seems easy. Take out your phone, we'll start this way," I said turning back to Mike who already had his phone in his hands and was busy taking selfies from different angles.

"I am pretty sure the list doesn't say that we require a picture of Mike."

Mike stuck out his tongue at me and stomped off ahead.

"There's your leaf." Mike walked towards an old tree on our left and clicked a smiling picture of him holding the leaf. I rolled my eyes at his childishness.

"I think I saw an oak tree that way when we were going to the beach," Mike said and ran off deep inside the woods.

"This is supposed to be a team thing. Don't run off alone!" I shouted after him.

I tried to follow but due to the dense forest, it was hard keeping track of him. The sound of his shoes against the mud started to gradually faint and very soon the whole forest became dead silent to me.

I called out Mike's name but got no reply for them.

Stupid Mike!

I tapped my phone screen bringing it to life and was disappointed when I noticed that I didn't have any cell reception.

Awesome!

With a sigh, I walked ahead still shouting Mike's name in the silence of the woods.

After around 50 or so minutes of searching for Mike, I was pretty sure that I was completely lost in the woods myself. The forest looked completely different now as compared to what it looked like during the daytime. The things that seemed beautiful earlier now looked like props for some cheesy horror movie. And I looked like the silly girl who is stupid enough to roam in the woods at night and is always the first one to get killed.

All of this should've scared me but for some odd reason, it didn't.

Faint sounds coming from my left immediately grabbed my attention and heightened my senses. I looked around where I was standing to find something to protect myself if in case it was an animal. My eyes went to a broken branch lying under a tree. It didn't look as if it had much strength but I was running out of time and it was my only bet.

Picking the branch from the ground, I positioned myself in an attacking stance for the approaching creature with my heart thumping in my ears.

"Stupid girl, where would you wander off to?" Mike's slender figure appeared out of the darkness.

My tensed shoulders relaxed and I let go of the breath that I had been holding. I don't think I had ever been so happy to see Mike in my life.

Mike pointed to the branch in my hand and said with raised eyebrows. "Were you planning to attack me with that twig?"

"I thought it was an animal," I said throwing away the branch. "And have you made it your objective to piss me off today? Why did you run off alone?"

"Oh please! I think it's the other way around." Mike rolled his eyes dramatically. "And by the way, I got all the pictures." 

"Good. Now find the way out of here too," I said nonchalantly and took Mike's phone from his hand.

"Why do I have to do everything?"

"Cause you're the one who got us lost here," I replied walking.

"So you say," Mike said with his voice trailing off. "You know I've been meaning to ask you something for a really long time."

"No Mike, I am not willing to cheat on Seb for you," I said jokingly.

Mike turned around and the serious expression on his face surprised me. "It's not that."

"Okaaaay. Then what?" I asked pushing the bush in front of me to side.

"I have always wondered if something happened to you that made you like this," Mike stated casually but his eyes told me that he was serious.

"Like what?" I was confused.

"Like the way you pretend to be. The way you act...it's not you, I can tell." Mike stopped walking and looked me straight in the eye.

"Okay Mike, answer me honestly. Did you eat any wild berry or something? Because you're not making any sense right now." I tried to take the topic off the table but clearly Mike wasn't having it.

A knowing smile appeared on his face. "You know what I mean. I'm talking about the sad look in your eyes even when you show that you're happy, how you do things that you clearly don't like, how you pretend to be in love with Sebastian." My eyes immediately shot up to him at the last part. "What? It's not like I don't see anything."

I didn't say anything and decided to stare at the ground.

“Like today, you jumped like you didn't even give a second thought about your life. Why is that?”

I could easily say that I was having one of the most uncomfortable conversations of my life up until then. I mean, lost in the woods at night and having a discussion with Mike, out of all people, discussing how sad he thought I was. The situation felt way out of my comfort zone.

"I'm not crazy, if that's what you're trying to say," I said without giving out any emotion.

"I know you're not." Mike tilted his head to a side. "Things happen to people, Norah, and some of those things make people to act out. Everybody has such a story to tell. I wonder what's yours."

"I don't have any story to tell," I clarified.

"You do. But I guess it's much easier to keep it a secret and let it affect us instead of reaching out, huh? That's exactly what I did after my mom was murdered."

I felt a jolt of shock at the new information that Mike had just given me. He never talked about his mother and after once experiencing how non-cooperative Mike could become whenever someone asked about her, none of us ever mentioned her again.

"I'm really sorry, I didn't know that," I said feeling bad for Mike.

"Cause I never told anyone about her," he replied quickly along with a sad smile.

"Then why me? Why did you tell me?" I questioned.

"I don't know," Mike whispered. "I don't know why I do a lot of things."

"You're strange Mike." I said.

"I know. But so are you. I guess we're just a couple of weirdos, huh?" he said, his usual cheeriness returning in his voice.

"Remember, no matter how much life sucks sometimes but ultimately it does give us a reason to be happy. The reason that makes your life worth living." He smiled. "I hope you find yours soon."

If only life was that easy.

"Norah! Mike! Is that you guys?" a familiar voice boomed in the silence.

Both Mike and I turned towards the direction from where the voice came and the Mike shouted back, "Here!"

Daniel followed Mike's voice and found us.

"Everyone has been looking for you two," Daniel said. "What happened? You're okay?"

"Yeah, we just got a little lost. It's all Norah's fault. You know these girls...poor sense of direction and all." Mike rolled his eyes flicking his hand in a dismissive action.

"Something tells me it was you," Daniel remarked sardonically looking at Mike and then his eyes found mine. "Why do you have that look? Did something happen?" His eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

"No, it's nothing," I said along with a smile to validate my point.

Daniel looked only half convinced but let it slide. We walked back to the cabin while Mike hopped throughout the way cracking jokes as if he didn't have any memory of our conversation just a few minutes ago.

It's strange how every person has their own way of dealing with grief. Some do it by cutting everyone else off, some try to deny it. I guess masking it with jokes and goofiness was Mike's way of doing it.

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The next chapter will be uploaded on next Sunday!