That New Girl [ On Hold, Rewriting ]

[ 10 ]

[ Dedicated to beneaththeglamour ]

[ Cassandra's POV ]

"You realise that for the two months you've been here," Lisa turned to look at me, "you haven't been to beach once. Well, not that I know of, but why?"

I shrugged. "Just haven't had the time to." 

We were sitting on an empty bleacher at the local swimming pool waiting for the competitions to start. There was still about 45 minutes to go. 

I looked around at the swimming centre, which, for such a small town, was quite big. There were three large pools, including the outside one, where the diving competitions were being held. There was also a kids pool, set off to the side and away from the rest. No one was in there though; all the pools were closed off. 

"Well then, we have to go sometime soon," she went on, "I mean, it's practically your backyard, how have you not been?" 

"Like I said, I've been busy." 

The available seats were filling up fast now, and soon I was squished up against Lisa by some woman and her child, cheering manically for God knows who. The competition hadn't even started yet. 

Lisa's phone buzzed in her lap, and she looked down, reading the text she probably got. She was always receiving messages. 

"Hey," she nudged me. "Daniel and the others want us down by the pool." 

"Huh? Why?"

"Dunno." She grabbed my arm and hauled me up. Trailing behind her, I squeezed my way past various people, muttering an apology every now and again. When I turned back, I saw that our seats were immediately taken by a young couple with a child. Great, we had nowhere to sit now.

Our spots were right at the top of the stadium-like area, so Lisa and I had to walk all the way down the steps to see the boys, who were by the poolside warming up. 

"We're here, now what?" Lisa snapped, looking longingly back in the general direction where our bleacher was.

"Aw sis, not even a good luck?" Jason whined, bending down to grab his goggles from his backpack, which was sitting on a bench by the wall. 

Lisa huffed, but she wasn't really irritated. We hadn't seen the boys all morning, as they had left pretty early to train, so we hadn't been able to wish them luck or anything. "Good luck, bro." She turned to Daniel and Shane. "And you two," she gestured at the pair. "make sure you kick his arse for me." She grinned. "It's gonna be fun to watch him sulk about it."

"Will do." Daniel smiled back. 

I stood there awkwardly, not wanting to intrude. After all this time, I still felt weird hanging with them.

Someone nudged me with their elbow.

"Where's my good luck?" I looked up to meet Shane's pale blue eyes, which were shining with amusement. 

"Lost somewhere in space." I replied, rolling my eyes. "You probably won't need it anyway."

"You're right." 

Great, I just boosted his already enormous ego. 

My eyes suddenly had a mind of their own when they decided to trail downwards to inspect the rest of his body. 

He only had board shorts on - as this wasn't an overly serious competition, the competitors weren't required to wear the skin-tight swimming suits that swimmers wore in the Olympics. Shane was wearing a cap though, to keep his hair dry, and his goggles were perched atop his forehead.