Beyond This Moment

12 Day Six- 9:14 A.M.

Waking up the next morning isn't as weird as I thought that it would be. After I shower, Elias is awake and neither of us seem to be hungover or worried about anything that was said last night. I put on a pair of yoga shorts and a t-shirt with my Nike shoes and I put my damp hair into a pony tail as Elias and Gabe take a drive to the closest restaurant open for breakfast to get us food before we leave.

Cassie and I get all of the luggage out of our rooms so that we can checkout but we have Mac so we have to take turns going into the office to check out of the rooms.

"So did you and Elias have a good time last night?" She asks me as we sit outside with our luggage and wait for Elias and Gabe to get back.

"Yeah, it was a good night," I confirm with a nod. "Although it was, uh, vaguely flirty."

"Really?" She wonders curiously. "Gabe is really paranoid that you two are going to hook up or something."

"I know that he is but it's not going to happen," I assure her. "He's sweet but my life is such a mess right now, I'm not going to add some new romance to that. We were just drunk and having some fun but nothing happened."

"Gabe said that he went through some stuff back in Finland with a girl," Cassie tells me. "I don't know anything else but maybe it's something that you guys have in common and if he's hurting too, like you are, then maybe you both can help each other through it, you know?"

"He's not hurt," I say but I'm not convincing myself so I'm sure that I'm not convincing her either. He'd told me that he's never had his heart broken before and Elias is a pretty honest guy so I'm sure that he wouldn't lie to me about that. "But yeah, I guess if he is then we're helping each other."

"Do you like him?" She continues this conversation and I'm starting to get suspicious that she's acting as Gabe's spy, to find out things about me and Elias that he thinks that I'm not telling him. That's ridiculous though because Gabe is one of my best friends and I would tell him if anything happened with Elias. "It'd be okay if you did, you know, it's been a few weeks since everything happened with Kellan so it'd be totally understandable if you're starting to move on."

"I'm not getting with Elias," I avoid her question. "We're friends who kind of get flirty when we're drunk but we're still just friends."

"Okay," Cassie decides that that's all that she's going to get from me to tell Gabe later when they're talking about me and my destructive tendencies.

She's about to change the subject but before she can get anything out, a phone starts ringing in Gabe's backpack that's resting on his suitcase.

"He forgot his phone," I say the obvious aloud as I unzip his bag and find his phone in the side pocket. To make sure that it isn't our dad, I check the caller ID and although it's not my dad, I still feel a rock bottom feeling in my stomach because it's Kellan's name that's on the screen.

"Hello?" I answer it. "Why are you calling Gabe?"

There's no answer for a very long time. "Uh. Peyton?"

"That doesn't answer my question," I say in a hopefully-stable sounding voice.

"I, um, I was just calling to see how you were doing," He admits slowly, obviously not expecting to be talking to me directly right now. "Because I'm worried about you and I didn't think that you'd answer if I called you directly."

"Okay, well leave us both alone," I tell him and Cassie is giving me a questioning look and I mouth 'Kellan' to her and then she nods in understanding. "Because how I'm doing is none of your business."