IMPRINTS OF UNSPOKEN LETERS

SHE IS NOT ALWAYS QUIET

Jackson

The ride continued to be loud as an hour passed. Dan, Rachel and Yoora were the most active ones who shouted and vibed to every classic song playing. The guy that Rachel had brought along, apparently Jimmy was nice too, he was funky and gave a little bit of Dan vibes.

After two hours of driving we stopped near a restaurant, to eat, go to the washroom or merely stretch our limbs.

We entered and took a large table with ten chairs, five being on each side. Two chairs were left empty as we ordered light dishes. "Sasa, what are you going to do once you get the designing degree?" I asked while casually digging the fork in my pasta. The question seemed to have come out of nowhere and spilled, my voice was low and I didn't think everyone could hear it except a few seating around.

"Fashion designing certainly and I would love if I got paid for reading novels, I love doing that." She paused, chuckled at at she said and continued. Unknowingly, my heart skipped a beat. "You are going to continue-- --whatever you are doing?" She got confused for a while, not certain about my job. "I am an artist Rachel." I said with an attempt to keep sound composed. "Do you sell paintings?" A not very familiar voice chirped in. I looked across the table to find the owner of the voice.

"I am obsessed with art and paintings recently, I visit art exhibitions a lot." Jimmy spoke and continued, "There's an artist on Instagram named 'jeunesse insensée', I love his art." He chuckled at his own attempt of pronouncing the French word. "Isn't that the name of your account?" Rachel asked making me wonder for a second.

I looked at Jimmy again, this time with a genuine smile, "You don't know how much that means." "What means how much?huh?" He sounded confused to a core and I continued to grin and dig into my food.

While I was still eating, I saw a bunch of them done. Rachel stood up first, I noticed that every time we had something, she would finish it in seconds. She was a very fast eater, she headed outside for fresh air and a few followed behind, including Charles, Dan and Yoora.

As a slow eater, I sat and became the last one to leave the restaurant, eventually becoming the one who had to pay.

The outside was beautiful and was surrounded by forests in both sides with a road in between. All of them were looking at the view and chatting but I saw Rachel sitting alone inside the car, the others were too busy to notice. I stepped forward and started to walk to her but before I reached, I saw Charles knocking the window for her to open. She opened and I could guess he asked her what she was doing, she shook her head with a smile that looked oddly sad.

Charles smiled at her and forwarded his hand asking her to join them. Rachel hesitated for a second but opened the door to the car and held his forwarded hand while stuffing something in her bag.

I couldn't help but feel something burning in me, I should be the one asking her to join others or hold her hand. She eventually left his hand after taking a few steps towards the first where everyone was clicking pictures. I sighed in relief.

What relief was I even feeling?

Shrugging the thought, another question raised in me.

Did they forget me for the picture? Charles probably went to get Rachel so that everyone can be in the picture. Right?

Again, They don't require to call me, I can go without invitation, I was the one who initiated the trip anyways. I confidently walked to them who were trying to chose a pose for everyone to click the picture, Dan held me the camera while telling Yoora to shift a little so that she would be visible.

"Jackson! Come faster!" Jimmy shouted and I grinned, satisfied that my presence was noticed. As soon as I stepped near Dan, he handed me the camera and ran to join everyone. "Good that you came, now please click the picture, I want to be in it too."   He exclaimed making me sigh. They didn't want me in the picture after all. "Are you not gonna join the picture?" I heard a voice I was not familiar with. I lifted my head from the camera and saw Jasmine.

I realised she was not a woman of many words in the little while that I knew her.

The blonde was well conscious about her surroundings at all times. "Yes Jackson, there's a camera stand in the car, I'll get it. We can set the timer in order to have everyone I the picture." Rachel suggested and I nodded at the idea happily.

•

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The ride continued and San Diego was coming closer, We had decided to rest for the day and start with our roaming from tomorrow. Rachel was unusually quiet for the rest of the ride, unlike the blonde girl, Rachel was not usually shut and it worried me, I knew I was attracted to her more than a friend and I did not stop myself from getting attracted as there was nothing I found wrong in it.

The screams of happiness and hustle in the car calmed down as one by one almost everyone fell asleep, tired of .....sitting?

•

•

"All the ladies here are a different variety, see, we have one with red hair, one with black hair, one with brown hair and one with blonde hair!" Charles comment made me think once and indeed, there were four girls with us and each one had a different hair colour.

We got down of the car and got our rooms, we had a resort booked which was village themed, there were cottages arranged beside each other with a garden, playing area and each cottage had two rooms. We had four such cottages.

In a hurry to get rest as it was already late night by the time we reached, everyone started settling on who would share cottages. "I wanna share with Jasmine!" Dan was stubborn and kept on insisting, Jasmine just nodded along with him.

Rachel was also standing near the big circle of new adults. She got bored with the conversation and dug her hand in her bag to take her cellphone out.

I don't know why but instead of listening to the conversation going on, I was senselessly staring at the redhead with a little messed up hair due to the sleep in the car, her face looked so cute as she browsed through her phone, her plump pink lips looked so kissable....

I hit my head to come back to my consciousness and saw her see something that made a lone tear roll down her milky cheeks.