Unravel (Completed)

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

As I walked down the worn pathway towards the lake my erratic heart started to calm down. I was so stupid; hopefully everyone was too drunk to know what I had done. But even if they were all drunk, rumors would still spread like wildfire. Hopefully they would just be passed off as some drunken girl seeing the wrong thing. But I knew that would be too good to be true. I shook my head and began to clench and unclench my fists to try to get rid of some of my nerves. If I had only pushed him away sooner, or if he had never come up to me I wouldn’t have to worry about it. God this shouldn’t even be a problem I should be worrying about. I closed my eyes and sent a silent prayer to whoever was listening to help me out. But seriously, who would help me?

I reached the lake and saw that a group of people from the “gathering” had moved down to the dock. The girls were tanning on the pier with drinks in their hands as the guys dove into the water trying to impress them. I even saw a few guys pretending to throw screaming girls into the water. They were all laughing and looking so carefree that I almost forgot about the problem at hand.

 I walked down to the beginning of the sand to the large tree that grew over the water. When I was younger my ad had built me a tree house in this very tree. I pulled at the hidden ladder and began to climb up to my safe haven. I was pretty much the only person who knew this was here. I'm pretty sure my mom never knew about it from the start because she would have vetoed it because it was “unsafe”. And I never showed anyone because sometimes it’s nice to have a place that’s all your own.

The treehouse consisted of a small inside area that had a small bookcase filed with random books and small beach artifacts over the years. There was also a bean bag that was old and covered in sand. And a stack of towels old t-shirts that could be used as cover ups and extra towels were left in the corner. The tree house was small and cozy but it was kind of perfect. There were windows on the front that looked out onto the lake. Then there was a small balcony type thing that was just big enough for me to lie on and tan.

 I stepped up onto the little balcony type thing and watched as a girl and guy swam away from the rest of the group before they started to make out. A few guys cheered and wolf whistled and I smiled sadly at the fact that they were allowed to be together openly without any one judging them.  I walked into the cozy house part and pulled out an old book that I had left there. It was lame I know but I was done with this party and I just needed a break. I walked back out onto the balcony and laid out a towel before lying down and opening my book. It was pretty old, and had some water damage but that didn’t really matter since I had read it so many times that I basically knew it by heart.

 I don’t know how long I read but eventually someone came down to the lake and yelled at the group of party-goers in the water that somebody at the cabin had turned on the barbeque and that there were enough hamburgers to feed a small army up there. I closed my book and decided that I had been hiding long enough. I quietly climbed down my rope ladder and hid it again before walking up the path towards my cabin.

When I got there I saw that it was almost the same as when I left. There were more empty cans and red solo cups scattered across the yard and more drunken people but for the most part it looked exactly the same. The smell of cooking meat wafted my way and my stomach growled. I made my way over to where the barbeque was when I realized that people were staring openly at me. I raised an eyebrow wondering what was so exciting about me. Did I have something on my face that I wasn’t aware of?

“Elizabeth!” I heard a voice scream and I looked over to see Hannah storming my way. This is not good I thought. “Elizabeth you have some explaining to do!” she screamed pointing a finger at me. Oh shit oh shit oh shit, I thought in my mind but on the outside I tried to play it off cool.