Chapter 1
I groaned. Who's calling me right now? My phone showed Cameron's name, and I grumbled again.
"Courtney, where are you? We have to reach university in ten minutes! It's our last day there and there's no way I'm letting you skip today. So I'm outside, come out soon!"
"What?" I mumbled, sitting on my bed and holding the phone close to my ears, "Hold on. First, can you please stop yelling?"
"Oh god, you didn't just wake up, did you?"
"Well, now I did."
"Wake up, and we are already late." I slowly snapped out of my sleepy mode and rushed to the bathroom. I was all ready within a few minutes, but I couldn't eat breakfast or pack a lunch, so cafeteria food it was.
"Hey!"
"Hey...how...are..you...?" I say through my heavy breaths.
"I'm great, I would ask you how you are, but I think already know the answer," She said. I roll my eyes at her.
“Where’s Yasmin?” I ask
"Mason is dropping her today; she was also running a little late, I guess."
Mason is Yasmin's adoptive brother. Yasmin was adopted from Palestine when she was young, and their family has always lived close to mine, so we all have known each other since a young age.
We reached university two minutes before the bell rang, so we didn't have time to meet Yasmin. Yasmin, Cam, and I always meet near Cam's locker in the mornings, but today Yasmin was running late, so we had to go to class.
The day went on with movies in every class, hearing sentimental speeches from our teachers, and saying goodbyes to everyone we knew.
Yasmin, Cameron, and I had made plans to meet after university to go to a coffee shop and hang out there for a while before we headed back, but as we got close to the store, we found a massive line of people from our university, waiting to be served.
"If we stay here, we will spend the whole time in the line," Yasmin exclaimed.
"Yeah, I think it would make sense if we just go and get take-out and hang out at someone's place," Cameron suggested for us to do, and we agreed, getting in her car. We found our way to Black Walnut, which many people don't usually go to at this time, and ordered early dinner to take with us.
We found our way to my house just in time and hung out for a few hours before they left; I cleaned up my apartment and finished my homework before relaxing on my bed and eventually dozing off.
I lay peacefully, surrounding myself with the calming noises of wind moving and leaves ruffling. With every second passing, I became more comfortable with my enclosure.
I have always loved Chicago with its wild, wandering wind. It was a place where I felt calm. I felt relaxed and happy, sitting here with a coffee in my hand and my cat next to me, licking his paw. I walked over to the window and reflected on the windy surroundings. Even though it was summer, Chicago still had a few windy days, today being one of them.
I saw something at a distance or someone. My friends ran down the street to come to my house. I quickly went downstairs and opened the door before she could even knock. I promptly brought her into my room and gave her the biggest hug ever.
"Happy first day of summer!"
"I'm so excited for summer!"
"Me too! I can't wait—"
I was interrupted by my cat meowing, asking to be let outside of the room.
"Finally tired of us meeting every day, huh Milo?" Cameron teased.
Milo purred a little, then pawed the door to be let out. I walked over to him and held him up, giving him a quick kiss on his head, then put him back down so he could go out, probably to look for food.
"Should we go and find Bethany?" Cameron asked me
"Yes let's go find where she is on this happy day."
We put on something warm and head out, ensuring to feed Milo before leaving.
Bethany's our other friend that moved away two years ago. She lives twenty minutes away from us, so we made sure to get something to drink on the way there.
Clank! Clank! Clank!
We headed towards Beth's car, only to find her under it with some tools. "Beth?" I called out to her, and she popped her head out from under the car.
"Hey! How are y'all?" Beth's southern accent has been with her since she was born in Kentucky. She tries her best to speak as city-type as she can, but sometimes a few native words slip her tongue.
"We're great! The university is finally over for the year! How are you doing? Yasmin informed her, having us all catch up.
"I'm doing great! How that college is over, I'm hoping to finish all my personal work before the end of the week so I can just relax all summer long. Currently, fixing up my car, sinse that is a huge problem. Wouldn't want this old thing to be broken all those upcoming months now would we?"
We all laughed and hung around for a while; while Beth finished her work, we all went inside to make summer plans.
"What if we make a trip somewhere? We all could go and have some of our other friends with us! If would be a group trip and we could be out for like two or three weeks."
"But our parents would never agree to that," I objected
"We are nineteen and if they can't accept that then we can have some older people with us. Yasmin, didn't Mason just graduate college? We could have him go with us."
"Well his graduation ceremony is in two days but I guess that could work. But we have never gone out anywhere without our parents. What if something happens to us? We could get in real danger and we might not even know."
"The ceremony is during summer? How come?"
"Yeah...I don't know why honestly. It's usually done sooner."
"How about we discuss this with our parents? We can also check with Mason and see if he has any summer plans just to make sure we don't disrupt his plans" Bethany suggested
That's when I decide to come in "Yeah let's discuss this with Mason first. We can decide the rest later."
"What is Mason doing right now? Do you know?" Bethany asked Yasmin
' Probably playing baseball" Yasmin shrugged fixing her hijab. Even though Yasmin is adopted, she still respects her culture with her whole heart. She told us that she doesn't wear a hijab a lot when she's with her family in private but when she leaves the house or has guests over she will wear it.
"Should we just go ask him right now?" Cameron asked
"Why not? It's not like he's doing well in baseball" she starts getting up and Cameron and Beth follow her out.
I smile while looking at Yasmin. I know she's just saying that but doesn't actually mean it, Mason is part of the baseball team in school as the pitcher after all.
I stand up and follow them outside in the car with Yasmin telling me the direction to drive.
