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“Or I could just die of dehydration and remain on the floor…” I replied. I wasn’t in a very good mood.

“And give up on Daytona? Nah, I don't think that suits you.”

Colleen sat down next to me and I did her the favor of adjusting myself, leaning against the nearest wall. I grabbed the bottle from her hand and took a sip of the strawberry-flavored drink.

I hated that.

After drinking what I thought was enough, I closed the bottle, leaving it on the floor between the two of us.

“You know, I was thinking…” Her eyes met mine. “Christmas will be here soon and then New Year's. We could go to New York, what do you think?”

A grimace formed on my cousin's face.

“And you don't want to be with Veronica? Like, we'll literally be leaving college for the holidays and you won't be away from your girlfriend because we're from the same city.”

“I know all that, but…” I shrugged. “I thought we could both use this time to get away from Chamberlain. Your beloved mother reminded me of the apartment in Manhattan, so I thought we could go there.”

“And do you intend to call your mother to go with you?”

A sigh escaped me. Ever since I’d gotten back from Thanksgiving, I’d been silently praying that their divorce had been put on hold. They’d slept together and woken up in a huge, loving cloud the next day; there was no way they were thinking about breaking up still.

“I'll look into that later.” I didn’t want to tell Colleen what had happened because, as long as no one else knew, I could hold on to my hope. I’d feel less stupid if they just went ahead with the divorce and no one else was in the loop.

“I thought about spending Christmas with Derek.” Her words took me by surprise. “We talked about it last week. You know my parents, they are both self-centered, I know they have plans and they'll probably not include me. And, well, I don't want to interrupt your time with Aunt Mackenzie, you two need some time together.” Colleen had a good point. Maybe I needed tothink about this more. “Hey, don't spend too much time on this, focus on training, you can sort that out with your mother later.” Her hand reached for mine. I nodded and soon Karlee demanded that we do the sequence all over again.

In total, I trained for five hours during the day. I felt calluses beginning to form on my hand and my feet were swollen in my sneakers. I sweated a lot and, even so, it would have been impossible to leave the gym without clothes because of the cold outside.

I grabbed my bag and left the place hand in hand with Veronica.

Jazmine was in front of us, my friend was busy typing on her cell phone. She had arrived at training in the morning with Ivan and was almost late because of the thousand and one last kisses she gave the boy. It was nice to see them together, even though she seemed like a ray of sunshine, and he was the darkest cloud in the sky.

“Hey, Ivan thought we could go get some pizza. Would you like to come?” Jaz turned around abruptly, startling me a little. “Derek is going with Colleen too, it would be a triple date.”

“A date with my brother coming along? Yeah, I don't think so…” Veronica scoffed.

“Oh, come on, Roni, let’s go!” Colleen began, trying to get her to agree. “It’s just pizza. Besides, you’re going to need dinner anyway.”

I didn't want to say anything because, deep down, Colleen was right. I honestly wanted to take a shower and just go to sleep, but if I went to bed without eating anything, I wouldn't be able to do anything in training the next morning.

“Colleen, have you seen my brother eating pizza?” Veronica asked with an expression of pure mockery. My cousin looked suspicious. “Well, he looks like an animal. He eats at least four whole pizzas, it's horrible.”

I couldn't hold it in, I just burst out laughing.

“At times like these I'm thankful I'm a lesbian, because I can't even imagine what it would be like to deal with a man doing this...” I declared. “No offense to my dear brother-in-law, of course.”

Jazmine insisted that we accept the invitation, and even Troian, who overheard the conversation, joined the group going to the couples' event. That pretty much left Veronica and me with no chance to say no.

But first, we all went to our respective dormitories to take a shower and purge the sweat from our bodies. In an hour we managed to get everyone ready and, to make life easier, we arranged to meet the boys at the pizza place in Belinda.

I was putting on my coat when I asked Sidney again:

“Are you sure you don’t want to come along?” My friend was curled up in the blanket on the couch with her computer on her lap.

“And be the third wheel? Never.”

Jazmine laughed as she put on her shoes.

“We would never leave you out, Sid.” The brunette argued.