Page 25

I woke up first.

Not because I wanted to—my body just decided the torture must continue. Every muscle ached. My back felt like it had been folded into origami overnight, and I was fairly certain my neck had twisted into a shape not meant for human anatomy.

The bus was still. Quiet. The silhouettes of trees pressed against the foggy windows and the chirp-hum of morning birds sung outside.

Pale light filtered through the curtains, casting stripes across the worn seats and the half-asleep faces of my alliances.

The air was stale with sleep, but there was the scent of damp pine, wet bark, and distant rain.

It was almost peaceful—if peace came with a side of spinal trauma and existential dread.

I could’ve tried to fall back asleep, but once I was up, I was up. My body had clearly declared war on rest.

I sighed and shifted in my seat—and immediately froze.

Ethan was still asleep.

That shouldn’t have surprised me, and yet…

it did. I was used to him being loud. Animated.

A human podcast with no pause button. But now?

He was completely still, mouth slightly open, his head tipped back just enough to suggest zero neck support.

And despite the most unflattering sleeping position imaginable, he somehow didn’t look ridiculous.

In fact—

Okay, no. We’re not doing this.

But apparently my half-asleep brain had other plans, because suddenly I was noticing things I absolutely shouldn’t have. Like how his jaw looked annoyingly sharp in this light, or how his lashes—seriously, who had lashes that long naturally? —cast little shadows against his cheeks. His lips—

I sat up so fast I hit my head on the window.

“Ow—ow, okay, that’s fair. I deserve that,” I muttered, rubbing my scalp. What the hell was I doing? Morning brain. Clearly. A lack of blood flow to my dignity.

Desperate for a distraction, I looked around—and spotted Ethan’s laptop. It was still open—the screen dim but not off.

Of course. Even while unconscious, he was still the golden boy.

I leaned forward a little, curiosity piqued—and maybe, just maybe, trying not to look at his stupid perfect face again.

I got up, dodging his legs on my way—because apparently, this bus wasn’t built for sleep-deprived teenagers lost in the woods.

I tapped the mousepad to bring the screen back to life. The editing software ran. A video timeline lit up, revealing dozens of neatly arranged clips. I frowned, clicking on one of them.

The footage played, and my eyes widened slightly.

It was… good.

Like, really good. The clips were smoothly edited, the transitions clean and professional. It looked like something an experienced filmmaker would put together, not a bunch of high school students scrambling to finish a project on a tight budget.

I stared at the screen, completely baffled.

Ethan did this? Not to mention, he did this in his own time: when we were all asleep.

The same Ethan who spent half his time flirting with anything that breathed and the other half making my life miserable? The Ethan who never seemed to take anything seriously?

I didn’t know how to process it. Frankly, I hated how it made me feel—like maybe I'd been wrong about him all along and now I had to sit with that discomfort as if it was my seatmate.

I frowned, but then for a brief, fleeting moment, I allowed myself to believe that maybe—just maybe—we had a real shot at winning this competition. That despite all the chaos, we had somehow managed to create something impressive.

Then I played the next clip.

And every ounce of hope crumbled.

The documentary was an absolute disaster.

Not in terms of editing—the editing was great—but in terms of what we had actually captured. Every time we got close to a perfect shot, something ridiculous happened to ruin it.

The peaceful shot of a squirrel gathering food? Ruined when the squirrel suddenly went feral and attacked Max’s shoelaces, making him trip over his own feet.

The breathtaking footage of a waterfall? Interrupted by Mia tripping over a rock and nearly falling into it.

The stunning sunrise over the hills? Completely destroyed by Joy deciding it was the perfect moment to burst into an off-key rendition of some dramatic ballad at full volume.

I groaned, dragging a hand down my face.

This was a disaster. We were never going to fix his car.

It didn’t matter how well Ethan had edited it—our footage itself was a mess. We were supposed to be capturing the beauty of nature, but instead, we had somehow created a chaotic comedy documentary. And best believe our chances of winning were down by 90%.

With a deep sigh, I closed the laptop before my soul could fully leave my body.

I let my head sink into the seat, already drafting an apology email Principal Catherine in my mind—something along the lines of “We tried our best, but nature refused to cooperate.” Maybe if I stayed still enough, the guilt would pass as sleep.

Then—

A loud knock on the window startled me just as I was about to lie back down and pretend the morning didn’t exist.

My heart did a somersault. I sat up, eyes darting to the window like I had a personal vendetta against it.

“Clark, open up!”

Max.

Of course it was Max. Who else would be wide awake in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and mosquitoes, with the energy of a caffeinated squirrel?

I shot a glance at Ethan, still snoring softly in his seat. Sighing, I shuffled over and slid the window open an inch.

Max’s face popped in like a horror movie jump scare.

“Get out here,” he whispered, far too urgently for someone who definitely had zero life-threatening reasons to be excited.

Before I could argue, he disappeared from view. I groaned and tiptoed down the narrow bus aisle, stepping over someone’s sock and what I hoped wasn’t a leftover meat stick. I eased open the bus door with a squeak that felt criminally loud in the forest silence.

Max immediately grabbed my wrist and yanked me off the bus like we were fleeing a crime scene.

“What—” I began, but he clamped a hand over my mouth.

“Shh! This is important.” His eyes darted through the trees, like squirrels might be spying on us. “It’s Ethan’s birthday.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“His birthday,” he repeated, practically vibrating. “We’re throwing him a surprise party. Tonight.”

I stared, waiting for the punchline.

It didn’t come.

“You’re serious?”

Max nodded, grinning like a camp counselor on sugar. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Our golden boy deserves something big—even if it’s just a balloon and a cake from a gas station.”

I hesitated. Not because I didn’t care—it’s hard to be completely heartless when the guy you’ve been lowkey avoiding might actually be kind of... not terrible—but because my brain was already spiraling. A birthday. A party. A gift. For Ethan.

Max must’ve seen the existential dread forming in my soul, because he patted my shoulder. “Relax, nerd. Just show up. We’ll handle the rest.”

And with that, he vanished into the woods like an overzealous woodland creature, probably off to enlist more victims for his party plan. Probably wild ghosts.

I stood there for a moment, still processing.

Then, with a deep breath, I headed back inside.

A while later, Max came back, waking everyone up. “Morning, Sleeping Beauties,” he announced, tossing an empty wrapper toward the trash bag near the front. He missed. It bounced off a seat and landed on someone’s shoe. He did not care.

Ethan blinked groggily as he struggled to fight his way awake. “Why are you so loud?”

Max ignored him, kicking his seat. For a brief second, I thought that Max was going to break the surprise birthday news, but he didn't. “Get up. Seriously. There’s a river nearby. Clear as glass, and definitely not cursed by ancient woodland spirits. Probably.”

I sat up straighter. “You found a river?”

Max grinned like he’d just discovered buried treasure. “Heard it. It’s not far. You can smell the freshness, man. It’s practically begging for us to go get clean.”

Ethan, rubbing sleep from his eyes, muttered something incoherent that vaguely sounded like, “Yeah, okay,” and slowly stretched his arms above his head, like one of the Hollywood stars pausing for a photo.

Max glanced at the crowd. “Everyone who wants to stop smelling like bus socks and despair—river trip in five!”

Like he had just blown a mystical conch shell, students began stirring. Joy sat up with a yawn, and Mia was already digging in her bag for a towel. Even the jocks were excited, probably because it was another opportunity to splash water and yell at each other like wet gorillas.

I was the last to move. Not because I didn’t want to shower—believe me, I was beginning to smell like bottled anxiety—but because being left alone on a school bus in the middle of the woods sounded like the beginning of a horror film.

The kind where the socially awkward character who "just stayed behind" never makes it past the opening credits.

Besides the idea of showering with this crowd?

Yeah, my social anxiety filled a social protest.

So, I followed.

Through the tall grass, over the occasional muddy patch, and into the kind of humid silence that made every twig snap sound like a gunshot.

The others had already vanished ahead, their laughter echoing somewhere between the trees.

I clutched my towel like a security blanket and told myself this was character development.