3 Chapter 3

After George left I felt so relieved and happy due to our reunion, maybe being here wouldn't be too awful. I was so glad that I still got on so well with him and Cameron. We mutually agreed that it was both of our faults for not keeping contact and would actually try to keep in touch after the vacation. I tried to finish unpacking, but I was so emotionally drained from all the feelings I had felt today I ended up napping instead.

As I was in my peaceful sleep, my mum decided to barge in and rudely awaken me to tell me we were going to dinner with everyone, which meant of course having to face Matty once again. Hopefully it wouldn't be as bad this time, mainly because I could be more prepared and sit as far away as I could from him.

"oh and Taylor, dress up fancy it's a nice restaurant," she added, causing me to internally groan at the thought of actually getting ready. But I had to suck it up, I wanted to make sure my dad had the best time, and I really wanted to make sure he was happy the eternity of the trip.

I decided I would wear a skirt, my doc martens and a sweatshirt. Not necessarily fancy, but mum was lucky enough that I had put a skirt on so she was going to have to deal with it. I stared at my appearance in the mirror, I wondered what it would be like if I looked like one of those models that all the boys fancied, with the most amazing figure, or at least clear skin. I've realised that I will never have these things, at first this upset me, but now I've just learnt to get on with it because there's nothing I can do about it. I deeply sighed, preparing myself for this dinner before I backed out and locked myself in the bathroom.

We had just entered the restaurant, and my eyes scanned every corner of the place, trying to see if they were already here, which to my dismay they were. This meant I had limited options on where I sat, yet I remained positive, as I couldn't see Matty sat with them.

Had he decided not to come? was he busy? or maybe he was tired?

I scolded myself for worrying and for thinking too much about him, I didn't need this right now, not with everything going on with my dad.

I said hello to everyone and sat next to George who smiled cheesily at me making me laugh.

"Where's Matty?" I asked, attempting to sound nonchalant, to appear as though I didn't care. However George caught onto this straight away and raised his eyebrow at me. "what, i'm just curious," I defended, I really didn't need his teasing. "hmmmm sure." he poked my side as he tried to wind me up. "He's in the bathroom." George finally said, answering my burning question as he could tell I was starting to get anxious again. I knew deep down that this wasn't a big deal and I needed to stop being so pathetic about something that happened years ago, but I just couldn't help myself. I still cared greatly about what Matty thought of me, no matter how sad it seemed, his opinion mattered to me.

With that thought, I see him walk from the corner of the room. His eyes instantly locked with my own, causing my breath to hitch at the sudden intensity of his stare as he walked directly towards us. His curly brown hair covered his forehead and spilled out the side of his head, causing him to look a bit of a mess and his hair to look a little bit like a mop. His crooked smile and ripped jeans, with an untucked shirt also added to this messy look of his. I liked this unruly look he had about him, I always had. Something about the way he held himself, and his overall messy nature, not just in looks, but in life was very attractive to me, still. And it annoyed me how much he still affected me.

Matty sat down, unfortunately, opposite me so I flashed him a quick and small smile before turning to George to start a conversation about what he was going to eat.

"hey George, wanna go jumping off the dock tomorrow?" Matty asked, interrupting our discussion. "yeah sure, why not," he said dismissing him rather quickly so he could go back to telling me about his embarrassing dentist story. "Do you wanna come as well Taylor?" Matty chimed in, once again interrupting, but catching me off guard this time. I stared at him blankly trying to figure out if he was being serious, but the sincerity of his facial expression proved to me that he was. "Um yeah, if you're ok with that," I replied, I didn't want to intrude on their plans together, but I did want to hang with George. "yeah of course that's fine, why wouldn't it be," he replied, staring at me puzzled, I just shrugged while turning back to George, not bothering to answer him, because quite frankly I didn't have one.

Dinner was fairly stress free, I mainly talked to George and Cameron and every now and then I would answer a question from Denise and Sean. Considering I hadn't seen them in four years, not much had changed about my life. Just as I thought dinner was almost over and we were getting ready to leave my mum had a suggestion which she thought was amazing.

"kids, why don't you all go down to the arcade, you all spent loads of time down there together," she exclaimed, obviously very chuffed with herself. The other three adults chimed in and agreed what a fantastic idea it was. This caused me to internally groan for the 100th time of this vacation. Us five kids, although none of us were really kids anymore, blankly stared at each other, not sure whether to just go and have a look to make the parents happy and in the end that's what we did.