Chapter 6

I've been here for exactly two weeks now and I'm having so much fun. I did a whole bunch of water activities and I've made a bunch of friends, most of whom are guys but there are a few girls too. I've gotten along with all of them so well. They didn't know I was the person who has ice powers except for one of the girls, Talia. that's because she's a fellow elemental, she is the wind element. I completely forgot she lived here and when I saw her we started talking and later she introduced me to her friends. I hung out with them daily but sometimes I would go off on my own cause I would see them all so happy and how they're all so friendly that I would remember what it was like back home and how I don't have any friends.

Today was one of those days where I would remember what life is like back there and I dreaded going back. Not that I didn't love Sri Lanka, I just didn't love how life was there. I was walking along the beach next to the shore when someone started shouting my name. I looked behind me and it was one of the boys from Talia's friend group, Cole. I stopped to wait for him and when he finally got to where I was he was panting.

He was bent over with his hands on his knees and he held up one finger signalling me to wait till he caught his breath. After he stopped panting he started walking again and looked behind at me and gestured for me to follow. We walked side by side for a while until he broke the silence.

"How do you like it here?"

"It's really nice. You're lucky you get to live here."

"Oh no, I don't live here. I move around a lot but the next country I go to, I'm staying there."

"That sounds really nice. I can't relate cause I usually just move houses but it must be nice getting to see the world."

"I guess, but it would be nice to have a proper home."

"Yeah, I kinda get it. Moving is a pain." I honestly did cause I had to move a ton of times and its always been so annoying.

"You're probably wondering why I'm talking to you, aren't you?"

"A little bit," I said sheepishly "not that I don't like talking to you! It's just, we didn't really interact before anyway."

"No, no, I get it. Chill" he chuckled. "It's pretty funny that I'm asking you to chill, I'm pretty sure you're always doing that cause you have ice powers you know"

I looked at him alarmed and when he saw my face, he said: "It's pretty obvious you're the ice elemental and by the way, I'm not talking to you cause you have ice powers." For some reason, I pretty much knew he was telling me the truth when he said this.

"How'd you know?" I asked him confused. I thought I did a pretty good job at hiding it

"I saw you making little snowflakes and making them float on your hand"

"Oh, you saw that huh?" I asked him while looking down embarrassed.

"Yeah. I wanted to talk to you and when I saw you making those snowflakes I decided to leave you alone."

"Oh, okay. What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Nothing really, I just wanted to talk to you cause you seemed really chill."

"And...?"

He just laughed and continued "and because you looked like you were feeling left out."

I was really surprised cause I didn't think anyone noticed but then again I thought nobody noticed my powers either so.

"Yeah, sometimes I felt left out but it's not because y'all did something. It's because back home I don't really have friends." I thought about what I just said and started laughing "Gosh, that sounds so sad."

He started laughing with me "it does, but I understand."

"How do you understand? You have friends." I pointed out

"We aren't as close as you think we are. I basically just moved here and sometimes I feel left out too, they're all so much closer to each other than they are to me so sometimes it gets a bit awkward."

"Oh, I didn't know that, so where are you moving to next?"

"I wanted to ask where you live, maybe I'll move there? We could both use a friend clearly"

"Your parents would just move to Sri Lanka?"

He went quiet for a while before saying "my parents aren't with me. I can move wherever I want."

Me and my big mouth. I felt like hitting myself "you wanna talk about it?"

"Not yet" I could see that it was a hard topic for him so I dropped it

"We can talk about it when you're ready." I smiled at him but he wasn't looking. He was looking at the ground so I switched sides and shoved him as hard as I could into the water.

He was drenched and I was laughing my ass off on the beach but then I was picked up and thrown in the water. I used my powers to push him in the water and that's how we ended up having a water fight in the ocean

After we got out of the water, we talked about anything and everything while avoiding the topic of his parents. The sun started going down and I shoved him in the water one more time before we decided we should head back home and dry off but we stayed for a while to watch the sunset. I was leaning on him with my head on his shoulder when I realised:

I was at peace in this moment. No Axel, no school, no stress, and a new friend.