"Fuck you, ya arse hole!"
"No, Lizzy, wait!"
Those words were the most panic-inducing sounds my eighteen year old self had heard, only to be immediately beaten by the sounds of two engines starting up and their corresponding cars speeding away. Those cars and voices belonged to my friend Lizzy and her boyfriend, Dave.
You see, Lizzy had dragged me on a camping trip along with her boyfriend, Dave, and three of his mates; Luke, Vaibhav and Mark. I had met the three of them once or twice before, said maybe four sentences in total between them before today and now shared a very worried glance with them before we all sprinted towards the lay-by where we'd parked up.
Yup. The cars were gone, our friends with them.
"Fuck." Vaibhav cursed as I drew up to him, both of us watching as Luke ran on into the road, limbs pumping as he chased down the road.
"Yeah," I know, I'm an amazing conversationalist. We stared at the empty road, watching as Luke's flailing limbs carried him forwards. A wheezing shuffle brought Mark to my other side, he had been at the furthest from the road when we heard the last of the argument, and the few extra pounds he carried didn't help.
"Fuck," he huffed. Vaibhav snorted.
"Yeah, we covered that already. You two wait here, I'll go get Luke back." He waited for our agreement before he began to jog down the road. I looked at Mark. He looked at me. We both shrugged, chuckled a little nervously and looked back to the road.
Oh boy did this feel awkward.
I'd had my misgivings from the moment Lizzy had mentioned a holiday. You see, she wanted a weekend with Dave but her folks wouldn't agree to the two going away together. Her parents hadn't reckoned on her guile. You know what? Scrap that guile crap. Lizzy had been my best friend for years so believe me when I say she can be a devious bitch if she wants to. And she did this time.
It started with her suggesting that a few of us go away in our summer before university, go to Brighton or Cardiff or something, somewhere with a beach and a nightlife. Sounds good, huh? A girls holiday, one last time as school friends before we'd clearly mature in higher education (spoiler, I didn't). We were all eighteen by then, four of us leapt at the idea.
Then the date changed. Instead of a weekend, "let's do Monday to Thursday, eh? Cheaper rooms, extra night to party!" Made sense, but now one girl had to drop because she was already away with her folks.
No problem, I was still excited to get some proper girl time in (that's a rarity for me, always been more of a tomboy) and not only was I with Lizzy but Claire and Beth too.
Only, and I can't blame Lizzy for this one, it turns out that Claire and Beth had secretly been dating each other. And Claire decided to cheat, surprisingly blatantly given how well they hide their relationship. We found out in the form of one explosive argument that outed both of them in front of far too many of the girls in my sixth form.
We heard both sides and, well, Claire really was shitty, so she dropped out of the holiday and our friendship circle. Shame, I'd liked her, but she had been two timing Beth with a girl from her weekend job for quite a while.
As for Beth, the poor girl was heartbroken. Claire had wanted to experiment, but Beth was a hopeless romantic that had fallen deep. She chose to spend her summer at some kids camp place as a counselor instead of stay at home near us.
That changed things again for Lizzy. "Let's not go party, seems wrong. You always tell me to be more practical (I don't, but I'd learned long ago not to bother trying to interrupt Lizzy when she monologued), let's go camping." Uhhh... "Oh come on, Amanda, puh-lease? It'll be good. We'll bond and be better friends. Then we'll be sure to visit each other at Uni, right?"
I caved. Lizzy and Amanda's camping trip was on.
Only, as we packed on the Sunday I realised why Lizzy had been distracted. We just "happened" to be camping at the same place as Dave, the on-again, off-again boyfriend she'd had for over a year, and his mates.
It wasn't that I didn't like Dave. Lizzy has a dollop of ADD and he's good for her most of the time, and from what I knew of them his friends seemed okay and all. The issue was that I hated being manipulated like this. Lizzy had, best I figure it, spent months orchestrating things so she could shag her boyfriend in the woods. I damn near stormed out and left her to it. I probably would have, except my older sister was back home from university and annoying the tits off me, so off I went.
"Luke really can run, huh?" Mark's attempt at small talk broke my reverie. I glanced at him but he didn't meet my gaze, which is sadly something I'm used to. Normally, they are either intimidated by me or just plain eying Lizzy, or Claire, or Beth, or, well, anyone that isn't six foot and stronger than them.
Yeah, I wasn't your average girl then and am not your average woman now. In a normal set of shoes, I reach six foot. My hair is a muddy brown and, like normal, tugged out of the way into a pony tail. My mum left when my sister and I were young, my response was to latch onto my dad, who just happened to be a mechanic. Days spent working in his garage with him have meant I'm pretty strong and inheriting his broad shoulders helped. I'm not pretty and dainty like Lizzy and that had scared off any guy I'd fancied. I was a virgin.
"Yeah. I can't believe they..." I trailed off, remembering just how volatile Lizzy and Dave's relationship was at times. We'd clearly heard the end of their argument, she had left and he had followed. "Never mind, I can totally believe they'd fight."
Mark snorted, met my gaze and shook his head. His disbelief at our predicament was his agreement. We stood in an uncomfortable silence for a long couple of minutes until Vaibhav and Luke walked back into view.
"Here they are," Mark broke the silence. I 'uh huh'd' my agreement and shuffled back onto the verge a way, clearing a space for the two to join us.
"Both are gone." Luke's voice was clipped short with anger. "Dave, the cunt, has my phone." Mark made a hushing squeak at the curse, I just closed my eyes and groaned internally.
"Langua-"
"Fuckballs," I cut Mark off. "Lizzy has mine in her glove-box too." Mark was goggling at me, Luke frowned down the road and Vaibhav watched Mark with amusement. "What? Never heard a girl swear? Shit, cock, fuck, cunt, bollocks. There, now you have, can we move on?"
Mark looked utterly bemused and abashed as the other guys bursting into laughter. I felt a thrill of excitement at their reaction mixed with sympathy for Mark being the butt of the joke. Aw hell, now I felt bad for the guy. "Thanks though, not really used to chivalry," I offered.
"You should be," his frown raised my heckles.
"Why? Because I'm a girl?" I swear, if he called me a little lady...
"No. It's polite. You know, 'only takes a second to have manners' and all." Well that shot down my anger, he seemed so genuine. I blinked at him and think I managed an "Oh. Umm." In response.
"Well," Vaibhav broke the pause, "shall we go check what they left us with?"
***
Vaibhav, to my surprise, was a boy scout. Yes, I admonished myself for my unthinking racism at that thought. He had organised us as we sorted the mess that our friends friskiness and arguing had scattered. We had a fair amount of stuff as the guys had arrived early and mostly emptied Dave's car.
What we lacked was the second and third tents, camping chairs, camping stove, four sleeping bags and my bag. Weirdly, we had Lizzy's though and I fully intended to raid her gear if she stayed away.
"Well," Luke picked up the bottle of vodka Mark had found, "we could be worse off."
"Says someone who doesn't have to share a tent with three strange guys in the middle of the woods. Wiiiiith only two sleeping bags between the four of us." I tried to make it into banter with them but, well, it was true and a worry. If one or more of these guys turned out to be a, you know, a "Ted Bundy enthusiast" then I was a goner.
"Oh, you don't have to worry. None of us would do anything like that," Mark offered, palms out as if those few words would solve any doubts.
"Nah, that's not enough, mate," Luke beat me to the response. "She's totally right, we barely know her, she barely knows us. We're, what, at least twenty miles from anywhere? Our choices are either try and hitchhike somewhere..." we all followed his gesture back down the path to an out-of-the-way country road we'd picked deliberately for solitude, "or we wait for one of the lovers to remember they've stranded us.
"And if we choose to wait, we should be gracious hosts and let Amanda learn who we are. Then maybe, just maybe, we can squeeze in that tent together if we need to, instead of us lot sleeping outside while she has it to herself."
"Woah, Luke, I'm not taking the tent off you three. I'll sleep outside... ehm," I couldn't hide my worry at that prospect and he smirked as my voice faltered. Damn that guy was annoying.
"Guess you'll have to accept more chivalry, eh? Anyway, that might not happen. First, we should choose, is any of us willing to try hitch hiking to a town?"
We glanced between each other. No one volunteered. I can't say I'm surprised by this, we'd arrived fairly late in the afternoon after several hours driving. While it was still summer, the solstice was nearly two months ago and there was only a couple of hours of sunlight left. If someone did choose to go walking, they'd arrive in town well after dark.
"Fine, then we're staying. Okay, boy scout, what do we need to do to eat and get through the night?"
***
