My years of being a cheerleader wanted to surface in me as I struggled not to do a fully-fledged cheer routine in the middle of my lounge, including backflips and the splits.

“Oh God, this is gonna be awesome!” I practically screamed.

Jamie laughed and gripped my hips and pulling me down into his lap. I giggled excitedly and looked up at his face. He was grinning ecstatically, his eyes sparkling with happiness as he bent forward and kissed the tip of my nose. That was a lot easier than either of us expected. Jamie had been dreading telling my parents for the last two weeks since we’d first come up with the idea.

“Now all we have to do is plan out where you want to go,” he said, stroking the side of my face.

“New Zealand.” We both looked up, shocked because that answer had come from my mom. She smiled weakly, gripping my dad’s hand tightly, seeming to need the support. “New Zealand is somewhere I’ve always wanted to go to. Maybe you could go there and send me some photos?” she continued.

I smiled at her. That was obviously a big thing for her to concede on and I needed to appreciate the gesture appropriately. “Sure. Maybe we could look on Google later and you could show me some of the things that you wanted to see,” I suggested, not really knowing how to connect with the woman after all this time of her being a standoffish parent.

She gulped and smiled a pained smile as she nodded. I could see how much effort it took for her to let me go. Maybe all the time that I’d resented her controlling, bitchy nature, she’d actually been struggling to show me how she felt? Maybe control was how she showed affection? Who knows, either way I was getting to go travelling with Jamie, so I didn’t really care how that came about.

…............................

As I lay on my bed, combing through my books, trying to revise for my biology final, my little sister Kelsey, lay next to me cutting out pictures of places that I wanted to go to.

“Tag ma hall? What’s that?” she asked, frowning at my list of things I needed to see.

I laughed at her pronunciation of it and looked down at her. I was actually really going to miss her.

"Taj Mahal," I corrected. “It’s a building. An Emperor had it built in memory of his wife that died.

It’s a mausoleum,” I explained.

Confusion crossed her face. “What’s a mausoleum?”

“It’s like a resting place for the dead. Her body is inside the Taj Mahal,” I replied, flicking through one of the travel brochures and finding a picture to show her.

“So it’s basically like a grave?” she asked, turning her nose up.

I smiled and shrugged. “Kind of. But it’s also a symbol of the love that the Emperor had for his wife. It took over twenty years to build. I would love for a guy to be that in love with me that he would do that,” I cooed, raking my eyes over the picture of it on the page.

Kelsey nudged her shoulder against mine. “Jamie loves you that much.”

I felt the blush creep onto my cheeks as my stomach fluttered at the mere mention of his name.

“Maybe,” I confirmed.

She nodded confidently. “He does. He’s taking you to all of these places so he must love you a lot.”

I grinned. Kelsey adored Jamie. He was great with her too, playing games with her, buying her candy and magazines, listening to her ramble on about school and never once showing he was bored.

“He does,” I agreed. I still had no idea why he loved me but I knew he did. I was fed up with questioning why - a person could waste years pondering things like that but in the end what did it matter ‘why’, he just did and that was the most important thing in the world to me.

“I’m gonna miss you both. Can I really not come? Even just for a week?” she asked, pouting at me, giving me the puss in boots eyes.

Kelsey had been hanging around me constantly since I told her I was leaving. She was like my new shadow, wanting to be in my room all the time. Sometimes, like now, I didn’t mind - I could keep her distracted by getting her to do little menial things for my plans. Kelsey clipped out pictures to perfection and she spent ages pinning them on the huge world map that I had stuck on my wall. The three of us had covered it with clippings, Post-it notes and coloured pins. It looked a mess but it made my heart speed up every time I looked at it. Even my mom had helped search a few pictures to go on there.

Other times, like when I wanted some ‘alone time’ with my boyfriend, Kelsey was like a thorn in my side. As a result I only really got peace and quiet when I was at Jamie’s place - but even then I used the time to study. I missed Jamie, I saw him everyday but what with everything going on and my finals approaching, I didn’t get to just hang out with him and enjoy his company like I wanted to. Plus, he worked a lot. Weekends, nights, day times, he was so busy that he was practically exhausting himself too.

Studying, planning our trip, sleeping and eating. That was literally all my consisted of right now.

The two months passed. Slowly but they passed. It wasn’t plain sailing by any means, there was a lot of stress, sleepless nights and studying involved, but I finally made it through all of my exams and I couldn’t be happier that it was over and done with.

To celebrate our final exam, some friends and I went for an afternoon shopping trip - allowing me to buy several new bikinis and shorts for my vacation. There was a huge party at Sebastian’s house for seniors only. I hadn’t planned on going at all but Stacey convinced me to go for at least an hour.