AN: Thank you to my ladies in the BW team! And thank you everyone who followed, favorited, and reviewed! Love you all!
Ready to meet Bella and her 'team'?
~~o~~
Chapter 1. The Flight.
"Gracias para vivar en la casa," Rose recites next to me, trying helplessly to roll her Rs. "En la escuelas, en el azul…markada?"
I chuckle at the embarrassing Spanish—word-for-word quotes from our favorite movie—while I get my phone out, type a quick text to my dad, and switch it to airplane mode.
"Tienes con bibir en las Fortuashla." I try my best Kristen Wiig voice, knowing the lines by heart. Bridesmaids is our choice of cheer-me-up movie for any occasion.
Rose and I met freshman year in college at UDub, when we were assigned roommates, and have been inseparable ever since. Two years ago, we were both accepted into the same Marine Biology PhD program at the University of Oregon and moved to Eugene together.
"Help us, we're poor!" I say, quoting Bridesmaids again, and Rose laughs when Prof. McCarty walks through the first class curtains and to our seats. He sets one hand on his hip, standing in the aisle next to us, shaking his head at us as our laughter subsides.
"Just checking in before we take off," he explains. "You each have your NOAA* credentials?"
"Sure thing, Boss." I joke and he smiles, shaking his head, his eyes switching over to Rose who just nods, having gone uncharacteristically silent the moment he greeted us.
"Do you have your satellite phones?" he asks.
I pat my backpack and Rose nods again.
"Okay." He scratches the back of his neck with one hand while the other pulls on the collar of his shirt as if it's suffocating him. "I'll wait for you two at the gate, so we can go through customs and immigration together."
He starts walking away and then turns back. "Oh…" His index finger points up as he returns. "And the safety package we received from the University?"
"Yes, Dad." I groan exaggeratedly and Rose laughs softly next to me.
He means the ten-page document we received from our school about the risks and precautions to be taken in a foreign country. It details safety and security issues we may encounter, including drug-related violent crimes. It feels like an exaggeration. Like a list of things that only happen in movies with Liam Neeson in them. I only know because Charlie, my dad, is Liam Neeson's number one fan.
"We can't be too careful," he adds purposely. He printed us an additional document with information about turtle egg poachers and contraband, which happens on the beach where we are going to be doing our research.
Once the plane departs, we will be on our way to Costa Rica and the Tortuga Reserve in Playa Limón. Both Rose and my research involve green sea turtles, since it's what Prof. McCarty's lab focuses on.
He still hovers in front of us, looking a bit nervous, like a parent who is chaperoning someone else's kids. Or maybe he just feels guilty that our department got first class tickets for him but economy ones for us.
When the flight attendant asks him to go back to his seat, he gives us a shaky smile and then obliges.
It's probably risky to sign on for a PhD research project with a guy in his early thirties who's just starting his lab, but in the two years we have been with him, it has really paid off.
Prof. McCarty—or Emmett, as he insists we call him—has been an incredibly supportive advisor. He's funny, like an encyclopedia of "dad jokes" funny. He's approachable, his door is always open, and he's always there to answer questions.
What drew me to him—besides the fact that his work specializes in my favorite reptile—is how passionate he is about his research. Saving the oceans is his life, and he seeks to spark the same drive in his students.
He really is a great mentor.
When Rose sighs next to me as Emmett retreats, a knowing smile appears on my lips.
She's got it bad for the professor. Not that I can blame her. Virtually every single woman—and some of the men—in our department have some kind of crush on him. At least mine is only intellectual.
Rose composes her face before she turns to look at me. I know her well. Any time I mention her and Emmett, she gets defensive. I understand. I do. Anything more than a student-teacher relationship could get him fired. She could get kicked out of the program too, or at least be made to switch labs.
I've always wondered if whatever they have goes beyond the platonic, but she swears it doesn't.
After finally dumping Royce's abusive ass in undergrad, Rose has not been in another relationship. There have been guys here and there—there are always guys lining up for her. But ever since we started grad school and joined Prof. McCarty's lab, she's been more school-oriented, and while there have been occasional dates, she has remained single.
"We're going to have so much sex in Costa Rica." Rose is brazen, unabashed. She doesn't care what people think—at least not the people that could get her in trouble. It's one of the things that I love so much about her. She's brave, fearless. She's everything I never get to be. Everything I am too scared to be.
"Yeah?"
"Oh yeah… mucho mucho." She winks, taking a magazine out of the pocket in front of her.
I laugh through my nose, and the sound I make is so loud, other people turn to look, and I cover my mouth and nose embarrassedly.
"Jesus Christ, Bella. Could you be more of a dork?"
I try to control my laughter and my breathing while Rose shakes her head next to me.
"So is the thing with Smirnoff-Ice Newton over, over?" she asks after a second or two, flipping through Sky magazine.
"One time he had that drink, Rose. Once."
"Whatever." She closes the magazine with a snap, turning to look at me. "Is it? Done-zo?"
"Yeah." I shrug, pushing the tiny window shade up with a finger, pretending to look outside, even though there is nothing to see but the tarmac as the plane still sits at the gate.
"Great. For good this time?" Rose insists.
"Yeah… we talked." I turn to look back at her. "It was amicable."
"Amicable? Jesus, Bella, even your breakups are boring!"
I'm not exactly sure what happened between Mike and me. We met in my first year of grad school, and we quickly became friends. Things just naturally evolved into more, and we fell into a boyfriend/girlfriend routine very quickly, but it all revolved around school work and research. There was no real chemistry other than the intellectual kind.
Now that Mike is done with grad school and I have a few more years left, it became pretty obvious that our relationship was not going to survive the school-to-real-life transition. He was also leaving Oregon, so we mutually decided to end it.
"Whatever. We're still friends." I shrug it off. "He's a nice guy, Rose."
"No friends in Costa Rica, okay? No nice guys either." Rose points a finger at me, her eyebrows raising in determination. "None. Nada. Ninguno."
"Wow, Duolingo is really paying off."
"Don't deflect, Bella, I'm serious. Your whole adult life you've been in a relationship. First Ben, who cried at Super Bowl commercials, then Smirnoff Newton. Six years of your life, not a single one-night stand. That's not what college years are for!"
Ben was my undergrad boyfriend at UDub. We broke up after graduation as he didn't think we would make it through long distance. He was staying in Seattle and I was moving to Oregon. It was probably a shitty excuse, as we wouldn't even be that far, but we had a friendly breakup regardless.
I guess Rose has a point.
"I had fun." At least I think I did. "We had fun."
"Did either of them make you come, like ever?" Rose lowers her voice, inching closer to me. "Because I've been in the next room, all of those years. So unless you're the quietest fuck ever, I don't think so."
"That's disturbing," I say, with a smile, planning to avoid the question. "Please don't listen to me having sex."
The answer was still no. In my twenty-three years, I had only been with two guys and I had never had an orgasm with either of them. At least I don't think that I have. So I probably haven't. Maybe there was something wrong with me. Or maybe there was something wrong with them.
"Seriously though." She bumps my elbow with hers over the armrest. "Have you ever really felt for either of them like… like you would explode if you don't have him? Like right that second? Like your legs tremble from pressing your thighs together too hard, too close? Like his body calls to you like a magnet and you can't resist?"
I turn to look at her with a sigh. "No…" I have never felt like that.
"That's exactly what I mean, Bella." She reaches a hand over to mine on the armrest. "You are gorgeous. You are smarter than anyone else I know… myself excluded, of course. You are sweet and funny. I mean, yeah you're awkward as fuck, and a dork, but you are a fucking queen!" She brings her fingertips to her lips in a chef's kiss. "And these guys you choose, they're friendship material. If that. Amigos." She pats the back of my hand, before returning her attention to the magazine. "No amigos when we get to Costa Rica, okay?"
"Okay…" I give up with a huff, pulling my noise-canceling headphones out of my bag.
"Did you bring your contacts?" Rose asks as the plane starts moving.
"Yes." I groan, pushing my glasses up my nose in annoyance. She's been insisting I get rid of my thick-framed glasses, so I finally ordered prescription contacts. She did have a point. They're probably better for when we're out on the water.
"And the dresses we bought?"
"Yes," I say, drawing out the word in annoyance. I place my headphones on, but they aren't canceling enough for Rose's words, which replay in my head as we take off.
I look out the window, thoughts flashing through my head as our town gets smaller and we rise over the clouds. I have never experienced the passion that Rose just described. I have never felt like that for anyone.
I've been happy. I've had fun. But maybe there was something else missing.
Maybe Rose is right, and I should use the opportunity of this trip to Costa Rica to live a little, to not be my old boring self. Nobody knows me there. I can start fresh. Give myself the chance to reinvent myself into whatever I want to be. Bolder. Sexier. More confident. Preferably less awkward. Free-spirited.
Determination settles as I resolve to spend the next three months finding other important, meaningful, life-fulfilling things. Maybe I'll even take Rose's advice and seek out a non-amigo who can teach me what it is to feel passion for more than academics.
~~o~~
*NOOA: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is a United States Department of Commerce scientific agency that, among other things, funds research on the conditions of the oceans, major waterways, and the atmosphere.
AN: Can't wait to hear what you think. I am loving your theories so far. Sea you next week lol *winky face*