It Never Rains in Colombia by W.H. Benjamin Page A

clouds as she sank deeper, deeper still. It felt as though she were being pulled downwards by some terrible beast, an unknown force gripping her calves, sinking, as if her ankles were tied with lead weights.
                  She sank lower, as if her legs were tied with leaden weights.
                  He grabbed onto her waist then propelled both of them back up, swimming onto the other side of the lake closest to the woods, clutching onto the bank as he dragged her out of the water. She coughed out water, trying to catch her breath, drawing her knees up to her chest, trembling.
                  “Are you okay?”
                  She nodded vaguely, looking up briefly. His hair was soaked, water dripped down the black mask, down his face past the beauty spot above his lip.
                  “Harlow!” She turned around and people came rushing over. He placed a black jacket over her shoulders, when she looked back he was gone.
                  She heard her clothes dripping when she got up and the crunching sound of her footsteps on the gravel path. For a moment, the only sound she heard was her heart breaking. She ran from the humiliation through the doors, back into the party where people jumped aside as she pushed through.
                  There were partygoers wearing angel wings laughing on the front lawn. She ran past; the music pumped in her ears and they faded into a blur—the sparklers, the shiny happy people under the night sky. She retrieved her bicycle from amid the trees and cycled across the road to get away from them, her chequered white and blue school skirt rustling sadly. Her head was thumping; the sound pulsed in her eardrums like a tiny marching band, as she tried to focus on the street ahead,
    coughing, looking down at the yellow lines in the road glistening with rain. The newly washed street kept on moving as she cycled. It reminded her of the dewy daisies on the windowsill at home and the bee that had once stung her. She pedalled faster, trying to block the tears. A few feet ahead, people were cramming into their tiny city cars, bright eyed and singing, full of midnight adrenaline. She turned just in time to see the flashing headlights of the car; there was a scream of tyres when it spun to avoid her and the bicycle turned over. Her eyes fluttered as she crashed to the ground. Banging car doors, screaming, and stomping footsteps came all at once. That face. He adjusted his thick black spectacles and she was jolted back to reality, looking into piercing brown eyes. A concerned face, afraid, hovering above, disembodied. An explosion of colours burst across the night sky, spraying sparkles of bright red, blue, and gold fireworks onto the dark canvas above.
                  She realised the truth as consciousness slipped desperately away. The truth was a bee could only hurt you once before it died; humans were repeat offenders.
     
     
     
     
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 6 –  The Girl That Fell in Love With Love
     
    “Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall.”
Confucius
     
                  “Harlow, Harlow.” Fingers clicked in front of her face as she blinked wearily. “You had an accident. It's okay. You're okay now.”
                  “What?” she asked groggily.
                  “I'm taking you to the hospital,” Christian replied as he drove through the darkened streets, “How are you feeling?”
                  “I feel fine,” she sat up straighter in the passenger seat, “I'm all right.”
                  “That's what you said last time you fainted,” Sophia said.              
                  After a while, he turned the car down a lamp-lit road and parked at the bottom of a steep incline. Sophia got out