Zack's not feeling well

In dribs and drabs, the group made their way down to the lake. Chloe, Zack, Kurt and Ashley went down first. Brandon, Gavin and Victoria followed shortly.

“Hey Gavin, good to see you,” Zack told his buddy.

“Thanks man. Especially for stealing my charger. Got me away from the phone, finally,” Gavin admitted.

“Heather said she’d be down shortly,” Brandon informed everyone, “she said something about ‘having to rewash the dishes because Zack screwed them up’ or something like that. Funny thing was, she wasn’t even doing dishes.”

Zack immediately worried that she was pulling some kind of prank on him, but was reassured when, after another ten minutes, Heather joined her friends at the lake. She laid out on the dock and applied suntan before joining them in the water.

Everyone grabbed either an inner tube or a pool mattress and was content to just float the morning away while talking to each other.

“So Heather, since you won’t allow Kurt to tell us, we’ll ask you: What is with the name ‘Curling Iron’?” Zack asked.

“If I tell you, then I’ll have to kill you. And I’m just too lazy to do that right now,” Heather laughed, until Kurt opened his mouth.

She tried to stop him from telling the story, but she became stuck in her inner tube and couldn’t get out quick enough to stop him from blabbing.

“When we were younger, Heather used to get on my older sister Gloria’s nerves. One time when we were all up here, Heather got digging in Gloria’s make-up bag, and pulled a French tickler out. When she asked what it was, Gloria told her it was a curling iron. Believing it, Heather sat in front of a mirror and tried to use it as such. After about ten seconds, she got it all tangled in her hair and started screaming. When Gloria tried to get it out, she fought her and made it worse. Heather went running from the room to get help. When she came running into the living room, our mothers almost passed out from the embarrassment of seeing a vibrator. Her dad had to cut her hair to get it out. They both got in trouble and one of our uncles started calling her ‘Curling Iron’ from then on,” Kurt laughed.

“KURT, I’M GONNA KICK YOUR ASS!” Heather shouted as she was finally able to slip loose from her tube. The angry brunette flipped her cousin off of his pool float.

“Sorry Curling Iron, I mean Heather. My fault,” Zack admitted as the group shared a short laugh at her expense.

Heather leered at her roommate and wondered how she would pay him back for that one.

“I’ll beat your ass later, you little punk,” she laughed.

“Promise?” Zack mocked her.

After about two hours of swimming, laying out in the sun, and horsing around with his buddies and the ladies, Zack started feeling a bit worn out, so he hopped up onto the dock by Chloe.

“Hey buddy,” she called out to him, “What’s up?”

“Eh. Just feeling a bit off. Too much sun, I think,” he responded as he grabbed his towel and lay down on the dock.

While he was taking a rest, a splashing war broke out between his friends. Not wanting to be left out of the fun, Zack stood up and jumped in the water. The jump he pulled off made such a huge splash that everyone got soaked. Unfortunately, it only made Zack feel worse and he quickly returned to the dock to sit in the shade for a while. As he dried himself off, he could feel a slight throb in his temple. Chloe could tell that something was wrong with her best friend.

“You okay? You don’t look too hot,” She stated nervously.

“I think I’m going to pop some aspirin and lay down for a bit.” Zack replied as he wrapped himself up in his towel and headed back up to the cabin.

“WHAT’S UP, ZACK?” Heather shouted as her target walked away.

“He’s got a headache, so he’s going to take a nap,” Chloe responded for him. The redhead could not help but notice the strong look of concern that Heather had on her face when she told her about Zack.