My favorite part about vacation is the ride there and the destination. My best friend, Amanda and I were about to embark on what we both hoped to be the best summer that we've had.

"Nicole!" yelled Amanda, from the car. She had been sitting there waiting on me to finish locking up our little apartment in Mandeville.

"I'm coming!" I said walking out the door, dragging my luggage to my car.

Windows down...hair whipping in the wind..radio blasting our favorite music, mostly by Jason Aldean and Luke Bryan, we were ALMOST to my parents new beach house in Navarre Beach. It was quiet, but there was so much to do because it was very close to Destin and Pensacola. This was going to be the summer to remember, I know it.

"WE'RE HERE!" shouted Amanda from the passenger seat.

This house was absolutely gorgeous. It was a crisp and clean white, with bright blue shutters. It had a few sets of rocking chairs set up on the front porch with tables in between all of them. It was pretty much the ideal summer house.

"I can't believe I've never been here...my parents were definitely not kidding when they said this place was pretty." I said as Amanda and I were bringing our luggage up the front steps.

"I know, it really is beautiful! It looks like it should be on the cover of a magazine." exclaimed Amanda.

The inside was about a hundred times better than the outside. Amanda and I immediately went upstairs to put our things in our bedrooms. We had our choice since there were three and of course, we both got our own bathrooms. I was beyond excited about being here.

With a book, towel, tanning oil in my hand and sunglasses on, Amanda and I walked out on the back porch right onto the beach.

After we had both laid on our towels, me reading and Amanda tanning and listening to her iPod, I heard some guy down the beach scream, "WATCH OUT!" and I looked up and was smacked in the leg with a football.

I immediately sat up, kind of aggravated and said, "Um, watch where you throw that thing."

This guy ran up to me saying, "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. I'm trying to teach my friend over there how to throw."

"It's okay." I told him laying back down.

"Okay, I really am sorry!" the boy said walking away.

"Nicole! He was cute! Why didn't you keep talking to him?" Amanda said.

"Yeah, I guess and i don't know, maybe later." I said. She wanted to go over there and throw the football with them, since we both knew how and we were pretty good at it.

"Come on, we could show that other guy how to really throw!"

"Ugh fine. I guess it'll be fun." We got up and walked towards the two guys. Once the guy who accidentally hit me saw us walking up, he shouted, "I'm really sorry for hitting you. It was a total accident."

"Oh, it's fine. I have an older brother so I'm sort of used to it. Can we throw it with y'all?" I asked.

"Yeah sure, do you mind Blake?" said the boy.

"Nah man, I don't care. What are y'alls names?"

"I'm Nicole, and this is Amanda. What about y'all?"

"I'm Blake, and that's Parker." he said.

Amanda and I walked to further down the beach and the boys walked across from us. We stood there watching and laughing our butts off as Parker struggled with the football. After a minute, Blake finally snatched it from him shaking his head, laughing and threw it perfectly right into my hands. Basically, it ended up being me and Amanda and Blake actually throwing the ball and Parker just standing there.

He kept eyeing up Amanda, but I don't think she noticed. She was absolutely gorgeous, she could be a model. Ever since we became best friends back in eighth grade, guys eyes were just drawn to her; which in some cases is a good thing, but in others I don't think so. We threw the football around for about forty-five minutes and by that time it was almost dark.

"Hey Nicole, are you hungry?" asked Amanda.

"Yeah very. You wanna go?" I asked her.

"Yeah. Hey Blake, we had fun but we're gonna go. See ya'll tomorrow?"

"Of course. Bye y'all" said Blake.

I was very thankful that my parents had called the maid and gave her a list of groceries to get because the the fridge was full and Amanda and I were starving.

"Ya know, I really did have fun with them. It was hilarious watching Parker struggle with the ball" said Amanda coming over to help me get stuff out to make dinner.

"Yeah! I think that was my favorite part. Was I the only one that noticed him totally checking you out, the entire time?" I asked laughing.

"No, I saw. But hey, I looked hot so I really didn't mind. Don't even act like you didn't see Blake doing the same to you, especially when you threw the ball." she said with a smirk on her face.

"Maybe, maybe not. I guess we'll find out tomorrow if or when we see them again." I said laughing.

A few days later...

Since we had arrived we had spent pretty much all day, every day at the beach, going out to eat some nights, staying at home for others. We had been hanging out with Blake and Parker a lot, but Amanda and I and the boys wanted to do our own thing. So, me and Amanda decided for the first time in about three days, that we were going to have a girls day. We decided that we would go to the outlets to shop in Destin, about thirty or forty-five minutes away.

On the way there, we noticed that this white sketchy truck had been following us from the time we had gotten on the highway near the house. It followed us all the way to the outlets. Once we arrived, we thankfully saw that the truck kept on driving down the road. However, whenever we actually began shopping we both noticed these two strange men in hats and sunglasses following us from store to store. Neither of us were quite sure if we were worrying about something that wasn't important or if we were really being followed. The two men would get closer and closer to us, then go away, and then get closer again.

"Nicole, why don't you try and get close to them so we can figure out who they are?" Amanda asked.

"Yeah I'll do that." I told her.

We decided that we were going to split up, but keep out phones on us and text each other when we saw who these two strange men were. But, when we split so did they. We were both getting very nervous and scared. I broke out into a full on run, and the guy following me began to chase me. I couldn't make out what his face looked like because his sunglasses and hat were very dark. I ran and ran until I had pretty much ran across half of the shopping center. I ran into the girls bathroom, thankful that this man could not follow me into there. I immediately whipped out my phone and called Amanda, but she didn't answer. I called five more times and she was not picking up. I started thinking the worst. We were being followed ALL DAY and now my best friend wasn't picking up her phone. I knew it was a bad idea to split up. After a few minutes of trying to compose myself, I hesitantly walked out of the bathroom hoping that this man wasn't standing right there. I was very wrong. As soon as I stepped onto the sidewalk, a strong hand pulled me to the side, pushed me up against the brick wall and started screaming in my face.

"WHERE IS SHE?!" yelled the man.

I was terrified, I could barely speak. "Who?" I asked the man, with tears running down my face.

Being that close to him, I realized it was Blake. I had originally thought he was so nice, man I was wrong.

"BLAKE?!?" I yelled in his face. He slowly let me go and put me back on the ground,

"Oh. I thought you were Amanda. Y'all look scary alike from the back. I guess Parker got her" he said. I was surprised how calm he was. From the time we met them, I knew there was something off about Parker. Especially, the way he looked at Amanda. Ew, it was sick.

"What? How could you?! Y'all were so nice to us and then you try and take my best friend?! WHERE IS SHE?!"

He avoided the question and ran away from me. I wasn't even going to try and chase after him. All I wanted to do was find Amanda. I called her again and again, searched in every store we had and hadn't gone in that day. I went to the car. I had no idea where she was and inside I was panicking. I called 911 to tell the police that she had been taken, described her, told them what happened and they told me that they would call me if they heard anything or found her.

I decided that I was going to back the house. I cried the entire way home. I was so upset. The house was so quiet. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, so I decided to go take a walk on the beach. I walked and walked and walked and finally turned around and went back to the house. When I got close to the house I noticed that the lights were on. I wasn't sure why because when I left none of the lights were on. I nervously walked up the back steps and opened the back door. I slowly entered the living room and I noticed Amanda sitting on the sofa watching TV.

"AMANDA?!?! Oh my gosh!! I'm so happy to see you. Where were you?? What happened? Are you okay?" I shouted, running over to the couch to sit by her.

She was quiet and looked at me with this pained and depressed look on her face. She turned towards me and said, "I'm okay, I want to go home. That was the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. I completely regret convincing you to go over to Blake and Parker the first day we were here. Can we please go home?"

"I completely understand. Yeah, let's go pack. We'll leave in the morning." I said.

I was sad that this trip didn't turn out as great as we thought, but I have to admit that the time that wasn't spent with the boys. I wasn't going to ask her any further questions, she would tell me what happened in time.

The next morning, after packing our bags, we got in my car and headed home. Hopefully, the rest of this summer isn't going to be as bad as yesterday. I never want to go through that again. Plus, I missed my parents and my sister, so I guess it was a good thing that we were coming home. This was truly an un-forgettable vacation.