Clio wakes up, slightly dazed. She turns under her covers, looking at her clock. 10:40. underneath it says ‘January 1st.’ Turning the other way with a sigh she sees beams of bright sunlight pushing their way through the curtains. She then sits up, way to quickly and her head feels ready to explode.
Then she reaches for her phone, the back of her head pounding. Turning it on she sees the wallpaper, it’s a picture from last night, of her 2 best friends holding up 2 bottles of vodka, smiling and laughing. She can’t even remember taking the picture.
Leaning her head against the headboard Clio closes her eyes slowly. Her phone rings. Eyes fluttering open she looks at the caller ID. It’s Evie.
“Hello?” Clio says almost painfully raising the phone to her ear.
“Hi!” Evie says way too loudly. Clio quickly pulls the phone away from her ear.
“Could you possibly talk a little quieter?” Clio asks, rubbing her temples with her free hand.
Evie laughs. “Sure, wake up though. “I’m so pumped we’re doing this New Year’s resolution together. I know it’s unusual, but doing it together will make it easier. I’ll pick you up in an hour.” And then she hangs up.
Clio puts her phone down. What? She thinks. She has no relocation of making an unusual New Year’s resolution. Then again, she doesn’t have much relocation of anything from the night before.
Slowly Clio gets back into the swing of things, getting dressed into some comfortable clothes and making herself eat a small breakfast. 11:40 comes around, and Clio still has no idea what Evie has planned.
Evie then pulls into her driveway, waiting in the car for Clio to come out. Throwing on a jacket she makes her way out to the car, fighting the wind that pushes her back towards the house. Getting in the passenger seat she shuts the door, looking at Evie. Her long ginger hair is braided and she too is bundled up.
“Are you sure you’re okay to be driving?” Clio has to ask. Evie laughs, a loud ringing sound.
She nods. “I didn’t have as much to drink as you did.” She says. “Anyways, I have your bathing suit ‘cause you left it at my house over the summer. We can get changed there.” She says chatting away as she pulls out the drive way.
“Bathing suit?” Clio asks, but Evie must not have heard her because she didn’t answer her perfectly logical question. For the whole car ride Evie chats away, never stopping. Around half an hour later they pull into a busy parking lot. Evie crawls into the back seat and throws Clio her bathing suit. Peeking out the window, Clio sees a crowed beach.
“Polar plunge?” She says weakly. In the backseat Evie nods as she pulls her suit on.
“Are you getting yours on or not?” seeing that there is no way out of it, Clio puts her bathing suit on and her jacket on over it.
They step out of the car and even within the first minute Clio can hardly feel her legs. Thinking about the temperature of the water making her shudder with fear. “So how did we get into this?” She asks as Evie fills out a form.
Evie looks up at her. “It was your idea!” she says smiling. “Oh yeah, that’s $20 dollars for registration. It goes to a good cause.
Wow. Clio thinks, I must have been really drunk last night. As she fished in her pocket for the money. When Evie is done talking to the man working at the sign up table the two make their way to the group gathered at the top of the beach. A woman with a microphone stands on a podium.
“Alright!” she says her voice echoing “one more minute and we head in!”
The group cheers, Evie jumps up and down excitedly. Clio stands there, arms wrapped tightly around herself. A minute passes and the lady stands back up again.
“Okay! Everyone get ready!” She shouts, and everyone obeys.
Evie leans over Clio’s shoulder. “Take your jacket off so you have something dry for after.” She says. Clio nods and places her jacket near Evie’s. She is shivering a lot now.
“THREE! TWO! ONE!” the woman says. And then in a blur of bodies everyone rushes towards the ocean. Clio can’t help herself but get swept up in the motion, running with everyone else.
When her feet hit the ocean water she lets out a gasp of surprise. It’s FREZZEING! She only gets in a few steps more, so that her ankles are covered. She can’t feel any of her legs.
Evie walks over to her: beaming. “This is awesome!”
“Really? I can’t feel my legs.” Clio says grumpily.
“I can’t either, but look at all these people here to raise money for charity.” Evie says walking farther into the ocean. She sits down it the water.
“Or their all just crazy like you.” Clio points out.
Evie shrugs and stands up. “Maybe, let’s get out of here!” Clio nods and they make their way back to the sand, finding their jackets. Most of the people are starting to make their way back to the beach as well.
Quickly the two friends make their way back to the car and Evie blasts the heat.
They start their way back to Clio’s house and she feels better enough to keep up with Evie’s constant stream of chatter. They pull into Clio’s house. As Clio is getting out, relived that they day is over she turns to Evie.
“Part one: done! I’ll come around tomorrow to get you for part two!” Evie says right before Clio shuts the door. And with that Evie is down the road, leaving Clio to wonder what else she planned the night before that she couldn’t remember.

Clio spent a fretful night wondering what the next day would hold for her and her friend. She was hoping that whatever else she planned wasn’t as crazy as the polar plunge. When she laid down in bed, she feel right asleep.
When Clio wakes up, she is happier to see that she woke up at a more decent hour; 8:00. She checks her phone again, no calls from Evie. Getting up she had a bowl of cereal and got dressed. She put on a red shirt and a pair of jeans.
She just sat down to turn the news on when she hears a horn honk outside. Standing up she peaks out the window. It’s Evie, and her other best friend; Daisy in the car next to her. Waving out the window to let them know she’s coming, she grabs her purse, throws some shoes on and goes out to get them.
Hoping in the back of the car she said “Hey Daisy!”
“Look who’s awake!” Evie teases with a laugh. They all laugh. Clio hopes that Daisy asks where the group is going, but she doesn’t. Clio comes to the conclusion that she is the only one who has no idea what anyone is doing.
Evie starts the car up and they make their way down the road. “Where were you yesterday?” Clio asks Daisy.
She turns in her seat to look at her. “There was NO way I was doing that.” She says smiling, and turning back again.
“Seems Evie was the only one crazy to want to do it.” Clio mumbles, but the other two don’t hear her. They are too busy talking. They are only in the car for a little while before they pull into what Clio assumes to be their destination.
“haircuts? I made a New Year’s resolution to get a haircut?” Clio asks astonished as they get out of the car.
Daisy nods. “For charity.” As they walk in. Clio shrugs.
Evie walks to the front desk. “Haircuts for three?”
The lady who works there smiles at her. “Sure, I can do one at a time.” Evie nods, saying that she’ll go first. Daisy and Clio sit down on some nearby chairs. Evie hops into the chair where her hair will be cut.
“What do you want?” The hairdresser asks.
“We all want at least 10 inches off to donate.” Evie says. She nods. A while later Evie stands up, her ginger hair super short. A smile lights up her face as she brandishes her hair. Daisy goes next, the same result. Although her blonde hair was much longer, so there is more left on her. When Clio sits on the chair she is only slightly sad about the loss of her thin brown hair. She never really liked it anyways.
The hairdresser puts her hair into a ponytail and cuts it all off, then fixing it up a little so it looks decent. When Clio’s hair is done they each pay for their own cuts, thank the woman and leave.
“Part two; complete!” Evie says triumphantly. Its only 12:00 by now. Clio hopes that there was only two parts to the resolution.
“Do you think we have enough time to get part three done?” Daisy asks.
Of course we’re not done yet. Clio thinks. There’s probably like one hundred parts! Evie nods.
“You guys know I have to go to work tomorrow, right?” Clio asks. The other two look back at her and nod.
“That’s why we need to get as much done today as we can!” Evie says happily.
And with that they got on the road again. Clio loosened up a little bit, signing with her friends. She didn’t want to be a party pooper, although she was slightly concerned about the next part. They stopped at each of their housed briefly, to pick up snow pants, gloves and jackets and Clio had no idea why.
After a while of driving and Clio being victim to Daisy’s and Evie’s latest gossip they pull into a large parking lot, of the nearby ski mountain. “Skiing?” Clio asks astonished, she had never been skiing before, and there was not a lot of snow on the ground.
“Yeah, today is 50% off ski tickets, so we figured we could try it for once!” Daisy says getting out of the car.
“But… there’s hardly any snow on the ground!” Clio says trying to protest. The other two are already out of the car, getting jackets on.
Evie smiles at her. “They make their own snow silly.” She says as she shuts the car door. Clio groans and gets out after her. They make their way to the lodge were they all have to rent ski boots, and skis. After they get back outside it takes them a while to figure out how to get their stuff on.
“Can’t we get a lesson?” Clio asks hopefully. “Then at least we would have some idea what we are doing.”
Her friends just shake their heads. When they get them self’s equipped they shuffle their way to the ski belt. They are able to get on without anyone falling. They get to the top, looking down the very small but large seeming bunny slope.
“Let’s try to start slowly.” Daisy suggests. But Evie has already started down the hill, arms in the air screeching joyfully. Clio and Daisy both sigh and make their way down, only falling a few times each. Evie falls the most out of all of them.
When they get to the bottom Clio is surprised to find that it was actually fun, even if she was really, really bad at it. The friends go up and down again a few times, until they are sore from falling down. Luckily the mountain was very empty at that time of day so they had the place to them self’s. Eventually they decide that they had enough, return the ski’s and sit in the lodge warming up with some hot chocolate.
“That was fun!” Evie announces taking another sip. Clio and Daisy nod. “We should come again sometime.” She says.
Clio and Daisy look at each other, wide eyed, and then back at their ecstatic friend. “Yeah, I’m good.” Clio says.
“Same, I’m going to be sore for weeks!” Daisy complains. Evie just shrugs. There are a few moments of silence.
“What’s next?” Clio asks, almost looking forward to it. They both look at her.
“That’s it.” Evie says. “You didn’t plan anything else.”
“Although you did say you wanted to try a lot more new things this year.” Daisy adds.
Clio nods. “It has been fun.”
In the car they work their way back to their houses, going to Daisy’s first. “Whenever you want to do something crazy again, make sure to call me! See you guys later!!” Daisy says exiting the car, Clio and Evie call their good byes as Clio moves back next to Evie in the front. A few minutes later they get to Clio’s house and Evie gets out with her.
“Thanks for driving, and for convincing me to do this.” Clio says fondly. “I wouldn’t have done it without you.”
Evie frowns. “What’da mean? It was all your idea in the first place.”
Clio just shrugs. “I still wouldn’t have done any of that, ever without you.” And then the two best friends hug, just a short one, but long enough for Clio to show how grateful she is.
They say farewell and Evie gets back in her car and drives away. Clio walks back inside, looking around her house, inspired to do something great. She sits down at her computer, opening a new word document. Maybe, my story will inspire others to do something great as well. She thinks as she types in the words ‘Clio wakes up, slightly dazed.’