John, Peter and Rose

Chapter Sixteen

It's the 4th of July today. The day where everyone around the country come together just to celebrate and let loose. It's the day of the year where all the heartbreak and the stress of the year can be forgotten for a few hours and instead be replaced by happiness and excitement. Every one celebrates this day differently. Some people would rather stay home and meet up with close family so they can drink and reminisce about old times. Others would rather meet up with hundreds of strangers and just drink and party until everything else is forgotten. That's why there's always an annual festival close to where John and Peter lives. The area is separated in two. One area is filled of lovely festival rides and games. But most importantly that's where all the food is. It isn't a proper festival without popcorn and cotton candy. This is where all the kids get dropped off while their parents go to the other half of the area. This area doesn't have much except for a ferris wheel, a DJ and of course lots and lots of drinks. This is where the teenagers and adults go to dance and drink and forget about all responsibility. And it has the perfect view of the water where the fireworks will be put on display.

John thought that this would be the perfect time and place to have a date with Rose outside of their usual spot. Peter always goes eat dinner with his parents on the 4th of July, so he doesn't have to worry about running into him. The festival is filled with hundreds of people so the chances of someone he knows seeing them is extremely low. Even if someone does, he could simply say that he ran into Rose at the festival and they decided to stick together for the night since they didn't know anyone else there. The festival was a perfect opportunity to go on a date with Rose without anyone realizing it and he was going to take it.

John and Rose entered the festival and were immediately put in a state of awe. Neither of them have ever been to a festival before with Rose living in the country and John simply preferring to stay home. So, looking at all the lights and the kids running around screaming and happy left them speechless and wishing that they would've come here earlier.

This is so beautiful John.

Come on I've always wanted to try cotton candy.

So, for most of the night John and Rose stayed in the kids section of the festival. They swore to not leave that night without trying all of the festival food so they started by buying cotton candy. From all the foods they tried out that night it was Rose's favorite. She loved the colour pink, and she never thought she could find food of that colour. It felt like she was eating a pink cloud. They then went on to try the ice cone. They both weren't that big of a fan of it stating that it tasted just like ice but they ate all of it anyway before moving on to the last dessert available and John's favorite of that night, popcorn. Yes, John had already eaten popcorn before, and that's why he preferred it. Why would he prefer some new weird food when he could eat some classic popcorn that he's been eating his whole life?

After trying out all of the food they moved on to the rides which now that their barely keeping their food down they realized that it probably wasn't the best idea. They spent hours going on every single ride available; the bumper cars, the carousel, the tilt-a-whirl and the scrambler. They felt completely out of place the whole time with them being surrounded by no one over thirteen, but it honestly added to the fun. They were able to be free and just feel like little kids again it was amazing. Rose's favorite ride was the tilt-a-whirl she loved the dizziness that came with constantly going round and round. She might've felt like throwing up, but that was part of why it was so fun. A ride shouldn't be boring it should be thrilling. John, on the other hand, preferred the carousel. He wouldn't tell Rose that tho he knew it would make him look lame so he told her he favoured the tilt-a-whirl also but truthfully he loved the boringness that the carousel brought. Life is so messy why would you want to go on a ride that reminds you of that? The carousel, on the other hand, brought nothing but peacefulness, something that is rarely found in life.

They had done all of the rides and eaten all of the food but they couldn't leave until they played all the games also. They spent an hour playing balloon pop, bean bag toss and the boat racing game. They were not the best players and lost most of the time but Rose really wanted the big Panda stuffed bear you would win if you won the balloon pop and the last thing that John wanted to do was disappoint her. So, he played again and again not wanting to give up. He came really close to winning a few times but most of the time he wasn't even close. But, after fifteen tries Rose decided to take over and after a few tries won the panda herself.

It was now approaching midnight, and they had arrived at eight. They had spent four hours on this side of the area, and they had done everything that there was to do and ate everything that there was to eat. As much as they wanted to go on every single ride again, they wanted to experience the other side of the festival as well and neither of them loved staying up too late so they decided to start heading towards the other side excited to see what it had to offer.