The Hopes of Many, the Fears of All

Chapter 3

I plopped on the old, moth balls ridden bed and fell asleep almost immediately. The condition of the bed didn't matter at all, just that it was a place to sleep. The dream I had only brought back pain as I laid in the bed, unable to control anything I saw.

It was maybe two years ago when we went on a vacation to an amusement park with the family as a whole. It was easy enough to get dad off work for a week since their company had several people with the same position as him, so he could be replaced for a week. But mom was an executive and had to fight quite a bit to get that week off. But when she did, we packed that same day nobody able to contain their excitement.

It was probably my favorite week as I look back at it now. Hayden and I had never been to an amusement park before, so it was all the more precious to us. One of the days, we decided we would go on the water rides all day, but we forgot our swimsuits, mostly because we didn't know there was a water park involved. So we went to the nearest store and walked in, determined to buy swimsuits to go to the waterpark. Believe it or not, when your parents are gone all the time, it feels great to go shopping with them. Being a girl, I tried on a total of five swimsuits trying to find the best one, while Hayden tried on one. He always knew which one to pick, or maybe he didn't care. I couldn't really tell. But the one I chose ended up being a bright blue bikini, while Hayden chose an American flag pair of swim trunks that made him look like a cross between a Hollister model and a sunburned patriot.

We went back to the park with them on, our eyes set on going to the park. We ended up walking three miles to the water park, that's how determined we were to do this. When I got to the park, I saw maybe fifty rides, all of them involving water. There was a roller coaster that took you through a pool of water, there were crazy water slides, and through all of them, I saw the ride that everybody was talking about that year: The Danger Zone. A fifty-foot drop through a clear tube into a fifteen-foot deep pool. Everybody loved it for some reason, so I was determined to ride it also. For bragging rights only, not because it actually looked fun (although it actually did. I was always the daredevil of the family, doing the crazy things that nobody else wanted to do. So naturally, The Danger Zone looked like fun to me).

I made a Bee-line to the Danger zone when I heard dad ask where I was going.

"Hayden and I are going to the Danger Zone."

Dad looked at Hayden for confirmation that he was actually going and I wasn't just saying it. In Dad's defense, I had done that plenty of times before, so my Dad was slightly suspicious every time I brought Hayden into something like that. Hayden rolled my eyes before nodding, signaling that he would go, so we headed to the ride together. By the time we finally got to the bottom of the ride, the line was going all the way up to the top, which was maybe five stories high, but it went down so fast that it would maybe take ten to fifteen minutes to get to the top with the line. I started walking up the stairs to get up to the line, looking down at the ground from over the protective barrier as I climbed. Hayden was right behind me the whole time, not saying a word. I knew there was something up because he was always talking about something, even at the most inappropriate of times. Over time, I learned that when he wasn't talking, that meant something was wrong, whether he wasn't feeling good or he just simply got in a fight with a friend.

I looked at him as I watched his face pale dramatically. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He said weakly, looking at the back of the man standing in front of us. "I am just fine." He was gripping the edge of the stairs so tight that his knuckles were turning white and you could see the rigidness of his body.

"You aren't okay. You look like you just saw your death." I said back, taunting him with a small nudge to the arm and a smile.

"I did." He whimpered.