𝙩𝙧𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙤𝙧 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙚 | ✓

xviii

Sean is in line for one of the slides. It's close to noon now and he's just trying to spend the rest of the day avoiding his friends. He wants to waste the rest of the day riding rides and staying away so that when his friends ask him for everyone else's information, he'll say he ran out of time and couldn't get it. Yeah. That's a passable excuse. He tells himself this about nine times a minute.

There's a tap on his shoulder and he jumps into the air. He tries to act calm but he's terrified of more things than just a surprise. Spinning around, he finds Rachela standing beside him. She smiles a little as she asks, "Can I stand with you? This line is way too long to wait in."

"You want to cut in line?" He asks her jokingly, then nods. "Yeah sure." Sean's nervous again because just when he thought he was going to get away with ruining the least amount of relationships as possible, another one arrives. "Hey, truth or dare?"

"Eh, truth I guess."

The line moves. The line stops. He breathes in. "What's your biggest secret?"

There's not even a second of silence before she responds, looking in the other direction as she says it. "I like you. A lot." Then there's lots of quiet.

The line moves again and the two approach the top of the set of stairs they've been climbing. Sean looks over at her with surprise. "Really? I had no idea." He thinks about Daniel and how hard he took that Akanke denied him. How can he make it easy on Rachela?

"It's fine if you don't like me back," She says before he can start his apology, "Honestly I wasn't even planning on telling you ever. The crush is kinda fading now anyway, I'm basically over it." It's the most he's ever heard her speak. She turns to look back at him and he can see her flushed cheeks through her curtain of wavy blonde hair.

"Yeah about that.." He starts. How does he put into words how demisexuality works? Sean's never really had to explain it before, it's kinda just been a thing he's avoided talking about. "I think I would like you if we knew each other a lot better, but the first time I've ever talked to you was this week. I can't date someone I just met, I've gotta have a bond with them first. Like, a really strong bond of friendship before I can feel romantic toward them." He hopes that was good enough but knows that it won't matter soon anyway. He has what he needs.

"Oh. That's cool. We're good, right?" Wrong.

"Yeah. We're good."

The line climbs to the top and Sean slides now the nearest slide, feeling the drop in his stomach as the water carries him away and he's soaring across the waterpark. He's distracted more than ever before now and can feel himself plummeting in more ways than one.

At the end of the slide, water kicks up and splashes him in the face. He climbs out and his feet hit the pavement. Standing there, looking around at all the happy faces of families and high schoolers and younger children, Sean couldn't possibly feel any worse.

It's like he can see and hear everyone around him, but he's entirely alone. His feet are pounding on the pavement and he's running to no real destination, but it feels like someone else is controlling him. There's something here that shouldn't be and he wants it gone.

Vomit rises in his throat and Sean runs off to a separate walking trail and throws up into a bush. His eyes sting and his throat and chest burn and he's never been more miserable in his life.

Sitting on the side of the path, the boy thinks to himself how ironic it is that he's feeling like this in the happiest place on Earth. His foot digs into the grass in front of him and he's breathing deeply, hoping the taste of bile in his mouth will go away. He lays back and rests his head in the grass, ignoring the looks from passersby. How is it that he got here? This morning he was happy and excited and planning to spend the day with his friends, but here he is now: throwing up in a bush and trying not to cry. He presses a hand to his forehead and wishes this is some sort of cruel dream, or a test. Wouldn't be the first one he's failed (or so he wants everyone to think).

<><><><><>

An hour or so later, Jess is alone in the wave pool. She's sitting toward the back, where no one really goes because all the big waves are deeper in. She's allowing herself to be pulled in by the waves and then spat back out, briefly going underwater and coming back up to breathe. She opens her eyes under and sees a pair of feet near her.

"Jess?" She pulls her head out of the water and her jet black hair presses against her face, blocking her vision.

"Sean?" Jess pushes her hair out of her eyes and stands, the water only going halfway up her thighs now. She's eye-to-eye with Sean, who's watching her with his dark eyes. "What's up?"

"Uh..." He stutters for a second and she can't help but notice that his face is splotched with red dots. She wonders where they came from, but not for long as he soon says what he needs to, "Truth or dare?"

"Um, dare." She feels a particularly large wave crash against her waist and looks down at her toes. She doesn't see Sean's frustrated expression. She also doesn't see the moment when he comes up with the perfect idea.

"Okay, I dare you to change your answer to 'truth'," Jess looks up to see that he's watching her with intent, and she knows that that's what he wanted her to say in the first place.

"Isn't that against the rules?" She wants to run over to her backpack and check, but Sean already has her covered. He had checked that morning in case anyone said something other than "truth" anyway but this was the first time he was using it.

"Nope. The only rules on the contract are that you only get three skips, dares have to be physical, and there's no ending the game early," Sean says it proudly and Jess thinks she knows what he has in mind. She doesn't plan on exposing anyone though, especially her friends, and so she stays stone-faced.

"Okay, so what's your question?" Entertaining him for a little bit won't cause any harm.

"What's a secret you've never told anybody else?"

Okay, so maybe Jess didn't know what he wanted. She thinks for a long time and stares at the waves as they lap against her legs splashing her and making soft splattering noises. She's racking her brain for secrets but honestly doesn't have many. She knows things about Akanke and a few other people (that Akanke told her of course), but those aren't her secrets to tell. They're useless.

"I'm gonna use a pass on that one. It's not because I have some big dark secret though, so don't get excited. It's just because I can't think of anything at the moment. Seriously," She says and Sean frowns.

Great. Now he has nothing to report back on Jess, and it's not like he can ask her the same question again. He nods and sputters something about that making sense before walking out of the wave pool and disappearing off a random path. This confuses Jess as, when she checks her watch, she realizes they have to be back on the buses in three minutes.

<><><><><>

Five out of seven. Not good in any way. Sean's racking his brain as he sits alone on the bus, far away from his friends and farther from the people he's now affectionately referring to as the ruiners of his life. He keeps reminding himself that he'll be thought of as cool after this, but that's not for a while and he's going to have to go through hell first.

Rachela likes him. That's her secret. Akanke's parents paid for her to get here. That's her's. Cash fucked up Daniel's chances with Akanke and ruined their friendships. Daniel likes Akanke. Lila is a lesbian. There. Five secrets that are about to be exposed.

The longer Sean thinks about it, the more he wants to vomit. He's considering asking the bus driver to pull over or attempting to open a window when the bus comes to a stop. He finds out, to his relief, that they're back at the hotel.

Getting off and stepping onto the pavement, Sean realizes what this means. The party is happening in three hours. He'll have to tell the others at the party. Shit.