ALONE TOGETHER I OWEN GRADY

Leaving Like A Father

But lately, Zach had been struggling to keep his temper with Cassandra, Zach already super sensitive about everything without her ironic input. This trip - a trip he hadn't even wanted to come on, his mother mistaking his sullen silence for acquiescence - had been his worst nightmare, leaving him unable to escape his family like he could at home. And now he would have to deal with not one, but two aunts, Cassandra and Claire striking him as being cut from the same cloth.

His phone vibrated again, making Zach glance down with a heavy sigh, only to see his girlfriend had just sent him a selfie of herself looking prettily pensive and holding up a handmade sign saying 'I MISS YOU'. He cringed at seeing the love hearts she'd dotted around the words. She was the prettiest and most popular girl in his year, but she didn't hold his attention like Tori Higgins did. Tori was interesting as well as attractive, but he didn't have a chance in hell with her, all her energy focused on Lacey Peletier.

"It isn't going to happen with Tori," Gray said abruptly with his unerring knack of reading Zach's mind. "She likes girls and only girls."

"I told you, it's just a phase," Zach muttered, all too aware of Morgan's twitching ears. "She dated Ben Mayor last year."

"Yeah, for a week."

"Well, I'll just have to be happy with worshipping from afar, won't I?" Zach said sarcastically, stowing his phone away. "I won't say anything and I won't do anything – I can't anyways, remember? I'm taken."

"So?" Gray snorted. "You don't act like it."

Zach pulled a pained face, irritated at Gray's moralising. He only looked, and discreetly at that. He never touched either and he never would, not without consent and a girlfriend in tow. He had been brought up right in that respect at least, even if everything else was open to debate. But here at Jurassic World, where he was constantly surrounded by hot girls, was like being a kid in a candy shop. Wherever he turned, there was always one in his eyeline. Right now, he could count at least ten within spitting distance.

"Why isn't anything happening?" Morgan whined, kicking the back of her seat, where her diplodocus helium balloon was secured, the vibration making it fly wildly from side to side, bouncing off Zach's head.

"Cut it out, will you!?" Zach snapped, knocking the balloon aside, only for it to rebound and hit him in the eye.

"Man, you need to listen to this, it's fascinating!" Gray exclaimed as the handler continued to intone on at length about the Mosasaurus's many murderous virtues.

"I don't want to listen, I want to see!" Morgan pouted as Zach wrestled with the balloon, clutching his eye at the same time.

Cursing, Zach finally got the balloon under control, ignoring the dirty looks of the people sitting near them. Morgan had been acting up ever since her mother had went off with Claire, testing Zach's patience to the very utmost, Gray doing the same on a lesser scale. It had been thanks to Gray that Morgan had inadvertently witnessed the T-Rex devouring a goat during one of the park's hourly 'T-Rex Feeding' sessions, Gray bewailing the fact he'd missed the sight, whilst Morgan wept at seeing it.

To calm her down, they'd gone to see the baby dinosaurs, Zach thinking hell must be a dinosaur petting zoo filled with shrieking midgets. Morgan had been in her element riding a baby triceratops, whilst Gray kept demanding every two seconds that Zach lift him up to see stuff. Zara had soon started to get sniffy about missing the marine performance, but Morgan had refused to leave, Zach literally having to prise her finger by finger from a baby diplodocus, Morgan clinging to the creature for dear life, her arms wrapped around its long neck in a death grip. They'd bought her a balloon as a bribe, Zara promising to bring them back afterwards, Morgan making her solemnly promise to 'cross my heart and hope to die.'

Now they were here, waiting for what, Zach didn't know, but he now knew why Zara had been so keen to come, using it as an opportunity to get rid of them for half an hour so she could catch a break and get back to planning her wedding. Zach couldn't say he blamed her for bailing, since babysitting wasn't part of her job description, but he had no intention of trailing after Zara for the rest of the trip. Silently resolving to break loose at the first chance he got, Zach leaned back in his seat, his dark gaze scanning the still water again, feeling that same surprising thrill of anticipation once more.

"Okay, folks," the handler said as a dead shark hanging on a hook was manoeuvred out into the middle of the water, "let's see if she's still hungry after already eating today."

Zach's phone vibrated again, making him exhale sharply. Pulling it out of his pocket, he kept one eye on the lagoon and the other on the screen, only to see Cassandra had texted him again. Jaw tightening, he opened the message, expecting another slew of questions, only to see she had written, get over yourself. "Whoa," he muttered, "and she's meant to be the mature one."

"Zach, you're gonna miss it!" Gray warned, tugging on his arm.

Rolling his eyes again, Zach stowed his phone away, putting the message from his mind, and focusing his attention on the water, everybody around them doing the exact same. Even Morgan fell still, her small face scared. Nothing mattered in this moment, not Cassandra, their fight or the mystery of Morgan's erstwhile father. And when the mammoth Mosasaurus finally broke the surface, twisting in mid-air as it caught its prey, showering them with a cascade of water, Gray and Morgan yelling at the top of their voices in exhilaration, Zach thought maybe Jurassic World wasn't too bad after all.

Maybe.

Because I knew everything

When I was young...