Well...Not Anymore.

Well...Not Anymore: Chapter 11

But now that I see it standing there in all of its brightness, I can't help but be thrilled that he's taken me here. Though he's been a little too touchy feely for my taste lately, he sure knows how to pick a date place. 

I look back at him and see a satisfied and relieved expression on Drew's face before he asks me, "So you're okay with this, I'm taking?" 

"I love this place!" I say happily, not even caring that I probably sound like a six-year-old little boy. "I used to come here all of the time!" 

He cuts the car off and starts taking off his seatbelt as he says, "Good. No other girls I know like this place but I figured you would. You're cool like that." 

"Of course I am," I joke cockily before slipping my seat belt off as well and then hopping out of his car. The evening air is as muggy as can be, of course, but even the new stickiness of my skin and growth of my hair isn't going to ruin this for me. 

I meet Drew by the front of his car and then together we walk into the big stone building, my excitement growing tenfold when we step inside of the familiar lobby. Huge plastic pillars rise up to the black tiled ceiling, blinking laser lights wrapped around them to give it that outer space feel. Arcade games line the dark grey walls, mostly boy teenagers standing behind them either playing or cheering on their friends.  

It brings back so many memories, pictures of me tugging on Lucas' hand and leading him to the front counter so that we can get to playing as soon as possible playing like a black-and-white movie inside of my head. I can just see us sitting at that table in corner of the lobby, throwing cornels of popcorn at each others' face because we got too hot playing laser tag. My heart warms when I remember that one time when Lucas caught up to me while playing the game, the two of us having been playing a cat-and-mouse game the entire time, and wrapped his arms around my waist and twirled me around while laughing "I got you!" in my ear before shooting me with his little plastic gun. 

All of a sudden, I feel like crying. Although the two of us are getting along so much better now, it's never going to be like that anymore. The two of us are never going to have such an easy, natural-as-air friendship. Though we may try to act like it never happened, that awkward air of rejected feelings and two years of silence is always going to surround us.  

We're never going to be that happy before. 

"Hey, you okay?" Drew's voice and the feeling of his warm hand wrapping around my tiny one effectively snaps me out of my emotional stupor. I immediately feel terrible for thinking about Lucas on a date with another guy. This is about Drew and me, not Lucas and me. I need to remember that. 

So while pushing all old-movie like thoughts about Lucas and I out of my head, I intertwine my fingers through his and then give him a reassuring smile. "I'm awesome," I say, before letting him lead me up to the counter and watching him buy three games worth of tickets for the both of us. 

Our first game doesn't start for twenty minutes, so Drew and I battle each other at Guitar Hero, air hockey, and skee ball. While he crushes me at both skee ball and air hockey, I kick his ass at Guitar Hero, stunning him into silence for a few minutes.  

So by the time that we slip on our black vests and are preparing to enter the laser tag room with eighteen other people, I can honestly saying that I'm having the best time that I've had in a really, really long time. While some awkward, acne-ridden teenage employee gives anyone who has never played instructions, Drew takes a step close to me and asks, "You ready?" 

"Hell yeah," I tell him happily, hitting the area of his vest that's over his chest with my black plastic gun. "I'm going to kick your butt." 

"Oh we'll see about that," he smiles evilly at me just as the buzzer goes off and the lights in the holding room start to flicker, letting us know that the game is about to start and that we're free to enter the arena.