Before Euphoria, There was Dawn

Chapter 11- Secret Rooms and Pools

My dad went to get changed into some casual clothes, which left Josh and me in the hallway upstairs alone. He was bouncing on the balls of his feet, which I found absolutely adorable. He was nervous.

"Josh, calm down."

"I'm calm. Me? I'm calm, can't you see? Extremely calm," he said.

"I can tell my father likes you. He's really not that hard to impress. He's just trying to act all tough."

Josh let out a huge breath as though he had been holding it in for hours. I cracked up. "Why are you nervous? It's just my dad."

"That's exactly why I'm nervous," he said.

I was about to ask him what he meant, but my dad walked out of his room. I crossed my arms at him. "Let's find out what this mystery thing is already."

My dad led us downstairs then to the door under the stairs. I didn't see anything unusual here. It was just a little room with a space we didn't use. Dad looked around at the other teenagers in the living room, sprawled on the couches intently watching a movie, before touching the wall and applying a little pressure.

A screen popped up, and I gasped slightly. I poked my head on my dad's shoulder.

"Cool!" I exclaimed. "Since when has this been here?"

"Four years ago, when we moved here."

He entered a password on the screen. "Cooldad81? Really?"

He shrugged. "I'm a cool dad."

He opened the door to reveal a long slide that went into the darkness. What was once a little storage space, was now replaced with a slide. The ground had wholly disappeared. This day keeps getting better and better. There is a freaking tunnel in my house.

"Dad, what's going on?"

"Let go in first," he said, going down the slide, screaming like a kid.

I watched as he disappeared into the darkness. The shock I was feeling right now was immense.

"Sunshine, you're supposed to follow suit," Josh whispered, his lips very close to my ear.

Goosebumps ran from my arms to my neck, due to his closeness.

"Oh, right." I sat lightly, pushing myself forward and down the slide. The darkness swallowed me. I tried to adjust my eyes to the dim lighting when my feet finally hit the ground.

I slowly got off the slide, my mouth agape. My dad stood in the corner, cleaning some dust off a table. The place was huge. I sucked in a breath as I walked around, taking it all in. There were several canvases, paintbrushes and buckets of paint.

My parents met at university in New York. They were both art majors, and the rest is history. Pieces my mom and dad had painted in their college days were hung all around the walls. There were several canvases with unfinished work. I slowly traced my hand along the pieces on the wall, tears welling up in my eyes.

There were several more pieces on the ground, ones that I painted, ones that Troy painted. Every artwork ever painted by anyone I was associated with was here.

We had a tradition years ago, where every month we would paint. My mom and dad set up canvases in our backyard. We called it 'Paint Day.' It was a day that we expressed what was inside. All the pieces that Kelsey, Brandon, Jason, and I painted were here. All the frogs that Bryan had painted were stacked up on the wall. I let out a small laugh.

I walked over to the most significant painting on the wall. My mom and dad had painted it together, it was my brother and me when we were little. Troy was smiling brightly, holding me in his arms. He was about three years old at the time. I, the stubborn one-year-old, had a frown on my face with one of my hands in Troy's head of brown hair.