You Looked Lost (Narry Lifeguard AU)

Chapter 1

Thinking about doing something scary and actually doing something scary are two very different things.  Staring up at the worn down, wooden sign for Waterworld made me understand just that.  I shouldn’t be scared and I shouldn’t be stressed about something like this, but it was so different than anything I expected I would find myself doing.  A summer job.  At a water park.

I guess it was sort of fitting, since I used to dive, but that was when I was little.  And it didn’t really make me a fantastic swimmer.  It just made me a good diver.

I stood there for a good five minutes more, before finally willing my feet to carry me into the building.  It was orientation, which meant I, along with my fellow park employees, would be learning all about the terrible things that could happen this summer, and how to be prepared for them.  The park wasn’t open for the summer yet, so all was quiet, creating kind of a surreal atmosphere.

I applied for a lifeguard position, which meant that in addition to this class, I would need to report at a different time for my lifeguard test.  Why I chose to do this, I can honestly not say?  Before I could even do my lifeguard test, I had to get CPR certified, which thankfully was already accounted for.  I’d gotten it last year, when someone at the table next to me at a restaurant almost choked to death.  I hated feeling helpless, so I’d immediately researched classes that night when I’d gotten home.  No one was gonna choke to death on my watch, that’s for sure.

I pushed through the glass doors and glanced around nervously, already lost and regretting ever applying for this job.  Two girls were sitting behind the front desk and looked up when I entered.

“Orientation is in the break room, right through that door on your left,” one of the girls, her nametag said Laura, told me in a friendly tone.

“Thank you,” I replied in relief, hesitantly turning the doorknob and walking into the first day of the summer job that changed my life.

 

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Let’s just say the ‘first day of the summer job that changed my life’ didn’t start out so hot.  I spent the fifteen minutes before orientation started sitting in the back of the break room, keeping to myself and playing with my pencil.  It appeared no one else had brought a pencil.

I sighed heavily and glanced around me once more, noticing that I was at least not the only one keeping to myself.  I started slightly when an older man burst into the room and announced himself rather loudly.

“Hi, everybody.  I’m John and welcome to four hours of orientation!  I know you guys and gals are excited so let’s not keep you waiting.”

I pulled my notepad out of my bag and watched this ‘John’ eagerly.

“Well...who needs a pen and paper?” John asked, looking around the room.

Every hand went up.  But mine, of course.  This was gonna be a long four hours.

 

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So, in summation, orientation was exactly what I thought it would be.  A warning of all the possible, terrible things that could happen to both myself and guests at the park over the course of the summer, complete with true horror stories from the past.  We were each assigned a time slot for our lifeguard test, and I was packing up my things when someone walked into the break room, sporting his employee lifeguard shirt and a red snapback, settled backwards on his head.