"Scarlette, the Nile river is in Egypt!"
"What's it gotta do with what you're holding?!"
I smack my hands against my forehead, the two cards I'm holding poking me. We've been in the escape room building for a whopping hour, and we've been in room five for thirty minutes. Leaving through the door crossed my mind a couple of times, but as much as it's hard trying to find out these clues, it's really fun doing it with her. Even if she can't figure out any clue or puzzle that we touch.
"Try looking for something that deals with Egypt, I don't know. The Nile was our biggest clue," I explain while looking around the semi-big room.
That's another thing I noticed. These rooms get smaller and smaller every time we enter a new one. You'd think they get bigger to hide more clues, but nope! They like the idea of suffocating us better.
"Like a giant ass pyramid or something?" she questions with her hands placed on her hips. I laugh and shake my head at her cluelessness. It's adorable, really.
I don't answer that question and continue to search around for anything Egypt or Nile related. The room is as plain as you can get, but for some reason I feel like the answer is hidden in plain sight. Scarlette hums twice before calling my name. I'm too wrapped up in trying to look behind a painting as she calls me a second time.
"Sweetheart," she says with one of her hands touching my hip. Waist. Whatever you want to call it. Either way it makes me jump and drop the painting. I turn around with my hand grasping my chest, my heart pounding hard in my chest.
"Couldn't you make a noise or something?! Jesus," I exhale. Scarlette raises her eyebrows in confusion.
"Was me not calling your name noise? Or should I have started break dancing?" she teases, her hand still touching my now hot body.
"Whatever," I mumble, "why were you calling me?"
Scarlette steps back away from me, which means she's no longer touching me. I don't get to be too disappointed as I blush from the loud fact that I like and miss her touch. Us holding hands didn't even have this much of an effect on me. Then again... she wasn't touching my hand. Stop it, Nolan, you're practically steaming! Scarlette is enjoying the show of my internal battle, so I turn away from her while patting my cheeks. It does nothing to calm down my weirdly flustered state.
"Guess what I found?" she eventually asks, saving me from a mini heart attack that I was about to cause myself.
"What?"
"Well, you have to turn around to see it, Nolan," she says with a tone that makes me think on that decision. "I promise there's not a phone in my hand to take a picture of you."
"There's definitely a phone in your hand, isn't there?" I question, turning around to point at her.
Scarlette takes a picture before turning her phone to show me. She does so with a grin that contradicts my embarrassed frown. I groan from embarrassment and turn back around with my face covered. Scarlette laughs and walks in front of me with her phone now tucked into her pocket. She moves my hands from my face, holding my wrists in her hands.
"Seriously though. You're going to be thanking me when you see what I have," she says, holding eye contact. I look down, since I can't hold eye contact. Not with her.
"What?" I ask just like before.
"A pyramid with some hole in it. Not what I was thinking in size, but it's something, right?"
That gets me to look up. Scarlette smiles as she lets go of my wrists. She leads me towards the locked door that's supposed to lead us to the next room. I bump into her back because she abruptly stops. I rub my nose while Scarlette turns around with a miniature pyramid sitting on her hand. I grab it from her to figure out the purpose of it. Scarlette walks around the room looking for something- what that is, I'm not sure.
"What are you doing?" I ask her, taking some attention away from pyramid.
"Looking for something sharp. I doubt this room would have anything like that for safety."
I nod in agreement. The escape room looks kid- friendly which means the upmost safety. I look back at Scarlette and see her earring glisten from the bright room lights. My face lights up as I mentally applaud myself.
"What about your earring?" I suggest. "Isn't there a sharp piece that goes through your ear?"
Scarlette touched her angel earring before nodding. She takes it out as she walks back over to me. I hand her the pyramid and she hands me the angel wing part of the earring. She keeps the sharp hook as she holds it up to the pyramid. I watch as she pokes the sharp part into a tiny hole implanted into the object. She wiggles it a little making the pyramid pop out, all four sides laying flat to reveal a key.
"You did it!" I exclaim, moving closer to her to get a closer look. I look up at her with amazement because even though I can figure out a little clue, I wouldn't have to been able to figure out how to open a tiny pyramid. "Okay, let's get out of here."
Scarlette takes the key and uses it to open the locked door. I open it and fall to the floor as I see something that's not an enclosed room with riddles. I make a kissing motion to the sky and turn around to see Scarlette gazing at me with full amusement. Totally forgot she was there for a second. Obviously, or I wouldn't have done that.
"Ahem," I stand up. "Are we done with the rooms?"
"Yeah," she nods and closes the door behind her. "Let's check out, so they don't think we're two idiots who don't know where the Nile river is."
I eye her. "But you don't."
"I do now, and that's what matters," she protests making the both of us smile. I move closer to her and interlock my pinky with hers. I pretend that I'm not freaking out on the inside and focus on the reception desk that we're nearing. "If you're going to do it, then do it right."
"What?-" Scarlette drops my pinky before grabbing my entire hand. Her other hand is swinging freely. I blush and turn my head away, so she can't see that just her initiating the contact makes me giddy.
We make it to the reception desk, and the lady gives us a sticker for completing the five room course. Scarlette hands her back the card, and we leave with 'goodbyes' and 'come agains.'
"That was so cool!" I get excited all over again, my hand gripping Scarlette's. She nods with a contempt smile on her face and we walk back to her car. "I liked hanging out with you."
"I did too, but before you decide to ditch me, I want to stop by a place. Get some food into our stomachs."
"Okay. Can we get fries with a milkshake?" hope is embedded in my voice. It's been forever since I've had the combo.
"Sure, sweetheart. But to get into my car, you'll have to let go of my hand." I look down to see Scarlette's hand slack, no longer interlocked with mine. I immediately pull my hand away while trying to splutter out a comprehensible sentence.
"Let's just go get food," I manage to say before I fling myself into her car. I'm in the process of putting my seatbelt on when Scarlette gets in herself. She connects her phone back to her radio and starts to play music. It's not something my parents would allow me to listen to, but I like it.
Scarlette and I talk about our friends and how we think they're obviously feeling each other. Scarlette's words, not mine. I said Madaline had a big fat crush, which Scarlette teased me for. She said it was adorable the way I described it making me blush for the hundredth time. I told her I didn't know much about having crushes, to which she replied: "me neither. I haven't liked anyone since freshman year."
"But you're beautiful! Someone's had to like you, and you like them back, right?" I say in a sort of outburst.
Scarlette laughs. "And you're handsome, so I could say the same."
We move away from the topic of crushes and instead talk about future plans. I talk for an entire hour about how I want to study astronomy, and anything that dealt with space. Scarlette listens to my every word, encouraging me the entire time. It was stopped short though as we reached the fast food restaurant. I have a huge smile on my face when we get out. It felt good to talk about my true interests with someone. Especially someone who's willingly listening and encouraging me.
My parents want me to own a church, of course, not caring that it isn't my goal. Madaline doesn't like space talk, and says I bore her to sleep. I always laugh it off because she's my best friend, and most of the time just says things without thinking. But Scarlette actually...listens to me. She hears me. It almost makes me explode with joy.
I catch up to her and walk into the restaurant as she holds open the door. Scarlette tells me to find a booth while she orders for the both of us. We stand in the middle of the floor as I start a mini argument about how she has to stop paying for me.
"How about...no. Sit, or your milkshake and fries are gone," she threatens. And that's how she won that argument as I'm sitting a both near the door. I play with the napkin dispensers as Scarlette takes almost ten minutes to come back with a tray of our food.
"I though they kidnapped you," I joke, reaching for my milkshake.
"It'd be a true tragedy if they did," she responds and lets me take my fries before sliding the tray towards her to get her burger. We eat in silence for a little before she sparks up another conversation. "When are you coming back to school?"
"Um," I swallow a fry. "Soon."
"Hm," she sets down her burger. "When is soon? Your friend is forcing me to school because you're not there. Jackson is being a bitch about it too."
"Language," I warn her. She curses at least a thousand times in one sentence. "And soon, I promise."
Scarlette finishes her burger then washes it down with water. I watch her wipe her hands off with a napkin but quickly avert my eyes as she looks back over to me.
"We miss you. Especially baby bitch Jackson. Says he needs another guy friend or something," Scarlette muses but gives me no time to respond as she goes to throw away both our trash.
The guilt I felt for avoiding my friends crawled up from the deepest pits of my stomach. It could come out at any second, my brain going into overdrive telling me a million ways about how I should apologize. I wonder what they think about me now? Scarlette places her hand on my shoulder with a stick of gum. I take it from her and pop it into my mouth.
"Let's get you home. I have to go somewhere, sadly." she says, giving me a small smile. I nod and we leave the restaurant, Scarlette leaving behind a ten dollar tip.
We drive back to my house in a comfortable silence. We held hands the entire time letting me know that everything was still okay. When we get there, my parents car are nowhere to be seen which is good. They'd hound me about my whereabouts and Scarlette too. She's my friend, so there's no reason to hide her, but still... I don't know.
"Hopefully I'll see you at school soon. Skipping is my thing," she jokes, turning to me.
"Yeah, but wait." I take out my phone, swiping to the camera app. I hold it up and lean over so my lips meet Scarlette's cheek. She looks surprised as I snap the picture, and I give her no time to say anything as I bolt out of her car. I make it into my house with an intense blush and smile painting my features. "I can't believe I did that."
I peek out a window to see Scarlette's car still there, and my phone dings. I look down at it and laugh before going up to my room. I make sure Scarlette is gone, so I don't just leave her sitting there. I jump into my bed while re-reading the same text message.
Scarlette: come to school. i owe you