"Ooh, let's go in here." Skylar says, pointing to a door we're happening to pass by on our quiet stroll through Sea World.
"What's in there?" I ask.
She shrugs, shoving her hand into her front pockets in search for something, "I don't know, I've never gone here during the day before."
I reach out and jiggle the knob, but as I expected, it's locked, "We should probably stick to illegally walking around. I don't think it'd be smart to put the cherry on top for the cops and break and enter. We'd get in a hell of a lot of trouble."
She rolls her eyes and pulls her hand out to reveal a black little bobby pin, "Ah," she grins and steps forward, sticking the hair clip into the lock and giving it a little shake, "You only get in trouble," she says and we both her an inconspicuous click and she smirks, "when you get caught." She turns the knob and the door swings open, "Ta-daaa!"
I raise my eyebrows and pull the bobby pin out of the knob, "Impressive. I didn't know you could do that... Then again," I shrug.
"Then again there's a lot you don't know." Skylar finishes for me softly. I lift my eyes to look at her and she offers me a smile, though it doesn't really reach her eyes. There's a pause before she speaks again, gesturing inside, "C'mon, let's go adventure." She steps into the darkness and I look after her before letting out a sigh. I stick the little bobby pin into my back pocket before following after her.
"I think this is a storage room or something. Maybe there's more in another room." I turn the flashlight on my iPhone on as we roam around the dim space and Skylar crosses the room to another door. I follow her absentmindedly as she opens it and walks through. She stops abruptly in her tracks and I slam into her back after I've turned around from closing the door behind me, "Whoa – "
She falters a bit in her stance before glancing back at me and grinning. I move over to stand next to her, the entire halves of our bodies brushing up against each other. I look up in awe and gape at the aquarium surrounding us. Above us and beyond the glass walls is the deep blue of water and sea animals crossing it the way birds move through the sky.
I turn to look at Skylar and she's wide-eyed; completely engulfed by the grandness of it all, "It's like a whole other world in here." She says softly. I've been in aquariums before, so my amazement isn't at its highest peak, though I can say there's beauty in being underwater at night and not surrounded by a bunch of loud tourists with flashing cameras. And even more beauty as well in the expression that's taken over Skylar's face.
For a moment I see an elementary Skylar, eyes wiser than any other 10 year old I knew; as if she's seen more than a child at that age should have, but still has hope that the world is better than those things. And as I watch her look up in wonder I'm able to forget the catastrophic things she did the past couple days.
"Hey Skylar," I say, holding my hand out to her. I don't know what's been going on with her lately, or what's going through her head, or what her intentions for tonight are, or what her plans for tomorrow are. But what I do know is that I am with Skylar now and it is just me and her and we will never be as young as we are in this moment. We are still kids and right now the world is our playground. "Will you give me the honor of accompanying me into tonight's adventure to Neverland?"
She grins, interlocking her fingers through mine, "As long as I get to play Peter."
***
"Slow down there, Wendy!"
My running slows into a walk and my breathing's hard and there's sweat running down my skin, but in spite of this there's a great grin spread across my face. I turn my head to the right and my nose brushes against Skylar's cheek. She pulls her head back so she can look at me too. Her eyes are filled with the most light I've seen in days; the tiny little flame dancing in the midst of the bright blue surrounding it.
I jump a bit to get a better grip on Skylar as she keeps her arms locked around my neck and I piggy back her through the park. "I'm pretty sure Peter Pan didn't make Wendy carry him through Neverland on her back."
She smiles at me before sliding off my back, "Well unfortunately, this Peter lacks fairy dust."
I look over her shoulder at the rest of the park as I pant. We've been running and skipping and crawling and cartwheeling and dancing all over the amusement park and I decide that a relaxing moment sitting on the edge of a pool with clean water is something we earned. "Hey, I'll race you to the Shamu stadium."
"What – "
She turns to find the stadium, but I'm already pushing past her, "Readysetgo!"
"Oh is that how you're gonna play?" Skylar shouts after me with a laugh. I hear her quick footsteps behind me and pick up my pace.
"You got nothing on me now, Sky!" I shout back. When we were younger, Skylar was always the faster one. But to be fair I wasn't climbing trees and walking 50 miles a day to places like she would. "And the winner is...!" I make it to the edge of one of the pools and throw my hands up in victory, "Ca – "
"Skylar!" I hear her say behind me and before I know it she's jumped onto my back and the two of us are tumbling towards the water. I'm vaguely aware of Skylar screaming and laughing in my ear and I have no time to grab onto something before we're submerged into the icy coldness of the pool.
In a couple seconds I resurface and I'm breathing hard from the sudden freezing temperature. Skylar appears a couple inches in front of me and I don't even get a word out before she squirts water into my face from her mouth. She laughs aloud and I look at her, "Ha ha," I say sarcastically.
"I just baptised you." She jokes as she treads water in front of me.
I raise my eyebrows, "They do that in Neverland?"
"If they do they probably use fairy dust inst – "
"Who's out there?!" A loud voice yells out from a couple feet away and the beam of a flashlight lands only a few feet in the water away from us.
At the same time Skylar and I's eyes go wide and we say one name in alarm before going under the water, "Captain Hook."
We swim deeper into the pool and watch as the circle of light travels all around the surface of the water. Throughout all the messing around and joking I had forgotten that what we were doing was illegal and that a famous tourist attraction like Sea World would, of course, have security. But when I look in front of me and Skylar catches my gaze to make a funny face at me, a few bubbles escape my mouth as I laugh and I could really care less whether we end up getting caught and even going to jail.
I would spend a year in jail if it meant that I could spend another night with Skylar acting like little kids again.
Though I am surprised that we didn't run into any security earlier.
The light disappears and we wait a couple more seconds before quietly rising back to the surface of the water. Skylar grabs onto the edge of the pool to keep herself afloat as she fills her lungs with air. I grab onto it as well and lift myself to peek over the edge. I see a retreating figure, most likely the security, and when Skylar drops her hand into the water after wiping her face it makes a small splashing noise that causes the figure to stop in his steps and turn back around toward the pool.
My eyes widen and Skylar looks at me, "Is – " I throw my hand over her mouth, cutting off her words, and push her against the wall in front of me to flatten us against the edge so unless the security guard stood directly above us right at the edge of the pool, he wouldn't see us.
The entire front of my body is literally pressed right against Skylar's, the palm of my other hand flat against the wall on the left of her head, in my attempt to keep us as invisible as possible and to keep her from moving so we don't disturb the water any further. I hear the security guard's footsteps as he approaches the pool. Skylar's eyebrows pull together and I shake my head slightly, our faces literally only an inch apart.
I keep my breathing as inconspicuous as possible until the static sound of a walkie talkie fills the silent night, followed by a voice in the same static matter, "Jones, come in. Over."
I hear a click, probably the security guard removing the talking device from his belt, and then his low voice reply, "Montez, this is Jones. Go ahead."
"Jones, what's your 20?" The voice responds.
"I'm at the Shamu stadium. Over."
"I'm gonna need you at the Flamingo Cove. One of them managed to escape while we were on break. Over."
"Well we did take an hour longer break than we're supposed to..." In front of me Skylar shakes a bit as she threatens to laugh aloud and I bite down on my lip to prevent from laughing as well.
"Flamingo Cove. Now."
Jones sighs, "Roger that." And with that his footsteps recede and Skylar and I stay still until the sound disappears altogether.
Something wet grazes the palm of my hand and I pull my hand back from Skylar's face in disgust when I realize it was her tongue. She snorts, leaning her forehead on my shoulder as she laughs. I splash my hand in the water, "Gross." Then look at her and start laughing as well, "Somehow you releasing that flamingo half an hour ago doesn't seem so much as a bad thing anymore."
She laughs again before I hear a distant splash, "Wait, sh." Sky closes her mouth and we wait in silence and I turn around to look at the pool.
"Cam," Skylar whispers.
"I think I heard something." I whisper over my back, still searching the pool.
"Shamu's in the other pool. We're safe."
My eyebrows come together and I turn around to see a flash of a fin two pools down, "Oh." I whisper, though I'm not completely sure why I'm still whispering, "That explains why weren't eaten yet."
"Yeah." Skylar whispers back with a nod and for the following seconds after that there's a moment of silence as we listen to the rippling of the water and the rushing of the wind.
"Cam?" Sky whispers again and I turn to look at her, mentally taken aback by how close we are. There was no reason for us to be flat against the wall anymore but I still don't move and neither does she.
"Yeah?" I ask, hoping she mistakes the rapid beating of my heart for the movement of the water.
"Remember when you kissed me in the bathroom?"
I feel my face flush instantly, grateful for the darkness surrounding us. I had never thought we'd ever speak of this. "Uh, yeah. That was weird. Sorry I did that." I say, my face burning hotter than ever.
"It's not like that was the first time we kissed, though."
"We were 10 the last time we kissed and we only did it to get our first kisses over with. We both gargled soda after we did that."
"Oh yeah, I remember."
"The bathroom was a spur of the moment kind of thing, I didn't mean to do that." I say, biting down on my lip and praying my nervous voice doesn't give anything away.
"Was it 'cause you were half naked?"
"Yeah, I was trying to distract you from it." I say, my breathing becoming erratic. She nods and we fall into an awkward silence. I decide that I should probably back up and give her some space but she starts speaking again, "You think you could distract me again?"
For a second I'm not completely sure if I heard her right or if I was just imagining her saying this but I go for it anyway because I would not have survived another second being so close to her, but not getting to be close enough, and there's no time to rethink it because the distance between our lips is closed within the tenth of a second and it all happens so quickly and before I know it my lips are on hers and her lips are on mine and all my thoughts are zeroed in on the taste of those lips and the way it moves in unison with mine.
At first, the kiss is slow; careful. Like when you dip your toe into the water to check its temperature before submerging yourself into it completely. Skylar pulls away and her breath is hot on my lips, which is hovering only a small distance above hers. Suddenly this whole cautious act isn't enough and I decide that not only do I want her, but I want to drown in her completely.
Without a second thought I pin Skylar against the side of the pool, my lips crashing against hers and the water surrounding us splashing violently. Her hands are locked behind my neck, pulling me closer towards her, as if it were possible. Her mouth opens against mine and my tongue grazes her bottom lip; our bodies are practically molding into one another and our clothes, flowing irritatingly around us, seem to form a barrier between us and I have the sudden urge to tear them away.
It's this thought that makes me pull away from Sky, allowing me to gather all my self control. She's your best friend, what the hell is wrong with you Cam?! Have a little restraint, my God!
I back up, allowing her room as we both breathe heavily, as if we've been running and jumping through the park again.
She runs her hand through her wet, stringy hair and it gets caught in a tangle. She keeps it there as she inhales and exhales deeply.
I glance at her sheepishly, "Sorry." No you're not.
"No, um – " She says between breaths, "It's uh - it's fine."
"I didn't mean to uh... That wasn't supposed to – " You did mean to, Cam. That's whAT'S WRONG WITH YOU.
"Don't - don't worry about it."
I splash my hands awkwardly in the water in front of me, chewing on my bottom lip, "Okay." WHAT JUST HAPPENED AND WHY DO I FEEL DIZZY?!
There's another awkward silence and Sky's the one to break it once again, "So uh, you wanna go wash this down with some ice cream?"
I glance up at Skylar gratefully and she flashes me a hopeful smile. I can't help but smile back, "Yes, please."
☼ I apologize that I haven't updated sooner and I also apologize that this story is a fucking roller coaster of emotions and that one chapter it's all happy and the next it's sad as shit and I also apologize because it's only going to get worse from here so brace yourselves my lovely readers. ((Btw this story hit a thousand votes and that's really cool thank you guys so much)) ☼