“Okay, so here’s the plan, we’re each going to get 10,000 tickets each, and we’ll get it together. Deal?” Cassadee stated. We were standing over by the coin dispenser eying up the giant stuffed monkey that unfortunately needed 20,000 tickets.
I bit my lip with my eyes wandering around the prize counter until seeing something that fit my interests rather than the fluffy monkey. “Okay, how about, we have a little competition. That Totoro is also 20,000 tickets, so whoever get their coveted prize first, wins.”
“So you’re getting the bunny looking thing and I’ll get the monkey, and whoever gets em first wins?” Cass asked for clarification. I nodded with a smirk. I was very well aware of the fact that I would be broke by the end of the summer, but c’mon, it was a giant Totoro with soft gray and white fur that killed me. I’d be a fool not to get it. It just gives me more of a reason to get a job.
It’s been three days that we’ve been here, and I have yet to start job hunting. My dad suggested some little places on Brindle Ave—the “main” street of shops and little store—and on the boardwalk. I didn’t know how interesting it would be to work at a pizza place or icecream parlor without being tempted to eat the inventory. I blew at looking, so I wasn’t too sure what was out there yet. Better sooner or later to get one; I’m just hoping I can find something with my interests.
“When I win, that adorable ‘bunny looking thing’ will join me,” I said dramatically raising my fist in the air. I ignored Cassadee rolling her. She grabbed her quarters from the machine dumping them into a plastic cup that the arcade fortunately provided for us. It was just us, the machines, and twenty dollars in quarters for now.
The arcade we were at was one of the bigger ones on the boardwalk. It was huge. There were crane machines, casino slots, games, and things for the ticket junkies. The prize selection was larger than any other one I’ve seen, especially since it had that I life sized Totoro. If not that, it was slightly bigger. My Neighbor the Totoro is one of my all time favorite classic movies along with Spirited Away. They were two of the movies I grew up with, and I always wanted a little Totoro. But having a bigger is one is something I would rather have, though.
“Fine. What does the loser and winner get?” Cass asked. It slipped my mind about that.
“I guess the winner gets their puppy and the loser gets a beanie baby from the crane machine. Would you rather have a little bear or a little kitten?” I asked confident that I would win. There was a little cockiness in my voice and a sly grin on my face.
“Ha,ha,ha.” She emphasized each “Ha” poking me in the arm. “Fine. Let’s just meet back here at 9.”
That gave me a good hour to juggle all this together. We were separating and meeting back at the front near the crane machines, so I had to go and find the best source of tickets. I wasn’t a jedi master at these ticket games like my mom was, but I wasn’t terrible.
I found one where you press the button and have to try and land the light on the middle bulb. I stood on the blue side putting in one of my quarters, watching the light spin around the wheel. When I pressed the button, it landed four spots away from the goal. So close.
Five tickets emerged from the dispenser. Unsatisfied, I put another quarter in. This time getting two away. I swore under my breath getting closer but not close enough. Seven more added to the ticket line, and only three did the next time when I got five spots away. I gave up on the pretty quick not satisfied.
I know I wasn’t going to get all of them tonight, but I wanted to get off to a good start. Three quarters in with fifteen tickets. I wandered around looking around with my cup in my hand. I saw a lever that seemed to maybe do the trick.
I put the required two quarters in and pulled the lever. The wheel spun with the arrow slowing it down. It was like the wheel of fortune kind of thing that got me twenty five tickets in one spin giving me a grand total of forty. I tried again getting fifteen, and since a little girl was waiting behind me, I moved on.
I moved around running into Cassadee a few times seeing that we had a pretty equal amount so far. It seemed like this places was moving from its prime time. It was slowing down, but it was still packed with kids and teenagers, not to mention how dying hot it was. I had to take a few steps outside every so often just for a breather. I got a few more tickets, and with a little less than twenty minutes left, I was running low on quarters.
“Dammit,” I groaned to myself getting nothing from this machine. I tried twice hoping maybe I would have better luck but no. Each time, I got nothing wasting a dollar on it. You were supposed hit the buttons when they lit up, but when three lit up at one time and only made a flicker, it was nearly impossible to win. I needed simple and fast, which definitely wasn’t this game.
“Having a hard time?” someone said leaning on the machine next to me.
I didn’t say anything just turned and went in the opposite direction. He gave me a knot in my stomach, and not the good kind. I haven’t seen this guy since the first day I got here, and I didn’t plan on seeing him again. Why he came up to me was beyond me. I didn’t think he would even bother to remember what I looked like; I thought I would be some one time show up.
Alex caught up next to me, “What’s the matter? Did I say something?” the grin on his face was prominent that this was a joke for him. I knew it was. This was unexpected, and I didn’t get it.
“I’m just confused,” I said stopping and turning to the boy with the cheeky grin.
“About?” he asked oblivious.
“Never mind. I gotta go.” I felt like this conversation was far too long, so cutting it short wasn’t hard to do. I should have known that he would have been persistent for an answer not letting it go. So he followed me with “wait” slipping from his voice.
Dropping my shoulders, I turned back to him. “What did I do? We didn’t even say two words to each other until tonight.” He rested his hands in the pocket of his shorts leaning back on one of the crane machines.
“Actually, you spoke four, I spoke none, and besides what are you even doing here?” I replied. His high self-esteem radiated off of him as he pulled his hands out of his pockets and crossing them at his chest.
“Came with Jack, Austin, and Aria. They went off somewhere, and I saw and recognized you from the other day, so I figured why not?”
“Well, they’re probably worried sick about you, so I’ll see you later…maybe,” I turned on my heels heading for the escape only to be dragged right back in. Why did he continue this so bad? We met once barely making a speck of eye contact three days ago. I could how self-confident he was, and I remembered Jack telling me that he was high on his new clique. They morphed into this.
“Damn. Are you this difficult with everyone?” he asked once again meeting up with me.
“Only the pompous ones,” I snickered back. My remarks only made him laugh and grin even wider as if I was fueling his arrogance. He ran on sarcasm and snide remarks.
“I didn’t even do anything to you,” he replied in somewhat disbelief.
“Again, what do you want?” I asked. I crossed my arms at him like he did before.
“I just wanted to have a friendly conversation, is that too much to ask?” Alex replied. He followed me while I walked to the wheel of fortune like machine once more putting in the quarters. Alex’s hand beat mine to the lever pulling it for me. I gave him a quick glare and sigh getting a snobbish scoff.
The wheel spun while the two of us stood there not saying anything. I tried to keep my eyes on anything expect for him, because I know if I didn’t he would just smile and smirk embarrassingly turning my face red. But the wheel slowed landing on the big yellow number 50. He clapped his hands and laughed while my face did indeed turn a deep red as the tickets slipped from the machine. The amount of space there was to actually get that amount blew me away. I would like to believe that people ever so rarely got one of the bigger numbers and this was pure luck. It just so happens that it was Alex who got the winning number and me being the one who was trying to slow his gloating down.
“How about I take those,” he said waiting for them to finish. Alex folded them in an even pile happily at my distaste.
“It was my money,” I replied hoping he knew there was no way in hell I was giving up; I needed and was going to get that Lapras.
“It was my spin,” he shot back at me ripping the tickets from the machine. He grasped them in his hands as a way to tell me that he was in no mind giving them back. Regardless about it being my money, Alex had full intention on keeping them in spite of me, which was typical.
“Okay, I’ll tell you what. You go again, and if you get at least… 25, you can have them all. If you get less than they’re all mine. Deal?” he twitched his eyebrows at me intending that there was no way I could get more than 25 on this spin. It may have been pure luck that he was able to get the fifty, but I was planned to beat the odds this time.
Altogether, there were twelve spots on the wheel. In each spot remained the number of tickets you could get—2,5,10,,15,18,20,25,30,45,50, 75, 100. Of course, it wouldn’t be considered a rip off unless all the spots were different widths. The 100 be almost too thin to get as well as the 75 and 50 being only a tad bigger. The lower numbers were the bigger ones increasing your chances of getting those ones.
I changed my grimace back to the machines putting the quarters in, which I happened to be almost out of. I pulled the lever standing and waiting with my arms crossed at my chest. It spun slowing down and ticking at each number. I tried to give off the impression that I would confidently walk away with all the seventy five plus tickets, but it was as if he could see right through me. I hated how he looked at me with the look of superiority. Why would he rather stand here with me, someone who would rather follow along with her mom’s vegetarian diet plans than give him the time of day, instead of hanging with his friends who all somehow tolerated each other.
The wheel soon froze, and all I could hear was: “better luck next time, princess.” Alex snatched the eighteen tickets from the machine and adding them to his pile. I dropped my shoulders grabbing my cup of tickets and three quarters that I still had left.
I gave Alex a good-job-now-I’m-leaving sort of look that he easily picked up. I turned around pulling my hair over my shoulders in the process. It was wavy and salty at the moment which was unbearable for me, only because I hate my natural hair. The salty, summer night air wasn’t doing much good for it either.
“Yo wait,” Alex said behind me.
I slowly made an irritated turn back to him wondering what it could be this time. “You forgot something, sunshine,” he winked tossing something in my direction. I was late to react, but I was able to catch the fuzzy, blue and white stuffed dog. I looked down at it in confusion than up at him. He gave me grin and raise of the eyebrows before wandering off in the other direction.
I would try to make the fight that I wasn’t blushing, but I would be lying. I hated it, especially cause I didn’t like him. He was like that kid in school that was constantly getting under people’s skin, yet he was proud of it for some enigmatic reason like he won a medal or a trophy or something. He was using me as a target fueling off of my intolerance for him. All I was doing was watering Bambi’s garden where he pranced around picking daisies with Flowers. The only difference was I didn’t have any against Jack at all, and Alex was constantly catching me off guard.
He would say one thing, but mean something else. His tones would change and he would do that annoying little thing with his eyebrows. I looked down at the little puppy that would have made me undeniably smile if from any other guy, but since it was from him, I pursed my lips hoping the blush on my face wasn’t too apparent.
Cassadee was already there waiting for me. I knew that she already had more than me at the moment from how much fuller her cup was to mine. I probably would have had more if he didn’t rob me of them. I don’t know what made me go along with his deal, but I should have known I would have lost. I would have been better off snatching them from him and continuing on.
“Looks like I’m ahead,” she said taking a look down at my little stash.
“I’m aware,” I groaned back. She narrowed her eyes at me them landing on the little dog in my hands. I knew I was going to have to explain that I didn’t spend my money on it, and someone had given it to me. That story started when she pointed to it ending with a sigh from me. It wasn’t that I didn’t appreciate being thought of, but I wanted to know why.
“That’s…interesting?” I could tell she didn’t know what to say. I didn’t either. I figured I would just shrug it off and let it go. I lacked experience in the boyfriend and romance department, so I was a little vacant on this. Not that I would ever consider him a boyfriend, this was new. I was a novice in the grand scheme of it all being positive that he knew very well his way around getting what he wanted.
It being close to nine, we headed out of the arcade. I didn’t feel like heading back to the house yet. The boardwalk was packed, so we swiveled around all the madness finding a path for ourselves. I saw the repeated sweatshirt and t-shirt stores and henna shops, which I was definitely getting at one point. At first, I enjoyed seeing all the stores wanting to go into a lot of places, but after a little while, nothing caught neither one of our eyes, and I was hoping to be swooned over by not being on a boardwalk for a while. You would think that you were walking in circles, but the promenade only goes straight.
“What street are we on?” I asked clueless to the street signs above our heads. We did find a few stores with dresses and old records, which had a special place in my heart.
My mom owned tons of old records. She would sometimes go to one of the old stores, grab one, bring it home for us to lie around and listen to it. While spending a lot of time listening to bands like Nirvana and The Ramones, it was interesting hearing things from before them. There were even the occasions where my mom would recognize the songs saying, “Oh my god, Stella, this is some of the stuff that I used to listen to when I was your age.”
“I dunno,” Cassadee said back bending her fingers back in attempt to crack them. This was farther than we walked the other day with my dad, so I wasn’t too sure. We were out of the center of the boardwalk being able to see the on beach condos.
We turned around deciding that we would walk until we saw the pizza shop that we went with Jack the other day. While even though there were tons just like it, we were winging it thinking we would recognize it. I was clueless with the locations and directions. It was something that I failed to master a while ago unless it was New York, New York. I could tell you how many blocks it was from one place to another adding amount of second or minutes. Anything out of that area, I was useless.
We would walk until we made it back to the arcade, and that was the sign the sign that we walked too far. When we passed Juliet with her boyfriend at one point, I was tempted to ask her where to go, but I knew I would be wasting my breath. We only exchanged a little amount of words to each trying our best to stay out of each other’s way. A little ‘excuse me’ would happen trying to pass each other in the hallway in the morning, but not much else. Any relationship with her was out of the question.
Around twenty after ten, we recognized a place right off the boardwalk that would lead us back to the house. It was some motel with light up blue waves that I didn’t was possible to miss and not spark a memory. With its parking lot half full, the motel was dark with residents hiding away inside or exploring the promenade.
By now, the rest of the city was pretty quiet. The farther you got away from the coast, the more everything to shut off. It was all hushed with street lights lighting up sections of the street. I liked the placid ambiance where everything seemed to be still. With the setting fixed with the undisturbed air, I could easily loose myself in this with no worries or issues, not that I really had any at the moment. The only thing I could here was the tap from our footsteps and the light thud of my exhales. I swung my arms forward and back and I walk perpetually looking up ahead of me and down at my feet. It was just a habit I had when I walked.
Back on our street, you wouldn’t even know that there was a party up just some blocks. Cass and I settled ourselves back on a couple beach towels right at the tip of ocean waves. It would come up and washed the sand a dark beige just a few feet away, and it relaxed me with a different kind of tranquility. There were tons of broken shells underneath us, but I didn’t mind it. I would think tips and edges would be digging into my back, but the towels being so thick blocked out the shells for the most part.
“The last time I was at a beach, my parents were signing for a divorce,” Cassadee started. “Little eleven year old me staying with my grandma in Jersey while my parents untied the knot.”
I was nine and she was eleven when things split within the family. The only difference was that she hasn’t seen her dad since she was eleven. Right before the split was the last time she saw her dad. He promised her that things between he and Cassadee wouldn’t change, but they didn’t even have the chance to keep everything the same. She was clueless about where he was currently resided, but she wished she did.
All this would soon be disturbed by a crowd of ruckus stepping foot on the backyard beach. I didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was. I rolled my eyes, palmed my hands to my face, and sighed. They couldn’t have been sober. No one giggles a hiccup or speaks as loud as they were in a vague slur unless they were intoxicated. I barely took a minute for Juliet and Andy to sit down taking up most of Cassadee’s towel. I noticed the can of Heineken and bottle of Stella they possessed. Their eyes wandered around the beach for a second before keeping us as their focal point.
“What’s up, sissies,” Juliet asked us. She pressed her can between her lips. I assumed she was taking her last sips the way she shook it dry above her head. Cassadee and I shared a glimpse of confusion and wonder. Andy and Juliet were oblivious to us mumbling things to each other than I couldn’t understand even if I tried.
“Yo, hey!” Andy soon shouted behind us, which I could only assume was the rest of the posse.
I stood up from my towel figuring this was the cue to leave. I yanked the striped towel from off the ground upset. I knew that it wouldn’t last long and she would have to come back home at some point. Her friends hadn’t been around the house the few days that we’ve been here, so I didn’t expect them to come by at any point. I thought home was the one place I was safe.
My opinion of them still stood with the help of Alex and their drunken interruption. We had yet to meet other people to hopefully befriend, but I still had to start job hunting tomorrow, so maybe I’d get luck with that.
I could easily say that I was one of those kids that never drank and stayed completely clear of drugs, but I had just graduated, so that would only be partly true. Drinking was something that I was guilty of every now and then. I was able to learn my limits, so it was easier to handle, I guess. I can honestly say that I have not gotten completely wasted or experimented with cigarettes. My mom was aware of some of the things that I did, and the first time I tried drinking, she definitely was not happy.
I was fourteen. Some people get involved due to peer pressure, or they’re curious, or they just wanted to try it. They give in to the temptation for that uncontrollable buzz that could be described as an invincible feeling even if in reality, they’re completely vulnerable. Some try to drown out troubles or need something to relieve some sort of pain, but not me. My first experience in freshman year wasn’t something I could have knowingly prevented.
It was around April, and a sophomore Alyssa Ryke was throwing a party; it being her sixteenth birthday. By then, I was already friends with Cassadee with a few other acquaintances that were invited. We tagged along, because we thought that it would be fun to go to a sophomore party. With that, Alyssa reserved a place where alcohol was not permitted along with being under age. Of course there were parents, but when the water and soda bottles are filled with beer or some other mixed drink, it was easier to get it past the adults.
I wasn’t in on the whole ‘these aren’t filled with soda and water, so prepared to get pretty drunk’ plan, I sipped down on some of the Mountain Dews and Pepsi. Did I think they tasted weird? Yah, but I didn’t think much about it. Long story short, I had quite a bit of drinks, as did every informed person, coming home not knowing how to explain. My mom could smell the liquor from a mile away, and the convincing her that I didn’t know wasn’t an easy task. She didn’t believe me, and I was grounded for three months.
I can’t even tell you how happy and grateful I was that she even started trusting me again. When my punishment ended, my mom would sit me down wanting to hear more about this. I continued to explain what happened which led to one of the most embarrassing moments in my high school life. She called some parents wondering if this was case. When she got around to calling Alyssa’s parents, it was as if they were just learning about this. I can honestly say, having your mom call an unaware set of parents and telling them that their under-aged daughter snuck loads of liquor to her party and having Alyssa Ryke and her whole crew have it out for you until they graduated was not the most splendid thing to ever happen to me.
“Leaving so soon, pumpkin?” an all too familiar voice said. His arm slung over my shoulders giving me no choice but to purse my lips and let the volcano in my mind erupt. With his head too close to mine for my liking, his breath reeked of alcohol, and I was able to eye up his bottle of Stella in his other hand.
Cassadee gave me a sympathetic look when standing up from her towel letting Austin occupy the rest. It didn’t take long for Aria and Jack circle around probably just as intoxicated as the rest of them. There was just no way around being here with them, was there?
“Okay, you guys win. Have fun,” I ducked out from Alex’s grasp. I ignored his pout continuing to wrap up the towel. They would have to get Cassadee’s since they seemed to mark their territory on it.
“C’mon, lovey, don’t leave,” Alex said to me holding his arms out in the air. I could only roll my eyes, and I could hear the laugh from Cassadee. They didn’t notice or they just ignored her, but either way they seemed oblivious.
The nicknames and the sudden urge to talk to me lit to bulbs in my head. One, he either liked getting me annoyed. Maybe he liked the way he knew he could rub me the wrong way just by giving me that smirk and a snarky comment. The way I shot back at him was like handing him a medal or an achievement. The more I gave him the attention he craved, the more he would bug me. I couldn’t help it, though. I naturally said these things knowing he wouldn’t leave me alone. I hated it, and I knew that if I wanted it to stop before it even started, I would have to act like I wasn’t bothered.

Notes

sorry it took so long to upload! Been slipping with ideas and time, but I was able to get around to it(: not to sure how much of this chapter makes sense. I feel like some parts don't make sense or aren't that well done, but i hope it's okay and you like it(:

please comment, vote, and subscribe<3

-Gii xxx