Story written on May 4th, 2018

Yesterday I had my first 'romantic' situation with someone. I was freaking out but it didn't feel that weird, it reminded me

a lot of being with my dad; which I know sounds weird, but if you’re close with me, then you’d probably understand. To fill you

in, the majority of my grade went to Washington D.C. for a school trip but I didn't go, and my friend Eva's boyfriend,

Ethan, stayed back with me (not saying he stayed back for me, but he did stay back). Yesterday the staybacks went to the

aquarium and we watched an IMAX movie about pandas. At first, I was only writing about the situation where the romance

(is it really romance, though?) happened, but I decided to take it back to the beginning; to when we first started leaving for

the aquarium. I can’t say this entire story is completely accurate, either. I have bad memory, alright? Additional parts have

been added for your better understanding of everything that happened since I can’t remember everything. I can promise you

that that one special moment is probably the most accurate out of everything else. I apologize in advance.

Nothing much happened until our class started going onto the bus to go to the aquarium. On the 1st of May, my class and I went

to a museum nearby, and I asked my friend, Ethan, if I could sit next to him on the bus. He had accepted my offer, but I could see

on his face that he probably had wanted to sit with someone else. We bonded nicely there, though. But anyway, yesterday, the 3rd

of May, we also sat next to each other on the bus. This time, we didn't have to ask each other. I guess sitting next to each other on the way and back from the museum kind of showed a sign that we’d sit next to each other again. 

“I should’ve brought my bag.” Ethan said in frustration as he ruffled his hair, “I’m going to have to carry these the whole time.” He said, glaring towards his brown bag of lunch and his note catcher book that we use to take notes and write about our stories during stayback.

“I can put them in my bag,” I said, unzipping my backpack. I took his lunch and note catcher from his grasp and put them in my bag and zipped it back up.

Now that I think about it, maybe I was the one who made the first move? During the bus trip to the aquarium (approximately 35 minutes), I had fallen asleep and I ended up being moved from sleeping with my head back against the seat to Ethan’s shoulder. Eventually I had woke up from the amount of speed and bumps that the bus was taking in, and I was really flabbergasted when I had realized I had been sleeping on his shoulder. He seemed apologetic, yet I don’t think he was really bothered by it. We sat for a few minutes in silence as I looked out the window across from me and talked to Mia from time to time.

“You can sleep on my shoulder if you want,” his words suddenly caught me off guard, “I don’t mind.” I turned my head to see him slightly smiling and I sighed. I wasn’t going to say no, I was super tired. I had tried to fall asleep again but it ended with no prevail. The road was way too bumpy and we’d keep going flying out of our seats for a quick heartbeat. After our weird silence, the bus finally reached its destination, at the aquarium. 

“Take your seats kids. The bus is still trying to find a good place to stop,” One of the four teachers had said, “the aquarium doesn’t open for another 15 minutes, so you all just need to sit down and wait.” Everyone groaned and sat back down, a few taking out their phones. I looked out of Ethan and I’s window and noticed lots and lots of other kids going to the aquarium. Everyone’s eyes moved from outside back to another teacher when she suddenly stood up to speak.

“There are a lot of kids who are also going to the aquarium, and you all are a part of the older gang. So be aware of the little kids, everyone.” She said, finishing her words and sitting back down. After a few minutes of people yelling over Fortnite loses on their phones, the teachers finally allowed us to get off the bus. Everyone said thank you to the bus driver and got off the bus. I followed Mia as she followed everyone else who was in front of her to a large dock that showed off a pretty patch of water.

“So much liter..” Ethan said, a bit disgusted.

“Those are rocks you poop!!” Gigi yelled towards Ethan, making him laugh in surprise, followed by Gigi’s quiet laughter.

“I wish I could just sit here and sleep.” Ethan said, brushing his hand across a chair that faced the water. Our class was all over the place until the teachers finally called all of us for a group photo.

“Get together, everyone!” One of the teachers said in excitement. To cut it short, I can’t smile. After we took some photos, we all thought that we’d hang out a bit more at the dock but we noticed the teachers had started walking towards the aquarium along with a few other kids so we just decided to follow.

“Where are we going?” Mia asked, a bit confused.

“I have no idea.” I said, looking towards her as I replied and Gigi and Nathaniel also shrugged.

“Where’d everyone go?” I asked, looking around.

“I don’t know, man.” Nathaniel replied, shrugging his shoulders once more as I finally spotted a classmate walking into the side door. 

“Guys, we go this way, I think.” I said, jestering them to the side door as I walked there. We walked into there to find a room that looked a bit like an elementary lunchroom with our classmates all sitting in the chairs with younger kids across the room. I noticed Ethan standing near a table and I walked towards him, everyone else following me. Gigi and Nathaniel took a seat on the left side of the table, while Mia, Ethan and I were on the other side. 

“Hey Nathaniel, let’s arm wrestle.” I heard Gigi say as I was admiring Mia’s drawing skills as she drew a dragon. My eyesight moved from Mia’s hand movements to Gigi and Nathaniel’s as they gripped hands and began to fight. Gigi was victorious and had beaten Nathaniel. Eventually, it turned out into a full-on tournament between the five of us. I was a bit upset over my ranking, but at least I wasn’t last. The ranking came out as this:

1. Ethan

2. Gigi

3. Mia

4. Phebe

5. Nathaniel

I was pretty shocked that Mia beat me; but she was the oldest out of all of us, yet the shortest. I admit I’m a lot weaker than I used to be, so I am pretty shocked that I actually didn’t get last, now that I think about it. After awhile of general talking, the teachers had finally called us and told everyone that we had to put our bags in a crate, and that we weren’t allowed to bring them inside the aquarium. Mia and I stood up to put our bags in the crate, followed by Gigi. Nathaniel and Ethan were left at the table, probably having some weird conversation about who knows what. After we had put our bags in the crate, we walked back to the table and waited to be allowed to leave.

“Are you going to put your drawing book in the crate?” I asked Mia, looking at her book and then looking into her eyes.

“No, I want to draw the animals.” She replies. I nod back to her as a response and look back towards the front. I feel excitement pump through my blood as I lift myself off of my chair and walk out of the lunchroom-like space next to Mia and Gigi.

“I wish I had brought my money. I left it in my bag at school.” Ethan said as we passed the gift shop. We continued to walk down the hallway, when the ceiling suddenly became more open with streamers and plastic animals.

“Dolphins!” I heard Mia yell, gesturing to the plastic animals (dolphins) that were hanging from the top of the ceiling. So innocent and cute, I had thought to myself. Mia was just that kind of person; short, yet shy and adorable. A few seconds later we exited the hallway and entered a huge room full of color and images. I looked straight forward and saw the huge tank of seals. I smiled and ran towards it, trying to get the front view before everyone else got there. THE SEALS ARE SO CUTE!! is all I could think of at that time. I mean, when is a seal not cute? Never. They’re always cute. Looking at the seals dance gracefully in the water reminded me a lot of the vine where a seal was playing the sax. Nothing’s cuter than a seal jumping onto land and jumping around, but we’ll get to that later. The seals seemed to get happier and happier when more and more people arrived and watched them strut their stuff.

“Watch us feed the seals, 11:45,” I could hear Nathaniel say to himself.

“That’s like an hour and thirty minutes..” Mia replied, looking at the board above the rocks that were planted inside the tank. In the end, we did see them feed the seals. But I’ll talk about that later. I was down the steps right in front of the tank, meanwhile Gigi, Nathaniel and Mia were up above, hovering over the tank. I decided to move my position to stand next to them, leaving the majority of the class to go next to them. I noticed Gigi was filming with her iPad, which she had brought along into the aquarium to take photos. I looked at Gigi and put my hand in front of the iPad’s camera, making her fidget and move her angle so that I couldn’t reach the camera anymore.

“Don’t hover over the tank, the seals can jump up and harm you.” A man probably in his 50’s had said to us, making all of us look in his direction. It would be pretty scary to have a seal jump up and steal Gigi’s iPad, or even our entire bodies, I thought to myself, looking towards Gigi once more as she continued to film the seals and laugh. We looked at the seals for a while, but eventually, people got bored of watching the seals just swim in a circle and decided to move on to the next section of the aquarium; the stingray petting booth. As I walked into the stingray petting booth, I could already hear the younger kids screaming a the top of their lungs over touching the slimy stingrays. Mia was one step ahead of us, speeding towards the area with ease. We quickly caught up with her but were spread apart by the number of other people gathered around the area.

​

When we got to the IMAX movie, my friend Mia decided that she was going to stay out and draw instead, since he said that IMAX movie theaters are really loud for her. I was sad because, ya know, she was my crush last year; like an obsession. I was hoping I could have giggled and had some fun with her when she awed over the pandas, but oh well. There were a lot of younger kids there and my class had to sit and wait for them to go inside first. There were little red cushion seats beside the walls, and we all decided to sit there and wait. At first, I was talking to Mia on the other side of everyone else, which was when she told me that she was going to stay behind. After our conversation had ended, I walked over to the other side, where my three other friends had been. Gigi and Ethan were sitting next to each other, and Gigi moved over to make some space for me, since everywhere else was full and squishy. I sat myself down and looked towards Gigi and Nathaniel, who was making Gigi's upbeat music through her iPad with autotune voices. I could hear Nathaniel rapping in his famous 'Donald Duck' voice over all of the commotion in the lobby. It reminds me a bit of Gigi's "please don't do cocaine ay, cocaine rots your brain ay," kind of fun rap she does. Each little part was only four measures so they'd record, pause, laugh, listen to it over and then think of another funny thing to record themselves saying. Their laughs made me happy, at least. Gigi's a big laugher, and I can't help but laugh when she laughs. I turned to look at Ethan, but he wasn't looking towards my direction. He was looking at the little kids, quite seriously.

"I like looking at little kids' shirts," I said, looking at him and breaking the silence, but making it a bit more awkward as he looked at me.

"Their shirts? What?" He said, laughing weirdly and looking at me in confusion.

"Only certain shirts. Like that kid right there," I pointed to a boy, about 4'2, with a Pokemon shirt that had multiple kinds of Pokemons on it. Starter Pokemon, maybe? From the Indigo League? Anyway, "he's wearing a Pokemon shirt. It shows me that he at least knows what Pokemon is. Which also means he could like Pokemon, or his parents like Pokemon and bought the shirt for him." The little kids had started walking towards the entrance of the theater, and so our teacher directed us to get behind the little kids. I noticed Gigi and Nathaniel continued to laugh, but eventually, Gigi had closed her iPad and walked up to join everyone else who was in the line. Slowly, we had walked into the IMAX movie theater. Ethan and I's shoulders touched while Gigi poked my back for fun from the intense crowd of people walking into the theater. Ethan was sitting to my right and Gigi was sitting to my left, with Nathaniel sitting on Gigi's left (me on her right). I felt bad for leaving Mia there by herself with a teacher, but I'm sure she would of wanted to draw during the movie anyway. Ethan always makes a joke like, "[name], hold my hand". But he never did it with me, which was kinda confusing for me. During the movie, he held out his hand past me and said, "Gigi, hold my hand" as his usual joke. Gigi had fallen asleep (we didn't really notice until after the movie ended), so she didn't respond to him. I grabbed his hand to move it out of the way and he swiftly locked his hand in mine. I was so shocked but so confused during the situation but then we kinda just rested our arms on the handrail and I just really wanted to get out of it, I felt bad for Eva honestly. But anyway, over time he adjusted himself and eventually we had locked arms and he was caressing my hand. I could feel myself blushing like a madman but I don't think he had noticed it. From the position we were in I ended up putting my head on his shoulder and he put his head on top of mine.. in all honesty, it was a new feeling and I didn't really know how to handle it. My dad used to do it to me a lot, so I kinda just figured him as my dad or something... but it was really weird, although I tried to think of him as my dad he just didn't feel like my dad. He didn't feel like Ethan either. It was so weird for me, especially because he's dating my friend Eva, and they've kissed and everything. I didn't know what to make out of it. I really, really, didn't know what to do. The scene went by so slowly, yet so quickly. I was frozen in my stance, the way we locked our arms ended up making my arm go numb; but I didn't want to tell him "You're making my arm numb", because that would've ruined the whole thing. At that point, I just tried to focus on the movie but it was so hard, he was caressing my hand... I was scared that he was going to go further because I knew that someone would eventually find out if he did, saying how Gigi was next to me and a TEACHER was right next to Ethan. After the movie ended, I'm pretty sure we both realized how tense the situation was, and we both ended up clapping and moving away from our position. I looked at him, and he looked at me, in lust... I was really nervous there. I didn't know what to say to him. I turned around to see that Gigi was sleeping, and that cleared my mind a bit. My other friend Nathaniel was sitting next to Gigi's left side (I was on her right) and we both looked at each other and laughed. We both poked Gigi's cheeks and she ended up waking up. It was cute. Our other stayback friend ended up meeting back with us outside. From there was the end of our trip to the aquarium. I sat on the bus back with Gigi, as I felt too uncomfortable to be near Ethan. Thinking about everything that happened again, that was a really weird situation to be in. I hope I never go through with something like that again.