Pencils & Polaroids

16: daddy issues

Getting a taste of our own medicines has historically proven to suck. But you know what beats that? Getting a taste of our own ideas. 

When I suggested the game Seek and Hide, the idea was supposed to be for the realm of Santa Monica. It was a piece of pivotal information to have left out the fact that the queen of the said idea was not supposed to play. Where, in the history of royalty, have monarchs played recreational games? It's like watching Coriolanus Snow enter the Hunger Games field. Ridiculously impractical. 

But this was Cross Academy and the entire school hated me a lot more than the extremity with which Snow was hated in Panem. 

Therefore, when Jayden Banks went into solitary hiding, I was forced to split around the pier in order to look for him, and god forbid, join his company when (if) I do find him. Now that the game in my head slowly started to deform because I didn't want to find Jayden Banks, I realized I had lost the essence of this whole idea. 

This game entirely depended on who Jayden found and collected before there was one person left who he clearly didn't want on his side. The person left out will be his unlabeled target of dislike and considering the people playing this round—Grayson Finley, Charlie Brown, Zach Fell, Hannah Baker, Sadie Harper, Rainer Barcross, Samantha Welch, Stella Dcruz, Brian Woods, Luke Myers, and me—let's just say the bait is very likely predictable.

He's the denner and I am his catch. It's no rocket science at all. 

So if anything, I need to find Jayden before he finds the rest of the eight players and paints a huge target on my already tainted reputation. I've given enough people a shot at doing that today.

In addition to that, the haunted house which marks the top of my embarrassing instances of life that won't ever be revisited or re-told, was his sketched-up idea. I have revenge on my mind running in loops and spirals that'll only pacify once I make Jayden bleed, cry, or worse, fear my name. 

"Whoa--watch out--" I'm told by the muscular figure with oddly familiar blonde hair I crash into. I'm confused with the image of Ivan Drago from the Rocky universe and a buried old memory of my past life when this bag of muscles steadies the glass of milkshake in his hands so it doesn't drip on me. 

And then the picture of Ivan Drago in my head burns into a pile of dust because the realization of past memories can be a total bitch. 

Both our features harden and sharpen when the unawareness turns into a complete run down memory lane. I almost expect the golden-haired boy to reconsider his decision of saving me from his milkshake and reiterating his actions by pouring it down my head. 

"Park?" He says, blinking multiple times before the sharpness of his face is replaced with puzzlement. 

Why is today the day god has decided to bring the worst of fortunes and zero odds in my favor all at once? I sigh, "Hi, Asher." 

"Wha--it's so good to see you," he announces before wrapping the milkshake in his hands to my back and giving me a totally unexpected hug. However, I appreciate how it's one-armed and he pulls away in less than two seconds. "How are you?" 

Given how Stella is here as an alumni representative, I shouldn't be this shocked at catching her batch-mate and ex-star baller of Cross Academy to be attending the Carnival. Only, Asher Reed was my boyfriend for thirteen horrible days before I dumped him in an unconventional way and at that time, he looked like Johnny Lawrence from The Karate Kid when he graduated from school. 

"Fairly alive," I say in regard to the haunted house incident just hours before. "I see you're well too." I regret fawning my eyes down his precariously muscular build.