What Separates Me From You

July 6th: Bonner Springs, KS.
It was a beautiful, hot day in Bonner Springs. Retardedly hot, no offense to the retarded. Ok. I’ll stop now. These things usually don’t end that well for me. I was walking around the venue, checking on things and people like I usually did. Today’s event was no different from every other event. There were kids everywhere. Shoving me and every other person, into something. There was this unusual magnetic force between me and inanimate objects. I could probably show you some bruises.

As I turned the corner of tents, while rubbing my arm after being shoved into a pole, I spotted Jeremy standing inside his merch tent. My stomach did an odd flip and my mind went blank. We hadn’t spoken since Ventura and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to. I let out a pathetic sigh as he reached down to grab a shirt for a fan. When he looked back up his gaze met mine and we stood there staring for a moment in time. His hand slowly made its way to his pocket. The glint of pink plastic caught my eye and I froze in my spot.

Before I knew it, Jeremy was bounding over his merch tent’s divider and running at me with a pink squirt gun. I spun around started to run in the opposite direction of Jeremy, shoving kids ungracefully out of my way. I made a sharp turn and found myself facing down the barrel of Jeremy’s squirt gun. I shut my eyes tightly. How did he get in front of me so fast? A gush of water hit me in between my eyes. When I opened my eyes, Jeremy was already running back to his merch tent.

I guess I didn’t have to worry about talking to him.

It was a good thing that today was a hot day, otherwise I would have felt really bad for what I was about to do. I smiled evilly at Jeremy’s back as he ate his sandwich. He was so unsuspecting; it was too precious—too easy. I had to suppress the urge to giggle. But man, this bucket was heavy.

When I was directly behind Jeremy, I lifted the bucket full of water. A look of terror came across Josh’s face when he saw the bucket rise but he was too slow to his words. Water came rushing out as I dumped it on Jeremy. Jeremy sat there too stunned to move and drenched through his clothes.

“Haha,” I teased.

He craned his neck to see me. His face was still in shock. I watched as he reached for the table and realized that his squirt gun had been lying on the table top. As he started to rise from his seat, I decided this was a good time to run. Jeremy chased me around the food tent, squirting me as he did so. We are the definition of mature.

Almost two hours had passed and no retaliation came from Jeremy. I was wrong to think that for the rest of the day I was safe. There was no such thing as safe when in a prank war with Jeremy. I was constantly on the edge of my seat, always tip toeing around corners to make sure he was nowhere near me.

“Joey, I’m going to take a bathroom break, will you be able to handle the tent while I’m gone?” I asked.

Joey raised his eye brows at me and looked around the tent, “I don’t know, Boss. We’re so busy, I might become overwhelmed.”

I followed his gaze around the tent. Our empty tent. Surrounded by zero customers. Glaring at my assistant I hopped over the tent’s divider and made my way to a port-o-potty. The horrid green bathroom was a mess; considering it was already late in the day, it wasn’t all that surprising. I sucked in whatever dignity I had and did my business.

I exited the port-o-potty, making sure the door shut behind me. Not two seconds after exiting the poor excuse for a bathroom a barrage of water balloons attacked me. I screamed in fright and closed my eyes as I waited for the attack to end. When it finished, I snapped my eyes open to find Jeremy smiling at me.

“AGH,” I screamed loudly as I stormed pass him.

“Tell me I win and I’ll stop,” Jeremy said with humor in his voice as he trailed after me.

“Never,” I replied through gritted teeth.

“Suit yourself,” he said as he stopped following me.

The rest of the day turned into a large water balloon fight and Bonner Springs had become our arena. Everywhere you turned there was a flying water balloon. Some of the kids at the event even started to join in.

It was getting close to A Day To Remember’s signing time at AP’s tent so I made sure I was close by. I was a little impressed by the amount of people who had shown up to get something signed by the band. It looked as if half the attendees were in line. Focus, Olivia, I told myself.

The guys were finally sitting in their seats and the signing had begun. I immersed myself in the crowd and a gleeful smile crept onto my face. When I was within throwing distance of Jeremy, I chucked a green water balloon at Jeremy’s head.

Only, it didn’t pop like it was supposed to.

In slow motion, I watched as Jeremy got knocked off of his chair and fell to the ground. My mouth dropped when after a few seconds when he still had not gotten up. The other guys in the band didn’t even move from their chairs, they simply stared at Jeremy’s motionless body on the ground. I felt two arms grab mine.

“You have to come with us miss,” one of the security guards said in a brisk tone.

I frowned, “What? No. I’m running this place. It was a joke. This is a joke. Let me go.”

But the rent-a-cops weren’t listening to me. I kicked and shouted at them to let me go. Instead, they dragged me off to their office where they sat me in a chair and called my boss. Was this really happening to me? I felt like I was in elementary school again and the principal was calling my mother, telling her what a bad girl I had been. I crossed my arms over my chest and started to angrily mutter to myself.

A few seconds later, the door flew open. In walked a gleeful Jeremy who strode straight up to the officer’s table, grabbed the phone from his hand and hung it up.

“No problem here, officer,” Jeremy said.

The fat rent-a-cop gave Jeremy an un-amused look but didn’t say anything. Jeremy turned to me and gave me the biggest smile I had ever seen.

“Well, well, well… look at our little criminal-“

“Shut up, Jeremy.” I barked the quickly added, “And I’m sorry I hit you so hard.”

Jeremy laughed, which made me confused, “You actually think I knocked out?”

“Weren’t you?” I asked as we walked out of the office together.

“No, I faked. You throw like a girl,” Jeremy replied.

I tensed up, extremely irritated with Jeremy at this point. Anything I said at this point would not be nice. I stalked off without Jeremy. Words could not even formulate in my brain. I had been pulled away by rent-a-cops, my rent-a-cops. Rent-a-cops I hired. All because Jeremy thought he was being funny. It drove me mad.

Jeremy chased after me and grabbed my wrist, spinning me around to face him. “Olivia, I didn’t mean for it to get out of hand. I’m sorry. Still friends?”

I crossed my arms and tapped my foot, thinking about what I should do. How many chances was I willing to give Jeremy?

“Hm, ok. Friends.”