On Top Of The World

“Move along, Katie!” I heard David call from behind me.

I realized that my eyes were still shut tight and my feet hadn’t moved since I stepped off the staircase. The cold wind blew my hair into my face, so even when I did open my eyes I couldn’t see much past my bangs.

“Come on, you!” Meghan pulled on my arm, causing one of my black, flat shoes to fall from my foot. She pulled me over to the railing in the back of the boat. “Look at the water! Isn’t it beautiful?”

The wind was now blowing the hair out of my face, and I saw the world around me for the first time.

When I had pictured what all this would look like in my head before I even stepped foot on this boat, this was not even close to what I had pictured. The water was like a sea of black, reflecting every flicker of light, ever star, ever flame from a lighter that would go one around it. My eyes flickered around, glancing by the shore and tracing the skyline. Water scurried to get out of the way of our ship, causing ripples in the water. I wanted to reach out and feel every single one of them… But that would require going into the water, and if the water were colder than the air, I certainly wouldn’t want to do that.

“Just like a fairytale…” I whispered under my breath.

A finger jabbed me in my side, jerking me from my trance. I jumped around almost hitting Meghan in the face.

“David, you jerk!”

He laughed and turned to Meghan, doing the same to her. She squealed, doing the same jump I did, only this she actually hit me in the face, pushing me to the ground.

I felt a bruise slowing starting to form by my ear. My hand flew up instinctively to touch it when I felt my hand hit someone in the face. The next thing I heard was another one of Meghan’s squeal. Apparently I had hit her when she had bent down to help me. David still laughed on the sidelines.

“I’m so sorry!” My hands covered my mouth in shock, muffling the sound of my apology.

“Don’t be! I hit you first!”

“But I’m still sorry!”

“So am I!”

We hugged while still on the ground. Our laughter echoed in each other’s ears while our embrace continued. Eventually we helped each other up, still giggling, and faced our attacker head on.

“Don’t. You. Dare,” David warned, slowly starting to back away.

We didn’t head to his warning. Simultaneously we began poking David, making him laugh and squirm. He fought back with pokes of his own, but they had no effect on us.

“Hey! You guys!” Jackie yelled from the other side of the deck. “No rough housing, remember?” In between her words she put in playful chuckles, making her last demand very sarcastic.

David apologized to Meghan and I, and then went on to mingle with some of his other friends.

“What happened to your shoe?” Meghan asked, looking down at my feet.

“Oh, it fell off over by the stai-” I stopped mid-sentence. The spot where my shoe fell off was empty. The trail leading to where Meghan and I were standing was empty. “Where’s my shoe?”

There was a light cough from behind me.

“I believe you lost this?”

I spun around to see a friendly face smiling at me with my black shoe balancing in both hands.

“Why’d you take my shoe, Greg?” I asked.

“I found it on the floor over there. I was trying to match it up with someone who had the same shoe. And as it turns out lots of people have this same type, but you’re the only one who’s missing one of them.”

“What a great detective,” I commented, sarcasm dripping from each word.

“Hey, I could keep your shoe, you know.”

“No!” I reached out for the shoe but he drew back.

Greg held out one finger and scolded me like a small child who’s just done something bad. Then he got down on one knee and took my left foot.

“Your shoe, Cinderella.”

Greg slipped the shoe on my foot. He smiled up at me once it was secured. I smiled back and placed my hand out to help him stand.

“Thank you,” He laughed.

“No, no, Greg, thank you.”

He simply shrugged and went on to say, “I guess chivalry isn’t dead after all?”

“I guess not.”

With that he left and once more it was just Meghan and I. I turned to face her, she was smiling her Cheshire cat grin and her light blue eyes sparkled with mischief. My eyebrows wrinkled together trying to portray confusion, but I knew what she was thinking.

“You’re wrong,” I stated; it was my best attempt to drop the subject. “We’re only friends. Besides, I don’t even know him that well.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m serious! How could I like someone I barely know? You should know, Meghan, that’s not me at all.”

“Uh-huh.”

I rolled my eyes at her, but she didn’t notice. She did notice, however, when I left her side to go look out at the water. Call it mood swings, call it bipolar, or call it whatever you want, but I just felt like being alone.

That’s one of the things I love about Meghan. She knows when people want to be alone, and when someone needs help. I just wished everyone were like that. It seemed that when someone went off to go think about something, everyone flocked to them. Personally, I found it irritating.

“Hey, how’s it going?”

Just like I said: flocking.

“Hi, Jackie. It’s fine, just thinking, what about you?”

“Same…”

Maybe if I just don’t talk, she’ll go away. That’s how it usually works. Normally, if it were Jackie, I wouldn’t mind, but this alone time needed to be had.

And just like that, she left with only a wave to signal her departure. It hurt a little at first, that she didn’t even say good-bye, but this was what I wanted, so it didn’t hurt for that long.

“Your shoe, Cinderella…” That’s what he had said. He called me “Cinderella.”

Of course it meant nothing. I knew it meant nothing. I had just lost my shoe, that was it. He was just being nice and playing on the moment. Right, that’s all it was, it was a moment, and now it’s passed.

The water beneath me splashed around the edges of the boat, just as my thoughts swam around in the depths of my skull. I bobbed my head from side to side, trying to imitate the dance of the water below.

Maybe, these thoughts will fall from my ears and flow away into the river…Hmph, yeah right…

“You mean we’re allowed to go above this?”

I heard someone as they came up the stairs from the deck, which I had come five minutes ago.

“Yeah, as long as we’ve got the chaperone!”

They were very familiar voices.

“You wanna go up there?”

“Well that’s why we came up here, right?” They both paused, and then the second girl spoke again. “Katie, you wanna come?”

I turned away from the river and met eyes with Sarah and Desiree, the two having the conversation.

Hesitantly, my feet moved towards them. I hadn’t realized but this whole deck was practically empty; the rest of the students must’ve moved up already. After we left, there would only be three students on this deck.

I took Sarah’s arm, Desiree took the other, and we headed for the stairs. The width of the it was only just right for one person to go up at a time, causing our chain to break. Desiree went up first, followed by Sarah, followed by me.

A flash of brown hair was the first thing I saw when I finally made it to the top of the narrow stairs. It whipped past me and was followed by a hoard of laughter.

Meghan.

I was right, of course. Meghan was on the floor next to me, hugging my ankles, disabling my walking abilities.

“What is it, Megs? And… let go!”

My frightened friend stood up, her entire body shaking. She buried her face into my shoulder and she muttered an incoherent sentence. The only things I caught out of it were the words, “Smiko”, “mean”, and “edge”.

Without giving me any time to respond Jacob Smiko was right in my face. Words were coming out of his mouth, but I couldn’t understand any of them. Once I thought I heard his voice crack, but he moved past it like nothing happened. It was only when I giggled a little that he slowed down.

“-And I didn’t mean to scare her! And I’m sorry!”

“Did you hear that Meghan? He said he was sorry.”

She lifted her weak head off my shoulder and nodded, her feeble body still shaking from the shock of whatever just happened.

“Now hug and make up!” I said. The tone I used was annoying on purpose, just to get them to shut me up, and surprisingly it worked. They hugged and before I knew it, Meghan was all smiles and giggles again.

“So, now tell me,” I started after Jacob had left earshot. “What happened?”

“He ‘jokingly’ tried to push me off the edge. I, like the oblivious person I am, didn’t see it coming and he really freaked me out.”

I laughed and shook my head. She stopped walking, while I continued on tracing the perimeter of the boat with my footsteps.

“It’s really not that funny!” She called running after me, but I didn’t slow down. I could feel even more adventure was just waiting around this next corner.