Alive

2:36 A.M.

That was the time when I heard a loud banging on the door of my room.

I groaned and pulled the covers over my head.
The banging continued.

I covered my head with the pillow.
The banging continued.

I groaned again, moved the pillow and tossed the sheets aside, and made my way to the door, looking through the peephole.

2:41 A.M.

That was the time when I made the stupid mistake of opening the door for Tyler.

“Morning, beautiful.”

He makes his way inside – the metal bat in one hand, a skateboard in the other, and a small backpack hanging from his shoulders.

“Why are you here…?”
“You agreed to hang out with me today, so I thought that we’d start early.”

At three in the morning?!

I sighed.

“…I don’t really have a choice to go back to sleep, do I?”
“Nope. Get dressed.”

I was about to pull off my shirt, but quickly realized something.

“What?”
“I-I’m not getting undressed with you in here…!”

“Well, I can’t trust that you won’t lock me out and go back to sleep if I do. Besides, we’re both guys. Nothing I haven’t seen before.”

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks before I ended up glaring at him.

“Then at least face the door while I do so…!”
“Alright…Whatever floats your boat, Princess.”

He faced the door with his arms crossed over his chest.
I pulled off my shirt and stepped out of my pajama pants – quickly rummaging through my drawers for something to wear.

Tyler murmured something as I pulled on a pair of boxers – something about my butt if I heard correctly.

That only encouraged me to get dressed quicker.

I finished and faced him.

“Alright…I’m done.”
“Great, now let’s go. Oh, and grab your skateboard.”

My eyes widened.

“Okay, I’m beginning to wonder how much of a stalker you are now.”
“Once again, not a stalker. Just a close observer. Now, let’s go.”

I grabbed my skateboard from the closet and followed him out, being sure to lock and close my door afterwards.

“So, where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”

✩ | ✩ | ✩

“Here we are!”

It was still hard to see, but I was able to make out a large skate park – surrounded by a large fence.

“It’s closed. We can’t go in.”
“Says who? Follow me.”

We walked to the other side – there was a hole in the fence.
Tyler didn’t hesitate to go through it.

“What are you doing…?! We can’t go in there like this…! It’s trespassing!” I yelled in a hushed voice.

But he didn’t listen as he pulled me through the hole.

“No…! What are we doing…?! Why are we doing this…?! We’re going to get in trouble—”
“Hey. Shut up for a second and hold out your wrist.”

I didn’t even notice the glowing bracelet on his wrist and a lot of glow sticks that were dumped onto the ground.

I reluctantly did so – he wrapped a blue glow-in-the-dark one around my wrist, snapping it together.

“So we can find each other if we get lost.”
“But why glow-in-the-dark bracelets?”

“Why the fuck not?”

He picked up the rest from off of the ground and shoved them back into his backpack.

“Now, try to have a good time, okay? We’re simply skating in an abandoned park. No surveillance, no worries, and fun with glow-in-the-dark.”

Before he could let me answer, he was already skating down the half-pipe.

I bit down on my lip.

I could just leave.
I could just run through that hole, get back to the university and to the safety of my dorm room.

But…

“But”?

I watched the green light from Tyler’s bracelet move across the park.

I’ll have to admit – it was tempting.

Another sigh.

“Eh…to heck with it.”

I stood onto my board and followed Tyler’s example.
And maybe…it wasn’t a bad one.

The air was cool as it passed by me.
The stars were still visible, shining brightly above us.

I couldn’t explain what or how it made me feel, but it was amazing.

“Hey! Luke! Come over here for a sec.”

Tyler was across the park, waving the green light on his wrist.
I picked up my board and ran towards him.

“What is it?”

Before I could react, there was liquid being flung at me.

“What are you—?!”
I looked down to see glowing splotches on my arms, legs, and a couple on my shirt.

There was a broken glow stick in his hand and a smirk on his lips.
I saw one of the glow sticks on the ground, dropped my board, and quickly grabbed it.

“Two can play at this game!”
I broke it and flung it at him, painting him in blue dots – while receiving some protests in the process.

“Okay, okay! Truce! How about…we paint the park instead?”
“…Is that what you really brought the glow sticks for?”

“Think of it as discreet graffiti. What do you say?”

I bit down on my lip again.

“I guess…it’s okay…since it’ll be discreet…kind of.”
“That’s the spirit!”

We broke at least thirty glow sticks in total, painting almost everything in glowing, multicolored splotches – flinging some more at each other every once in a while.

By the time we ran out of glow sticks and some bracelets – and by the time we cleaned up all of the broken ones – it was six-thirty in the morning.

I would say that it was actually fun to do this.
That is, until we heard a couple of people in the distance – one with a functioning walkie-talkie.

“Are you sure you heard something? This place has been closed for a while now.”
“Yes! I heard laughing and yelling! Why don’t you do your job as an officer and investigate?!”

“Alright, ma’am. Calm down. We’ll go check it out.”

My heart dropped into my stomach.

“Oh no…!”
“Come on, Luke. Time to bail.”

Tyler grabbed a hold of my hand and dragged me up the ramp.
We scrambled to get our stuff and run back through where we entered the park.

“What the hell is this? Glow-in-the-dark paint?”

That encouraged us to pick up the pace.

We ran for five minutes straight until we stopped to catch out breaths.

“That…was…not cool…” – Inhale. Exhale. – “We could have gotten in trouble…!”
“But we didn’t get caught.” He smirked again.

I punched him in the arm before continuing to walk.

“Come on. Don’t pretend like you didn’t enjoy yourself.”
He caught up with me.

I didn’t say anything.

It was silent between us for a small moment, until Tyler broke it.

“Hey, you wanna grab some breakfast. We’re near the diner. I’ll pay for the both of us.”

I crossed my arms over my chest.

“Fine.”

We made our way to the diner – luckily it was open by the time we got there – and ordered breakfast, while getting weird looks from other customers and Mrs. Robertson because we were still covered in glowing splotches.

“Do I even want to know?” She brought our drinks to the table.

“It was a…fun morning.”
Tyler sent a wink my way.

I rolled my eyes at him.

Mrs. Robertson left without another word.

“So?”
“So what?” I took a sip from my orange juice.

“I convinced you. I know so, but you’re afraid to admit it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on! Admit it! You had fun this morning, while breaking a couple of rules in the process!”

It was my turn to smirk.

“Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.”
“Just make this easier for the both of us and admit it!”

“Alright. Fine. I had fun. I didn’t like breaking the rules, but gosh darn it, I had fun with you this morning!”

He stared at me in silence, then he gave a smile – a genuine smile.

But it was gone as fast as it came, replaced by a smirk again.

“Good, because this is only the beginning. We have a whole summer vacation ahead of us now.”

A whole summer vacation…

What have I gotten myself into?