Chapter 16

(Unedited)

While I sit in the park listening to Lindsay Lohan, hoping I didn't look creepy or in any other way offensive to the families playing tag, working their way through the monkey bars, or pushing their children in the swings. Without interruptions, I sigh and turn my attention back to the Physics book in question, struggling to understand quantum equations.

Then, like The Schrödinger equation, it hit me. Not the equation itself, but the reality. It had been a date with Christian. He knew. I knew. It was as simple as that. Where the hell was Hermione's time turner when I needed it? It would be helpful because I wouldn't get drunk at Dryden's party. I could, however, just send Christian a text. I could have easily said it the other day when the hangover was talking, and I told him I liked him and before I told him he was the reason, I went to Dryden's party.

I opened the text window as soon as the next song on my playlist appeared, bringing inspiration along with it. I type as kids in their Nike hooded sweatshirts race the double slides. Reminding me of something I would do at their age; only to argue afterwards about who had better velocity going down. Though, I wouldn't have any idea what velocity was or how it worked.

The kids continue their race and a transpired momentum picks up where I had hit send. Christian considered me to be sunk in by the X factor. The boy, who was about the age that most of these kids were, had suddenly broken out of the bathroom stall (figuratively and metaphorically) without the aid of a teacher. I'd consider that to be a milestone. Okay, I don't have a clue what the next milestone is.

***

"Having fun without me?" I hear the caramelised voice of Christian. At first, I didn't see him; the iconic symphony of paranoia kicking in. I now understood what love ballads meant about hearing ghosts in their songs. Of course, in simple-minded prospects, I was sure that was a metaphor written for overstated love in the lyrics. Then I heard the overconfident laugh as he plants himself in the tree's shade where I was sitting.

"Nope. Just the damned opposite," I tell him as families who had enough family fun at the park pile into cars. Then I turn my attention back to Christian, as a slight breeze plays with his hair. The notion makes his now wind frayed curls make Christian seem cuter as I slide my earbuds out as Weezer's Smile plays.

"Oh really," he notices as he makes a fist and places it as a face cushion for his left cheek. "It looked like you were having loads of fun when I showed up," he added mockingly as his smiles and his marshmallow puffed cheeks stick out like they do when grandma plays with your cheeks.

"It was," I told him, then stopped as I edged myself to tell him what I had originally wanted to tell him. That it was a date, and that I had lied about not wanting to date until college. I had wanted to date him. I was sure of it. Maybe that was the next milestone besides mastering the quantum physics chapter of this textbook.

"Was is past tense, Hemsworth," Christian tells me as he shuts the textbook, not bothering to hold the page I was on. Damn him with his false bad boy charade. "Just live in the now," he adds as he stands up and brushes dirt off, showing his transient smirk. The one that revealed he had an idea and would add more thought to this process of most, not just friends. I look up to find him swinging back and forth on the swings.

***

The backside chains of his stopped swing rub against my fingers; both of us thinking about the feelings we're hiding as the falling colours of cotton candy in the autumnal sunset. The tight fit of his dress shirt covering his elbows leads to a silent longing to grab hold of him right there and start pushing him on the damned swing.

"Mind if I push?" I ask as I find my voice, after escaping whatever fantasy I had pulled myself out of. Of course, he'd mind. He wasn't a kid who couldn't figure out how to use the swings as gravity pumps in momentum against you. Or was it the other way around? If I couldn't figure that out, there was no way I'd survive the raging life of MIT in the fall.

"I bet I can go higher than you," Christian tells me in a more challenging tone than an answer. "After all, you still owe me a movie marathon," he adds, now proving that this was another politics of physics prerogative. Something that I was sure I would either regret or be thankful for.

"That's where you're wrong Christian, whatever your middle name is Day," I tell him as I sit on the swing beside him. First facing the opposite direction, then knowing that the dynamic of that method would be wrong, I switch to the same direction he's facing.

"If you win, I'll tell you," Christian tells me as he pushes himself forward and into higher aspects of gravity, letting him take the leader to higher ground. If I had wanted to win this contest, I'd have to use the forces of my childhood and pump every ounce of weight and muscle into the air and science like I didn't care.

As I get higher, I lay backwards, using g-forces, forgetting how much it made my insides feel nauseous as the mix of blood, veins and gravity didn't mix well up in the flow of velocity. The memories of levitating as a kid felt different now. As I find myself able to get back to normalcy, I see Christian has slowed down.

"Does this mean I win by default?" I ask him as my feet dig into the ground. My curiosity piqued as I wrapped my fingers around the chain facing Christian. "Or is there a rematch on the slide?" I ask when two kids finish up their race on the double lane slide that was shaped like the foot of either Sasquatch or BigFoot. Though, I was sure both fictional characters were the same.

"Damit. Are you tempting me?" Christian asks as we both look at the slide. "I'm the King of the slide," he adds, as he flings himself off the swings. A stance that only makes me laugh, a gesture I was sure I hadn't done in a long time. I swing again; until he stands dead centre where my feet would be, forcing me to stop.

"Maybe I was," I tell him, as I rise from the swing right in front of him; our eyes meeting each other. A greeting of challenge, followed by a smile. What emotions had my teenage love dramas proclaimed next? I couldn't remember as they vanished from my mind like what we had learned about Hooke's Law in class last week. The illusioned moment dispersed as Christian runs off towards the slide. Only having to wait for a set of kids to reach the slide first. Leading me to chuckle again, then press my lips together as though I had done nothing.

"I was on track at my last school. I could've gotten there first," Christian declares loudly, though I had doubted that the kids would not understand what he had just said. They knew what running was. All kids know what running is. It's like candy for a hygienic energy force.

"I don't think the kids care. They beat you here," I tell him as we get our turn at the top of the slide. I was sure that the kids Christian was having a silent battle with would make their way back up to where we were soon if we didn't hurry. My conscience told me they would push us down the slide if we didn't move as soon as I sat on the slide, ready to beat Christian. "Are we ready? I'm sure the kid behind you wants to go," I tell him as I'm ready to go down this slide.

"That's two wins for the King!" Christian announced proudly as I understood the slide, as he threw his arms up in the air; showing his victory. I wanted to debate with him that the swings were a loss, as he gave up before I could attempt victory. In all fairness, the slide had been an insignificant victory towards him. "Bow your debt to me," he adds as he places an invisible crown on his curly head.

"I don't bow down to any king," I tell him as I pull an invisible sword from its also invisible scabbard. If he had been a king, why would he need to be unguarded? Weren't kings usually guarded, or did kings feel they didn't need to be guarded in public parks at sunset? These were the questions I wanted to ask him. King Christian needed work with his fictional world; I, however, would not be the one to point that out.

"If you had planned to assassinate the king, you took too long," he tells me as he disarms me with my sword. "You had plenty of time," he adds, throwing his arm around my waist. Pressing the sword into my gullet, pretending to make it hard to breathe as the kids finish their slide races, now acknowledging that Christian and I had abandoned our races on them.

In this situation, I wasn't sure what the assassin would do to the king. I try to think back to when Dryden and I had learned about King Arthur and Merlin, but nothing came to mind except the novel the Mists of Avalon, where a love triangle had ensued between Guinevere, Arthur and Lancelot. However; this situation was different. We're in the real world; whereas the novel was complete fiction.

"It would've been such a shame," I tell him, breaking me from my disillusioned escape plan, despite not having one. Of course, I could easily kick him and make a failed imaginary escape by running up to the top of the slide, but that would have been a pointless escape. In his imagination, he was still a king. However, I end up breaking free, as I slide my fingers into the hand that he was holding the imaginary sword in, then letting go, starting a mad dash to the top of the slides.

I'm still working on getting my breath back as Christian reaches the top. The two kids who had been using the slide before us worked out their time down the slide strategy. We stand facing each other as we lean on the ramps, not planning to do until the kids take their turn. It appeared time had stood still as the kids went down that slide. Maybe that was a little dramatic to explain how it had felt, but honestly, it felt like when you want to tell the two love interests to just kiss or hook up or something.

"Is he truly a king?" asks the girl wearing an Elsa hoodie, looking at Christian. Neither one of us realised they had returned to the top of the slide, breaking us from our trance of unspoken feelings as Christian chuckles.

"Addison, you can't ask that?" the other child told her. "That's rude," he said, but I was sure he was just as curious as Addison was as Christian, and I believe we are both wondering what to do next. The fictional world, which we had unintentionally created, was ‌doomed to ruin or we could continue to experiment with it.

"Indeed; I am," I hear Christian telling the kids. "I will be soon. A smile spreads across Christian's face as he adds, "I'm still just a prince as I work my way to becoming a king."

"Now you're a prince? When I was hostage, you were a king," I imply as Addison and the other kid were superb at being imaginative as this story kept getting more played out, or Christian was as into it as they were.

"Royals don't hold people hostage. It's not nice," the boy boldly tells Christian. Even though this kid was so young, I wish I could tell him how right he was. However, I couldn't. Somehow, society holds everyone hostage in one form or another; highly of judgements.

"You should listen to Ben," Addison tells Christian, now placing a name on the other kid, as they ‌look like they would start ganging up on Christian. What they didn't know was Christian still held my invisible sword. "Release him as your hostage," Addison tells Christian with her puppy dog eyes, and I can only chuckle.

"I should, I shouldn't I?" Christian asks, then looks at me curiously as he smiles. A smile that means he's up to something. Whatever it was; I was sure I didn't want to know. Or maybe I did. I wasn't exactly sure.

"Is he your boyfriend?" one of the two kids asks curiously as their guardian or parent had hollered. The question lingering in the air, as neither one of us knows how to answer that. Of course, if I could have explained that in the novel Lancelot had been in love with Arthur, and not the famous leading lady, as they have led us to believe, that's how I'd be able to explain the situation.

We were both silent as Ben told Addison in a matter-of-fact tone: "It's rude to ask them if they are boyfriends." But neither one of us had an answer to the kids' question. Were we? Were we not? Maybe Addison had asked the questions we needed to be asking each other?

"We've got to go. It was nice meeting you," Addison tells us before she waves and vanishes down the slide again, as Ben does the same. We remain at the top of the slide as we hear Ben and Addison happily announce that they had met a prince, and argued whether we were a couple until they climbed into the family's car, as we wonder if we'd ever see the two kids again.

"Boyfriends?" Christian asks as he looks at me quizzically.

Boy. Friends. By definition, the label and the word shouldn't seem so foreign to me. However, it does. Leaving every thought I had ever mustered up frozen everywhere in my body and mind like a pinball that stopped mid-game on those old school computers that I was sure my parents had when they were my age.

"It has a nice ring to it," Christian adds as the park lights come on, revealing that it was just us alone in the park. Our fantasy world is now forgotten. He goes completely silent, as though he's studying for midterms, instead of waiting for a simple reply.

"I've got to get my stuff. There's a test tomorrow," I tell him as I head toward where I left my phone and books earlier. It wasn't an avoidable excuse. I had to retrieve my stuff and both of us knew it.

"Then at least let me give you a ride home," Christian scoffs as he makes his way down to the ground where I am. "Because damn it, Luke, it's too dark out here to walk home," he pleads as I pick my phone. It had taken a kid to say what I had wanted to say, and now I'm chickenshit to admit it. Instead, I walk toward his jeep as it begins to drizzle; almost like the rain gods had planned it. A perfect plan for a teenage love plotline.

"Christian, I," my words ‌form, but don't finish escaping my mouth. Instead, I find myself surprised by what comes next.

My lips landed on his.