A/N: Hi all, I've been on hiatus from FF for a while (day job and all that). But today I was inspired to post a rewrite of a chapter I wrote on my laptop in the middle of the night and posted on FF exactly three years ago, having no idea what it would lead to, how it would change my life, my creative interests, and more priorities than I can count.
Disclaimer: I do not own any part of the Suite Life franchise. But of course you already knew that.
Prologue: Where Do I Even Begin?
The first time I set foot on a boat my stomach started squirming like a bucket of worms. Instant seasickness. I was ten years old and my family was on our first and only vacation, to Cousin Cletus's alligator farm in Florida. The whole trip sucked, especially the boat part. But that experience didn't stop me from applying to Seven Seas High six years later. Life in Kettlecorn, Kansas—a town so small that if you blink, you've driven right through it—stretched out before me in an endless blur of hog swilling and corn shucking. As crazy as it sounds, high school on a cruise ship seemed like my only chance to escape.
And now here I am on the S.S. Tipton, thousands of miles away from Kansas, in a twelve-by-twelve cabin that I share with Zack Martin. Zack is my boyfriend. At least, I'm pretty sure he is. Not bad for a sixteen-year-old girl from the sticks, right? I haven't gotten seasick once.
No, the queasy feeling in my stomach has nothing to do with seasickness, nothing to do with why I've been awake for hours.
Zack is sprawled on his back in the bed next to mine, snoring louder than a barn cat. Moonlight streaming through the porthole in our cabin accentuates his dreamy features, his shaggy blonde hair, his just-the-right-size nose, the tiny mole above the left side of his lip.
Zzzz. Zzzzzz. Zzzzzz.
I don't mind the snoring, to be honest. Growing up in a farmhouse full of brothers, I can handle snoring. At least Zack doesn't cut the cheese in his sleep like Woody Fink, who lives in the cabin across the hall.
Zack and I have been together for three months, almost. We are having what you might call a "secret torrid affair" behind the backs of everyone at Seven Seas High. This is as much fun as it sounds—most of the time. Zack makes me laugh like nobody else, but he's not exactly Mr. Sensitive. Plus, he dumps his clothes all over the floor and has a D average this semester. Which for him is the norm.
Zzzz. Zzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzzz.
If only Zack were more like Cody.
This statement troubles me for so many reasons. The first being that Cody is Zack's twin brother. The second being that Cody also happens to be Woody's roommate (particularly troubling for Cody). Third, Cody thinks I'm a boy. Fourth, so does everyone else at Seven Seas High—well, except for Zack, that is.
Lately I've been feeling like I, Bailey Pickett, am starring in my own personal Cruise of Deception.
Zzzzz. Zzzzzzzz. Zzzzzzzz.
How did my life become a soap opera?
Where do I even begin?