HELLLOOOOOO

OH MY GOD THIS IS THE LAST CHAPTER
WHAT
Well maybe *insert smirking emoji* we could have a one more chapter, bUT THAT'S UP FOR YOU TO DECIDE!

LEAVE A REVIEW AND LMK WHETHER YOU WANT ONE!

...

"Well, first off, we will get caught," I said.

I hadn't started the minivan and was laying out the reasons I wouldn't start it and wondering if he could see me in the dark.

"Of course we'll get caught. So what?"

"It's illegal."

"Molls, in the scheme of things, what kind of trouble can Sea-World get you into? I mean, Jesus, after everything I've done for you tonight, you can't do one thing for me? You can't just shut up and calm down and stop being so goddamned terrified of every little adventure?" And then under his breath he said, "I mean, god, I've never seen anyone so chicken."

And now I was mad.

I ducked underneath my shoulder belt so I could lean across the console toward him.

"After everything YOU did for ME?" I almost shouted.

He wanted confident?

He was getting confident.

"Did you call MY friend's father who was screwing MY friend so no one would know that I was calling? Did you chauffeur MY ass all around the world not because you are oh-so-important to me but because I needed a ride and you were close by? Is that the kind of shit you've done for me tonight?"

He wouldn't look at me.

He just stared straight ahead at the vinyl siding of the furniture store.

"You think I needed you? You don't think I could have given Bubble Puppy a Benadryl so he'd sleep through my stealing the safe from under my parents' bed? Or snuck into your bedroom while you were sleeping and taken your car key? I didn't need you, you idiot. I picked you. And then you picked me back."

Now he looked at me.

"And that's like a promise. At least for tonight. In sickness and in health. In good times and in bad. For richer, for poorer. Till dawn do us part."

I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot, but all his teamwork stuff aside, I still felt like I was getting badgered into something, and I wanted the last word.

"Fine, but when Sea-World or whatever sends a letter to Duke University saying that miscreant Moleena Gentilella broke into their facility at four thirty in the morning with a wild-eyed lad at her side, Duke University will be mad. Also, my parents will be mad."

"Molls, you're going to go to Duke. You're going to be a very successful lawyer-or-something and get married and have babies and live your whole little life, and then you're going to die, and in your last moments, when you're choking on your own bile in the nursing home, you'll say to yourself: 'Well, I wasted my whole goddamned life, but at least I broke into SeaWorld with Gilligan Zachary Gordon in my senior year of high school. At least I carpe'd that one diem.'"

"Noctem," I corrected.

"Okay, you are the Grammar Queen again. You've regained your throne. Now take me to SeaWorld."

...

As we drove silently down I-4, I found myself thinking about the act we were about to pull off.

I laughed and exited the interstate.

We turned onto International Drive, the tourism capital of the world.

There were a thousand shops on International Drive, and they all sold the exact same thing: crap.

Crap molded into seashells, key rings, glass turtles, Florida-shaped refrigerator magnets, plastic pink flamingos, whatever. In fact, there were several stores on I-Drive that sold actual, literal armadillo crap—$4.95 a bag.

But at 4:50 in the morning, the tourists were sleeping.

The Drive was completely dead, like everything else, as we drove past store after parking lot after store after parking lot.

"SeaWorld is just past the parkway," Gil said. He was in the wayback of the minivan again, rifling through a backpack or something. "I got all these satellite maps and drew our plan of attack, but I can't freaking find them anywhere. But anyway, just go right past the parkway, and on your left there will be this souvenir shop."

"On my left, there are about seventeen thousand souvenir shops."

"Right, but there will only be one right after the parkway."

And sure enough, there was only one, and so I pulled into the empty parking lot and parked the car directly beneath a streetlight, because cars are always getting stolen on I-Drive. And while only a truly masochistic car thief would ever think of jacking the Chrysler, I still didn't relish the thought of explaining to my mom how and why her car went missing in the small hours of a school night.

We stood outside, leaning against the back of the minivan, the air so warm and thick I felt my clothes clinging to my skin.

I felt scared again, as if people I couldn't see were looking at me.

It had been too dark for too long, and my gut ached from the hours of worrying.

Gil had found his maps, and by the light of the street lamp, his spray-paint-blue fingertip traced our route. "I think there's a fence right there," he said, pointing to a wooden patch we'd hit just after crossing the parkway. "I read about it online. They installed it a few years ago after some drunk guy walked into the park in the middle of the night and decided to go swimming with Shamu, who promptly killed him."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, so if that guy can make it in drunk, surely we can make it in sober. I mean, we're ninjas." "Well, maybe you're a ninja," I said.

"You're just a really loud, awkward ninja, although at Random Old Guy's house, you did well. I was the awkward one there," Gil said, "but we are both ninjas." He ran his fingers through his hair, pulled up his hood, and scrunched it shut with a drawstring; the streetlight lit up the sharp features of his pale face.

Maybe we were both ninjas, but only he had the outfit.

"Okay," he said. "Memorize the map."

By far the most terrifying part of the half-mile-long journey Gil had plotted for us was the moat.

SeaWorld was shaped like a triangle.

One side was protected by a road, which Gil figured was regularly patrolled by night watchmen. The second side was guarded by a lake that was at least a mile around, and the third side had a drainage ditch; from the map, it looked to be about as wide as a two-lane road.

And where there are water-filled drainage ditches near lakes in Florida, there are often alligators. Gil grabbed me by both shoulders and turned me towards him.

"We're going to get caught, probably, and when we do, just let me talk. You just look cute and be that weird mix of innocent and confident, and we'll be fine."

I locked the car, tied my hair up into a high ponytail, and whispered, "I'm a ninja."

I didn't mean for Gil to hear, but he piped up. "Damned right you are! Now let's go."

We jogged across I-Drive and then started bushwhacking through a thicket of tall shrubs and oak trees.

I started to worry about poison ivy, but ninjas don't worry about poison ivy, so I led the trail, my arms in front of me, pushing aside briars and brush as we walked toward the moat.

Finally the trees stopped and the field opened up, and I could see the parkway on our right and the moat straight ahead of us.

People could have seen us from the road if there had been any cars, but there weren't.

Together we took off running through the brush, and then made a sharp turn toward the parkway. Gil said, "Now, now!" and I dashed across the six lanes of highway.

Even though it was empty, something felt exhilarating and wrong about running across a road that big.

We made it across and then knelt down in the knee-high grass beside the parkway.

Gil pointed to the strip of trees between SeaWorld's endlessly gigantic parking lot and the black standing water of the moat.

We ran for a minute along that line of trees, and then Gil pulled on the back of my shirt, and said quietly, "Now the moat. Ladies first," he said.

"Well you're the better ninja," I answered.

"Just go." He said

And I didn't think about the alligators or the disgusting layer of brackish algae.

I just got a running start and jumped as far as I could.

I landed in waist-deep water and then high-stepped across.

The water smelled rank and felt slimy on my skin, but at least I wasn't wet above my waist.

Or at least I wasn't until Gil jumped in, splashing water all over me.

I turned around and splashed him.

He faux-retched.

"Ninjas don't splash other ninjas," Gil complained.

"The true ninja doesn't make a splash at all," I said.

"Ooh, touché."

I was watching Gil pull himself up out of the moat, and I was feeling thoroughly pleased about the lack of alligators.

Plus, my pulse was acceptable, if brisk.

And beneath his unzipped hoodie, his black T-shirt had become clingy in the water, and hair that used to be perfectly gelled up into a quiff, fell in his face.

It looked adorable.

In short, a lot of things were going pretty well when I felt a sharp shard of glass stabbing at the sole of my feet.

I started to step out of the water, but my feet decided they were tired of trying to be ninjas and ended up shaking like crazy, thus making me fall right into the pile of broken glass sitting in the water.

I should have been screaming, but for some odd reason, the only thing I could think about was the fact that someone in their right mind put a pile of broken glass in the middle of a moat.

And then the pain hit.

"Shit!" I said, and I looked down and then said "Shit!" again.

"What happened Molls?"

"Glass. Blood. Ow. Pile. Broken. Glass."

"Can you just tell me what happened?"

"MY FOOT DECIDED TO TAKE A LOVELY VACATION TO A PILE OF GLASS" I screamed, before quickly covering my mouth, afraid that the watchmen had heard me.

"THEN STEP OUT OF THE GLASS YOU IDIOT." Gil screamed just as loudly back at me, before diving down, picking me up, and carrying me bridal style over to a random large rock in the moat.

"Ow, God," I said.

"Lie down, lie down," Gil said, and then he took my foot in his hands, pulled off my sneakers, and I pulled up my jeans.

"Shit." He said, staring at the pool of blood coming out from the sole of my foot. "What the fuck did you step on?"

"A pile of broken glass. Idiot."

"Jeez okay hold on." He said before sliding off his sweatshirt, exposing his bare arms. "Hold still."

He gently dabbed at my foot with the sweatshirt.

He was going to wrap it around my foot as a bandage, but seeing it was too big, he ripped off a sleeve of the sweatshirt and began to wrap it around my foot.

I took it upon myself to make this my time to stare at him, noticing tiny details I'd never noticed before.

Like how he bit his lip while he was concentrating and how he was gentle with his hands, almost as if he were carrying a baby in his hands.

It only made me fall in love with him more.

"Alright that should do it. You okay?"

"Yeah." I said shyly.

I wasn't used to the affectionate side of him.

"Good. Let's continue."

There was a chain-link fence before us, but it was only about six feet tall.

"Honestly, random glass and now this fence? This security is sort of insulting to a ninja." Gil said before, he scampered up, swung his body around, and climbed down like it was a ladder.

I managed not to fall.

We ran through a small thicket of trees, hugging tight against these huge opaque tanks that might have stored animals, and then we came out to an asphalt path and I could see the big amphitheater that I went to all the time as a kid.

The little speakers lining the walkway were playing soft Muzak.

Maybe to keep the animals calm.

"Gil," I said, "we're in SeaWorld."

And he said, "Seriously," and then he jogged away and I followed him.

We ended up by the seal tank, but it seemed like there were no seals inside it.

"Gil," I said again. "We're in SeaWorld."

"Enjoy it," he said without moving his mouth much. "'Cause here comes security."

I dashed through a stand of waist-high bushes, but when Gil didn't run, I stopped.

A guy strolled up wearing a SEAWORLD SECURITY vest and very casually asked, "How are y'all?"

He held a can of something in his hand—pepper spray, I guessed.

To stay calm, I wondered to myself, does he have regular handcuffs, or does he have special SeaWorld handcuffs? Like, are they shaped like two curved dolphins coming together?

"We were just on our way out, actually," said Gil.

"Well, that's certain," the man said. "The question is whether you walkin' out or gettin' driven out by the Orange County sheriff."

"If it's all the same to you," Gil said, "we'd rather walk."

I shut my eyes.

This, I wanted to tell Gil, was no time for snappy comebacks.

But the man laughed.

"You know a man got kilt here a couple years ago jumping in the big tank, and they told us we cain't never let anybody go if they break in, no matter if they're handsome."

"Well, then I guess you have to arrest us."

"But that's the thing. I'm 'bout to get off and go home and have a beer and get some sleep, and if I call the police they'll take their sweet time in coming. I'm just thinkin' out loud here," he said, and then Gil raised his eyes in recognition.

He wiggled a hand into a wet pocket and pulled out one moat-water-soaked hundred-dollar bill. The guard said, "Well, y'all best be getting on now. If I were you, I wouldn't walk out past the whale tank. It's got all-night security cameras all 'round it, and we wouldn't want anyone to know y'all was here."

"Yessir," Gil said demurely, and with that the man walked off into the darkness.

"Man," Gil mumbled as the guy walked away, "I really didn't want to pay that perv. But, oh well. Money's for spendin'."

I could barely even hear him; the only thing happening was the relief shivering out of my skin. This raw pleasure was worth all the worry that preceded it.

"Thank God he's not turning us in," I said.

Gil didn't respond. He was staring past me, his eyes squinting almost closed.

"I felt this exact same way when I got into Universal Studios," he said after a moment. "It's kind of cool and everything, but there's nothing much to see. The rides aren't working. Everything cool is locked up. Most of the animals are put into different tanks at night."

He turned his head and appraised the SeaWorld we could see.

"I guess the pleasure isn't being inside."

"What's the pleasure?" I asked.

"Planning, I guess. I don't know. Doing stuff never feels as good as you hope it will feel."

"This feels pretty good to me," I confessed. "Even if there isn't anything to see."

I sat down on a park bench, and he joined me.

We were both looking out at the seal tank, but it contained no seals, just an unoccupied island with rocky outcroppings made of plastic.

I could smell him next to me, the sweat and the algae from the moat, his cologne strong, and the smell of his skin like crushed almonds.

I felt tired for the first time, and I thought of us lying down on some grassy patch of SeaWorld together, him on his back and me on my side with my arm draped against him, my head on his shoulder, facing him.

Not doing anything—just lying there together beneath the sky, the night here so well lit that it drowns out the stars.

And maybe he could feel me breathe against his neck, and maybe we could just stay there until morning and then the people would walk past as they came into the park, and they would see us and think that we were tourists, too, and we could just disappear into them.

But no.

There was one-eyebrowed Bella to see, Deema to tell the story to, and classes and the band room and Duke and the future.

"Molls," Gil said. I looked up at him, and for a moment I didn't know why he'd said my name, but then I snapped out of my half-sleep.

And I heard it.

The Muzak from the speakers had been turned up, only it wasn't Muzak anymore—it was real music.

It was an old song, but it was a song I knew by heart.

Chasing Cars.

Even through the tiny speakers you could hear that whoever was singing it could sing a thousand goddamned notes at once.

And I felt the unbroken line of me and of him stretching back from our cribs to this incident from long ago to acquaintanceship to now.

And I wanted to tell him that the pleasure for me wasn't planning or doing or leaving; the pleasure was in seeing our strings cross and separate and then come back together—but that seemed too cheesy to say, and anyway, he was standing up.

Gil's blue eyes blinked and he looked impossibly handsome right then, his jeans wet against his legs, his face shining in the gray light.

He reached out his hand and said, "May I have this dance?"

I curtsied, gave him my hand, and said, "You may," and then his hand was on the curve between my waist and my hip, and my hand was on his shoulder.

And then step-step-sidestep, step-step-sidestep.

We fox-trotted all the way around the seal tank, and still the song kept going.

If I lay here,

If I just lay here,

Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

"Sixth-grade slow dance," Gil announced, and we switched positions, my hands on his shoulders and his on my hips, elbows locked, two feet between us.

And then we fox-trotted some more, until the song ended.

He stepped forward and dipped me, just as they'd taught us to do at Crown School of Dance.

I raised one leg and gave him all my weight as he dipped me.

I either trusted him, or wanted to fall.

/

We bought dish towels at a 7-Eleven on I-Drive and tried our best to wash the slime and stink from the moat off our clothes and skin, and I filled the gas tank to where it had been before we drove the circumference of Orlando.

The Chrysler's seats were going to be a little bit wet when Mom drove to work, but I held out hope that she wouldn't notice, since she was pretty oblivious.

My parents generally believed that I was the most well-adjusted and not-likely-to-break-into-SeaWorld person on the planet, since my psychological well-being was proof of their professional talents.

I took my time going home, avoiding interstates in favor of back roads.

Gil and I were listening to the radio, trying to figure out what station had been playing "Chasing Cars" but then he turned it down and said, "All in all, I think it was a success."

"Absolutely," I said, although by now I was already wondering what tomorrow would be like.

"I do wonder if it will be different tomorrow," I said.

"Yeah," he said. "Me, too."

He left it hanging in the air, and then said, "Hey, speaking of tomorrow, as thanks for your hard work and dedication on this remarkable evening, I would like to give you a small gift."

He dug around beneath his feet and then produced the digital camera.

"Take it," he said. "And use the Power of the Tiny Winky wisely."

I laughed and put the camera in my pocket.

"I'll download the pic when we get home and then give it back to you at school?" I asked.

"Yeah, or whenever."

It was 5:42 when I turned into Jefferson Park.

We drove down Jefferson Drive to Jefferson Court and then turned onto our road, Jefferson Way.

I killed the headlights one last time and idled up my driveway. I didn't know what to say, and Gil wasn't saying anything.

We filled a 7-Eleven bag with trash, trying to make the Chrysler look and feel as if the past six hours had not happened.

In another bag, he gave me the remnants of the Vaseline, the spray paint, and the last full Mountain Dew.

My brain raced with fatigue.

With a bag in each hand, I paused for a moment outside the van, staring at him.

"Well, it was a hell of a night," I said finally.

"Come here," he said, and I took a step forward.

He hugged me, and the bags made it hard to hug him back, but if I dropped them I might wake someone.

I felt myself delve deeper into the embrace, his chest comforting and warm, a feeling I wanted to keep forever.

Finally, he removed his arms, ending the hug, and pressed a cute, gentle kiss on my forehead.

"Good night." He said before turning around, walking back on over to his house.

I watched him climb up a tree and then lift himself onto the roof outside of his second-floor bedroom window.

He jimmied his window open and crawled inside.

I walked through my unlocked front door, tiptoed through the kitchen to my bedroom, downloaded the picture of Nick, and got into bed, my mind booming with the things I would tell all my friends at school.

/

AND SCENE!

I was going to make them strictly platonic with that hug, but omg I just couldn't help it with the kiss and stuff.

BUT I'M SAD IT ENDED.

GAH.

AND OMG YOU GUYS ASKED ME SO MANY QUESTIONS SO I'MMA ANSWER THEM ALL IN A SEPARATE CHAPPIE.

I WAS SO EXCITED ABOUT THAT OMG.

Anyways I'll talk to ya'll soon.

Love,

Amelia 3