Phike: Familiar Faces Trilogy 2 Chapter 25, a friends fanfic

A/N: Hey guys, this is just me reminding you guys for the reviews and suggestions for any improvements I could make to keep coming and to read all the chapters leading up to this one and the other books. Please also keep in mind that strong themes of bereavement will feature from now on for quite a while across all three books, and so if you are sensitive towards that topic, I ask you to keep that in mind before continuing to read on with the trilogy. Thank you so much for your continued support, and I hope you have a good day whenever and wherever you're reading this!

Chapter 25 – Addie

{A/N: I'm jumping a few days ahead with the timeline for this book as I was starting to run out of ideas for the plot}

"So we can go anywhere here that we want?" I asked Mom and Dad.

They nodded, and I started jumping up and down with Chris. When Mom and Dad had first suggested the idea of going to a theme park at the weekend, we had gotten so excited that I had started a countdown on a piece of paper in the bedroom.

Mom checked both our wrists to make sure that the wristband we had to put on to be able to enter the theme park was secure, and the minute that we had gotten through the barriers, I followed Chris to wherever he was running to.

He stopped in front of a line that was before the entrance to some kind of rollercoaster ride thing. Because of the trees that shaded the entrance and the vast majority of the ride from where we were standing, I couldn't quite see the whole of the ride so it would be mostly a surprise to what the ride actually consisted of in terms of twists and turns.

Even though this made me slightly more hesitant to board the ride, I followed Chris through the gate to wait at the end of the line. We chatted for a while whilst the line moved until we got to the second place in the line, and could see the full extent of what we were signing up for by boarding this ride. Somehow, up close the rollercoaster seemed a little more daunting than what I had hoped for, but nevertheless I boarded it anyways with Chris.

I sat on the side that was nearest to the platform that we had used to board our seats, somehow convinced that by sitting here I was going to be even a little less scared. A couple of people got in the next two seats in front of us, then the manager of the ride yelled for the ride to start and we were off.

I started screaming as we hurtled down what seemed like quite a considerable drop, even though of course we were on train tracks and were highly unlikely to actually end up falling. Not wanting to take my eyes off from the front view of the rollercoaster for too long, I shot a glance at Chris to see how he was finding it. Unlike me, he looked almost completely unbothered by how fast the ride was going.

I made a mental note to ask him later how on earth he could possibly be that calm. By the time the ride was over, I was surprised to find myself wishing that we could do it all over again.

"Wanna go once more?" Chris asked, turning to look at me, as if he had read my thoughts at that exact moment.

"Sure," I said, as one of the ride attendants came over to help secure us in the cart.

We went round a second time, this time with me screaming less out of fear and more out of excitement and the thrill of the ride. I was also trying to think of what rides we go on next, but as I discovered I was pretty clueless on that topic, Chris and I would have to look at one of the maps that was around the park to pick our next choice.

The both of us got off the ride, having decided that a third round would be too much to handle at the moment. Fortunately, there was a map of the rest of the park not too far away from the entrance of the ride, so we were able to make our decision for the next ride pretty quickly.

"Not any water rides yet," I said, knowing that with the weather of New York being so fall-like at the moment, that if we did go on any water rides, it would take much longer than I could cope with to fully dry off.

"Agreed," Chris said, clearly having noticed the weather himself and had similar thoughts to me on the matter.

In the end, we decided on walking a little further on to the rides that were either rollercoasters or slightly more peaceful ones like teacups and the swaying boat thing. There was one that were you sat in a seat and then shot up a metal panel thing and then were dropped down again.

After I pointed it out to Chris, we joined the line and started gearing up again for the ride.

"This looks a little more peaceful than the last one," I said to Chris, secretly feeling relieved by this.

"Don't be fooled," Chris said, as I looked at him questioningly, not a 100% sure what he meant by this. He shrugged, which bugged me a little, as I hoped my look would prompt him to explain what he meant.

In the end, I decided to forget about it rather than picking a battle with him, and soon enough it was our turn to board the ride.

Chris and I sat together in two of the seats that were next to each other, two complete strangers on each side of us. One of them was a lady, who shot a look at us, as if she thought we were too young to be on a ride like this by ourselves.

I looked at Chris, who gave me a look that I knew was a hint to ignore them. The ride managed yelled for the ride to begin a couple of seconds later, and soon enough we were off. At first the ride was as peaceful as I had expected, but then suddenly it sped up and the drops started getting much sharper.

I decided that holding my breath every time we dropped was not helping me stay calmer, and so I gave up on that, closing my eyes as if not being able to see what was happening might make it feel a little more enjoyable and a little less like I was about to fall any minute now.

We ended up having three rounds on this ride, as I discovered that once you had done it once, Chris and I could both agree that it was highly addictive.

By the time we had finished our third ride, which was like teacups, except the louder you screamed, the faster one of the ride attendants would spin your cup, and so rather than it being a peaceful ride, it was yet another where you felt like your neck could snap at any minute, the both of us were hungry enough that we started tracing our way to the café where Mom and Dad said they'd be waiting.

We found it with the help of one of the strangers who were at the theme park, and saw Mom and Dad sitting at a table in the far corner.

"Hey kids, how was the rides?" Dad asked, as Chris and I took respective seats at the table.

"Pretty good," I said. "I mean, I definitely felt like I was going to have a heart attack more than a few times, but hey have you really been on a ride if you haven't ever felt like that?"

Dad laughed, even though I could tell it was at my comment rather than my fear, so I wasn't offended.

"What about you, Chris?" Dad asked, as I noticed Mom started to shuffle through the menus, as if getting ready to pass them our way.

"I was sad to have to break for food, to be honest," Chris admitted, taking the menu that Mom had offered him.

I took my own, flicking through to see the lunch menu options. I ended up deciding on tomato and cheese pasta and garlic bread with Diet Coke.

Whilst we waited for the food to come, Dad and Mom talked to us about what they had already been on. Apparently, they had been waiting for after lunch to go on any of the big rollercoaster rides until after lunch, but they had been on some of the calmer rides like the bumper cars.

"We actually had a competition to see who could hit the most cars," Mom said.

"Who won?" Chris asked, beating me to the chance of asking me myself.

"It was me," Dad said, as Mom started to protest, clearly wanting to challenge what he had said.

"I think you'll find that it was me," Mom said, indignantly.

"I think the fuck not," Dad said, and then realised what he had said, as Mom glared at him. "Oops," he said, looking around sheepishly. "Excuse my language."

Mum was shaking her head, as if she couldn't believe what she had just witnessed, but then we all heard her start to laugh.

Soon enough we were all in peals of laughter, and only managed to stop when we saw the waitress walking over with our food.