Saving Shay

8.

"What is this place?" I ask him. I run my fingers along the edges of the tank.

"An abandoned aquarium." I look at him with raised eyebrows.

"How did you find this place?" I ask him leaning on to one of the tanks. He leans on to the opposite tank I'm leaning on to and cross his arms.

"Well it's a long story." He says as he sighs. I look at the fishes in some of the tanks. I follow the, with my finger, fascinated how they follow my finger.

"We have time. Not that I have anything to do anyways." I say with a smile. He returns the smile.

"Alright. Well it started when my dad left my mom. I was about 8 I think. My mom," He sighs. "She fell into depression for a while. She started to shut herself in her room and stopped talking to me. I didn't understand what was happening. I thought she hated me, blamed me for dad. I found this place when I was 10. I went in the woods that was behind old my house and found this place. Must have been made at least 50 years old." He says patting the wall. "The sea creatures were still alive half starved but alive nonetheless. I fed them whenever I visited here. Most of the time I came here because I was lonely."

"I was still confused why my mom shut me out. But I was okay I guess. Not sad but not happy. My mom was still non active, always just went to work and went straight to bed when she came home. 10 years forward and here we are."

"How is your mom now?" I ask him.

"She's okay I guess. She started talking to me finally, and she seems more" He ponders for a while. "Lively." He says with a smile.

"That's good." I say with a smile. I face the fish tank and look at a turtle, the size of my palm, swim towards me and I smile as I trace the outline of the turtle.

"So are you going to tell me your life story?" He says suddenly. I look at him for a while and look away and face the water again.

"There not much to tell." I say plainly.

"Yes there is!" He says looking at me

"Whatever you're not telling me Shay. You need help." He continues. I face him again.

"So?" I say blankly.

He sigh. "You need to ask for help."

"To who?" I say sarcastically. "My dad? Or what about my grandma or grandpa. I bet that they can help a lot." I say and roll my eyes, "Except for the fact that they're dead." I mutter looking down at my shoes.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know." He says, as I avoid looking at his eyes.

"I don't tell random people that my dad is dead you know." I say.

"I know." He says, I can hear the smile in his voice.

"You should be honored." I say finally looking up.

"I am." He says giving me a genuine smile.

"Hey, so why did you skip gym?" He asks.

I grimace, "First of all I didn't want to do anything and second of all there was a fucking snot on the door." I say shuddering. "No way am I going to ever touch a strangers snot."

He laughs and I glare at him. "I should have just made you open the door." I mutter. Whe he stops laughing he holds his hands out.

I stare at it and then back at his face. I'm confused. Am I suppose to do something? "What are you doing?" I say as I stare at his hands again.

He rolls his eyes. "I want to show you something, so take my hand." I stare at his face blankly and say a quick "oh."

I hesitantly take his hand and he leads the way. His hands are bigger than mine so it engulfs mine. And his hands are really warm, it.... feels good? I don't know. I feel like for the first time in my life I feel..... safe. I think about all the times I've ever felt like this. It's a new kind of feeling. It's the good kind. I don't know, but it's like the feeling I get when Gabe is with me. But it's a little different. This is kind of freaking me out. I never felt this way. Oh my god, maybe I'm being possessed. Yeah totally. I convince myself deep in thought. I bet I'm just being possessed by some WW II ghosts. Creep.

I break out of my thoughts when I notice our surroundings. I gasp, and notice we're in some kind of dome. The dome is about the size that can only fit about 3 people. So Logan is half crouching since he's so tall. Thank god I'm short. I look around the dome, it's inside of the tank so we're surrounded with all the water and the sea creatures are swimming around and over us.

"This is so cool!" I say excitedly. I look above us and right as I look up a manta ray swam over us. I grin widely.

"I found this the second year I found this aquarium." He says from beside me.

"You know I've never been to an aquarium." I say still fascinated by all this.

"Really?" He says sounding surprised.

"Yeah."

"Well, I'm glad that I was the first to take you here then." He says.

I look at him and see that he's still half crouching, I laugh at his face. And he glares at me back. I sit down on the ground cross my legs. I pat the spot next to me, he raise his eyebrows but he sits down.

"You know if I brought the girls I've dated here they'll probably complain that this place is so gross and old." He says suddenly. I look at beside me where he's sitting.

"You never brought girls you've dated here?" I ask him. He nods his head still looking ahead.

"You were the first girl I've showed here." He says. I look at him surprised.

"Really?" I ask him and he nods his head agin.

"Well... thank you." I say to him and smile at him. He looks at my way smiles and stares at me for a while. He shakes his headwind look away muttering something along, "you're too cute for your own good." I stare at him in confusion and he stands up dusting himself off and he give me a hand to pull me up.

"Well, as much as I want to continue this emotional moment we have to go, school already ended." He says looking at his watch. He heads for the tunnel connected to where we were. I stand there and stare at his back, he has a nice ass. Stop thinking about these things. You sound like a creepy stalker. But he does.

"You coming?" Logan asks from the head of the tunnel. I shake my head mentally and mutter a "yeah" and follow him out.
---
My teacher is making everyone try out for this race competition thing. I'm going to fail. I'm not horrible at running but I'm sure as hell not the best. But he's giving us a 10% raise on our grade if we do it.

Teacher hands a test out and all like, "This make 30% of the grade and tomorrow we're doing another test and the next day and the next next day."

Me, "Damn I just won't come to school then." Because having a missing grade is better than a F.
-E