Don't Throw Away Your Shot

Chapter Thirty-Five

John's POV

The boat tipped over.

I fell into the water with Alex. With our life jackets on, we sped back to the surface of the water. I grabbed a hold of our upside down boat and coughed.

"Are you okay?" Alex asked as he got a hold of the boat beside me.

I groaned. "Could this get any worse?"

Not only was our boat flipped, but I was in this with Alex. The boy that I wanted so badly to forgive, but sadly couldn't. The boy that I wanted so badly to hold and kiss and cuddle, but couldn't. 

"Well technically," Alex argued, "the paddles sunk to the bottom. So I don't know what the counselors will do to us."

I sighed put back a few wet curls out of my face. "That was rhetorical."

I looked around and saw that everyone was still rowing to shore. Good thing we were halfway there or else we would exhaust ourselves. The only was to solve this was by talking to Alex, sadly.

"What should we do?" I ask.

Alex seemed surprised that I actually talked to him. Hell, I was surprised. He seemed to then get back in the mode.

"Leave the boat. It'll take too long to take it over to shore. We'll ask someone for help later."

I looked down to the water and formed out the figures of the paddles at the bottom. "What if we go after the paddles and flip the boat around."

Alex shook his head. "Turning around this boat, there would still be lots of water in it causing it to sink. Also, going all the way down there without knowing what's down there is kind of suicidal, in my opinion. I almost died once because of water and I'm not letting that happen again."

I nodded, remembering Alex telling me one night about his past. The hurricane. He said he had to go to therapy from when he was safe up until senior year in high school. 

My god how I wanted to hug him and tell him it would be okay.

"Okay, let's start swimming. We can't wait here forever."

*** *** *** ***

Swimming with life jackets was harder than usual.

Granted, they did help us stay afloat so we wouldn't really drown, but when you're trying to swim, you kinda need to use your arms. 

And the jackets really disturbed that.

I could't see beside me, I didn't want to lose time. I wanted to get out of here as fast as possible. I knew that Alex was a bit behind me, but not far. He never learned how to professionally swim, being traumatized from the hurricane and all.

Doing this made me think a lot. My mind was restless at this point, going from one thought to another. 

For example, Maria had to tell Eliza eventually. But if she told her, then Eliza might get mad at me. I was the one that walked in on her and Alex in the act. Eliza might get mad because I never told her, and I'm supposedly one of her closest friends ever now.

Another thing, everyone would hate Maria and Alex. Eliza being Eliza, she's bound to tell her sisters. If Peggy and Angie know, then they're going to tell everyone. No one will want to be their friend. Maybe I can handle not being friends with Maria, but Alex is different in ways I can't describe.

Thirdly, Angie might end up in jail for sure this time- and Peggy will go with her. Knowing that their sister was hurt, they'd kill for her. Not to mention that Eliza told me she used to have a crush on Alex, Angie as well before they gave up and moved on. Knowing that if they got with Alex in a relationship and that could have happened to them- jail time it is.

"John! Please stop!"

I stopped swimming and rested my muscles for a bit. I looked behind me and saw Alex about 3 feet away. He caught up to be and we caught our breaths.

"Sorry, I'm not as fast as you." He apologized.

"It's fine." I replied.

"HEY GUYS! ENJOYING YOUR DATE?"

We looked at the shore and saw everyone already there, sitting and watching us. Peggy was the one that seemed to be screaming at us- she was at the edge of land and waving at us.

"THIS IS ANYTHING BUT A DATE!" I yelled back.

"What happened!?" Eliza asked, coming beside Peggy so she could speak more clearly to us.

"Our boat tipped!," Alex cupped his hands around his mouth, "We've been swimming back for I don't know how long!"

"Well lucky for you guys, it seems you only had about 9 yards left!" Eliza responded.

I smiled when I realized that was true. We were close, but we still had some way to go.

"How you holding up Alex?!" Herc got near the two Schuyler sisters, Angie as his side. I swear if they're secretly dating I need to know every detail.

"Umh, alright I guess! I'm not having a panic attack and I've been fine, but I really wanna get out of here before it happens."

I turned to my left so I could face Alex. I put a hand on his shoulder and nodded towards shore.

"Let's get back to it."