i'm not gay | noen eubanks ✔

five

"No, no, no," Noen says, waving his arms around that form an 'x' as we walk into Walmart. "I totally win." He laughs afterward as I laugh.

It's currently 1:07 am, and for some reason, I'm acting like I'm high. "Dude, no way! Stacey Buttsbatch wins!" We were having a contest to see who knew someone with the worst name.

"Stacey wins over Ryne?" He laughs hysterically, me following. We're laughing so hard tears escape our eyes and I have to stop every few seconds to clutch my stomach because of how much it hurts.

"Buttsbatch," I wheeze and he falls to the ground laughing. "I told you I win." This Walmart is dead empty except for some other teens running around and the annoyed workers.

I lend him a hand as he pulls himself up. "Okay, I guess you win." Our laughing calms down, I wipe the remaining tears. He leads me to the hair dye section and we start scanning the boxes.

"How about this for you?" He pulls out a barf green hair dye and I start laughing again. "No..." He chuckles, putting it back. My eyes land on the most beautiful turquoise hair dye I've ever seen.

"Noen, oh my God." I pull it out and he looks at it. "Sold." He takes it out of my hands and looks up and down the rows. "This." He shows me a lime green hair dye.

"Sold." I mimic his voice and we fall into a fit of laughter again.

***

After buying all the hair dye and some bleach, we got back to the hotel. Chase kicked us out of Noen's room so we ran to my room.

He was smearing green hair dye all over my newly bleached hair as I giggled at everything. His hair was already soaking in the blue.

"Okay, how about this," I composed myself, standing up straighter, "hello, I'm Larsen Thompson." My fake British accent was terrible.

I was having Noen teach me because his is actually pretty good. "No," he laughs again, "that's awful."

"You're not really helping!"

"You're not listening! It's 'Hello, I'm Laaaarsen Tompson'." It was so spot on I had to laugh again.

"Stop moving, I'm getting it all over your forehead." I held back my giggles and stood up straighter, biting my bottom lip hard when I wanted to laugh again.

"Put this on," he handed me a plastic shower cap. "Why?" I smiled, taking it from him and putting it on anyways. "So we can do stuff without your hair getting ruined."

He put one on himself and he looked like an idiot. "You look really bad." I laughed and he rolled his eyes. "Says you." I gasped, faking to be hurt.

"Ex-squeeze me, I worked hard on looking this fabulous." He smiled, taking off the plastic gloves he was wearing.

"What now?" He asked.

"I'm kinda hungry." I looked up, thinking of restaurants and fries. Mostly fries.

"I could eat." He pauses for a second before snapping his fingers, "there's this really cool 24-hour arcade that sells food downstairs!"

A grin took over my face. "Well, what are we waiting for?" My heart swells as I think of the last time I was this adventurous. It was never.

I was never this adventurous. My life was boring. Really boring actually. I never did anything crazy to my hair. It was always trimmed a little and it's natural red color.

I never stayed up past 10:30 and I definitely never snuck out to an arcade with a boy at 2:54 am.

We dashed down the stairs, not bothering to take the elevator because of how much energy we had. I zoomed across the lobby and into the arcade, instantly hit by the smell of greasy fries, the loud game music, and a few teenagers.

My eyes traveled around the place. It wasn't anything special. It was like a Dave and Buster's on a minimal budget.

The budget went to never buying this place some Febreeze.

Noen was right behind me, breathing heavily because of all the running we just did. I would probably be wheezing if I wasn't so hyped up on all the adrenaline pumping through me right now.

I can't tell if the adrenaline is from all this recklessness or if it's from the boy initiating all this recklessness.