Wonderland

❅H2❅ Midnight Carnival

Chapter Two

Heather

Midnight Carnival

 

September 15

"You going to Dawg Daze?" I asked, looking over at my friend, Brayden. He was getting us ice cream on account of the fact that he lost a bet we made a little over a week ago. The bet was ridiculous, honestly. Like, I don't even know how I won it.

We were watching About Time together, the movie with Rachel McAdams in it, when Brayden said, rather confidently, "I bet you the plot will be about Tim being unable to undo time, and then he has to re-convince Mary to love him again because he went too far back in time."

"Nuh uh," I said, shaking my head. "Definitely not. I propose something else."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"There has to be a deeper meaning into this movie. I don't think it's another clichéd 'stuck-in-time-oh-no-I-need-to-find-a-way-to-undo-it' movie."

Brayden rolled his eyes. "I bet you a double scoop ice cream at Baskin Robin's that that's not going to happen."

"Fine," I said. "You're on, Coleman."

Of course, he ended up losing. His face was white by the time the movie concluded. He wouldn't admit defeat. Typical Brayden behavior. Took him a week to own up to it and buy me ice cream.

"I'm probably not going to Dawg Daze. Sounds lame," Brayden said, answering my question, as he handed me my ice cream. Strawberry and cookies n' cream—my favorite.

"You should, though!" I urged. "It's a freshmen only kind of thing. If you don't attend, just imagine how much regret you'll have next year."

"Not really," he said.

"At least go to the midnight carnival with me," I pleaded. "I don't know anyone there, and I know you don't know anyone there, so we could go together and meet some new people there together."

"I'm sure there are upperclassmen who sneak into the carnival anyway," Brayden said, taking a sip from the milkshake in his hand. It was mint chocolate chip. Brayden loved mint chocolate chip ice cream.

Ever since we found out that we were admitted into the same major and were going to the same college, we started hanging out more often over the summer—not that we never did that back in high school.

I met him last year. We were both Running Start students. In other words, in our junior and senior year of high school, we were both taking college level courses at our local community college. I ended up with a 4.0 in all of my classes, and Brayden told me he ended up with a 3.83. We shared the same physics class. He was my lab partner. At first, we didn't really get along well. He was too arrogant for my taste, and he found me too shy, but when we ended up with a B- on our first physics lab together, we knew that we had to change our attitudes towards one another in order to raise our physics grade.

And what do you know? Two weeks after that incident, we started talking to each other like we were the best of friends. We hung out during breaks and went to each other's houses sometimes. Even though we only shared one class together, that didn't stop us from becoming good friends.

Brayden may be a dickhead sometimes, but once you get to know him, he could be a real sweetie.

"Brayden, just please go with me," I begged, seating myself down onto an empty stool.

He joined me on the stool beside. He sighed. "I'll think about it. I'm not much of a socializer."

"You think?" I teased.