Escaping Reality

Chapter 25: Buzzed Bellyfloppin

I pulled up to the port, parked the Porsche, and found the guys hanging out by the boat where I was met with two surprises. First, that the boat was no ordinary boat, it was more like a modest yacht. It had the top deck, the inside living quarters, and all the other amenities. The second surprise was the yacht was actually named "The Boat". It was written in giant blue bubble letters across the side. Real original I thought to myself with a chuckle. You give a bunch of high schoolers a boat - what would you expect them to name it.

Jason, Tyler, and Nico were there along with Charles and Hamilton whom I was introduced to. Shocker Hamilton was the one who owned the yacht, with a name like that I shouldn't have been surprised.

"Haha is this like your beater yacht," I asked him jokingly.

"Yeah, it is actually. Our nice one is on the west coast," He responded nonchalantly.

"Holy shit, are you shitting me?" I asked

"I'm just yanking your chain, man haha, my parents are rich, but they're not that rich" He responded light-heartedly.

We climbed aboard The Boat and Hamilton sat behind the wheel like it was a throne. Wow, that must have been some kind of feelings. He threw on a captain's hat that he claimed to have gotten on clearance at the local marina store, we all got a kick out of that. "Look at me, I am the captain now" we kept repeating mimicking the 2013 Captain Phillips movie. We set sail in good spirits.

We talked for a little bit, shooting the shit. The guys wanted to know what was going on between Lola and I. I told them off and shot back with a couple questions of my own about certain individuals who I had seen around from the high school. In under thirty minutes, I had a pretty good understanding of the social ladder in place at their high school. Fortunately, between my in with Madeline and Nico, I had found myself atop that ladder.

High school was really pretty simple. You had your popular group of kids who drank and partied, they were mainly the star athletes, rich kids, and pretty girls. Then there were a few cliches that were pretty popular but maybe a little nerdier or partied a little less. Then there were the music kids, chorus, band, orchestra, and what have you. The drama, debate, art, theatre kids had their own circle. Then there were the smaller cliques of soccer kids and cross country kids. Then, of course, there were the super-smart kids and then the outcasts. Like always there was some crossover and some expectations but the general outline seemed to stay consistent with what I had known back home.

The guys got me caught up on all the high school drama, who was cheating on who. Who had a thing for who and who didn't associate with who. Eventually, the conversation steered to fishing, and when they learned that I have never been deep sea fishing they stopped the boat and demanded that I catch something before we go any further.

They sent me out to the deck with a giant pole and told me to catch something. I was no fisherman but I had a general understanding of the sport. Cast, reel, and hope for a bite. I went through the motions and came up empty-handed my first couple tries. Finally, I got a bite and played the reeling game, giving a little line and then taking double what I let out. After a couple of minutes of fighting, I had finally brought the fish up. It was a baby swordfish. I was pretty impressed but the guys found it comical that I had struggled so much with a baby fish.

I refused to take it off the hook which prompted some laughter among the crew. They eventually cut me some slack and threw the catch back. After some debate, we determined that a baby fish was still a fish and we set course again. Hamilton claimed that he knew a cool cove that was only about an hour's drive. Just before we got there the guys started acting weird.

"What's up guys, you're being weird," I asked.

"It's just that if you're gonna be hanging with us there's something we gotta give you," Jason said, his voice sending my heart a million different directions. Suddenly I was thinking this could be some extreme cult where I had to commit a crime to join or something. They let me suffer for a few seconds thinking of all the terrible possibilities before finally screaming in unison.