In This Life (Sequel to 'In Another Life')

86

"Okay, rules," Corey said, after everyone stopped talking. "The blue pool belongs to Sam's team, the green to Denise's. You only get balloons out of your team's pool. It's gonna be your basic water balloon fight, but remember who is on your team. Whoever gets hit by a balloon and it pops, they are sent to jail, or the chill area underneath the awning by the backdoor. The only way to get them out is to take out two people from the opposite team. Now, most of you know that Terra is still in recovery. With being the case, it's up to your teammates, myself being one of them, to protect you. You also need to get hit three times to be taken out. That's the only thing that I could think of to make it kind of fair," he said, looking at me apologetically. "It's fine," I replied, kind of hating the fact that he gave me a handicap. Colby was watching me with a worried expression, so I mouthed the words 'I'll be fine' to him. He didn't look convinced but I wasn't worried. They were just water balloons. I was right. Nothing bad happened. We all screamed when the cold water would burst on us. Corey had mixed food coloring in some of them without telling us. So my once white sundress ended up being stained blue. "Corey! You could've warned us so we could've changed clothes!" Colby replied angrily, when he got a particularly brutal balloon to the chest by Denise. The front of his off white shirt was soaked and red. I covered my mouth with my hand to keep the laugh in. Corey shrugged with a grin. "Where's the fun in that?" he replied. "Oh you're in for it," Colby yelled, grabbing two balloons out of the dwindling supply. Corey screamed "NAOOOO" and started running, while everyone else kind of stopped playing just to watch the two of them. Corey kept yelling, as Colby gained ground. He threw one balloon, and caught Corey dead in the back. He was wearing black so I didn't know if it was a colored balloon or not. "AOOOO" he yelled, stopping in his tracks to pull the cold wet shirt away from his skin. Colby took the advantage and popped the next balloon on Corey's head, letting green water cascade down into his face. He sputtered, and wiped his face dramatically, while Colby laughed. "Why would you do that?" Corey whined. "I was trying to make it more fun and you treat me like this. You're not very nice Colby Brock." I started laughing, and a snort escaped my nose. "It's just fun and games brother," Colby replied, laughing. Corey looked at him for a minute, then stalked off like he was mad, back towards the backdoor. I almost thought he was serious until he stopped at the balloons and grabbed a couple of balloons for himself. "Why the FUCK did y'all stop?! GAME ON BITCHES!" He started throwing the balloons at everyone, not caring who's team they were on. I guess the rules were off. I ran up with everyone else, ignoring the slight twinge in my back, and grabbed and armful of balloons. I saw Colby and Elias squaring off, so I made my way towards them, trying to dodge the multiple balloons that were flying past me. Somehow I managed to get through without being hit. Once I reached Colby's side, he glanced at me, but let his eyes go straight back to Elias. I caught Eli's eye, and then proceeded to pop as many balloons as I could on Colby's back and head. "Oh shit," he sputtered out. "What the fuck? T! Stop!" I started laughing again, and dropped the last two balloons that I had, watching them explode on the grass. "Oh you're gonna pay for that," he said menacingly to me. I rolled my eyes, and held my hand up like come on then. Then a giant balloon caught Colby on the cheek, and burst all over his face. "SCORE!!" Elias yelled, doing some little victory dance. Now, I did get hit by a few balloons but since we weren't keeping score anymore, it didn't matter. We were all just screaming and throwing balloons at each other. It was great. A light, fun, hilarious atmosphere between friends...and random people that I didn't know. Corey was filming as much as he could, with the camera being passed off between Colby, Sam, and Jake to get alternate view points. This was going to be a great video and I couldn't wait to see it. Once the game was over, and we were all sufficiently soaking wet, we went back to just shooting the shit, and hanging out. Colby called and ordered like twenty pizzas, for us all to eat. The night was amazing. I didn't think about Amber once. Not once. Until it was over, and everyone was leaving. The yard had grown quiet, Sam, Kat, Colby and I being the only ones still outside. I picked up my phone from where I had left it on the bench surrounding the fire pit, and turned it back on. Sam and Colby were discussing their upcoming trip, and Kat was facetiming someone about a music video that she had in the works. I didn't want to disturb her so I decided to just scroll my old fan pages again. I couldn't delete them, even though they were dead. It just seemed like a part of the life that I used to have. Part of what brought Colby and I together, and what gave me all of these wonderful friends that I have, this wonderful life. There were new accounts in the fandom now, a lot that I didn't know, some that I didn't. Some of the old pages that used to be popular had now grown silent, the admin for the account having moved on. It was sad, if you thought about it.