Set Free

Set Free Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

The rest of the homecoming activities were just as awesome as the first two to me. I'd never enjoyed it this much in California, and they didn't do nearly as much, if you can believe it. There were things such as the egg toss, tire relay, and a sack race, which Nick and I participated in together. And that was a whole lot of fun, even though we kept falling like idiots since he's a lot taller than me. But we didn't care.

The parade was now about to begin, and it involved walking like a whole mile to the town square and back. I was not looking forward to it. But at least Nick would be right there walking with me. I smiled at the thought of that.

"You ready?" Nick asked me. "It's about to start."

"Yep." I replied, and we began to walk our place behind the band. I could already tell that the walk was going to be strenuous, at the least. It was hot, humid, and not near windy enough outside.

The parade soon began, and I found myself actually enjoying it. I glanced at Nick every once and a while and tried to make him laugh so he would fall behind in the parade and have to catch up to me. It was pretty entertaining. But the fun was short-lived. Once we had reached the town square, we were looking forward to a break, but they decided to just go back without one!

Then, my shoe almost came off, and I had to hop around miserably for a few minutes while I tried to pull it back onto the back of my foot without having to untie it. That had Nick in near hysterics, which almost made him slower than I was, even though I was hopping on one foot.

It seemed to take forever, but we eventually made it back, and we were soaked through with sweat. The minute we reached the school, I ran with all the little energy I had left to a vending machine full of water, struggling with my stupid soaked-through back jeans pocket to pull out a dollar and twenty-five cents. I had to put aside my rage against water costing THAT freaking much for the moment; I was absolutely dying of thirst. Seriously, I thought I was going to keel over right then and there.

I finally got the money in, and drink dropped to the bottom slot, and I squealed happyily, jumping up and down in excitement. Yes, water!!!

I had gulped down about half of the thing, when I heard chuckles behind me. What I saw when I turned around in curiosity made me feel like a complete idiot.

It was Nick, wiping his mouth on his hand, apparently just having finished getting himself a long drink of water....from the now all-too-obvious water fountain.

Nick just kept laughing at my stupidity.

"I didn't see it, okay?!" I said in protest.

That just made him laugh all the harder, and he came and threw him arm around my shoulder. "C'mon, let's go," He told me, walking me towards to exit back to the football field where the pep rally was taking place.

I sighed, and when I breathed back in what I thought was going to be clean air, I wrinkled my nose in disgust. There was a foul smell in the air. Then I realized what it was.

"Hey, get off me! You're all sweaty and you stink!" I pushed at his arm, trying to get him to remove it from my shoulder.

"Guess what, you're just as sweaty and you stink, too. So get over it." He told me, a smile playing at his features.

From then on, we walked in a comfortable silence the long way to the football field, and took our seats with the rest of the juniors in our grade. They had already begun the pep rally, and I struggled to even stand up with the rest of them, let alone cheer, and do what the cheerleaders told us. But why were none of them tired, sweaty, and stinky??

Oh, right, I remembered. None of them walked like we did. They just drove their cars in the parade.

And they were smart to do so. It was hot as heck outside. The only reason that I had been stupid and walked in the parade was, of course, because of Nick. He had convinced me to walk with him because it was good for me, or at least that's what he claimed. I don't know how he thought feeling like this was a good thing. But I'd obliged, and gone with him, because as I earlier mentioned, I wanted to spend Homecoming with Nick. Man. For platonic reasons, of course.

Of course.

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This was it, the day was finally over. Nick was walking me to my car in silence, and I was talking about how much fun I'd had that day.

When we reached my car, Nick finally spoke. "Thank you, for spending Homecoming with me. I had a lot of fun with you."

"Me too." I said.

"So, I guess I'll see you tonight? Do you want me to pick you up?"

I considered it for a second, and then I realized that my parents would flip. "Um, no. I mean, it isn't like you're my date or anything, so I'll just see you there, okay?"

"Yeah, I guess that seems fair. See you." With that, he turned and walked away, leaving me there wondering if I did the right thing not agreeing to be his date after all....