Misfits

Chapter 12: Cold Water

"Falling for you"

"Wow, this place is actually kind of cool!" America exclaimed as she stopped running, having reached the water point of the pier. "Are those sea lions?"

"Yeah, they are."

"Cool!" I'd never seen her so happy, it was fun.

Dashing off to get closer to the sea lions, America was soon out of our sight. "So, you wanna go see the sea lions, or what?" I asked the remaining three, who were either catching their breaths or looking around.

"Sure," Simón said, "Sounds cool, I guess."

Julia just looked around, while Lucas stood there, quiet and shy like always. "I kind of want to go shopping, America said we could." Julia suddenly announced.

"Sure, yeah. Lucas, what do you want to do?" I asked, trying not to sound like his parent, but he had to make some decisions for himself.

"Shopping." The words quickly came out of his mouth, but they shocked both Julia and Simón. I could tell they had to hold back from commenting on his sudden choice to talk.

"Great, well you can go shopping, and we can go to the sea lions. Sound good?" Everyone nodded, so we set off our separate ways.

Walking next to him, I felt like we needed to talk. Since we weren't running, it was a walk with time to be bored. "So, you write music?" I suddenly asked, remembering what America had said he spent his weekend doing.

"Huh? Oh, yeah."

"That's cool."

"Yeah," He said, smiling awkwardly. "Do you do anything?"

"I..." I began to tell him, unsure what I was going to say.

"Oh, that question was stupid."

"No, it wasn't, just kind of worded weirdly."

"What I meant was, like if you do anything like play a sport or creative things?" He asked, slightly blushing.

"Yeah, I guess. I like drawing."

"Just any kind of drawing?"

"Well, I really like fashion designing. But, most people find that shallow or then they associate me with those people on tv that are all dumb and cheerleaders." All of the words inside of me just spilled out, but he didn't seem to mind.

"Yeah, I see that. People often see me, and think that I'm some crazy sports jock or something. Which I'm not." I looked at him, and saw why people would think that. He was muscular, for a middle schooler, and tall.

"Well, you can be whatever you want to be." I said, which made him smile.

We had reached the railing, where we could look over at the sea lions down below sunning on rafts. America was nowhere I could see, which slightly concerned me, but at the same time I was glad. Not because I didn't like her, but I wanted to be alone with Simón. A full on crush had grown without me even noticing, and now it was there to distract me.

"I-" He began, when an ear-piercing scream rang throughout the area and a small splash could be heard.

"What was that?" I asked, having a small idea of what it was, but hoping not.

"You don't think-" We ran over to where the noise had come from, and looked over the railing.

Something was splashing in the water below like crazy, causing small waves that rocked the rafts floating on top of the water. I caught a glance from whatever was causing the commotion and saw red hair. "I do."

I ran down the stairs as quickly as I could, with Simón following me. Getting as close to the water as we could, I tried to call for our friend. "America!"

Which was pointless. I saw a little sign by a gate that lead to the water, 'the water is 43 degrees today, do not go in'. "We need to get her out." He said, reading the same sign.

Suddenly, the sound of water hitting something hard rang out. America laid on top of one of the seal's wooden rafts, soaking wet.

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"We don't ever talk about this." America told Simón and I after drying off at the aquarium, who'd nicely let her get dry clothes for free from the gift shop.

"Fine," I told her, obviously falling over a railing and into cold water was embarrassing to her. "But Connor, Julia and Lucas are going to notice you're wearing cheap gift shop clothes."

"I know that, we'll just say that I really liked the aquarium and felt like getting a lot of mercy."

Rolling my eyes, I smiled. "Alright, let's go get Lucas and Julia and go back to the hotel. It's getting pretty dark, and it does look like it's going to rain. We don't want to get caught in that."

"Okay, let's go." Her wet hair dripped on the cement ground as she hurried off to the shopping street of the pier.

"Better keep up with her." I said, and Simón nodded. We dashed off to follow her, in a search to find Lucas and Julia.

But by the time we made it around the corner and in front of the shops, she was standing next to the two of them. "They were just heading out of that store." She announced, smiling.

"Why's your hair so wet? And where are you clothes?" Julia asked, noticing that America looked different from when they had parted with her less than an hour earlier.

"I went to the aquarium and really loved it, so I bought a lot of stuff from their gift shop, and my hair's wet because some kid was splashing me like crazy at the touch pools." For making it up off the top of her head, America was doing pretty good. But, she probably lies a lot.

"Right, well are we going back to the hotel?" Julia didn't seem to believe her lies, but decided to let it slide.

"Yes, oh wait do we want to get dinner or something? I mean I guess it's probably like lunch for us, but should we get food?" I remembered how long it had been since I last ate, and my stomach growled.

"Sure, yeah I'll text Connor to see what he wants." America said, pulling out her phone and swiping around.

A moment passes, "He wants burgers. Know anywhere we can get those?"

"There has to be somewhere, Yelp it?"

"I don't have Yelp, and don't really feel like downloading it and making an account right now."

"I'll go look." I said, since I knew I had Yelp. "Looks like there's a burger place right there." I said, realizing that we were standing right in front of a place called "Wipeout Bar and Grill" "According to Yelp they have burritos and burgers."

"Great, let's go."