The Waterslide
I felt my chest going up and down at a faster pace, my heart rushing. I tightened the straps on my bottoms and straightened my back. I called the next person in line to a halt. It was my turn now.
Behind me, Kim squealed anxiously, ‘it’s so high!’ She grabbed my arm and pulled me one step down to her level and put her arms around me. I could feel her breast touching my upper arm and jealousy hit me like a sledgehammer. I quickly crossed my arms tightly around my waist, covering up my potbelly that softly bulged over my swimsuit bottoms and squeezed my boobs closer to each other. Goosebumps started to form on my skin, as the cold wind stroked my body. If only that were the reason for my quivering.
‘I don’t know about this, Kim. The queue is very long; we can still go back if you’d like?’
‘Oh, come on, girls! This is fun!’ When I looked back, I saw Harry spreading his arms casually along the railing. With his fingers, he combed back his wet black hair. A prominent jaw curved gracefully around his face, modestly coated with a pubescent stubble.
‘I’ll help you, Rosie.’ He winked and squeezed my ankle gently. A gesture I could only answer with an uncomfortable grin. I tried very hard to avoid Kims’ eyes, knowing she will pout her lips and make kissing sounds at me.
Slowly, the queue became shorter, and the wonky stairwell reached higher up into the sky. There are two girls in front of me, giggling nervously. When they asked the slide attendant if they could go together, the boy pointed with great disinterest at the red sign next to him that said “no shared rides”. It also said no jumping or diving from the slide. I wasn’t planning on doing either.
‘Ahh, now you guys can’t go together!’ Kim said loud enough to be overheard by Harry.
The two giggling girls went effortlessly down the waterslide, one after another, with perfect grace, and the right amount of excitement.
It was my turn now. I pushed Kim forward, and with great desperation, I asked her to go first. She called me a wimp and sat down in the start tub. The light went from red to yellow, to green, and when the buzzer rang, Kim quickly pulled her swimsuit bottoms in between her cheeks and cheered loudly. After her silhouette disappeared into the meandering tubes, I walked over to the edge and awaited her splash into the water.
‘Your turn,’ Harry said to me as he gently laid his arm around my shoulders.
I froze and crossed my arms back around my waist. My eyes kept peering down at the swimming pool. I imagined Kim going around a series of sharp curves, spinning around, almost falling over the edge on the open bits of the slide, but she didn’t. She exited the slide safely and yelled something incomprehensible at Harry and me. I waved back.
‘Oh, that’s all right. You can go first.’ I said to Harry and smiled.
‘Kim was right; it’s pitiful we can’t go together.’ He squeezed my shoulder and slid his hand along my back to my side. He paused at the height of my buttocks. I coughed out of discomfort, waiting for him to pull his hand back.
‘See you down there!’ He ran over to the slide, grabbed the metal pole above the tub, took a step backward, and launched himself into the tube without waiting for the buzzer. I gasped and covered my eyes. The water slide attendant seemed unbothered, eyes locked on his phone.
The girl next in line asked me if she could go ahead. I said yes, and said the same to the two people behind her. All I hoped was for the queue to shorten quickly, for the stairs to be freed up, so I could make my way down safely, instead of tumbling down a waterslide, defying gravity.
In the distance, I heard Kim’s high-pitched squeal. Peering over the edge, I saw Harry swimming towards Kim. She splashed water on him tauntingly. He ducked underwater and pulled her from her feet back into the pool. She was laughing, trying to push his head underwater, teasing him.
They both didn’t look back up.
I felt my chest going up and down at a faster pace, my heart rushing. I tightened the straps on my bottoms and straightened my back. I called the next person in line to a halt. It was my turn now.
With clenched fists, I marched methodically towards the start tub, stepped into the luke-warm rushing water and closed my eyes and took a deep breath in.
When the buzzer rang, I scooted my butt forwards and crossed my legs firmly at my ankles and folded my arms across my chest, just like the boy on the sign. The water lifted me up, and for a moment, I felt weightless. I was being carried by a thousand little bubbles massaging my back as they traveled with me to a shared finish line.
Reality came back crashing in as I hit the first corner: the chute was pitch black, the slope steepened, and I picked up speed swiftly, unwillingly. Water splashed in my mouth as I tried to scream. I spread my arms, trying to clench myself in the tube, but the slippery walls made that impossible. A tight curve flipped me over on my stomach, making it unable for me to see the backdrop of the open tube, the blue sky warning me that the last bit of the slide is coming up — the free-fall.
My stomach dropped as I felt the steep curve massaging my body like a rolling pin. With tremendous speed, I flew down the slide and splashed onto the pool. For a second, I was scared that I would skip across the water like a spinning rock, but I didn’t. I landed in the water like a bag of bricks, and when I finally pierced my head through the surface, I gasped for air. I coughed up the water that I collected in my lungs and opened my eyes.
Kim and Harry were not in the pool anymore. I looked around, but they were nowhere to be found. I lifted myself up onto the edge of the pool and looked up to the slide. It didn’t look daunting anymore. It didn’t even look that high.
I jumped up, swept the hair out of my face, and made my way back to the end of the queue. Again.
