After arriving at the festival with Kicks, it took a while before I could have her all to myself again.

Deli and my parents were obviously overjoyed to see her up and about and took turns hugging her until I started to worry that there would not be any hugs left for me. They were using up her quota for the year.

Even Jet grabbed her, and if I didn't see the relief on his face while he held her in his arms, I probably would've punched him. Barn, Lurch and Burlap hugged her too, but they were much better behaved and self-controlled about it.

I don't think so many boys have hugged Kira in one day before in her entire life. She took it in her stride, but I could see that all the attention freaked her out a bit. Nobody objected when I took her hand and said I was going to isolate her from octopuses for the rest of the afternoon. They gave me looks, of course. They either didn't understand that they were the multiple-tentacled things... or maybe it's not octopuses... Is it octopi?

I don't care.

All that matters is that they didn't stop me from running away with my girlfriend. 

We wander from game stall to game stall, playing all the games we usually love. I'm sure these games used to be more fun. I love watching Kira throw darts at balloons, toss rings at bottles and catch tiny metal fish with a magnet, but it doesn't feel the same today.

I remember these games being more violent in the past. Kira is winning some more prizes, and we hand them out to passing kids, keeping only a few in a bag I'm carrying along with us.

Kicks and I are smiling at each other. We're holding hands. We even make a joke or two, but it feels like I'm on a carousel ride that ran out of batteries and is just coasting along slowly, losing its tune and most of its unicorns and swans.

Still, I'm with Kira; that is all I wanted today. Being here in a semi-normal situation, my brain is starting to catch up with the rest of my body, and I realise that when we were making out on her bed, it would've been the perfect moment for me to tell her in no uncertain terms how much I love her.

I blew a really good chance.

Then again, if I'd told her then, she might've thought that I was only saying it so I could see how far she would go with me. I would never do something like that, but I'm sure she believes that I would. I've noticed that Kira has a rather warped view of my idea of romance.

I'm happy just being with her, watching her pile up the tiny fish she manages to drag out of the tub without cheating. We often cheat, working together to catch way more than we would've been able to catch by ourselves.

One game we always have loads of fun with is shooting a stream of water into a clown's mouth to blow up a balloon until it pops. I'm not sure if we've ever actually popped a balloon, but those guns are fun. I'm not surprised when Kira hands me the packet of fish-shaped bath bombs she'd just won and pulls me to the clown-balloon stall.

When we've taken our places and are given the green light, we raise our guns and trigger the streams of water. It's going much better than usual, and I let up on my trigger a bit because I don't want to be the first to pop my balloon. Kira is not far behind me; her balloon is growing nicely. I keep one eye on mine and one on hers to make sure hers grows larger than mine. She will probably be mad at me if I let her win, but I don't care. I want her to feel the rush of winning.

I did the same thing at all the games I played against her. It was generally easier to let her play alone because my natural competitiveness tends to take over, and I don't want to beat her at anything today.

Kicks' balloon is very close to popping now, and I hold my breath, tensing for the boom, but it doesn't come. One second, it is growing, groooowing, GROWING and the next, I see it collapse. Just before I can register why it's deflating, I am doused by a stream of water so cold that I let out a pretty, high-pitched soprano yelp, hitting the top musical C.

Kira is laughing happily when I turn my head to look at her to see if she's alright. My mind immediately jumped to things like torrential rain, burst pipes, floods and mayhem. I am startled to see her pointing her gun at me while she gives me a threatening look. I wipe the water from my face and hair, flicking the drops at her while I enjoy the sound of her giggles.

That's what was missing from our games this afternoon. Kira's giggles. She laughed when we joked, and she smiled at me a lot, but she didn't once let me hear her gleeful giggle - the one I always hear on special occasions when she attacks me.

Being shot at by Kicks is not unusual; we always interfere with each other's games. We regularly end up wet or banned or having a gentle brawl with each other. She's right; that is what's missing today, but is she really all right enough to get back to normal? Probably not, but a little bit of water would not hurt her.

Grinning, I narrow my eyes, making sure she sees that she is about to get a shower. Her smile answers mine, and I can see her getting ready. I'm about to pull my trigger when her gun goes off again.

We're in a full-out water war now, ignoring Raymond, the booth attendant, jumping up and down, yelling at us in a super-sonic shrill voice to stop shooting at each other. I'm not sure, but I think he just threatened to fine us. Is that even a thing?

Seriously, this boy!

He is in some of my classes at school, and I'm always hearing: "Ethan! Don't draw rude pictures on the whiteboard. Ethan! Don't draw on me with the whiteboard markers! Ethan! Put down the whiteboard eraser; don't throw it at me! Ethan! Put me down!"

Seriously, doesn't he know any other names?!

I'm not going to let a pimply killjoy with a massively inflated sense of self-importance tell me not to give my girlfriend a cold shower if she wants me to give her one.

"It's okay, buddy," I tell him, turning my gun to spray him instead. "I've got your back; I know how to cure heat hysteria."

"Ethan! Put down that gun! Ethan! Stop shooting at me!" See, there he goes again!

"Stop yelling at my boyfriend!" Kira growls, directing her stream at him too. "Calm down, will you! You're going to hurt your voice if you keep squealing like that and who's going to yell at us then?!"

I'm laughing too much to keep my stream going and put my gun back on its stand to watch Kira deal with the guy who shouted at me.

"Kira! Stop!" he screeches because he's learned a new name now. "Kira! That's it! You're banned! You're both banned! Kira! Stop shooting at me!"

"Sure," she says, releasing her trigger, but she still has her gun aimed at him. "I'll stop and be all banned and everything if you give Ethan a packet of speckled eggs."

There's an entire box with packets of speckled eggs on display, ready to be won, and my girlfriend is robbing the booth at gunpoint to get me one of those packets! Could I love her more?

"No, you didn't pop your balloon."

Kira doesn't hesitate for a second; she pulls her trigger, releasing a quick burst of water against the pillar right behind Raymond. It hits just above his head, causing a nice fountain to cascade over him.

"Would you like to review your stance on the matter?" Kira asks, and now I'm laughing while Raymond snatches a packet from the box and tosses it at me.

"Cheers, mate!" I laugh, catching it. I take Kira's gun from her hands and replace it on its stand.

"Thank you for your service," Kira says with a curtsy, watching Raymond with narrowed eyes while I take her hand and lead her away. They have never liked each other. Raymond works in the school library, and I know they've had some library-related skirmishes, but Kira always assures me that no books get thrown. Some pens, for sure.

"Thanks for the eggs, Kicks," I chuckle, and she leans into me, hugging my arm.

"Anything for you, Ethy."

"Hey! I was at the car park, saying goodbye to Sy and saw what you two were up to," Delia laughs, joining us on our walk among the stalls with water dripping from our clothes. "So, I grabbed some towels from Dad's car."

"Thanks," I smile, taking one and draping it over Kira's head. She surprisingly holds still while I gently dab the water from her hair.

"Why did Simon leave?" Kira asks the question I was about to ask.

"His grandmother is arriving for a visit, and he wanted to help his mom get her settled."

Ah, Simon. Such a considerate boy. I'm glad my sister fell in love with a good guy like him. I was always afraid she might fall for Jet and all his BS, but she cares about him like a brother. Sometimes, he lets her spank him. He needs to be spanked now and then. Burlap would've been an awesome match for her, but he told me many times that my sister scares him. He likes her right where she is in his life.

Seriously?! Delia scares him, but Wendy is almost always at his house. Sometimes, she's even there to hang out with him. I'm surprised she's not here hanging out with him and the guys now. I guess she'd had enough of the festival for one day. I know Burlap will soon call it a day too. He left when I went back to the hospital to be with Kicks and only came back because I messaged him from the hospital while I was waiting for Kira to get dressed and told him I would come here with her.

Deli has never given Burlap bruises. Wendy has, but he is not afraid of her at all. Sometimes, I think the guy is in love with Wendy, and he just hasn't noticed it yet because he's still hung up on whatsherface, the girl who moved away and then dumped him.

"What other parts of you do you want me to dry for you, Kicks?" I ask, taking the towel from her head. "I'm willing to dry aaaaaaaaany part you want me to."

Kira narrows her eyes, giving me a hiss and a tongue click.

"I was just saying," I chuckle, using the towel on myself instead. It's disappointing and not as much fun as drying her, but whatever.

"Let's go sit on the bleachers for a bit," she suggests, accepting another towel from Delia to do her own drying off.

"Are you sure?" Delia asks, looking nervous. We've been avoiding those bleachers after sitting on them for the speeches. I didn't even want to look at them again. I feel sad, thinking about how much fun I had setting them up with my dad and others. It feels like a lifetime ago as if life has split in two. The before Kira fell part and the after Kira fell part.

The after-the-fall part is hard to re-adjust to. Nothing feels right. I don't feel right. Kissing Kira helped for a moment, smoothing down the sharp edge I felt, cutting into the pit of my stomach, but now I still feel like a stranger in my own body.

"Yes," Kira says, lifting her chin with determination. I'm glad she'd decided to take back her life and the festival. She will not let the accident take away her joy and ability to do something as simple as climb up the bleachers. She's more courageous than I am, walking behind her, making sure to be a buffer should she fall again.

I'm being ridiculous, I know; it's not like Kira makes a habit of rolling down the bleachers. Still, I feel better being here behind her, ready for anything. I'm relieved when she stops about halfway up and turns to sit down in an empty space. This is high enough to have a clear view of the beach and the kids messing around down there.

I see her eyes lingering on the dressing covering some of the cuts on my arm. I didn't want to tell her about the stitches I got in the one deep cut because it would make her feel even worse than she already does. I told her the dressings were put on them because, according to the nurse, I'm a hooligan. It's true, but that wasn't the only reason. I'm also not telling her that my cuts and bruises started to throb a while ago, and I had to take a couple of painkillers to cope with them.

I've had worse, but that doesn't mean that these don't hurt.

Damn, this is boring! It's like watching paint dry, where we're the paint, drying in the warm breeze. I'm all talked out with the people around us and would like to take a nap, or even better, go down there to the beach where some guys are playing a violent, warped form of football with one rugby ball, a basketball ball, a soccer ball and a beach ball.

It makes no sense, which means it will be seriously fun. It looks like getting dunked in the ocean or buried in the sand forms part of the game. There might be rules involved, but I cannot figure them out where I'm lying back against the edge of the level above us.

I'm feeling the first stirrings of a craving to muck around with my friends, but I don't want to leave Kira. I know Deli is here with her and they're mostly ignoring me, chatting with each other, but while I'm here, I know where she is and that she's safe. I don't know if I can cope with being separated from her again.

Yeah, it's stupid, I know.

Kira would laugh at me if she knew how fragile I was feeling right now. I'm like a little kid dropped off at nursery school for the first time. Except, according to my mom, I ran straight inside and started playing with the guys who are now my best buddies. I barely said goodbye to her. She was the one who wanted to cling to me and needed a hug from the teacher.

Well, here I am now, being all clingy and weird.

"Ethy? Aren't you going to join them?" Kira asks, nodding to the boys on the beach. At first, I think she's sick of having me around, but then I see the concern on her face, and I smile at her, wondering what she's seeing on my face to make her look at me like that.

"You're injured," I tell her, and her worried expression turns into a confused frown.

You and me both, Kicks; you and me both.

"You're more injured than I am," she points out. "And I'm not gonna join them."

I smile looking at her sweet face, glowing in the fading sunlight. My smile wanes as my eyes travel over the scrapes and bruises glaringly visible against her smooth skin. The sun will set soon, and I'm glad because I won't have to see those injuries so clearly anymore; I'll be able to imagine that they're not there.

"What? Are you in pain?" she asks and I hurriedly get rid of the sadness that must be screaming from my face.

"No," I scoff, lifting my arm to glance at the dressing covering the worst wound. "I'm taking care of you," I shrug with a grimace, and Kira's semi-amused, semi-sad look twists my insides into a pretzel. Her expression warms, a sweet smile touching her lips while she pulls the towel I'm still holding from my hands.

"I'm fine, Ethan, really," she says. "Just because you're my boyfriend, it doesn't mean that you're not allowed to have fun with your friends. We've covered this in our lesson at the waterfall, remember?"

What the hell is she talking about?

Does she think I did everything I've done today because I saw it as part of my training to be a good boyfriend? Is she really that blind? Can't she see that everything I do for her is because I love her so damned much?

"Go on," she says, giving me a playful nudge. "You've taken very good care of me, thank you. I mean it."

Now she's thanking me like I provided some kind of service. I don't get it. How will I get this girl to admit that what we have is real? It is real, isn't it?

Kira grins at me, tilting her head and giving me a cheeky look. "The spreadsheet will be very proud of you," she teases me, and now I really want to cry or scream or throw her over my shoulder and take her to my cave to show her what else I would like to put on her blooming spreadsheet. "You're going to get an A+ on your report card. Now, run along."

Lovely, the people hearing this weird conversation are giving us strange, amused looks. My sister is going to become the bleachers' next victim when she laughs her head off, and it rolls away, bouncing from level to level until it hits the sand. There's no way I'm getting up and chasing her head. I've had enough bleacher-diving fun for one day.

Still, that crack about the A+ on my report card was pretty funny, and I hope that getting an A+ means I'll be rewarded with lots and lots of kisses. I'll suggest it later because I'm getting too much attention right now.

"You're such a cheeky brat," I chuckle. Leaning over, I lay my lips against Kira's blushing cheek. This is going to get strange fast if I don't get my lips off her right now, so I jump to my feet and pull off my shirt, dumping it on Kira's head. She drags it off and looks up at me, her eyes widening while I slip off my flip-flops.

I'm a bit startled to discover that I have a smiling audience appreciating my strip show, and when I glance at Kira, I laugh, seeing her glaring at the females she was chatting with quite happily a few minutes ago. She gives me a defiant look when she hears me laugh and meets my eyes before I turn and run down the bleachers to join my friends.

I'm ten minutes into our game, scoring many points by forcefully burying Burlap in the sand - no, I don't know how that scoring works - when I realise that the tightness in my chest has almost disappeared completely. I'm laughing for real now, no longer forcing myself to seem happy.

I'm filled with joy, seeing my best friend lying on the ground at my knees, spitting sand. He is calling me a gormless prat and telling me he is going to clobber me until I get some sense into my bonce. Burlap becomes very British when he's under an unprovoked attack by his friends.

"I love you too, you Limey bastard," I tell him, and he laughs, pulling me down on top of him. It's not as romantic as it sounds because I'm now the one being buried violently, screaming for help, and Burlap is the one scoring points.

The beach ball saves me by bouncing on my head, and I'm on my feet, trying to hug the thing while I run to score a try... or a goal... or something. It's hard because it's not a rugby ball. It's big, and it has a will of its own. I toss it at Jet to free my arms to fend off an attack by two guys I thought were on my team.

I think we have teams... I might be wrong. It might be each guy for himself which does cause quite a few things to make much more sense.

"This is fun; we should do this more often," I laugh when I'm tackled into the foam of a wave rolling out onto the sand. Right now, I'm grateful for the thick, waterproof dressing Theresa insisted on putting over the stitches. I know I will be mad at her later when I tear it off, and it takes a plantation's worth of arm hair with it. For now, I'm glad I'm not chafing it on wet sand.

I laugh when Burlap starts flinging guys off me, grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet. He is still a walking sandman, but he is grinning at me and saving me from drowning in the ankle-deep waves rolling out around us before getting sucked back out to the ocean. When I see Lurch run past us, holding onto a more holdable ball, I join Barn in giving chase.

Yes, this is normal; this is me. 

That guy sitting on the bleachers feeling all nervous and emotional was... also me... but this one is better. This one is happy to be alive. This one knows that Kira is fine. This one is ready to enjoy the crap out of this festival again, just like we planned in the before-the-fall time.

This is now. There's no before the fall or after the fall; there is only now.

Beginning to run out of pent-up energy, I glance at the bleachers, as has become my habit, checking on Kira and am surprised to see her getting up and walking down it. Burlap called it quits on this game a while ago and is sitting up there chatting with my sister. They watch Kira carefully find her way down to the sand before they resume their conversation.

She seems to be heading to the rest room and while I follow her with my eyes, I see the ice cream kiosk and remember that just before the horror of this day started, I was going to buy her ice cream.

We never did get that ice cream.

I shake off the worst of the sand covering my body and hurry to the outdoor shower, where I rinse the debris tangled in my hair and sticking to my skin.

Satisfied that I'm no longer a sand monster, I run up the bleachers to dry off and grab my shirt, grinning at my sister and best friend watching me with rapt attention. I'm not all that comfortable with all the other attention I'm getting and quickly pull on my shirt.

"Where are you going?" Burlap asks when I take my wallet from the bag I used to carry the few prizes Kira decided to keep after her gaming spree.

"I'm going to buy a start over," I tell him, and he makes a face, shifting his eyes to Delia, who shrugs, shaking her head. I don't have time to explain now, and before they can blast me with more questions, I run down the bleachers and make my way to the ice cream kiosk.

Remembering our date and the perfect blend of ice cream we shared, I buy a four-scoop tub with coffee, chocolate, peanut butter and salted caramel ice cream, topped with two sugar cones.

Yes, we'll have a start over.

We'll finally have the ice cream we didn't get to have, and then it will be like the fall did not happen to mess up our day. With the tub in my hands, I find a spot where I'll be able to see Kira when she leaves the ladies' bathroom and settle in to wait.

"Hi, Ethan," a group of girls I know from school chorus, passing me on their way to the restroom, and I throw them a hello or two. They have barely entered the building when a girl comes rushing outside, her blond hair streaming in the breeze.

Amber Dyson!

I straighten from leaning against the side of the booth behind me when she sees me and walks over. I don't know how to feel about the fact that she'd been in there with Kira. If she'd seen her and been mean to her, I might, for the first time in my life, punch a girl. I really don't want to, but I swear I will.

"Hey," she says, and she is not looking at me in the frank way she normally does. Her swollen eyes can barely meet mine, and I sag back against the booth, no longer having any thoughts of punching her. I can see that she's suffering. I'm surprised that she is still here at the festival. Defiance, probably. Amber never backs down.

"Hey," I say, trying to smile but failing miserably. "Thanks for trying to save Kira."

Her eyes snap up to meet mine, relief flooding her features. "You believe that I didn't push her?"

"Of course I do," I assure her. "I also believe that you probably were being really mean to her again just before she fell."

"I was wrong," she mutters, biting her lip and folding her arms protectively over her stomach. "I really thought you were just being scared and clinging to Kira because of it, but I know now... I saw how you really feel... I'm sorry."

Before I can say a word to confirm that yes, she was wrong and good, I'm glad she's sorry, she spins on her heel and runs away.

I wonder if there is any way to help the girl realise that she needs to make some serious changes in her life because the route she's on will bring her loads more tears. Her grandmother is always asking me to look out for her, and I always end up promising that I will.

The problem is, I have no idea how.

I'm still staring at Amber's disappearing back when I notice movement at the entrance to the ladies' room, and there is Kira with her hair falling softly over her shoulders. She is so pretty in her jeans and bell-sleeved top covered in tiny pink and yellow flowers.

Yes, Amber has no idea how wrong she was.

Kira looks happy to see me, and when she joins me, her smile widens when she sees the ice cream.

"You never got that ice cream I promised you this morning," I tell her, holding up the tub for her approval, and I'm not disappointed.

"Sometimes," she grins, her eyes sparkling brightly as she gazes into mine and takes my free hand. "I think you might actually be an angel and not a demon after all."

♂♀