Nudge 22 The Wet Forehead
The Wet Forehead
BENJI: Hey it’s me. Had fun last week. Wanna do it again?
I read it three times before screenshotting and sending straight to the girls.
It’s been a week and a day since that night at the bar, and it’s the first time I’ve heard anything from him at all.
I sent him a text that night, and a follow-up the next day – I even waited until lunch to send it as to not seem too full on.
But it’s been crickets for a week. A whole week and one day of nothing, only to receive that.
No apology, no excuse, no fake family emergency .
. . Had fun last week. What an absolute bum.
RAINI: He lives!
KIMI: For now. Pls tell me you haven’t replied.
DEVI: Ghost him, not worth it.
RAINA: At least hear him out!
They reply exactly as expected and I sit back and debate which of them I should follow.
While Raina ‘engaged to her high-school sweetheart’ is the outlier, her reply is, for sure, the one that I’m most drawn to.
Call me stupid or ridiculous, but I just can’t help it.
There’s something inside me that’s saying there must be more to the story.
ME: Don’t know what to say
DEVI: Nothing. He’s undeserving of your time.
And from an objective perspective, I know that she’s right.
If this were any of my girls, I would tell them not to bother – a real man would have followed up a whole lot sooner.
But my mood lifted tenfold when I saw his name pop up.
I could feel my sunken ego rise from its small pit.
This is going to be bad for me – I can feel it.
But that doesn’t stop me from opening up his chat.
I had fun too. Could do sometime next week maybe?
I hit send before I have time to think too hard. It’s relaxed, nonchalant, and sent fourteen minutes after his – that’s taking a stand if I ever saw one.
I can’t stop checking my phone on the bus to work, frantically looking away and back again, hoping that, by some miracle, his reply will catch me by surprise.
It doesn’t come. Thirty-eight minutes now and I’m still yet to feel a buzz.
I start scrolling through my social feeds, searching for literally anything to distract me from my expectations.
I want to lock my phone away, miss his response by hours so this time he can be the one anxiously waiting, but I just can’t.
My phone may as well be glued to my hand.
I’m so focused that I almost miss Aiden on my way in, his loud call of my name making me jump out of my skin.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask once I finally recover.
It’s 8.44 and our group time doesn’t start until ten. Of course, since the bet began, he’s been coming in earlier, but, even then, it’s usually around 9.25. Yet here he is, perched casually outside the building, leaning against the brick wall with his hand in his pocket.
‘Waiting for you.’ His voice is gravelly. I can only assume I’m the first person he’s spoken to this morning. ‘We’re not going in there today – come on.’
He beckons me closer, before turning on his heel and strolling away. It takes him until he reaches the corner to realise that I’m not following him, but rather I’m frozen in my spot, confused.
‘My car’s around the corner and it’s signed off with your boss,’ he says, rolling his eyes at my distrust. ‘Come on, I wanna beat traffic.’
It’s enough for me. I have too much to think about right now to worry about Aiden as well.
I check my phone frequently during the ride, Benji’s absence enough to stop me from pestering Aiden about our destination. We hit the motorway, and nothing. Drive through Surrey, and nothing. We even pull into a car park and still, no text back.
I’ve been busy for hours and he hasn’t had time to type one silly little message. Fourteen minutes was too kind – I should have waited at least thirty before sending my last response.
Enough is enough. I put my phone on Do Not Disturb and set a timer for three and a half hours. He may be busy doing whatever, but so am I, and I will focus on that rather than silly old Benji.
‘Dizzy Days Water Park.’ I read the sign out loud as Aiden reverses into a space.
The more I embrace my surroundings, the less I’ll think to check my phone.
‘That’s the place,’ he replies. He shuts off the engine before quickly grabbing his bag from the back and ruffling around until he produces a black leather journal.
‘I got in touch with a couple of the ride suppliers that your team pulled together, and one of the most cost-effective ones on the list makes the rides here. Figured instead of going back and forth via email, we could see his work in action.’
But I can barely hear him; I’ve found a new distraction. In his hand are pages laden with diagrams, annotated in detail with highlighted colours and notes. My eyes scan over the scribbles, as detailed as they are concise. It’s a masterpiece and it seems to have come from him.
‘Is that . . . colour coded?’ I ask, watching as he flicks through them.
‘It’s a ranking system. There’s a key in the back.’ He scratches his head. ‘Am I doing it wrong? I watched a sixteen-part TikTok series.’
He stares at me, attempting to decipher the sudden intensity pooling behind my pupils.
He’s confused, but not as confused as I am, because he’s not experiencing the unmistakable heat rising up my body.
He made a colour-coded key. He ranked his research.
He drew diagrams. The mere knowledge of it has twisted my insides into one giant knot.
I have no words to reply to him – all I can muster is a weak shake of my head.
It’s enough reassurance to let him move on and start getting out of the car.
Amusement parks were my idea of a sensory hell as a child, filled with loud noises, rides I was too small for, and far too many people.
Even now, as we stroll past the winding queues and screaming vendors, I’m questioning just how long we have to be here.
The only thing keeping me going is the fact that, no matter how miserable I am, Aiden looks worse.
‘So where do we start, then?’ I ask as he stares back at me blankly. ‘With the rides. Which one are we going on first?’
‘Oh, we’re not doing those,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘We came to look, make notes, watch the reactions of the people that get off them.’
I can’t help but stare up at him with a mild expression of disgust. Who drives someone all the way to an amusement park and doesn’t go on a single ride?
It’s idiotic and borderline psychopathic, even for Aiden.
But the longer I look at him, the more I suspect that there’s more to it.
Every ride that soars past makes him grimace.
He’s more uncomfortable than I’ve ever seen him.
‘I never pegged you as the type to be scared of an amusement ride,’ I say, trying my luck.
Honestly, I never considered that he might be scared of anything. Up until recently, I wasn’t entirely convinced that he possessed emotions at all. The jury’s still out on whether he does.
‘I’m not!’ he replies. ‘I’m just a sensible person who knows to avoid things that could lead to certain death.’
A screeching carriage full of people races past us on the left and he flinches, practically jumping out of his skin. Before he has time to recover, another ride rockets past our heads. He ducks in fear, his eyes darting to the thrill-seekers above before quickly darting to me.
‘You see that one? That’s a lawsuit waiting to happen,’ he says.
In his defence, the ride doesn’t look remotely safe.
None of them do. But there’s something about the one above us, with its large, twirling frame, that has an indescribably dangerous allure.
It’s so tall and horrifying, and, just a couple of months ago – maybe even one week ago – I would have agreed that I’d never go near it.
But I am bolder now, or at least I am trying to be, and there’s nothing I feel compelled to do more.
‘Let’s go.’
‘What?’ he asks.
‘Let’s go! You want me to act on impulse? My impulse is telling me to get in that queue and onto that ride.’
‘Go right ahead,’ he says, lightly shooing me towards it.
‘If I’m going, you’re going,’ I say.
I grab his hand and pull him towards the line, looking back as his face contorts in shock. He stumbles after me, mouth open but lost for words, and ego far too proud to object.
‘You’re a menace,’ he mutters, shaking his head.
‘Or am I being a diver instead of a wader?’ I ask defiantly.
The silence between us is palpable as we move through the queue, triggering every instinct I have to grab my phone from my bag.
But I can’t. I won’t. I am stronger than that.
Instead, I look up at Aiden, his deep-brown eyes glued to the carriages above us.
He’s terrified, but he doesn’t dare admit it.
It’s not until we’re ushered into our own two-person carriage that he once again acknowledges my presence.
‘These seats are tiny,’ he says. ‘It’s not looking good.’
He’s right – the seats are abnormally cramped.
I’m a good few inches shorter than he is and even I’m struggling.
But the one benefit to being squashed tightly beside him is that I get to witness him emote in 4K.
His jaw is clenched tight, his hands squeezed into fists.
He wants nothing more than for this to be over.
But me? I want to replay the look on his face for as long as my memory allows me.
‘Relax, we’re fine,’ I say to reassure him, revelling in his discomfort.
The safety bar swings down, trapping us in place, and he jumps at the movement, trying to play it off as a shiver. But I know what I saw and he knows I know too.
‘There’s no going back now . . .’ I can’t resist taunting him.
He grumbles, his jaw clenched in terror. ‘You’re the worst.’