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“I don’t know about this Maddie,” Buck fiddled with the strings of his hoodie nervously as his sister locked the door of the house behind them.
“It’ll be fine Evan I promise,” she ruffled his hair gently and gave him an easy smile that soothed his nerves slightly.
“We probably shouldn’t be doing this. What if mom and dad find out? They’ll be so mad.”
“They aren’t gonna find out. They won’t be back until Saturday and we’ll only be gone for the day. You can stay home if you don’t want to go but you’ll be missing out.”
He really hated it when Maddie dangled missing out over his head. Of course, he wanted to sneak out and go to Hershey Park with his sister and her friends, but he was also nervous about being caught.
“No I wanna go,” he crossed his arms over his chest defensively.
“Then come on. Doug is almost here.”
Doug was Maddie’s boyfriend and Buck didn’t like him much. But he had a car and he liked to play video games with Buck sometimes when he came over so he wasn’t so bad all the time.
He honked the horn as he pulled up in his red Toyota, which was packed full of teenagers. His little brother Will who was a year older than Buck sat in the front. Two of Maddie’s friends that he had met before and didn’t know their names were in the back and he and Maddie squeezed into the third row.
Maddie immediately started talking to her friends and Buck pulled out his phone to play games on during the ride. It took less than thirty minutes to get there and they made it through the line quickly.
Perks of being Hershey residents, season passes.
Maddie slipped some money into his hand and told him where they were going to meet to leave before sending him and Will on their way.
They skipped past the water rides, it was October and the weather was getting too cold.
They went straight to the comet, Buck’s favorite roller coaster, and rode that first.
They caught up with Maddie and her friends a few times in line for the bigger coasters before splitting off again.
They spent the last hour of their time playing fair games before walking to the front of the park to meet Maddie.
They were all exhausted on the ride home and Buck leaned heavily against Maddie as he fought to stay awake.
They said goodbye to their friends when Max dropped them off and Maddie sent him upstairs to shower while she locked up downstairs.
As per their nightly tradition since Buck old enough to remember, he slipped into Maddie’s bed while he waited on her to finish showering. He always came to her room and laid in her bed to talk about their days before they went to sleep. He couldn’t help but be a little sad when he thought about her moving away in a few months. He was going to miss it.
Maddie climbed into bed next to him and ran a hand through his still-damp hair.
“Did you have fun?”
“Yeah, I did. Thank you.”
“Of course,” she squeezed him in close. “I told you nothing bad would happen. And I don't know how many more times we'll get to do stuff like that before I move out.”
“Don’t talk about that,” Buck whispered.
“Hey, no matter how far away I am, I'll always be your big sister. If you need me I’m there. You know that.”
“I know.”
“Good. I love you, Evan.”
“I love you too Maddie.”