“I only touched her shoulder!” He defended, then left with a flurry of emotions. What did he just do? They looked exactly like Joe everytime his parents had a fight upstairs, or when he combusted in anger; Timidly cowering in the corner, trying their best to turn invisible.

Is this how Joe saw him? Was this how everyone saw him nowadays? He hated himself for not retreating in fear of Sonia, he hated himself for not listening to his conscience to drop the whole matter and move on, instead of acting like a man-child. He promised to never listen to or act like his father or Uncle again, and he broke that promise almost immediately.

He could feel all the dirt on him as he cycled off, imagining a million different ways of how he hurt them, and how his actions will leave a permanent scar on them. Honey would now be scarred by him twice, and Sonia, the fortress of a woman, would now crumble to ashes thanks to his envy. What was he thinking? How would lashing out even help his cause, and why did he adopt the infuriating mindset of a sore loser?

He stopped by the child-care and commanded Joe to get on coldly. He couldn’t bear to be in a public space for a second longer. Joe, annoyingly enough, disagreed, bargaining for five minutes more in the sandpit. According to him, he was an inch away from finding buried treasure.

“I don’t have time for your make-belief Joe, let’s go! Come on!”

Joe frowned, bid goodbye to his friends, and they rode off.

Sam slammed the front door open, and sulked to himself on the couch, staring at the floor in self-criticising silence. Joe went back to his gloomy self, sitting beside him in silence as well. After a few minutes of staring into space, he snapped himself awake, and sent his cousin an email. “Joe… we’re going to the beach tomorrow.”

“Ok.” Joe replied, unconvinced.

**

He woke up early the next day, and left a note on the table regarding his plans. With the scraps that remained from his cousin’s funding, he could just about afford a cab ride to and from the beach and not a cent more. Joe only cheered once they arrived, finally overcoming his scepticism. In overwhelming joy, he raced towards the shore with not a care in the world. Sam could barely keep up.

Immediately their clothes were drenched in polluted seawater. Sam had been careless enough to not bring a fresh change of clothes, which meant they had to endure the freezing temperature until the water dried up.

Joe immediately sat down and began burrowing like a dog, trying to create a well of some sort. Sam joined in, and all his problems melted away. The waves came crashing, and a small pool of water remained behind. They both celebrated as if this was the biggest achievement of their lives. Sam suggested they fortified the well, building a wall of sand around it to defend against the waves. Joe discovered a seashell whilst digging, and the two admired its beautiful figure for a moment.

Hours flew by in a second, and they moved on to the ocean itself, splashing eye-irritating saltwater at each other. The two giggled like children, running and thrashing about near the shore with not a care in the world. After that, they drenched themselves some more in the most disgusting bathroom stalls they’ve ever came across. Neither of them dared to step on the floor with their whole feet, and so they took turns tip-toeing around the blob of black and other residual colours on the floor.

The sun hung directly above them, helping to dry them off as they took a stroll. Sam had never felt happier in his life, which sparked him to reminisce the last time he felt this happy. He and Joe played pool for the first time, courtesy of Aunty Flower, and neither of them could break no matter how hard they tried. The cousins eventually got annoyed at their incompetence and took over.

Sam looked at Joe, the little bundle of joy admiring everything with sparkles in his eyes, and he couldn’t help but smile along. Why hadn’t he brought Joe here sooner? He regretted all the time he wasted trying to plot against Sonia or chasing Honey rather than playing with the brother he already had. Neglecting Joe was the signature move of his parents, which meant he’d be a hypocrite if he did the same.

When the sun began to set, Joe’s stomach grumbled. “I’m hungry!”

Sam had a choice to make, either take a cab home starving or cycle home with bellies full for two full hours. Both options seemed equally torturous.

“Shh, watch the sunset!” He pointed to the sky that bled orange and crimson. “We’ll figure that out afterwards.”

“Ok!”

“Did you have fun?” Sam asked. The sun made him feel vulnerable.

Joe nodded. “I want to come here everyday!”

He chuckled. “We can.”

“Yay!”

“Yeah. It’s pretty fun coming here.” He looked near the shore, and saw himself a year ago with a trash bag in hand, wishing he’d be anywhere else. The two other girls felt the same, and they all grumbled their regrets by the bench during their allocated break. They shared a bag of chips amongst themselves, while he only had water and a sandwich. He watched them with envy, and wondered how they grew to be so close with one another. If not for eavesdropping, he’d assume they were sisters.

The pink-haired girl smiled brighter than the harsh afternoon sun that day, and for a second they locked eyes, which bewitched him to her spell forever. Even now, thinking about her spawns a few butterflies in his stomach.

Later, the teacher gathered them together and briefed them on part two of the event, as if part one wasn’t enough. The three had to star in a PSA video and read a script about ocean pollution. He cringed at himself to remember exactly what the script said, and mumbled it to himself word for word.

He then had a bright idea to escape the embarrassment by offering to film the video itself, and forced the two girls to walk miles across for a ‘better angle’; which coincidentally gave him shade under a tree. The pink-haired girl acted the role perfectly, which counter-intuitively made it more embarrassing to endure. The other girl saw right through his lie, and gave him endless notes on his cinematography until he was kicked out of the shade. Oddly enough, taking her notes improved the composition by leaps and bounds. And then he was reminded of his idol Uncle, which gave him the best idea in the entire world.

He felt Joe’s tiny arms outstretched across his waist. “What?”

“You’re crying. I am making you feel better.”

Unbeknownst to him, his eyes were wet.

“Huh, oh, ok, thanks.”

“Why are you crying?”

“I just wanted to be successful.” He covered his face. “And I lost my chance.”

“Ok.”

“I just… wanted to know what it’s like to live like our cousins. They all have their own rooms, and their own things, and their food isn’t leftovers from last night… I just want to know what that’s like, or give you the chance to know what that’s like.”

“I don’t want to live like them!”

“What? Don’t you want new toys? Why not?”

“They hate the beach. If I was like them I'd never come to the beach!”

“What? They don’t hate the beach, what are you talking about?”

“Hazel cried when they went for a picnic at the beach, and then she said she never wanted to go there ever again!”

“Well, she has sensitive skin.”

Joe seemed unconvinced.

“Hm.” He chuckled at Joe’s undying passion for the beach, a close second to his love for zombies. “Ok… we got two options. Either we have dinner here and cycle for two hours home, or… we take a cab home now and eat at home.”

“Can’t Uncle bring us out to eat? I want to eat at the star restaurant!”

“Huh? And no, I don’t want to talk to him anymore. He’s a fraud.”

“Fraud?”

“Liar. So what’s your choice, dinner or cab?”

Joe ended up picking the dinner, dooming him to two hours of hell.

**

He handed in a form Monday afternoon, and officially resigned from the club. By god’s miracle did Ms Eva not find out about the fight, and that no one ratted him out. With Erin in charge and everything he did, his standing in the club would never be the same again. He had nothing left for him there. He bid the room goodbye, packed up his camera, and cycled off early to pick Joe up.

He stayed with him at the childcare and played with all the other children to compensate for his early arrival before cycling home with his back drenched in sweat. He spends all his time playing with Joe now, making trips to the mall and other places where they could play without a price.

They went to the arcade after seeing someone drop their card by accident, and managed a grand total of five minutes of air hockey. They spent an afternoon at the library reading comic books about zombies, and borrowed one on the way home. Joe couldn’t peel his eyes away.

A week of fun later, the adrenaline died down, and the trips became a weekly affair. Joe spent his time divided between his toys and his comic, while Sam rotted away on the couch watching horrendous soap operas from a century ago. What now? He asked himself as he reflected on the trajectory of his life.

With no film club, he had nothing going on in his life, and he became what his father dreaded most; a slacker. No progress or attempts made to walk the golden road to success, what a disappointment, he’d surely say if he knew. He looks at Joe, completely engrossed in his comic, occasionally mumbling out a line or two as he flipped the pages.

“Joe… Joe.” He called for his attention.

Joe dog-eared the page and looked at him.

“I have a question.”

“Ok.”

“Why do you like zombies so much?”

He made a zombie noise, as if that constituted a complete answer.

“Uh… you like how they roar?”

He nods.

“They sound cool?”

He nods again.

“How did you… like zombies? You don’t even have zombie toys. Did you see the cousins play a zombie game once or something?”

He shakes his head.

“Then how did you discover you like zombies so much?”

“It’s my favourite toy in school!”

“How do you know?”

“I played with every toy in school, and I like the zombie toy the most!”

“And that’s how you found out you loved zombies?”

He nods.

“Huh… cool.”

He smiles and nods. Sam retrieves his notebook, and flipped to the few blank pages remaining in the book that wasn’t torn or crumpled or wet, and he wrote out the burning question that plagued him for the last week. ‘What do I do with my life?’ He circled and underlined it in mediocre frustration.