The ferris wheel was quite big, and there was some horrible rock music playing as Chris gave the tickets to the weirdo running it. We climbed into the car, and it swayed. The guy clanged the safety rail to lock us into the seat, and we jerked into motion.
As the car began its ascent, the wind swept over us, catching the ends of Chris’s hair and lifting it, stealing the breath from my throat and making me instinctively reach for the lap rail. I gripped it in my hands, which were sweating, and focused on ignoring the fact that the ground was falling farther away from us with each passing second. To my horror, the wheel groaned as we reached the top — a sound that signalled either something needed oiling on the damn thing, or something was full-stop wrong with it. Either way I was ready to get off the ride, and we were only making our way around for the first time.
I tried to breathe deeply as we flew over the highest point and began to descend. I glanced sideways at Chris. His eyes were fixed over the hand rail, his brow furrowed, his lips pursed in the usual tight frown.
We fell through the air and were back at the bottom. My stomach felt like it was full of helium. I was concerned I might cry out. As we moved along to ascend once more, the shitty radio music blasted in our ears for a quick second, and I braced myself. I was not going to look like a fool. The wheel groaned again, and I didn’t know if it was my imagination or not but I felt the whole thing shudder slightly. I moaned.
“This is horrible,” Chris said in a tense monotone. “This really sucks. I don’t like this.”
“Me neither.”
“Fuck.” We fell silent again as the ferris wheel swept us down and around, up again, and over. Chris was dead silent and stiff beside me. We finished the ride without speaking, and when our seat stopped at the bottom, I rose and almost collapsed. My legs felt like jelly and my mouth hurt from frowning.
“Hey, aren’t you from Ripsawdomy?” the guy running the ride asked as we climbed off.
Chris scowled. “Yeah. Thanks for the ride, bro.”
“Rock on!” the guy said, flashing the horns as we passed him. Chris buried his hands in his pockets, striding away, and I broke into my little trot to keep up. Romantic, right?
xXx
Chris won me an orange sea horse that felt like it was stuffed with tin foil at the water-pistol-balloon game, and we got some cotton candy and hot dogs. It was fun, but Chris was really quiet. I wondered if it was because the ride had bothered him, or if he was thinking about his ex, or what.
When we were finished at the fair, it was twilight, and Chris suggested we walk along the beach. We took off our shoes and walked along the shore, the water lapping at our toes.
“I’ve never been to a beach like this before,” I said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, never. Florida’s just a place you read about in a magazine, or see on TV,” I said. “Back where I’m from, right now, it’s cold. It’s autumn. The leaves are changing colour, people are wearing sweaters.”
“Weird,” he said.
I felt like I was talking too much, so we walked on in silence. He seemed so pensive. I wasn’t sure if I should keep talking or be quiet or what. He seemed perfectly comfortable with the silence, so I decided just to enjoy the moment and the ocean and the sunset, and listen to the gentle wash of the waves and the cry of the seagulls and leave him to his quiet thoughts.
“I’d love to get some weed,” he said.
“Oh,” I said.
“You smoke weed?”
“Uh, not really. Not really my thing.”
“I love to get high, play my acoustic, and just really feel music,” he said softly.
I looked up at him sideways to see if he was joking. He very clearly wasn’t, and I tried to put aside my cynical mind and just accept what he’d said. All of a sudden he stopped and turned to face me. I looked up at him and he looked down at me with that gentle, slightly perplexed expression and those beautiful blue eyes.