by Siera Maley
“Why don’t we do one to cool you down, and then we’ll ease into the coasters?” she eventually suggested.
“I can’t do coasters,” I insisted. “I really can’t.”
“Just one,” she pressed. “For me? Please?”
She reached out and squeezed my hand, and I gave in when I realized she was about to go for an over-exaggerated pout. “One.”
“Yes! I’ll take it! And since you’ve never been on any before, who knows? You might actually like it.”
“I won’t,” I insisted, but she was already dragging me off again.
Her “cool-down ride” idea was literal. We stepped into line for a ride down a river in an eight-man circular raft behind three guys that looked about our age, and thirty minutes later we were still only three-quarters of the way to the front of the line. Right around then was when one the guys noticed us.
We were sitting side by side on the top of the wooden fence meant to keep us neatly organized in our immobile line. Chloe was swinging her feet back and forth beneath herself and accidentally lost control of her momentum, sending herself backwards with a loud squeal. With my help, she caught herself before she actually fell, but that didn’t stop my heart from going haywire in the milliseconds between her fall and our joint save.
“Whoa, you okay?” one of the boys in front of us asked her. He gave his head a sharp shake to get his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes, and I hid a grin. Two seconds had passed and he already couldn’t take his eyes off of Chloe.
Chloe, to her credit, played it off like a champ. “Yeah, totally fine. I meant to do that.”
He laughed at her joke like it was much funnier than it was, and she smiled back. “Cool. So are you guys from around here?”
“San Francisco,” Chloe confirmed. “I’m Chloe. This is my friend Harper.”
“I’m Josh. These are my best friends Pete and Hunter. We’re here with Pete’s parents on vacation.”
“How do you like it here so far?”
Josh grinned widely. “It’s awesome.” He leaned in closer, like he didn’t want anyone to overhear, and added, “The girls here in Cali are, like, really hot. It’s like you guys are all models or something.”
“I know, right?” Chloe agreed. That made Josh and his friends laugh. I turned away and tuned them out, frustrated that she was even humoring them when they were so obviously flirting with her, and Chloe’s amused look told me she’d noticed. The line started to move again.
“We’re having a barbecue at the condo we rented out tomorrow night,” Pete spoke up at some point. “We’re pretty much inviting anyone cool we meet. You should come. And your friend.”
“What’s your name again?” Hunter asked me before Chloe could reply.
“Harper.” I tugged at Chloe’s arm and leaned in close to hiss in her ear, “Fine. You win. Let’s go to the coaster.”
“Guys, it was really nice to meet you, but we actually have to go,” Chloe told them abruptly, her hand finding mine as she spoke. “This line’s a killer. We’re gonna go find some coasters. Have a good vacation!”
She pulled me out of the line and I followed obediently, hurrying after her down the winding path that led back to the entrance. I heard one of the guys shout something to us as we left, but I couldn’t make it out. He sounded hopeful.
Chloe was laughing as we reached the bottom, and she only laughed harder when she turned around and saw me scowling at her. “The look on your face!”
“We were not going to that barbecue.”
“Of course not. But it was to worth it to see you squirm. Relax; they’re just boys. C’mon!” She pulled me onward without warning, and I wrinkled my nose with disgust.
“The Bieber one was looking at you like a piece of meat!”
* * *
“Breathe.”
The attendant secured the straps meant to keep me from death with a not-very-satisfying series of clicks. Then he moved ahead to the next car. I squeezed Chloe’s hand so tightly I was surprised she wasn’t in pain.
“You’re amazing,” she insisted, lips so close to my ear I could feel them brushing against it. I wasn’t sure if my lightheadedness could be attributed to that or to my impending doom. “I’ll buy you an ice cream cone when we get back to the bottom, alright? Can you at least do chocolate sprinkles?”
“Negative.”
“My god.”
“I know.”
She exhaled slowly, and I swallowed hard as the bar in front of us lowered over our laps. It clicked into place and I tried not to hyperventilate. Beside me, Chloe muttered, “At least I never showed you Final Destination 3.”
“Wha-?” I started to ask, but the coaster rolled forward and I clamped my mouth shut. Chloe let go of my hand and I looked over at her, wide-eyed.
“You’re gonna want to be hands-free,” she explained. “It’s not a good ride if it doesn’t wanna make you throw your hands up and scream. That’s what Dad says, anyway.”
“That’s not comforting at all,” I half-whimpered.
“It’s just a left turn right now,” she told me. “Just take it a little at a time.”
The left turn she spoke of took us around a bend, and for the first time, I saw just exactly what I was dealing with. Chloe’d told me there were no loops or inversions. That was true. She’d failed, however, to mention the ascension into the clouds and the drop that’d follow.
“I’m gonna die.”
“I’m with you,” she reminded me. “You’re not going anywhere.” As we began our ascension, it occurred to me that it was actually my presence guaranteeing Chloe’s safety rather than the other way around.
“What’s Final Destination 3?” I asked her at last, mostly to take my mind off of our impending drop.
“Trust me, you definitely do not wanna know that right now.”
“Yes I do.”
“Nope.”
“Just tell me. If we talk I’ll stay distracted.”
“It’s a horror movie. I’ll tell you at the bottom. While you’re eating your vanilla cone tragically lacking chocolate sprinkles.”
“But I wanna know now.”
“Harper-”
“But-”
“Put your hands up,” she told me abruptly, and I took my eyes off of her and faced forward as momentum and gravity did their jobs.
I think I blacked out for the first drop. There was a vague memory of my stomach dropping and Chloe screaming happily – because that’s apparently a thing insane people who like roller coasters can do – next to me, and then we were at the bottom and zooming up and down and around the wooden track and everyone was screaming and cheering except for me. I kept my jaw locked, my teeth gritted, and my hands firmly attached to the bar over my lap for the first half of the ride, and then I felt Chloe’s lips far too close to my ear again and there was a giggly tone to her voice as she shouted, “Just let go!”
I shook my head silently, and she put one hand over mine and pulled gently. “Just one!” she insisted, and I relented, sure I looked ridiculous with one arm in the air and my fingers interlocked with Chloe’s as she screamed wildly over the next drop. I attempted a small squeal that sounded more like a dying seal than anything else, and then kept my mouth firmly shut for the rest of the ride.
When it finally came to an end and we were freed, my legs were wobbly. Chloe found that hilarious.
I sat on a bench just outside the ride while Chloe went to get ice cream, and by the time she came back, I’d managed to catch my breath. “So what’d you think?” she asked, grinning. “Kinda fun? Just a little?”
“That was an experience,” I conceded. “One I’ll never have again, but I’m sure when I’m old I’ll cherish this memory. Really, really old.”
“I’ll take it.” She took a seat next to me and handed me my cone. “We can go do the kiddie rides again.”
“No way. You should go find your dad,” I suggested. “I can hang out with your mom while you guys do all the scary stuff.”
“You don’t have to do that. I’m not gonna leave you alone with my mother just so I can ride some extra rides. I’ll do it some other time.”
“That’s sweet. Thank you.” I smiled at her, licked at my cone, and then, mouth full, demanded, “Go find your dad.”
“Harper-”
“Chloe, go. Seriously. It won’t kill me to get to know your mom. Just be careful.”
“You sure?” She looked concerned, but one of her legs was bouncing with excitement. She probably hadn’t even noticed.
“Positive. Just tell them to meet us here and we’ll switch up the pairs. No big deal.”
A smile broke out across her face and she squealed quietly as she threw her arms around me, ice cream cone and all. “You’re perfect.”
“Remember this moment next time I host a Marilyn Monroe themed movie night, no action movies included,” I mumbled and then laughed when she groaned into my neck.
* * *
Mrs. Stephens and I went straight to the kiddie section of the park, where I belonged, and spent a couple of hours embarrassing ourselves by being the only guests in the park over four feet tall on almost everything we rode.
“I never got to take Chloe on these types of rides when she was a kid,” she told me during ride number three. “She and her dad were certainly cut from the same cloth. We couldn’t take her to places like this until she met the height requirements for the thrill rides, because otherwise there was no point in going.”
“So she’s always been like that,” I mused. “Total adrenaline junkie.”
“She gets it from her father. And his father. Her grandfather passed away about a decade ago, and one of the last things he told her was not to waste a second of life. I swear, that man’ll get her killed one day, the way she leaps into things without thinking about them first. I’m surprised my heart’s still functioning.”
I didn’t reply. Our line moved forward, and Hayley shuffled ahead of me. After a moment, I followed, half-hoping for a change in subject.
“So you and Chloe seem to be close. She talks about you quite a lot for someone she’s only known a month.”
That wasn’t exactly the change of subject I’d been hoping for.
Inwardly, I cringed and tried to think of an appropriate response in an appropriate amount of time. But I’d never been anywhere close to in this position before, and the result was a long, awkward silence that Hayley had to break herself.
“Sorry to put you on the spot like that, Harper. You seem like a sweet girl. I’m glad Chloe has a friend. She had trouble back where we used to live.”
“Trouble?” I echoed, confused.
“She had some problems with making friends. The kind she could bring home and have sleepovers with. She’s always been very blunt and I think a lot of time that doesn’t sit well with other kids your age.”
“I think I like blunt sometimes,” I told her. “Blunt makes everything easier.”
She laughed lightly. “Well, at any rate, I’m glad Chloe has you. You have a mother’s approval.”
I raised a hand to my head to scratch it, but that was only so I could use my palm to hide the eye Hayley could see. I was, very suddenly, a little teary-eyed. “Thanks,” I mumbled, hoping I didn’t sound choked up and that my voice wasn’t shaky. “I haven’t heard that one in a while.”
Chapter Seven
Chloe rested her head on my shoulder and slept during our ride home. I was exhausted, too, after such a long day. Too exhausted to go camping, especially given that I’d only agreed in the first place after a lot of convincing from Chloe.
When we got home, I nudged her awake while mid-yawn myself, and then admitted, “I just want to go to sleep.”
“I know, right? I didn’t expect it to be so draining.”
“Maybe Dad will let us take a rain check,” I suggested. That woke her up pretty quickly. She looked concerned.
“Oh, no, you can’t cancel on him. It’ll hurt his feelings.”
“What if I promise to let him take us next weekend?” I suggested. “We can spend the whole day at the camp ground instead of just an evening. And we won’t just be sitting around yawning the whole time, wishing we were back home in our own beds.”
She let out a sigh, like she knew I was just making excuses, but that sigh soon morphed into another yawn and she shrugged her shoulders. “Just try to be nice to him when you tell him.”
“I will,” I insisted. “I feel bad. But who knows? Maybe they’ll want the quality time anyway.”
* * *
As it turned out, Dad and Deborah did not want the quality time. As Deborah sat quietly beside him on the couch, Dad folded his arms across his chest and said stiffly, “First you didn’t want to go. Then you told me you would go if Chloe could come along. And now you’re telling me that we’re supposed to be leaving in ten minutes and neither of you want to go?”
“We do! Just… not tonight,” I mumbled. “We’re tired. We spent all day walking around. We thought we could handle it and we couldn’t. I’m sorry. You should go without us.”
“We will,” was all he said. He wasn’t as angry as I thought he’d be, but I had a feeling that had something to do with Deborah being in the room. She wouldn’t look me in the eyes as he added, “We’ll talk more tomorrow. Go to your room.”
I did. And once I was safely inside, I pulled out my new cell phone and texted Chloe an update. She sent back a frowny face, but I knew she was just as relieved as I was. She’d had even more of an eventful day than I had, thanks to our trade-off and the resulting time she’d spent going on rides with her dad. The two of them were cute together. Kind of the way I wished my dad and I could be, were we both not such homebodies.
It occurred to me, then, as I sat on my bed, that maybe Dad saw some of the same things in Deborah that I saw in Chloe.
* * *
I made plans with Chloe and Robbie the next day, and made sure to leave the house before Dad and Deborah were back. Robbie picked both Chloe and me up and drove us out to my parents’ old secret spot by the cliff and the lake-like body of water. We brought bathing suits this time, but I laid out on a towel in the sand with a comic book while Robbie swam around. Chloe stood at the water’s edge, clearly antsy, and kept glancing up to the top of the cliff.
“Don’t even think about it,” I reminded her. “Rocks.”
“Yeah, I know,” she sighed out, and then waded out into the water. “Come in with us!”
“I’m reading!” I called back.
Once she was deep enough to immerse herself, Chloe flipped herself onto her back and breast-stroked away from me. I felt her judgmental gaze on my face even when I looked away from her.
“What are you reading?” she eventually asked me.
“A comic book Robbie loaned me,” I told her.
She laughed. “You guys read comic books?”
Robbie swam toward her and stopped just a few feet from her head, treading water. “It’s Batwoman. You might like it.”
She scoffed. “I didn’t know I was hanging out with nerds. Jeez.” She flipped around and immersed herself in the water, then swam away without resurfacing. Robbie arched an eyebrow at me.
“She’s kidding,” I elaborated.
“If you say so.”
Chloe came back up for a moment, and I called out to her, “Hey, don’t go too far, okay? We don’t have life jackets.”
“Life jackets and comic books: you’re super cool, Harper,” she joked and dived down again.
“I can see why you like her,” said Robbie.
“She’s kidding! Again.”
He swam toward me, leaving Chloe behind, until the water was at his knees. He stopped there and sat down on the rocks, relaxing with the water halfway up his stomach. “So, how have you been? Really?” he asked me.
I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m alright. Not great… but alright.”
“You can always call me,” he reminded me. “I’m just… socially awkward and sh
it. You know that.”
I forced a laugh. “Yeah, I know. I’m glad you made me leave work early the other day. I needed a break.”
“Are you still thinking about quitting?” he asked me.
“Yeah. If I had another way to make money, I definitely would, but as of right now, I don’t.”
“What about your dad’s new girlfriend?” he suggested. “If they get married, your family income just doubled, you know.”
I gaped at him. “Oh my god, that’s awful. And besides, they definitely aren’t getting married any time soon.”
“That’s probably true.” He paused, and then lowered his voice. “So…” Then he turned and looked over his shoulder in a move I instinctively knew was to make sure Chloe wasn’t close enough to overhear.
Except Chloe wasn’t there at all. The water all around us was calm and flat, and she was just… gone.
I tossed Robbie’s comic book onto the ground beside me and raced into the water. “CHLOE! CHLOE!”
Robbie was already two steps ahead of me, swimming with everything he had toward the last place we’d seen her. I could only watch helplessly as he pulled ahead of me, arms and legs pumping furiously. I kept my eyes on him as I tried my best to follow, but I felt like my arms and legs had turned to rubber.
“CHLOE!” Robbie screeched ahead of me, but we both knew by now it was no use. She was underwater.
I scanned the surface desperately, trying to see something, anything, but I didn’t know what I was looking for. Bubbles? Was that something people just looked for in the movies?
Half of a palm and a few fingers splashed out of the water just a few feet ahead of Robbie, and he surged forward and then dived down. The seconds that passed felt like hours.
Later, the only thing I’d remember was how utterly useless I’d felt from the moment I splashed my way into the water.
Robbie came up with Chloe in his arms. Her hair hid most of her face, but she was already coughing up water. I started to head toward them, but Robbie called out, “Just go put out a towel for her to lay on. I think she’s okay; she wasn’t under long enough.”
