by Bright, Sera
“But what?” A note of doubt trickled into his voice.
“I didn’t expect you to wait for me.”
His arms hugged me closer in a vise grip. “You should have.”
Yes, I agreed silently. I should have.
Chapter Eighteen
Tuesday
The drive to Sandusky took a little over an hour on the highway. After the exit, we were stuck in traffic, unusual for an early Tuesday afternoon. On the back road leading to the entrance of Cedar Point, a long line of cars ahead of us inched forward. I hung my bare feet out the passenger window of Ash’s car as we waited to make it into the parking lot, and rummaged through my bag.
“You’re awfully attached to that bag,” he said. “You carry it everywhere with you.”
“It has my whole life in it.” I picked up a silver multi-tool, and flipped open a small blade. “For instance, a knife in case I have to defend myself.”
“Did that ever happen?” His eyebrows snapped together as he glared at me. “From who?”
This was why my constant flippancy got me into trouble every time. I shouldn’t have even said anything. And I knew better than to waste time prying open a dinky blade if someone attacked me. He’d freak if I told him that, though.
“From ninjas.” I made stabbing motions in the air. “And the occasional pirate.”
His face relaxed but he still seemed a little concerned. Through his window, Lake Erie sparkled as it reflected the clear sky. A flock of seagulls swooped around each other in a chaotic dance toward the sun.
Over the center console, I whispered, “By the way, the movies lie. Pirates are not that attractive up close. That whole lack of basic hygiene is a real turn-off of mine.”
He laughed, a deep ringing sound. I had missed this. Making him laugh. Being together. All of it. The beloved dimple showed up as he grinned at me.
“Since you’re so concerned about my hand-to-hand combat skills…” I held up the so-called knife, flipping open more of the tools. “It’s really a multi-tool. I think it even has a corkscrew in case I want to open a nice Chardonnay to go with my fancy dinner of the good ramen.”
“I didn’t know there was such a thing as good and bad ramen.”
I dropped the multi-tool back in my bag. “Oh, rich boy. The things I could teach you, like living only on your wits and the change you found under the couch cushions.”
My shoulders lifted into a wince. He’d figure out what I meant since he knew I’d spent the last year living out of my truck with a fat bank account. Keeping things secret from him was rapidly becoming a more impossible task with every conversation. It was pathetic I kept attempting it, and I wasn’t quite sure why I kept trying other than instinctual habit.
“My parents aren’t rich, they just think they are. And I’m not exactly rich.” He frowned. “Change in your couch?” The eyebrows drew back together. “You had to live on nothing when your dad would take off, didn’t you?”
I dug through the contents of my bag, even though I didn’t even know precisely what I was looking for at the moment. Probably a way out of the turn in the conversation.
He reached out over the console to cover my restless hand with his. “He left you without a way to contact him and no food? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Paper Route’s “You Kill Me” played on the stereo, and I wiggled around uncomfortably in my seat. I didn’t tell him a lot of things because I wanted the fantasy that it was all okay and I was doing fine all on my own. That I wasn’t hungry or scared. Plus, I could easily have seen him sneaking food from his own pantry and hoarding his allowance. My slight pride would have died a slow death.
“Occasionally. But it wasn’t a big deal.” I tugged my hand free to rake through the contents of my bag again. “Sometimes he would give me ridiculous amounts of cash out of the blue. Not as much as when I graduated, but a couple hundred here and there. It wasn’t all bad, even if he was worthless as a parent.”
He let out a rumbling sigh, but didn’t push it any farther. The whole point of escaping to Cedar Point was to avoid thinking about my father. Especially the phone conversation from last night.
Messing around in my bag had uncovered a purple plastic bottle of bubbles. I picked it out of the jumble and unscrewed the cap. I tapped the excess soapy liquid off and brought the wand up to my lips.
“Was it everything you wanted?” Ash asked.
“What?” I blew into the cheap plastic ring. The car started to gain some speed as the line moved forward.
“Going off and having an adventure.”
“Yes.” A wavering bubble lifted off the end of the wand. It floated off in front of him and then out his window. “And no.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I liked all the volunteering I did. I liked going off and exploring wherever I was at the moment, and the freedom of it all.” I turned my head to gaze out my window. A seagull broke away from the swirling flock and dived downward, pulling up before he hit the water. “But sometimes I was lonely.”
I rattled the wand around in the bottle. Actually, I had made it a point to be lonely the whole time, keeping everyone at a distance. I didn’t know any other way to be.
He hesitated beside me. “Can I ask another question?”
My stomach rolled with guilt. He shouldn’t have felt like he had to ask. The arched metal gates to the amusement park were within sight through the windshield.
“Sure, you don’t need my permission.” I took the wand out of the bubbles.
Ash turned down the music. “Why didn’t you at least contact me to let me know you were okay? You knew I wasn’t going to change my phone number immediately.”
The wand quivered in my hand, but he had the right to ask these questions. And I needed to learn how to answer them. “I thought it would be easier for you that way.”
“Easier?” he said in a careful voice, but I heard the veiled frustration. “You thought it would be easier for me? That I would just forget about you? Why would you think I would—that I could forget you?”
Right before the gates, the car moved at a steady speed. I dropped the wand back into the bottle and twisted the cap back on. Out of the corner of my eye, I peeked over to him. The white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel contradicted the composed look on his face.
But I couldn’t back out of being honest now. He was just beginning to trust me. I drew my legs in from the window, waiting to answer him until I was sure my voice would remain even.
“Because that’s what people do,” I softly said.
He inhaled a breath and released it. “When are you going to understand that I’m not like them?”
“I don’t know. I think I might need to spend more time with you to start getting it right.” I snuck another glance.
“Really?” His eyes focused on the road, but his small smile gave me hope. “How long?”
“I was thinking longer than a week.” Fidgeting, I put my bag on the floor and then tucked my feet under me. “Maybe the rest of the summer?”
The car in front of us stopped short. Ash slammed on the brakes, and protectively shot out an arm in front of me. “Are you serious?”
“Yes. But don’t push too hard, okay? I’m still feeling a little…” I rubbed the tattoo with my thumb. “Lost.”
In the sense that the more time I spent with him, the more secure I felt. And I didn’t navigate “secure” with confidence. Our relationship might not feel very fleeting, but it hadn’t last summer, either—at first. When that script played out to its end, we both spent a year miserable. But even if I didn’t have any idea how this was going to work, I had to give myself a chance to try to see where it went without sabotaging it first because of fear or regret.
We passed under the gates into the huge parking lot. Ash veered off from the line of cars to pull over in the deserted no-man’s-land area where no one parked unless they enjoyed walking a half mile before getting to the ticket counter. He shut off the engine and u
nbuckled his seatbelt.
“You want to spend the summer with me?” His quiet smile grew into a winsome, boyish grin.
I nodded, feeling shy.
He set his head back against the headrest. “Come over here.”
“Why?” I raised my eyebrows at his bossy tone.
“Just come here.” He crooked a finger. “I think you owe me an extra kiss since we were interrupted last night.”
I had been going to do more than that before my father’s call, but sure, we could call it “kissing.” Through the windows, delighted screams from rides within the park mixed with the shrieking of the seagulls overhead. I clambered over to his side and the hem of my pink twill shorts caught on the gear shift. As I unhooked it, my elbow hit a button on the console.
“You have arrived at your destination: One Cedar Point Road, Sandusky, Ohio,” announced a pleasant female voice.
“It shouldn’t have done that.” He reached over my crawling limbs and hit another button with a frown. “I canceled that service.”
“Guess not.” I finished my journey across the compartment to him and sat on his lap. “I’m here as you commanded.”
“What made you change your mind about leaving after this weekend?”
“You.” I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“Yeah?” He watched me with shining hazel eyes. “How?”
A magnetic sense of belonging somewhere, with someone, filled me.
“By being you.” I pressed my lips to the angle of his jaw. “That’s all I needed.”
“Did you know—” He ran his hands up my arms. “I was planning to spend Sunday begging you to stay with me. On my knees and everything. I wanted to give you time before I said anything so you wouldn’t feel pressured.”
“I needed to figure it out all by myself first.” I traveled closer to his mouth. “So I’d know this was real.”
“It was always real.”
There it was again, that change in the rhythm of his breathing on my lips. Whether it was from his words or my efforts, I no longer cared. The emotions behind both were all one and the same.
* * *
I laced up my battered running shoes and climbed out of the car. We had come to the conclusion that however fun it was making out in a parked car, we would have to either find somewhere more private if we went any further or actually do what we drove an hour to do.
Perspiration filmed my skin as heat waved off the black asphalt. Ash came around from the car and took my hand. We walked across the massive parking lot and entered the park to the main concourse. Crowds of people were everywhere, in all shapes, sizes, and shades of developing sunburns.
“What do you want to do first?” Above Ash’s head, candy-colored cable cars threaded their way back and forth through the length of the sky.
I bounced on my toes. “What do you think?”
He took off running. The bastard didn’t even count down. His legs were six inches longer than mine, easy, and now he had a head start on top of it.
“Cheater!” I yelled, earning a dirty look from a passing couple in identical souvenir t-shirts.
He slowed down to a jog, and checked over his shoulder to see if I was racing. That was my cue.
I sprinted to where he waited, and then kept going, never slowing down. He chased me all the way through the park to the Gemini, the roller coaster that had been our summertime ritual even longer than watching summer storms together. At the last second, when the coaster’s sign came into view, he pulled ahead, and tapped the entrance gate. He reeled around with a triumphant whoop and then leaned back on the rough-hewn wood of the fence.
“What took you so long?” he said.
I glared as I stretched my arms over my head. “You totally let me think I had a chance of winning this time, you jerk.”
“It’d piss you off more if I let you beat me on purpose.” He used his t-shirt to wipe his face, exposing his washboard stomach.
A grudging smile tugged at my mouth. That was true. And the knowledge I’d made him work hard for it soothed my sore loser’s soul.
A whiff of hot oil and salty goodness passed through the air from a nearby French fry stand. Past the maze of fencing came the sounds of cheering. The red roller-coaster train entered the platform, followed immediately by the blue train. One of the older roller coasters in the park, the Gemini ran two trains side by side on twin tracks, and one train randomly “won” by coming into the platform first. It was also the arbiter of our roller coaster fate.
We wound our way through the nearly empty switchback line, and then split off to join two separate lines up to the platform. Since Ash had won the race, he had first pick and chose the red train, leaving me with blue. We weren’t riding together—that wasn’t the point. The person whose roller coaster won decided the order of the rides for the rest of the day. Fundamental differences of opinion existed on everything from favorite rides to favorite places to sit, hence our elaborately competitive ritual.
I jumped in the back of my train for my usual thrill-seeking spot and doubly lucked out when no one joined me. Ash went with the front, next to a man with a scarlet, sunburnt neck and shoulders. They did the clipped man-nod of recognition, the one where they both affirmed each other’s existence, but for deep-seated masculine reasons, they would not make eye contact again.
A guy in a polo shirt drooped over the controls, inspiring complete confidence for our safety in his hands. He mumbled into the loudspeaker, the standard admonishments to riders to keep arms and legs completely inside the ride at all times.
I jerked back in the hard plastic seat as the train pulled out of the station. It coasted around a blind curve and then met up with the other train to ratchet up the first big hill. As the two coasters clacked upward, riders held their arms completely outside the ride, slapping hands with the opposite-train riders until both trains surged over the crest.
The first hill of any roller coaster was the best one in my opinion. There was always this hesitancy while suspended at the top, giving a false impression you could get out and return to where it’s safe and level on the ground. Then—gravity wins. We plunged over the edge, rattling along the metal rails and swooping under timber crossbeams.
I may have lost the foot race to the Gemini, but I won the more important race as my coaster finished first. The black bar released from over my legs and I hopped up on the platform. I skipped down the exit stairs to meet Ash at the bottom. I twirled around him, dizzying myself in the process.
“Fine, you win, brat.” He struggled to maintain a straight face and failed miserably. “What do you want to do next?”
“I don’t care.” The world veered wildly and I grabbed onto his arm with a laugh. “We can try something different, and take turns choosing. I’m just happy to be here with you.”
Nineteen roller-coaster rides, two funnel cakes, and one shared large order of hand-cut French fries later, we made our way to the entrance to leave. On the main concourse, local teenagers and college students replenished the numbers of patrons exiting the park. Neon lights throughout the park’s rides and attractions switched on to mark the passage into evening.
A pair of park police officers rushed past us, probably responding to a fight that had broken out. Ash put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. A deliberate blank expression slipped over his face. I followed his gaze. Devon and Trevor approached us from the opposite direction. The carefree feeling that I had carried with me through the day died. Why did they have to find us here?
Devon’s mouth dropped with a shrill squeal. “Katie!”
She clutched at Trevor’s hand and dragged him over. They cut in front of a mother pushing a sleeping toddler in a stroller. Trevor’s smug smirk wasn’t surprised at all, though. Disquiet stabbed at the base of my skull.
“We need to go,” I said, adopting the same neutral attitude as Ash.
“Something’s wrong,” he muttered. “They shouldn’t have found us here.”
No, th
ey shouldn’t have. It was a huge park with tens of thousands of people visiting each day. The frenetic swirling lights overstimulated my vision. A lot of things were going wrong—Trevor, the pictures, my father. Nothing added up to anything good.
“I didn’t know you were guys were going to be here!” Devon enunciated her words a little too precisely. “We decided to come out here at the last minute. Right, Trev?”
Trevor’s smirk intensified to a full-on leer. I swallowed the acid taste of rising revulsion. Ash coiled tight within himself and I could tell he was trying to hold himself together. Or back.
“We’re on our way home now.” I made eye contact with Devon. “I’ll call you later.”
I crossed my fingers that she would read our closed-off body language and allow us to walk by. The rhythmic twitching of a muscle in her cheek proved it a futile desire. She was higher than the top of the Ferris wheel.
“What a shock to see you guys here.” Trevor shook off Devon’s hand. “You two just disappeared the other night. No one has seen you in days or knows where to find you. Did you drive your truck here, Katie?”
Ash twitched next to me. I laid my hand on his back. We had to go. Trevor was trying to provoke a reaction here and now for a reason. Devon’s smile faltered for a few seconds and she rubbed her upper arm, the lines of her shoulders and collarbones defined sharply under the straps of her loose lemon-yellow sleeveless top.
“I should’ve said almost no one.” Trevor blocked my direct path. “I always know where to find my favorite little freak.”
The wind picked up, and along with it, came the whiff of astringent cologne. He took a step closer and went to grab my wrist. I did the worst possible thing I could’ve done in the situation: I flinched.
Ash broke away from my side and tackled him. They tumbled down to the sticky, stained concrete. Trevor let out a roar of pain and tried to shove Ash away, but Ash fought dirty and fast. With a knee in Trevor’s groin, he pinned Trevor and slammed him with staccato punches.
