by Emma Mills
“But who’s gonna ride with me?” I hear Gideon say as the Ferris wheel attendant pulls the bar down over us.
We lurch to a start. I look back as the wheel slows, and see Gideon and Iris getting on behind us.
Next to me, Noah is quiet.
I glance over at him when we’re almost to the top, the wheel still pausing to load on new people. All of Triple F is laid out below us.
“Nice view,” I say, for want of anything better.
He grunts in response.
The wind rocks us back and forth a little, the metal creaking under the seat.
“Sorry,” he says after a moment. “Sorry I’m no fun. I just … I kind of wanted this to be, like, romantic. Like me and Alicia.”
“Ah.”
“You know, like we’d get to the top, and she could be like, ‘it’s so beautiful,’ and I could be like, ‘yes, it is,’ but I’m looking at her and not the view? Or maybe she’s a little scared of heights and she holds on to me or whatever?”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to ruin something so cliché for you.”
One corner of his mouth lifts up, a wry half-smile.
I look out over the fair, yellow-and-white-striped tents dotting the ground below us. “If it makes you feel any better, you were right about her being scared. It kind of backfired though, because she seems, like, pathologically afraid of this whole situation.”
He huffs a laugh at that.
Behind us, not too far off, a loud cackle rents the air. I glance back and to my surprise it’s Iris, her head thrown back, laughing with abandon. Next to her, Gideon looks slightly confused, but pleased nonetheless, at having elicited such a response.
Then the wheel lurches and begins to turn again.
* * *
We play a few more crappy carnival games. Noah wins a baseball hat that says I’D RATHER BE BOWLING across the front. We get another funnel cake, and although Alicia insists she’s stuffed and more fried food would be absurd, she eats at least half of it.
We make it through pretty much everything, all the way to the back edge of the fair, where a little go-kart course is set up, marked off in the parking lot by stacked-up bales of hay.
“Ooh.” Alicia grabs Noah’s arm when we near the course. “I love these. And there’s no line!”
I glance at Iris. “Want to?”
“Not really,” Iris replies as Alicia and Noah run ahead. “But can we note that Alicia’s pretty full of shit, because I feel like go-karts are probably a hundred times more dangerous than Ferris wheels.”
I grin, glancing over at Gideon. But his face is pulled into a frown, and before I can speak, he’s moving ahead, advancing quickly on Noah and Alicia, who’ve reached the track and are giving their tickets to the go-kart guy.
Gideon says something to Noah that I can’t hear, and Noah replies equally quietly, while Alicia puts on her helmet and picks her go-kart.
When Iris and I reach them, Gideon and Noah are still conferring.
“—don’t think you should.”
“Yeah, well, good thing it’s not up to you,” Noah says.
“Are you being serious right now?” Gideon says, and he sounds oddly … agitated.
“Yup,” Noah replies. He glances at Alicia, already strapped into her car, and then takes the helmet out of the guy’s outstretched hand.
“Not happening,” Gideon says, and reaches for the helmet himself, but Noah pulls it back and jams it on his head, clambering into the car. “Not happening,” Gideon repeats tightly, trying to grab the seat belt out of Noah’s hand as he goes to clasp it.
“Leave me alone,” Noah says, pushing Gideon’s hand away and fastening the seat belt.
“I will sit on you,” Gideon says, and normally I would laugh, but nothing about this seems funny. There’s a desperate edge to his voice. Alicia is eyeing them, confused, and the go-kart guy looks annoyed.
“Like hell you will,” Noah says. “Get out of the way.”
“Kid, can you get off the course?” the go-kart guy says.
“I saw your hands this morning.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I saw,” Gideon says. When Noah just stares, he turns to the go-kart guy, almost frantic. “Look, can you just—”
“Let’s get a move on.” The guy claps a hand on Gideon’s shoulder and tries to guide him away. Gideon just shakes him off and moves back toward Noah.
“Seriously—”
“Yeah, seriously,” Noah says, clipped, and I’m reminded suddenly of the steeliness he used on Pete Salata during rock climbing night. It’s weird to see it used on Gideon. “You’re not my mom. You’re not in charge of me. At all. So back the fuck off.” And then Noah pumps the gas and drives away.
“Not fair!” Alicia cries, flooring her pedal and peeling off after him.
I look over at Gideon. His hands are balled into fists at his sides. On the track Noah lets out a whoop and makes a sharp turn, rounding a corner and disappearing with Alicia just behind him.
Gideon stands a moment longer and then stalks off.
Iris is frowning. “What was—”
“Stay here, okay?” I say.
“And do what?”
“Just … make sure Noah doesn’t die.”
“Why would Noah die?”
“I don’t know, but … stay. Okay?”
Iris doesn’t scoff, for once. She just nods, eyes serious. “Yeah, okay.”
With that, I turn and head after Gideon.
* * *
I find him not too far away, standing off to the side of the last row of concession booths. His back is to me, his head down.
“Gideon?”
I think he’s mad, but when he looks back at me, there’s pure panic in his eyes.
“I don’t—why would he—” Gideon shakes his head, breathing fast and shallow.
“You’re gonna give yourself a stomachache,” I say, which is something my mom would say and entirely unhelpful in this situation. So I step closer. “Hey, come on, come here.” I don’t say “it’s okay” because I don’t know if it is. I honestly don’t know what’s going on, but something is obviously wrong.
I must’ve been four or five the first time I remember Julia having a panic attack. We were at the mall and she was arguing with our mom about a T-shirt she wanted. My little-kid memory cuts out, but suddenly we were standing by the restrooms while Julia sat on the floor with her back against the wall, her face buried in her arms, while my mom kneeled next to her and counted, deep breaths, five counts in, and five counts out.
“Can I?” I say, reaching toward Gideon. Sometimes Julia didn’t like being touched, but sometimes she said it helped, warm circles drawn on her back, or gentle pressure on her temples.
He nods, shuffling closer, and I put my hands on either side of his face, resisting the urge to thread my fingers through his hair and instead resting them lightly atop it. His skin is clammy, and there are tears forming at the corners of his eyes as he squeezes them shut.
“Deep breath,” I say, and repeat my mom’s often-chanted words: “One two three four five in, one two three four five out.” And then I demonstrate, in long, out long. Gideon tries to follow. I do it again, we breathe again, and again, and finally he opens his eyes.
He drops his head—if we were any closer, our foreheads would be touching—and covers one of my hands with his own.
“Sorry,” he says, quiet, still a little choked. “I freaked out. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I just…”
I shake my head. “We’ll sort it out,” I say, because that’s vague enough but hopefully at least a little bit comforting. “Don’t worry.” And I try not to think about the weight of his hand on top of mine, or how soft his hair feels under my fingers.
We stand like that for a bit. Until someone clears their throat behind us. I turn.
It’s Noah, standing with his hands shoved in his jacket
pockets. “I’m sorry,” he says.
I let my hands fall from Gideon’s face.
“I’m sorry I was a dick,” Noah continues. “I’m just … tired.”
“Then let’s go home,” Gideon says, his voice rough.
“Not that kind of tired,” he replies.
“There you guys are!” Alicia rounds the corner, picking her way delicately through the grass and holding a pretzel. She is now wearing the I’D RATHER BE BOWLING hat, and under different circumstances, I would appreciate the absurdity of that. “Here,” she says, thrusting the pretzel at me. “Iris said you wanted this. Why you couldn’t get it yourself, I have no idea.”
Iris follows quickly behind us, and her face says Sorry, I did my best.
I smile. “Thank you. It was, uh, there was a carb emergency. But it’s okay now.”
“It was three-fifty,” Alicia says.
“Awesome. Do you take American Express?”
Next to me, Gideon gives a weak laugh.
“Maybe we should call it a night,” Iris says. No one disagrees.
twenty-six
I go to the theater to drop a few more things off with Tara on Monday afternoon. They’re rehearsing the big scene with the lovers, so the court and most of the fairies are off running lines, the Mechanicals are down the hall practicing their play-within-a-play, and Gideon and Aimee are sitting in the house, ready to insert themselves into the scene after Mr. Palmer has worked out what he refers to as all “the business” with Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius: who’s running where, who’s holding on to who, etc.
I hand the pieces from Del over to Tara. And on my way out, I can’t help but pause by where Gideon and Aimee are sitting, toward the back of the house.
“What’s up?” Gideon says quietly, smiling at me. There’s a seat between them, but he’s got his arm resting across the back of it. His fingers could brush Aimee’s shoulder if either of them moved an inch.
“Not much. I just, uh.” I glance at Aimee. I don’t want to embarrass Gideon. But I keep thinking of him at Triple F, breathing fast. Near tears. “Just … wanted to see if you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” he replies brightly. “A-okay.”
I pause, not sure if I should really ask, but I do anyway: “Are you and Noah okay?”
“Yeah.” Although he’s smiling, there’s something slightly artificial about it. Some kind of forced chill. “We’re awesome.”
Aimee looks between us, amusement in her eyes. “What kind of weekend did you guys have?”
“Nothing,” Gideon says, and then makes a face. “I mean, we had a weekend, obviously, but it was fine, nothing happened.”
I look at him for a moment and then glance away. “Right, okay. Just checking.”
I head off. When I reach the very back of the auditorium, I look back to where Gideon is sitting. He’s got his head bent toward Aimee, whispering something. She cocks a look at him and then smiles and whispers a reply. Then they both turn to face the action onstage.
* * *
“Did Gideon seem okay in rehearsal?”
I can’t help but ask as I drive Iris home after rehearsal that afternoon. All the planets had aligned just right, meaning that I actually have the car for once.
She gives me a look. “I don’t, like, monitor him.”
It’s quiet.
“He seemed fine,” she says begrudgingly, after a bit.
We don’t talk much the rest of the ride. When we arrive at Iris’s massive mansion—villa, compound, whatever—she pauses with her hand on the car door, halfway out.
“Something wrong?” I ask.
“You could—I mean, my parents are working. You could. Hang out. If you want. We could watch the Will You Stay tour movie.”
It’s just … fun sharing fandom stuff with other people. I look at her for a moment, but she’s staring intently at the dashboard.
“Yeah. Okay.”
* * *
It turns out Iris’s house has a movie screen–sized television like Lena’s, though it’s not in the family room. Instead, there’s a specially dedicated “media room.”
Iris stops by her room to grab a pillow and then we head to the media room to watch the concert movie of TION’s second tour, which I haven’t seen. Will You Stay: Live from São Paulo.
The opening montage shows the stadium, packed to bursting with fans. Screams reverberate through the media room as TION takes the stage for the show opener.
“You know, they’re coming here next month,” I say when we’re a couple songs in. Kenji is on-screen, belting out the chorus to “Here and Now.”
“I love how you think I didn’t know my favorite band in the entire world is coming here next month.”
I don’t acknowledge that. “Are you going?”
“Paige and I got tickets,” she says after a pause. “We were gonna take her little sister. She loves them, too.”
“Oh.”
It’s quiet.
“I miss her,” Iris says, and when I glance over, her eyes are glued to the TV. “I miss hanging out with her.”
On-screen, Lucas blows a kiss to the audience, and the camera cuts to a group of girls jumping up and down—some screaming, some crying, all of them with their hands extended toward him.
“There’s so much I want to tell her. I never thought about that. Like if you break up with someone. So much random stuff I think of during the course of a day that I would tell her if I could. But I can’t. She doesn’t want me to. She hates me.”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
“She broke up with me.”
“You kind of forced her to.”
“What?”
“You … prompted her. I was there, remember?”
“You said you couldn’t hear anything. You said you were peeing loudly.”
“I lied.”
“I knew it,” she says wryly, with a shadow of a smile. It disappears after a moment. “If it hadn’t been then … she would’ve done it eventually. I would’ve driven her away at some point.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m inherently unpleasant, Claudia.” I can’t tell if she’s joking.
“Why for real?”
She doesn’t speak, and for a moment, I think that’s it. End of conversation. But then she glances over at me, hugging her pillow—with a TION case, of course—to her chest.
“Do you know how we met?” she says.
twenty-seven
According to Iris, her and Paige’s story begins on the first day of seventh grade. It was Iris’s very first day at Morningbrook Academy, and she was terrified.
“I didn’t know anybody,” Iris says. “I was really shy.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Why?”
“Because. You’re you. You just … say and do whatever. You give zero fucks.”
She shakes her head minutely, and her voice is quieter when she replies: “I give a lot of fucks.”
Paige, on the other hand, has never been shy. I didn’t know her in junior high, but by Iris’s account, she was fun and funny and wonderful in seventh grade, and since long before that probably. She laughed easily and often. She was everyone’s friend. And on the first day of seventh grade, she sat next to Iris in biology.
“We just … clicked. She was my best friend. We were best friends. I never got along with anybody like that before. But then everybody said … someone started a rumor saying that I liked her. They’d be like, ‘Just look at the way Iris looks at her, she’s so gone on her.’ And I was. I did like her like that. But I didn’t think that she … I was scared, you know? I didn’t think she’d ever like me back. So I would say no, I would tell everyone they were wrong. And, just … over time, like…” She shakes her head. “We just kind of drifted apart. She’s the kind of person that everyone wants to be around, and I’m … not. By the time we got to Prospect, we didn’t really hang out much at all. She would still be nice to me, you know, like wave to me
in the halls and stuff, but … it was different.”
But then.
It was the night of a party, sophomore year. Iris walked in on Paige making out with another girl.
(I give a comically loud gasp here, and Iris hits me with her pillow.)
“I was so surprised, I dropped my purse and they both turned and saw me, just standing there like a complete idiot, but they didn’t—” She cuts off, shakes her head. “I remember it so clearly, I remember being surprised and shocked and whatever, but also like so annoyed, because they didn’t break apart all the way. Paige still had her hands in the girl’s hair, she still—” A pause. “Anyway, I left as fast as I could. It was Jackie Casella’s house. Have you ever been there?”
“No.”
“It’s in the French Palladian style. Way too ostentatious if you ask me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind when I design my chateau.”
Iris tells me how she reached the end of the driveway—it was a long driveway—before she realized she had left her purse right where it landed. On the floor in the hallway.
She just couldn’t fathom it. Paige was kissing a girl. Paige was kissing. A girl. Paige kissed girls. That was a thing Paige did. Her Paige.
“But she wasn’t my Paige. We hadn’t even hung out in ages, she didn’t … she was that other girl’s Paige. And the idea of that just … I realized I was crying. I was crying, and I had to go back inside and get my purse to call someone to pick me up. But I couldn’t go back inside like that. And I couldn’t go back upstairs—what if they were still there? What if Paige had seen me, shrugged, and then kept on making out with that other girl because she didn’t even care?”
Iris had convinced herself that that was most certainly what was happening. Paige’s hands in someone else’s hair, her smile pressed up against someone else’s lips: it was terrible, it was—
“But then someone said my name. I turned around and … there she was.”
Paige, haloed in the glow of the floodlights lining the front of the house.
“You dropped your bag,” Paige had said, holding up Iris’s purse. She blinked and then stepped closer. “Why are you crying?”
“I’m not,” Iris replied, and took the purse.
