You in Five Acts(58)

“What?” you asked, smirking at me. “You look like you’re about to toss those crutches in the air like Tiny Tim and bust out the Running Man.”

“Shut up!” I said. “This is my favorite song.”

You just smiled and shook your head. “Of course it is.”

Half an hour later we were still in line, waiting under the shuddering support beams of the behemoth roller coaster, watching its little cars clatter and clack up and down a track that still looked to me, ten years later, like it had been built out of popsicle sticks by kindergartners as a joke.

“I can tell you’re freaking,” you said, laying a gentle hand on my back. “You’re making that mad face.”

“I don’t like heights,” I muttered, in between deep breaths.

“You were fine yesterday with the presage lift.”

“Yeah, well—that was because of you.”

You wrapped your arms around me from behind, resting your chin on my head. “Good thing I’m here now, too, right?” you asked, and I could feel the vibration of your voice in my whole body. “But if you’re really that scared”—you squeezed me gently—“we don’t have to.”

I leaned back against your chest and thought about suggesting that we elevate on the much tamer Wonder Wheel instead, but then the ride was slowing to a stop and the last group was stumbling out, and all of a sudden I was handing your abuela’s crutches to the bored-and-or-stoned-looking operator, and then we were in. It was too late to change my mind.

“You OK?” you asked, trying but failing to hold my left hand, which was gripping the safety bar like a vise.

“Don’t ask,” I said as the ride lurched into motion. Immediately, we were inching up a steep incline that would send us careening down an 85-foot drop at a 58-degree angle. A sign at the top read, STAY SEATED! DO NOT STAND UP! For anyone with a death wish, I guess.

“It will be fine,” you said, adopting your Mr. Dyshlenko voice again. “You just have to hold on, hold on”—you gripped the bar, making a grim, nervous face—“and let go!” You threw your arms up like you were doing the wave at a ball game.

“I’m not doing that,” I said, closing my eyes, wincing, waiting for the drop.

“Come on,” you whispered. “Just look. It’s amazing, you’ll see.”

I shook my head and squeezed my eyelids shut even tighter. “That’s easy for you to say. Nothing scares you.”

“That’s not true.”

The car was slowing down, gravity pulling us back. We were almost there. I could barely get the words out. “Name . . . one . . . thing.”

There was a pause, and then you said, “Kissing you.”

“What?” Without meaning to, I let go of the bar and opened my eyes, just in time to see the world drop away. You grabbed my hand, and then we were in free fall.

? ? ?


Afterward, once I’d regained the use of my legs and vocal chords, I pulled you onto a bench and made you tell me again.

“It scares me, too,” I said. We were holding hands, smiling shyly at each other, and then at the ground. I traced the life line curving across your palm with tip of my finger.

“So, what, then?” you asked.

“Well . . .” I turned my face up to yours. “You know what those motivational posters say: Do something that scares you, every day.”

You grinned, pulling me closer. “Just once a day?” you asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, pushing the hair out of your eyes. “I think we can get away with more. I mean, we are making up for lost time.”

“How much—” you started to say, but then you shut up, because I took your face in my hands and pulled it onto mine.

We made up for lost time on that bench, warm, slow, intoxicating kisses that—once we got past the first, tentative, trembling ones—swelled like waves in no hurry to make it to shore. Later, we made up for lost time on the Wonder Wheel, our little boxcar swinging back and forth a hundred feet off the ground while we swayed together, our breath quickening, completely ignoring the view of the sun setting over the city. We somehow lost the crutches, but neither of us cared. More than a few times, I was overcome: my desire felt feverish, too big for my body. It escaped through my throat in halting sighs. I never wanted it to end.

I didn’t want to get on the train to go home. I still wish we hadn’t. Sometimes I like to pretend we’re still up there on the ferris wheel, suspended someplace between heaven and Earth, preserved in a perfect moment in time when everything seemed like it was going to be all right.

That was the first day I knew I loved you, Diego.

There won’t be a last.





Chapter Twenty-Two


    April 24–29 (last week of Spring Break)

14 days left


LIFE DOESN’T HAPPEN IN MONTAGE, with newspapers spinning, or calendar pages falling off one by one. Dance sure as hell doesn’t happen in montage, although I’d be the first to admit that it looks good on screen to see beautiful people go from lead-footed to flawless in the span of two minutes. But that second week with you—after you dropped me off on my corner, pressing me up against the graffiti-covered lamppost I’d Sharpied my name onto in fifth grade, and whispered, “Promise this will still be real tomorrow?”—felt like a flip book of best moments, lived in real time.