With This Heart(22)

“ Like Yoko Ono?” I asked, pretending to take him seriously.

“ Not even remotely similar. Mine will be much more guttural. Like, at least four times as guttural, maybe even twice as throaty.”

He didn’t give me any time to expand on that ridiculous topic.

“ What do you plan on doing to make money?” he asked, peering over at me from behind his Wayfarer sunglasses.

“ I have absolutely zero, negative zero idea of what I want to do.” Just the thought of it brought back that immense pressure in my chest.

“ On account of not really having a future before two months ago?” he asked.

“ Exactly.”

He nodded empathetically. “So now the world is your proverbial oyster and you’re finding out that maybe shucking oysters isn’t quite as easy as everyone makes it out to be. Oh, and there are far fewer pearls than you expected.”

I nodded, thinking that I might have been in love with him in that moment.

“ You could be the producer for my album,” he suggested. That was the very first time he suggested a solution to my future-career woes.

“ Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“ Oh my GOD,” he shouted out of the blue, and I jerked back against my seat in fear. Were we about to hit a car or swerve off the road?

“ WHAT?” I yelled, pressing my hand to my heart.

“ A sign back there said to exit in five miles for a Prehistoric Dinosaur Adventure Park.”

Dear God.

There was no point in arguing, Beck had us turning into the nearly abandoned park less than ten minutes later.

“ Abby, I realize you’re containing your excitement because you’re trying to remain mysterious and aloof, but please know that if you want to squeal or cry, I wouldn’t think less of you.”

I crossed my arms in front of my chest and kicked the gravel with my Keds. “I can’t believe you’re dragging me here.”

“ I can feel the excitement emanating from you. It’s palpable, Abby. Wow. Minty.”

I picked up the pace after that so that I could pay for both of us. Beck kept sneaking his card into every checkout line and I didn’t want him thinking he had to pay for everything during the trip.

A pimply-faced kid was sitting inside of a crumbling kiosk. The remnants of the shack made it clear that at one point it had been painted vibrant colors, but the wood had started chipping ages ago and now it was just depressing.

“ Two tickets please,” I said politely.

The kid looked up from his Nintendo DS. “Two adults or two kids?”

I looked behind me. There was only one other car parked in the lot and there were no kids in sight.

“ Oh. Two adults.”

He took my cash without a second glance and started getting my change.

“ Don’t touch the exhibits. Don’t sit on the dinosaurs. Don’t take profane photographs using the dinosaurs as props,” the kid droned on.

“ People do that?” Beck implored excitedly as he stepped behind me.

The kid shrugged. “The rule is there for a reason.”

Beck thought that was the funniest thing ever. As we walked away, he sidled up to my side and whispered in my ear, “That could be your job . You could be Ms. Prehistoric Dinosaur Adventure Park. YOU could tell people not to take sexual photos with the dinosaurs.”

I veered away from him and started to take in the exhibits. The front kiosk had definitely foreshadowed the quality of the rest of the park. I had no clue what to expect, but it was about one-tenth the size of a normal zoo. There were cages set up with animated dinosaurs inside, but most of them had stopped working long ago. The ones that did work moved painfully slow and their growls came out sounding like distorted garbles.

It took us hardly any time at all to lap around the entire place, but we couldn’t leave yet. It didn’t feel like we had done everything the park had to offer. I was measuring my foot in one of the “Compare Your Footprint to a T-REX” displays when Beck came up with his brilliant idea.

“ I think you should sneak into one of the cages and climb onto a dinosaur,” he whispered quietly, as if the kid up front could hear us all the way back there.

“ Great idea,” I beamed before dryly adding, “No.”

“ C’mon, Abby! The kid said it was against the rules, don’t you want to do it?”

“ Not in the least,” I answered, acknowledging that my footprint was in fact MUCH smaller than that of a T-rex.

He stepped in front of me and blocked my path with his hands on my shoulders. “Abby. Someone has done it before, that’s why there’s a rule. Don’t you want to be that person? Don’t you want to have memories of this summer that don’t include measuring your freaking footprint?”

I hated him for calling me out on the fact that I really was a goodie-two shoes, but living my life didn’t mean I had to break rules. Though I wasn’t sure how else I would feel alive. I’d never done anything like that before; maybe I didn’t know what I was missing.

“ Shit. Fine, I’ll do it.”

You wouldn’t have said no to those greenish hazel eyes either. It really wasn’t fair.

We picked the Triceratops in a cage near the back of the park because it was lowest to the ground. Beck laced his fingers together and I wedged my Keds inside his cupped hand so that he could help me over the fence. He couldn’t come in with me because he was acting as my lookout and documentarian.