Boring Girls(111)

“Yes,” I said. I was glad he’d given me a reason.

“Me and my ex — it was hard, and she had her own things going on. It still hurts.”

“I understand.”

We changed the subject, talking casually about the tour and our bands. I explained how we’d gotten our band started, and he told me some stuff about his. Cars whizzed past us. He was quiet and attentive. I remembered how Toad had laughed about how much action Chris would be getting on the road. It didn’t seem to make sense. He was such a quiet, thoughtful guy — not the outgoing party moron type. I reminded myself that I barely knew him, but still. He just seemed too nice.

xXx

We arrived at the fairground, which was a short walk from the ocean. The warm breeze blew across us as we walked, smelling like popcorn and cotton candy and fried food, and the atmosphere was fun and festive with the spinning rides and music and people. The sun was just starting to lower in the sky, bathing everything in a pink glow. I felt great, walking beside Chris. People kept looking at us, probably marvelling at how tall he was, how menacing he looked. I felt a sort of stupid, puffed-up pride. I wanted to take his hand, but I didn’t.

“Do you want to go on the ferris wheel?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said, picturing us gazing across the ocean, the sparkling sunset in its reflection, totally cute and sweet. It would be a beautiful moment, something we would remember forever. I really did get ahead of myself in this stupid dreamy way. It was all too great. In Florida, in the sun, at the fair, with this giant famous metal guy beside me, wanting to take a ride on the ferris wheel. You know the type of dumb-ass giddy thing I mean. It really did feel nice.

The ferris wheel was quite big, and there was some horrible rock music playing as Chris gave the tickets to the weirdo running it. We climbed into the car, and it swayed. The guy clanged the safety rail to lock us into the seat, and we jerked into motion.

As the car began its ascent, the wind swept over us, catching the ends of Chris’s hair and lifting it, stealing the breath from my throat and making me instinctively reach for the lap rail. I gripped it in my hands, which were sweating, and focused on ignoring the fact that the ground was falling farther away from us with each passing second. To my horror, the wheel groaned as we reached the top — a sound that signalled either something needed oiling on the damn thing, or something was full-stop wrong with it. Either way I was ready to get off the ride, and we were only making our way around for the first time.

I tried to breathe deeply as we flew over the highest point and began to descend. I glanced sideways at Chris. His eyes were fixed over the hand rail, his brow furrowed, his lips pursed in the usual tight frown.

We fell through the air and were back at the bottom. My stomach felt like it was full of helium. I was concerned I might cry out. As we moved along to ascend once more, the shitty radio music blasted in our ears for a quick second, and I braced myself. I was not going to look like a fool. The wheel groaned again, and I didn’t know if it was my imagination or not but I felt the whole thing shudder slightly. I moaned.

“This is horrible,” Chris said in a tense monotone. “This really sucks. I don’t like this.”

“Me neither.”

“Fuck.” We fell silent again as the ferris wheel swept us down and around, up again, and over. Chris was dead silent and stiff beside me. We finished the ride without speaking, and when our seat stopped at the bottom, I rose and almost collapsed. My legs felt like jelly and my mouth hurt from frowning.

“Hey, aren’t you from Ripsawdomy?” the guy running the ride asked as we climbed off.

Chris scowled. “Yeah. Thanks for the ride, bro.”

“Rock on!” the guy said, flashing the horns as we passed him. Chris buried his hands in his pockets, striding away, and I broke into my little trot to keep up. Romantic, right?

xXx

Chris won me an orange sea horse that felt like it was stuffed with tin foil at the water-pistol-balloon game, and we got some cotton candy and hot dogs. It was fun, but Chris was really quiet. I wondered if it was because the ride had bothered him, or if he was thinking about his ex, or what.

When we were finished at the fair, it was twilight, and Chris suggested we walk along the beach. We took off our shoes and walked along the shore, the water lapping at our toes.

“I’ve never been to a beach like this before,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yeah, never. Florida’s just a place you read about in a magazine, or see on TV,” I said. “Back where I’m from, right now, it’s cold. It’s autumn. The leaves are changing colour, people are wearing sweaters.”