The Wheel jerks once, then starts its slow, steady climb. Too late to back out. Too late to tell Nathan to get off and pretend this never happened. A dark, fleeting thought flickers—something Damian would probably say like,I could just push him out right here, but I stomp it down fast.
The seat sways, the cold metal humming under my hands as I grip the bar a little too tightly, like holding on to it will stop everything else in my life from spinning out of control. We inch upward, pausing every few seconds to let more people on below. Each stop feels like a breath caught in my throat, each lurch forward like a twist of my insides.
The higher we go, the more the noise fades. The crowd, the music, the bark of vendors—it all softens, like the world’s folding in on itself, leaving just me, the wind, and the weight pressing behind my ribs.
Nathan shifts beside me, quiet until now. Then he turns, angling his body toward mine. There’s something in his expression I haven’t seen since the first time we met—hope, maybe, or something too close to it—and it sours my stomach.
He’s ruining this. I didn’t get on this ride to talk about us or rehash what went wrong with us all those months ago. I just wanted a few minutes off the ground, alone with my thoughts and the mess I left behind with Damian, not whatever Nathan’s trying to turn this into.
“Now you’re trapped up here with me,” Nathan says, his voice dropping like he’s trying to make it flirty. “Tell me why you look like you’ve been crying.”
I cringe. It’s the way he says it, soft and rehearsed, like he’s been practicing lines in the mirror. Like this moment is abouthim being smooth, not aboutmefalling apart. He sounds like a boy playing dress-up in a man’s voice. And all I can think about is how Damian would never ask. He’d justhandle me. He’d dry my tears with his fingers, or lick them away with his tongue. He’d erase the thoughts in my head with his mouth and leave no room for anything buthim.
Nathan’s trying.
Damian consumes.
And I’m sitting here stuck in this stupid metal seat with the wrong man beside me, wondering if jumping off would hurt more than listening to whatever he says next.
I laugh. Sharp. Ugly. More of a broken breath than a sound. I open my mouth to throw something snarky back, something deflective and distant and perfectlyme, but the second I look at him, really look at him, it cracks. The whole damn thingjust cracks. I burst into tears. Not the silent, pretty kind. The real kind. The messy kind. The kind that feels like they’ve been waiting all day to claw their way out. My shoulders shake, and I turn away, pressing my sleeve to my face like that’s going to help.
The Wheel pauses at the top. Everything slows, just enough to steal the breath from my lungs. The ocean stretches out in front of me, dark and endless, the surface silvered by the moonlight. The boardwalk below looks tiny, like a toy town wrapped in neon and noise I can’t quite hear anymore. From up here, it’s quiet.
“Are you crying because of me, Lo?”
Is he fucking kidding me right now?
“Last year, when we broke up, I thought I needed space. Time. I told myself I wasn’t ready to settle down. That I wanted freedom, or whatever bullshit excuse I used.”
He pauses, then looks down at his hands.
“But like I said at the bar, I made a mistake. A big one. And it took me losing you to realize it. I’m not the same person I was then. I don’t want the same things. I looked at you at the Rum and Room and I saw our future. Marriage. A family. Things I was too scared to want before.”
I wipe at my eyes again, the tears still clinging stubbornly to my lashes. I nod, and make a small sound of acknowledgment. I think I even manage a “thanks.” But I can’t focus on him—not really.
Because all I can think about is that I wish Damian was the one sitting next to me. I wishhewas the one talking. I wishDamianwould look at me and tell me what the hell is going on in his head. What he’s planning. What he’s hiding. What he’s so afraid of. I wish he’d let me in. Trust me. Just a little. But he doesn’t. And the truth is I barely even know him. And yet I fucking love him so much it actually hurts.
Nathan keeps talking. Something about the Hard Rock Casino. A new job. How dealing cards there is better than the last casino. Fewer creeps. Better tips. Management that doesn’t treat him badly.
I haven’t said a word back to him. It’s the same way our relationship was, him taking up all the space, making sure the attention was always fully on him. My face is tired from holding itself together. My body’s here, buckled in, but everything else is floating somewhere just above the pier.
He keeps going. About a guy he works with. Something about switching shifts. Something about wanting to take me to dinner. I tell him that’s not going to happen. But he talks over my words, refusing to hear them.
The ride jolts as it starts its slow descent, and I can feel my stomach dip—not from the motion, but from the weight of all the things I’m pretending to hear.
I don’t want to be unkind. Nathan’s a nice person. A default setting.
But my mind’s not here.
It’s still up there, stuck in the clouds, in that quiet space where I keep hoping Damian will show up with something—anything. A scrap of honesty. A glimpse of what he hides behind that silence.
But instead I get Nathan.
When we climb out of the ride, I thank the ride operator out of habit and step off the platform like I’m moving through fog. I walk back toward the bakery without saying much more than have a good night to Nathan, my boots thudding softly against boardwalk planks. Nathan keeps pace beside me, still talking, still hopeful, still not acknowledging what’s real.
Then he stops walking.
And I feel it before it happens. Nathan grabs my wrist. I turn to ask him why he’s touching me. His hand finds my waist, and he leans in—slow, careful, like he’s giving me a chance to stop it.
