As we touch down to the ground, the young man who locked us in earlier coming to let us out, my tears start to fall. I am so ashamed. How could I have let that go on up there? Why would I have let myself think it was going to be something special? That he could possibly feel anything for someone who would let that go on?
“Everything is wrong with me, Devin. I am a rock star, right? There is little about me thatisright. Thanks for the ride, handsome. I won’t forget it.”
Before he can respond, I hop down from the bucket to get away. I do not want to see the change in his eyes now that we’re back on earth. I could not stand to see his regret at sharing what we did up there. I am not the sort of girl that someone like Devin would want to waste his time on.
Even if those moments on top of the world with him filled that emptiness inside of me like nothing ever has—that ride was always going to end.
Chapter Four
Devin
I might be boring or shy, but I am no quitter.
Letting Debi walk away from me at the fair was a huge mistake. My head was spinning, and I was still lost in the moment with her. A moment I had hoped would continue long after we got off that ride. Instead, she gave me a flippant remark before she vanished on me.
I sat in that bucket watching her go, unsure what the hell I was doing. Once I got my head about me, I tried to go after her. The crowd was too thick to get to her before I lost sight of her. With her out of sight and me not having learned a damn thing about her, I was hit with a wave of panic.
How do I find the stranger who just stormed off with my heart?
“You were with her for twenty minutes, tops,” Felix argues again as we sit at a diner the next morning.
While I was wildly searching for Debi, I found Felix with two girls mooning up at him. I tried to explain that I had to find this special girl but got no help from him or the two girls. They were wasted on beer and cotton candy, so I was tasked with getting them all home. My search would have to wait for a new day.
Now it is a new day, so the church continues. “Well last night was the best night of my life with the best girl I have ever met. I am going to find her. It doesn’t matter if it was twenty minutes or twenty-four hours.”
“This girl was a babe, huh?” Felix asks with a waggle of his dark brows as he shoves some pancake in his mouth,
“Yes, she wasa babe. More than a babe, you idiot,” I tell him with a chuckle, tossing a sausage at him.
“Leave you alone for ten minutes and you think you found your dream girl.”
“I do not think that,” I argue, pointing my fork at him. “Iknowthat. This girl…man, this girl is something else. We might not have spent a lot of time together but the time we were together was…it was fucking magic. I was not nervous or anxious, I barely noticed we were stuck up there.”
Felix laughs because us getting stuck up there is a source of great humor for him. What he is not having a laugh at is my words about not being nervous while I was with Debi. I am always nervous. It has to be some sort of mental illness, not that anyone believes that.
There are times when out of nowhere, I swear I cannot breathe. Nothing has to happen, there does not have to be a valid reason. I just start thinking about what could go wrong. Not that it will. Just that it could. It overwhelms me until I cannot function. I could not study, missed classes sometimes, even struggled with my part time job at the library. It was a joke at first, until people started to realize how badly it was affecting my entire laugh.
It made it almost impossible to make friends, to talk to women, to live a normal life. I have attacks where I just shut down. The list of the many things I am afraid of is long and embarrassing. Felix is the one person who can calm me down and the one person who never gives me a hard time about how nervous I am about everything.
Now he shoots me a thoughtful look. “I want to meet this girl. If you got up on that freaking ride with her, that’s tough enough. I approve of her just for that. What did you say she was…a rockstar?”
Smiling, I nod as I remember her with that fan. “Yeah, I guess. Lead singer for a band called Purple Hearts. I am going to the mall to see if I can find some of their records. Think that would be pretty cool.”
“Dude, yeah, you should go to the mall. Babes love the mall,” he declares, smacking his hand on the tabletop. “That babe of yours might just be at the mall to hang out. It’s a weekend, they go there with their friends, they shop, they talk about boys, all that shit, dude.”
“Felix…this is a grown as woman. Not a high school girl hitting the mall with her besties,” I tell him dryly, shoving some bacon in my mouth.
“Bro, the mall is where they go, teenager, grown women, hell the old ladies go there to power walk. All babes love a mall, age notwithstanding.”
Considering this, I decide it might be a good place to start. I told him I am starting my search for her today. I am only here in Pine Grove for a few months, until I go back to Baton Rugh to start as an aide. If I can, I want to spend all of that time with Debi.
This is supposed to be my last summer as a stupid kid. My last chance to get drunk a little drunk, maybe smoke a joint, hang out at the arcade, or hook up with a woman. Next fall I am going to be an adult. I won’t get hot nights at the fair with the girl of my dreams unless I go out and find her.
“Yeah, yeah, let’s go to the Galleria. We might find something.”
When we get to Pine Grove Galleria almost an hour later, I am second guessing this whole plan. Debi is this wild creature, this throw caution to the wind type of woman. I cannot imagine her coming to this mall with the Yonkers and The Buckle to spend her Saturday afternoon.
“Come on man, we’ll make the rounds a few times. Hit Tape Deck to see if they heard of her band. If I get some babe’s numbers while we’re at it, even better,” Felix teases, even though I know he will ask every single cute girl for her number—it’s his thing, it’s what he does.
