“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
I looked down at my hand. I must have knocked it against the ground. The knuckles were scraped, small dark bubbles of blood popping up.
“I think it’s the best idea I’ve had in months.”
I turned to leave—the car was down on the left, I could see its bumper—when I felt Addison’s grip on my arm, firm.
“I’m sorry. I don’t think I can let you drive.”
“Back off.” I yanked myself from him, stumbling then catching myself. I’d shouted, and my bark echoed down the street and Addison stepped back, startled. Behind him, a shuffling on the porch, as people rearranged to see what was happening.
“I didn’t mean to upset you in the kitchen.” His voice was low, calm. “I’m sure it’s just some misunderstanding. Come back inside. I’ll be fine in a little bit, I haven’t had too much. And then I can drive us back.”
Blood pounded in my ears. Across the street, a bare tree tilted and righted itself. I was in no shape to drive. But going back to the party, facing Tyler, seeing him with Paul—I couldn’t bear it. At the end of the block, where the road hit the commercial street, a taxi passed, and then another.
I pointed that way. “I’ll get a cab.”
“Can I help you flag one down?”
I was already walking away. “Go back inside, Addison.”
A cab pulled over as soon as I made it to the end of the street. I dropped into the seat and shut the door. I could see Addison standing in the middle of the road, waiting.
“I’m going to Sawyer.”
“You sure?” The driver eyed me in the rearview mirror. I sat up straight and smiled. I didn’t want him throwing me out; I wouldn’t survive the disgrace. “That’s going to be a hundred, a hundred and twenty.”
“It’s fine. Just get me out of here.”
As we moved through the town, I closed my eyes and sank into the seat. What just happened? The lights of passing cars andstoplights played across the insides of my eyelids, red and white, red and white.
“Okay, buddy.” The interior light flashed and I jolted up. I had passed out. “This is it.”
I emptied my wallet and stumbled from the car.
I woke to dull afternoon light. My shirt and shoes in a heap at the foot of the bed. Pants and socks still on. My muscles seized in the frigid air. I’d fallen asleep on top of the covers, after apparently opening a window. I got up to close it. Bile rushed from my guts. I made it to the bathroom just before the sour heaving began. The floor’s icy tiles dug into my knees. I stood and another round of nausea swelled up. I sat back down, head against the toilet, waiting for it to pass. Eventually, I made my way to the shower. I shed the last of my clothes and stepped into its scalding blast.
I dried off and dressed, muscles screaming at me. I couldn’t find the flip phone, my Tyler phone. I ransacked the apartment. Where the fuck was it? I must have lost it at the party, with the evidence of everything between us on it. I checked the timetable for the bus that traveled between Sawyer and Columbus. I forced myself to eat a piece of toast and waited to see if I could keep it down. Enough time passed and I made my way to the station.
When we arrived in Columbus, the bus let out on a wide stretch near the empty downtown. It was a few miles from the party, a straight shot more or less. I started walking. Overhead, the gray shroud of the low January sky pressed down on the city. A bracing wind pummeled me, my feet ached with the cold, my head pounded. It felt good to push my body, to punish it. The distracting pain, a mercy. I wanted to empty myself of all thoughts.
I found the street and turned. Quiet and desolate in the daytime. Red cups, debris from the night before, scattered down the length of it. A scrap of bright orange flashed on my windshield. A ticket: blocking a driveway.
I turned the ignition and cranked the heat. My fingers had grown numb on the walk, the cuts where I scraped my knuckles pulsing. The phone was inside, on my seat. It still worked, on the last of its battery. But there was nothing. No message from Tyler. No calls.
I got lost on my way to the freeway and ended up beyond the outskirts of town, in the undeveloped county. As I tried to find my way back, I passed a sign announcing a fairground. A second sign was plastered across it: closed to the public. I turned anyway, following the road as it carved through dormant fields, drained of color and life. A long-abandoned barn, a tree growing through a hole in the roof. At the intersection of a narrow road, another sign. No trespassing. I ignored it and turned in. After a mile or so, the road ended at a fence and a rusted gate, shoulder-high, thick metal chains looped around it, a strangling braid, padlocked shut. Beyond it, the fairgrounds. I pulled to the side and got out. The black and calloused trunks of stripped trees stood watch. I rested a foot on the lower rung of the gate, and it shifted under my weight. I paused, seeking the equilibrium then hoisted myself up and over, landing with a soft thud against the packed earth. I stepped forward and a thin sheet of ice, snow melted and then frozen again, cracked and splintered beneath me.
The fairgrounds spread out before me, great and ghostly. This place had been abandoned for some time. The rides were cloaked in torn tarps, small dirty pools of mushy snow gathered in thedips and folds. In the distance, a giant Ferris wheel loomed, naked to the battering abuses of the seasons. I walked in farther, passing a shuttered building. Across one of the boards planking its side someone had spray-painted AIDS FAG, and then underneath, a swastika—it’s like they were expecting me. On the ground against the building, a pile of empty beer cans, the charred remnants of a campfire.
I walked a loop of trash-strewn paths. I found a bench missing most of its back slats and sat. The gnarled tracks of a roller coaster twisted against the sky. Cassie had been obsessed with roller coasters. She had this giant book about their history. At the back was a list of famous accidents from around the world. Senior year, in the weeks leading up to the annual county fair, it was all she could talk about. When it finally arrived, she told our parents we were going to a movie and took me. There was a new ride that year; it boasted the highest climb and the fastest fall. I was too short for the required height. But Cassie flirted with the zitty, pockmarked guy working the line and got me in.
“I could just watch,” I said. “I’ll wait by the exit.”
“You can’t be serious,” she said. “You don’t want to miss this.”
The attendant snapped us into place. I gripped the metal guard, my arms locked. The volley of cars lurched forward and made the slow climb up. The noise of the crowds below fell away; the grind of wheels and gears all I could hear. I wanted to close my eyes but Cassie kept saying, “You have to watch, you have to watch.” I wanted to be anywhere but there, in any life but my own. We edged toward the peak, slowing to a pause before for the drop. That’s the last thing I remember, the vast void of air coming into view.
When we got home, I was still so shaken, Cassie had no choice but to tell my parents where we’d been. I brought it up again, yearslater, I don’t remember why. After Cassie was gone. My mother insisted that I had gotten the story scrambled. It was Cassie’s friend who had taken me on the ride, Cassie had nothing to do with it. I was completely worked up, screaming at her—I never got like that. “That’s not true. It was Cassie. Why won’t you listen to me?” Finally, exasperated, she shouted back, storming from the room. “Drop it, Mark, just drop it. What does it even matter?”
