The ride springs to life, grinding loudly as it slowly begins to raise us.
“Oh, god. Oh my god. I’m going to die,” I mumble, staring below us as my feet dangle. My heart is beating so loudly I’m quite sure the entire festival can hear it, and I’m shaking like a newborn baby horse.
“Woohoo!” Bennett shouts.
As we near the top, I am able to see the pinks and oranges of a beautiful Fort Myers sunset. I can make out the entirety of the festival grounds, and my only saving grace is knowing I won’t be taken as high as the Ferris wheel.
We stop at a standstill when we reach the top, and I wheeze against my own fear and the shaking of my hands and shoulders.
“Hey,” Bennett says softly, suddenly aware of just how scared I am. “Look at me, Eli. It’s okay.”
But I refuse to look at him. Not only am I extremely pissed at him, but I’m afraid that if I look away from this sunset, I’ll truly lose it.
If I make it off of this thing alive, I’m going to strangle Bennett and then crawl into bed and stay there for the entire weekend.
The sunset, Elijah. Focus on how pretty the colors are, on the cool air around you, and the sound of laughter and the smell of delicious food.
I’m going to be okay. This anxiety, this voice in my head that’s replaying all of the horrific ways in which I can die here, its only reason for existence is to scare me. Nothing here can hurt me.
I repeat this mantra as if my life depends on it—and honestly, I think it might. And though it does help to calm me slightly, it does not remove theterrorportion of the ride.
As we drop to the ground so many stories below, everything around me turns black, and I lose consciousness.
The sunset is quite beautiful. All oranges and pinks blended perfectly with the soft fall breeze. My jacket flutters around me as I fall, and I can feel the pull of gravity in my chest.Down, down, downI go.
And I am happy for it. So happy for this release, for this escape. It has always been here, I’m realizing. Why I have waited this long, I am unsure.
The end to my torment was always in reach. I let myself sit in sorrow and suffering for so long, almost as if to punish myself.
But for what? What did I do that was so horrendous that I deserved this life? Another question that will be left unanswered—but I am unwilling to stick around in search of clarity.
I am happy to end things here. I am relieved to fall.
Or I was. Just moments ago, I was.
But there he is. So beautiful above me is Aaron—he clears the railing so easily with his long, muscled limbs. I admire every inch of him as he jumps, and I feel such longing as it lies side by side with my newfound terror.
Black curls take flight in the wind, the only part of him not meant to plummet straight down. Vivid green eyes stare directly at me—he never finds a rhyme or a reason to look anywhere else. Always directing that chilling gaze right at me, as if he cannot stand to watch anything else.
I don’t want him to die. Not like this—not with me. I never wanted to hurt anyone.
Silly little flightless bluebird, always so certain he can save me. That he can fix it. That he can achieve the impossible.
I love you, Aaron.I want to scream it. I want to etch it into my skin, bloody and irreversible. But instead, we will die here together.
Unless… if my body were to cushion his, if I were to stop his fall—could he live? I am to die anyway; I might as well try.
My hands reach for him on instinct; the desire to save him with my last breath is so strong that I can practically taste it.
My peaceful release is now a stressful, last-minute attempt to cradle the one person I love with my entire being.
And here we fall, like an old, vintage painting as we stay reaching toward one another.
I do my best to move completely into his line of descent. This angle, this trajectory—I will let myself die believing it will save him.
Aaron’s face is the last thing I see before I smack against the Earth, and everything around me snaps to black.
Chapter Twenty-Six
