Chapter 17 #2
He bounces down with a grunt for the tenth time and slides back down to the ground.
“Okay. This is the last time,” he says to me, completely out of breath but still excited.
As he hands over another ticket and takes a second to formulate a game plan, the attendant eggs him on by bunny-hopping up onto a middle rung right in front of him and then somehow manages to walk right up to the top, pressing the buzzer without his hands ever touching the ladder.
“Yeah, real nice, buddy,” Ryan says as he steps up again.
His legs are already shaking like a leaf before he even makes it to the second rung, but to my surprise, he steadies himself and manages to go farther than he ever has before.
I take a step forward, holding my breath as he lowers himself to the ladder, as close as he can get. What is he…
All at once he makes a full-body lunge toward the button at the top but misses by about seven feet and slams down onto the base with a thud. I bust out laughing as he rolls his way back down and onto his feet.
“Did you see how close I was that time?!” He holds his thumb and pointer finger about an inch apart. “This close. I was this close to that buzzer,” he says.
“Sure, ‘this close.’ ” I laugh.
Now I can’t remember what I was so nervous about. This is just like hanging out with a friend. Maybe I’ve been making too big a deal out of it.
“You want to get something to eat?” he asks.
“Yeah, I’ve been dying for a caramel apple all year. So for like three years, I guess. Which is way too long to be wanting a caramel apple,” I reply.
“You know, you can get those at the grocery store.”
“It’s not the same. I need the full experience,” I tell him as we head out of the games section.
“The exorbitant prices, the hundreds of sweaty people around you, the smell of mud and porta-potties,” he jokes.
“Exactly,” I say as we pass a gun raffle right next to a couple of people handing out free Bibles.
We take our time walking through the food stands, neither of us attempting to overtake the group of older ladies ahead of us.
We slow our pace, listening to them bicker about whether or not the malt vinegar on their fresh-cut fries was watered down this year, as the smell of greasy funnel cakes swirls all around us.
“So why did you and your family move here?” I ask, looking up at him, about half a head taller than me.
“My dad got a job a couple of towns over and my mom really liked the house they found here.” He shrugs. “Although they’re gone more than they’re home.”
“I’m sorry, that sucks. How do you like Wyatt so far?” I ask.
“It’s… nice.” I meet eyes with him. I can see his face starting to break, and soon we’re both laughing. Wyatt. Nice. HA. “I don’t know. The people here all seem kinda… the same, I guess. It sorta felt like I would never really belong. I mean, until I met you, of course.”
“No, I know what you mean. I feel like that sometimes and I was born and raised here, so you’re not alone,” I reply.
“It’s been okay, but I’ll be more than ready to get out of here in the fall,” he says.
“Oh, where are you going?” I ask.
“I’m doing my first semester in Rome.”
“No way!” I say, excited for him, but also a little bummed that he’ll be leaving at the end of summer too and I’ll be staying right here.
“How about you? What are you doing?” he asks.
“Staying here. Going to Bower, the community college,” I reply, feeling a little crushed again just saying it.
“You don’t seem too thrilled.”
“It’s fine, I guess. My dad thinks it’ll be good for me to stay close to home after…
you know.” I point vaguely to my head, and suddenly, I realize for the first time that I haven’t thought about any of that all night, partially thanks to Ryan not bringing it up.
“Bower just isn’t exactly what I had in mind for myself,” I add.
“What did you have in mind?” he asks.
“Basically anything that doesn’t involve Wyatt.
It’s not that I ever had any concrete dreams or plans, but this town is like…
dead. It has been for as long as I’ve been alive.
There will never be any new ideas or beliefs.
Never any room for change. It’s just… stuck.
And the people are stuck, and now I’m going to be stuck.
” I shake my head in frustration. “College would’ve been the perfect opportunity to experience somewhere new.
So I don’t understand why I would choose to stay. ”
“You’re not stuck, Stevie. It’s not too late.” He shrugs. “I’m positive there are some colleges still taking applications for the fall. Maybe especially with your circumstances.”
“Yeah, that’s—” I stop when I hear a familiar voice yelling something ahead of us and find Savannah standing in front of the Ring of Fire with Jake. Somehow while Ryan and I have been talking, we’ve managed to walk the whole way through the food and back into the rides section.
“Stevie, where the hell have you been? I’ve been texting you all night,” Savannah says as we approach her, sounding much more annoyed than worried.
“Sorry. I must have my phone on silent,” I lie.
“Well, we’re about to ride this. You guys coming?” she asks, pointing straight up in the air.
“Yeah! Totally. Stevie? You seem like the adventurous type. I’ve seen you slather your entire breakfast in hot sauce on more than one occasion,” Ryan says, reminding me that the two of us have a past. However big or small, we interacted, got to know each other, enough for me to develop feelings for him.
He’s not a clean slate like Nora. He remembers things that I don’t, and for the first time all night that scares me a little.
“I think I’m going to pass, but you guys go ahead,” I reply, looking up at the gigantic circular roller coaster looming over us against the night sky. I’m going to go ahead and guess that this is exactly the type of ride my mom would consider off-limits.
“You sure? I’ll stay back. We could go eat or play some more games or—”
“No, go ahead. I’ll…” I look around until I spot the attraction my mom and I always loved.
“I’ll take a walk through the animal barn.
Come find me after you ride a few of these.
” I can tell by how quickly he gives in that he really does want to ride, but I can’t help feeling a little bummed about it.
I walk to the darkest corner of the fairgrounds, away from the music and the lights and the screams of laughter, where there’s a big wooden barn.
String lights line the wide-open sliding doors, revealing rows of rabbit cages and stalls of horses, donkeys, cows, and goats.
There are a lot fewer people over here, mostly parents with their small kids, pointing out the blue ribbons hanging on various gates.
I make my way around slowly, looking in each cage at every rabbit, giving a couple of pats to a big white scraggly one that didn’t even score an honorable mention.
Behind me, a horse sticks his muzzle out and nips at my hair.
I step around to the side of him and run my hand down the white diamond between his eyes, before turning the corner to find a perfectly groomed brown cow lying down on a pile of hay outside of his stall.
“Hey, buddy,” I say, squatting down in front of him, his ears flicking as a fly hops back and forth between them. I hear the rip of tickets off the roll and pick my head up, looking over him to the source.
“Nora?” I ask, before I can even process what I’m doing, before I remember our last encounter.
As she hands a man an arm’s length of red raffle tickets, she looks back at me, startled.
“Stevie. What are you doing here?” she asks as she drops the other halves of the tickets into a plastic container.
“Just…” I shrug, shaking my head. “Riding some rides, playing some games. What about you?” I ask as she adjusts her faded-red Martin’s Meats baseball cap.
“We’re raffling off some beef to raise money for the fire station,” she replies, motioning to the brown cow that I just made friends with… Oh. Oh no.
She points behind her out the door. “I think maybe the gun raffle out there is having a little more success with ticket sales, though.”
“Welcome to Wyatt,” I add, and we sigh in unison.
“Hey.” She stands up, setting the roll of tickets on her folding chair. “Uh, listen. I’m sorry I was so weird the other day. I was just dealing with something. It didn’t have anything to do with you. Okay?” she says, but I can still see it in her eyes. Like… a lingering sadness.
“Are you sure? Because it kinda seemed like it,” I reply. “I’m sorry if I was being too nosy looking around your room. I wasn’t trying—”
“No, no, no.” She shakes her head. “Really. It wasn’t you.
I was just trying to find something to do tonight so I had an excuse not to be here selling tickets.
And I really liked talking to you. We should do it again sometime, maybe without you getting injured, though. If you think you could manage that.”
“Yeah.” I grin. “I can at least try.”
“So did you win anything?” she asks.
“Yeah, we actually managed to win this in the ring toss,” I tell her, pulling the small knife out of my pocket.
She cocks her head at me. “We?”
With perfect timing, Ryan comes around the corner, stepping up beside Nora with a giant caramel apple in hand. A big smile breaks out across my face. He found my apple.
“Nora, I think you and Ryan went to school together. Ryan, Nora,” I say, motioning between the two of them.
“Yeah. Hey, Nora,” Ryan says, throwing her a head nod.
“Oh. H-Hey, Ryan. Good to see you,” she replies, readjusting her hat.
“Stevie, you want to walk around some more? I’ve got my eye on some deep-fried Oreos,” Ryan says, already starting to backpedal toward the exit.
“Uh, sure,” I reply. “Just a sec.” I hang back with Nora for a moment, noticing her shoulders sagging slightly.
“Are… you okay?” I ask her.
“Yeah,” she says quickly, her cheeks pulling up into a smile, but it drops just as fast.