CHAPTER THIRTEEN #2
“But she couldn’t pull off your grand Cabo scheme.”
“Nope. My parents barely even listened before . . .” I trailed off, but not because the words were too hard.
Something from our time at the bridge came back around like the revolving Ferris wheel.
Penn said I could trust him with my memories because he wasn’t like others in my life, wasn’t as real as them.
I’d brushed that off immediately; nothing unreal had ever irritated, thrilled, enchanted me this much.
But maybe there was a glimmer of truth tucked into his statement. That, deep down, I knew that whatever I told him would also disappear when we’d solved the mystery of him and the watch. That my own haunts would find a greater resting place even though I’d already buried them.
He shook his head. “Hey, it’s okay. I get it.”
I believed him. Real and unreal, here right now and gone too soon—this boy that only I could see was so good at seeing right through me.
“Sylvie.”
I blinked myself back. Penn had moved aside, and people behind us were stepping around me into the slowly moving Ferris wheel. “Oh!” I pitched forward, dropped my ticket into the attendant’s hand, and scooted ahead of another couple.
I clicked the safety belt and didn’t bother to wonder if Penn had followed me into the open cab. There he was, shotgun and delighted, and up we went. “So, that necklace . . .”
“Later. It’s too pretty up here. I don’t want to jinx it with my past disasters,” I told him.
It came out soft and barely formed. The view had gotten me.
Earlier we could’ve seen treetops and mountain peaks in bold color and map-worthy relief.
Now nature proved that huge shadowlands held another kind of beauty.
Lit-up corners of nearby towns glimmered like coiled Christmas tree lights.
“Oregon can take it,” he said. “And we might not get a later.”
It was a dart between my ribs. And it was becoming harder and harder to deny him anything. I tipped my hand, breathing in pine and savory food. “Okay, but there’s more first. After the failure of dutiful daughter came exemplary-student daughter.”
“What did she do?”
“She won the seventh-grade science fair, thank you very much. She enrolled in math club. Studied everything way past bedtime. Begged for a tablet for extra learning resources—got it. Then begged for a two-week stay with Ana before she left for the Cape as a reward for finishing the year with straight A’s—didn’t get it. ”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”
Penn faced me. “So you turned to grand theft? Delinquent daughter?” He dashed an errant hand. “Too far? Sorry.”
The sarcasm, all the bitter edges—I could’ve swallowed them whole. Instead of offense, he got my biggest grin of the day. “Never apologize for the truth, Penn from Oregon. Real talk, remember?”
He was right there, and the alien heat of who he was sliced into the cooling night. “Then I’m not sorry,” he said.
“Good.” The word drifted into his eyes, another thing lit and lake-blue.
And too damn alive. “But you got it,” I said.
“Eighth-grade spring break, Disneyland. My parents bickered the whole time—I mean, who lets an argument stew on the Peter Pan ride?” My eyes rolled.
“We ended up in that costume shop where they do those ridiculously expensive princess makeovers. In the Beauty and the Beast section, I picked up a rhinestone necklace that was almost identical to the one in that booth. The yellow stone matched Belle’s gown.
It was super expensive, like most things Disney.
I didn’t even really want it, but I asked for it anyway, mostly to distract my parents from their fight.
To make them pay attention to me for a second.
“My mom said I could get one at Target for a fraction of the price and then went right back to bickering with my dad.” I looked up.
We were descending from the apex. “So I stole it.
To teach them a lesson or something, you know?
I was already carrying another Disney bag with Minnie Mouse socks.
One well-timed swipe, and the necklace went home with me in the bag.
The next day, I left it on my dresser for my mom to find.
“I thought it would be this wake-up call to my parents that I was having a rough time. I couldn’t be trusted, the opposite of dutiful daughter. Mom would need to stay behind that summer to keep an eye on me and make sure I was okay.”
“What did they do instead? Make you bring it back and grovel?” Penn asked.
“Oh no. They made a donation to some Disney-sponsored charity with my allowance money and stuck me in this summertime youth ‘leadership program.’ They left a few weeks later, and I went to Tía Viv’s in Topanga, same as always.
” I flashed a glare. “While my friends were at the beach, I did community service and enrichment coursework. I fully admit I did a bad thing. I only wish they had been the ones to, you know . . .” I trailed off.
“Support you, instead of sending you to groups to sort out that stuff.”
“Got it in one.” I pushed out a thick exhale.
“I don’t think they ever saw it that way, though.
But I learned my lesson—they were never going to change.
” I flicked my head toward the falling sky.
“I don’t know why I actually thought this year would be different.
I built it up so much—this imaginary, perfect summer on the ship—but I won’t make that mistake again. I’m done with hoping.”
“Sylvie.”
The word was even more gruff and graveled than usual. “I know, okay? I’m too young to be this jaded. I’m just saying that, now, instead of hoping for things, I act. I make plans.” I faced him. “Broken plans can be fixed, changed. But hope hurts too much.”
The view shifted. Our Ferris wheel cab had reached ground level.
I hopped out, striding through the exit gate.
I didn’t—couldn’t—look back at Penn. Even though he’d proved to be an excellent listener, I felt the bruise of my self-consciousness rising up again, marking me as one giant overshare.
Sourness coated my tongue, the slip of my throat.
I reached for my water bottle, tasting something metallic. I checked—just a bleeding gum.
“SylvieSylvieSylvie!”
Del bounded over, toting along a cute guy in summer athleisure and a Ducks ball cap, blond strands poking underneath. I couldn’t help glancing at the gold watch, and then over my shoulder for Penn.
He was there, but farther away from me than normal. He urged me back around. It’s okay, he mouthed, as if the fair could hear him.
I spun. “Sorry,” I told Del, rooting my feet to the ground. “I just—”
“No prob,” she said. “We just got off the wheel too. I always get a little queasy at the top.” She tugged the pale-skinned hand. “This is Ethan, my boyfriend. Ethan, Sylvie. The girl who took in Anne Shirley.”
“Oh cool! Hey there,” Ethan said, adding a brisk wave. Before I could reply, his eyes dashed across a set of picnic tables. “Wait, I found them. Be right back,” he said, breaking away from Del. And me.
“Sorry about that,” Del said. “Our friends weren’t answering texts, and this crowd is massive.”
“No worries,” I said, and popped out my earbuds. “You were right about the fair. Excellent idea.”
“Of course I was right. I’m surprised you were able to go on the wheel alone. I thought they didn’t allow single riders.”
I wanted to say it was the most un-alone I’d been in a long time. But I just gave a flat shrug. “Guess they let me be a rebel.”
Del looked me over and tied up her windblown hair with a silk scrunchie. “Well, no more flying solo, ’kay? Every year all my friends and their friends hang out on the lake after the fair. You should join us. Big bonfire. We have this secret spot.”
I looked left, then right. No Penn. “Um . . .”
“I’ll fill you in, and you can decide. We’re heading over now, but come whenever.” She snatched the fair map poking from my shorts pocket, produced a pen, and scrawled out a series of directions with a couple crude landmark pictures. “It’s, like, five minutes away.”
Before my next blink, the map was in my hand, Del was gone, and Penn was right there.
“We should check it out,” he said. “More people our age, maybe some I’ll recognize.”
“What if tonight is the night she recognizes you? In front of a bunch of those people our age?”
The ghost wound around until he owned my sight line. “Then you’ll handle it.”
“Penn—”
“Aren’t you the one who wanted some adventure? A few summer thrills?”
My jaw wrenched sideways.
“Let’s live a little,” he said with no trace of irony. “For some reason, I haven’t disappeared yet. It’s been a minute, and maybe that means something. We should find out.”
My teeth razed a line across my bottom lip. “Okay. I guess I owe you that after I killed the carnival mood with my Ferris wheel confessions.”
He shook his head. “I said I want to get to know you. I’m still here, aren’t I?”
“Because I summon you.” I gave a short laugh. “I keep turning that crown.”
“Doesn’t that mean something too?” he asked.
My breath hitched. I locked on to his face, found him soft-eyed and wistful.
Yes, it meant something. And that something was growing with each tick of the second hand.
Curiosity and kindness and humor. Cheeky quips and feeling seen—that’s what I got whenever he came.
Then there was the dashing smile and daring edge to him that reshaped my entire memory whenever he left.
A rush of images flickered by of a world where he didn’t. Where he stayed instead.
“Sylvie?”
I blinked myself real and present. “Yeah.”
“Where did you go just now?”
Somewhere that only exists if we never end. I exhaled, trying to cheat time like a carnival game. “All good.”
He winked. “Let’s make it better. I know one way to add some fun back into our fair before we check out the lake.”
“A foot-long corn dog and a funnel cake?” I asked on a resurrected smile.
“With extra whipped cream.”