Chapter 19 #2
Can my heart stop and also pound too fast? Because that’s what’s happening. “What word would you use?” I whisper.
He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth for a second before he speaks. “Smart. Hilarious. Creative as hell.” I want to point out that’s more than one word, but I’m too close to a full-on sobfest to open my mouth. I swallow hard instead. “Unpredictable.”
I suck in a breath at that final word. I love it. Unpredictable turns weird on its head. Makes it something appealing.
“Beautiful.” His voice is barely louder than a breath.
I stare at his profile. He’s so relaxed, like he hasn’t just opened himself up. Like he’s not afraid he’s proverbially bleeding out after confessing all that.
I want to know how to do that. So, of course, my mouth blurts out those words.
“Do what?” he asks.
“Be honest like that. Aren’t you afraid of how I’ll respond?”
“To me telling you the truth?” He shrugs. “I’m more afraid of you never knowing how awesome you are.” He flashes me a small smile.
I feel like I’m about to do a loop on a roller coaster but my safety harness is gone.
I say the scary thing anyway. Because Theo makes me want to be brave.
“I think you’re pretty awesome too.” I wonder if he can hear me over the drill of my heart. “Even if you do believe in ghosts.”
He throws back his head in a loud laugh. Then he flips his hand over on the gear shift, so his palm is facing up.
An invitation. One I don’t hesitate to take.
Ten minutes later, Theo turns a corner onto a residential road and pulls over beside a telephone pole.
I glance at him in confusion.
He grins. “We’re here. This is Gravity Hill.”
I won’t lie. When he told me he was taking me somewhere that would make me believe in the supernatural, I thought it would have a little more…I don’t know…atmosphere.
This street looks like every other one we’ve driven down on our way here. Sidewalks lined with trees. Stretches of lawns capped with two-story homes. Recycling bins stacked beside garages. Lawn ornaments and toys adding pops of color to the grass.
Nothing screams unnatural things happen here.
I raise an eyebrow. “So now what?”
“Now we take a ride.” He squeezes my hand (which he has been holding for exactly ten minutes and forty-five seconds now—not that I’ve been timing it or anything), then puts his truck into neutral and takes his foot off the gas.
The vehicle creeps forward.
And forward.
And forward.
Until we reach the crest of the hill about midway down the street. Then the truck picks up speed on the incline, like a really, really slow roller coaster.
I twist in my seat so I can see behind us. “What the fuck,” I mutter.
The road is not a hill. The entire stretch of it angles downward. Which means there was never a point at which the truck should have been climbing anything. But that was what it felt like.
“We were going up,” I mumble.
Theo pulls over in front of the last house on the street. “Yup.”
“But…” I point behind us.
“I know.” His grin is so big I can hear it in his voice.
I focus on him. “How?”
“Want to do it again?” he suggests.
“Can I drive?” Maybe I can make more sense of what is happening from the driver’s seat.
“That was the plan.” He winks at me.
I roll my eyes and flop back against the seat. He didn’t give me any time to research this Gravity Hill place before we got here, so I don’t have debunking facts at my fingertips. And nothing I can think of on my own adequately explains what I was feeling as the truck moved.
Theo loops around the block and then we’re back at that first telephone pole. Before I have time to think about reaching for the handle, he’s out of his seat and popping open my door.
As I settle behind the steering wheel, I refuse to let my thoughts linger on how warm the fabric is and how that heat was generated by his body. It’s time to put my rational hat back on.
My eyes cut to him. “Ready?”
“The question is are you ready?” It would be annoying if that smile didn’t make him look so damn cute.
I hate that he can so easily tell I’m thrown by this place.
Shifting the truck into neutral, I carefully release the gas pedal. Immediately, the vehicle rolls forward.
A sharp breath escapes my lips. It feels like we’re on a conveyor belt, being pulled uphill. And that’s all I can see as we move forward. The asphalt climbing toward the horizon, taking us with it.
I studied the street. I know there’s no incline. No hill. Still, if someone asked me right now which direction the truck was traveling, I would say up. No hesitation.
I can’t explain this.
My hand scrambles over the center console, searching for Theo’s. My eyes are fixed on the road, but I feel his warm skin find mine. I wonder if he can sense how hard my pulse throbs in my wrist as our palms press together.
I don’t think either of us is breathing. All I can hear is the crunch of the asphalt under the tires and the wild gallop of my own heart.
I’m shaking by the time we reach the bottom of the street. Theo had me put the truck in drive about halfway down, so I ease over to the shoulder and throw open my door.
For a moment, all I can do is pace back and forth. Back and forth.
There’s only one thought in my head: That was awesome. This feeling scares me almost as much as the electricity that zings through me every time Theo and I touch. I should want to explain this away. I should want a list of three hundred reasons why what we experienced was an illusion.
But all I want is to do it again.
“Amity,” Theo says softly.
I pivot to see him leaning against the grille of the truck. “What was that?” I ask.
“It’s wild, right?” He’s watching me with that grin again, like he can read my thoughts.
But I doubt he could actually guess what’s running through my head.
I feel reckless. Exhilarated. Like the floors dropped out beneath me and I’m free-falling and I don’t care. I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I want to ride Gravity Hill as many times as it takes to etch the sensation into my bones.
I want to kiss this boy.
And right now, with the world upside-down and inside-out, I think he wants to kiss me too.
I step toward him until our sneakers almost touch and rest my hands on his forearms, where they’re crossed over his chest.
Theo doesn’t move. He’s studying me, the look in his eyes growing hazier with each second. I arch up on my tiptoes to reach his face.
But I pause when our mouths are breaths apart.
“Wha…?” Theo asks in a daze.
“I thought…I don’t know…maybe I should ask before I basically attacked you with my m—”
I never get to finish my sentence.
In the space between one rampant heartbeat and the next, Theo’s mouth finds mine.