Twenty-Three
Hey, can we switch our project topic? Hawthorne seems cool.
I will not be justifying that with a response.
You just did.
I was kidding.
Unless …
On page 685: “The Minister’s Black Veil” by Nathaniel Hawthorne
We take his car. This would be fine, except it’s his car.
It’s very expensive and pristine and has that new-car smell.
(I assume that’s what it is; I’ve literally never smelled a new car before.) In ten silent minutes, we reach the fairgrounds, and he parks at the edge of a gravel lot that’s completely full.
It seems like there are thousands of people, because this is the one remotely exciting thing that happens around here, but I know there aren’t that many.
Despite being firmly ensconced in the American South, I’m not the county fair’s target audience.
I don’t love giant crowds of people or hastily put-together thrill rides.
I don’t particularly want to feed random animals of unknown origin.
I’m not the biggest fan of fried foods that shouldn’t be fried.
Like the possibly too North Carolinian delicacy of deep-fried Pepsi.
We exit the car and join the long queue waiting to get in. I can’t believe I’m here. I might be sweating. Overhead, the sun is starting to sink.
“Are we doing that?” Hayes asks, pointing at a ride towering over our heads. We’re still slowly moving through the lines at the gates, but up above us, a bunch of screaming people are in a metal capsule doing a complete-360 spin through the air.
“Absolutely not. I’m not dying in a tin can.” I shiver as the capsule zooms past above us, the rush of wind and collective terrified roar raising goosebumps all over my arms.
“I’m sure no one dies.”
“But are you positive?”
He smirks.
That smirk. That smirk. I think this is what people mean by an adrenaline rush. The heat and the shivering and the way my stomach feels like it’s lodged just below my heart.
People are starting to get testy with the wait. Someone bumps into my shoulder from behind, then someone else steps on my toe as I shift my balance. Hayes grabs my hand. He’s like an anchor as we navigate the press.
We eventually get through the gates, the crowd fanning out into all the fair has to offer.
I look up, and I realize that we’re standing at the base of the Ferris wheel.
Around us, stadium lights and neon signs about funnel cakes are flashing.
The flashing is a little too intense for me.
I close my eyes, but the light still bursts behind my lids.
Hayes squeezes my hand. I hadn’t realized he hadn’t let go.
There’s a twinge somewhere between my right eye and my brain. It’s familiar, of course, but I tell myself that pinprick stab doesn’t mean what I think it means.
“You okay?” Hayes asks. My eyes are still closed, but I can feel him step closer. It’s nice. Just enough sensory input to be comforting. Not enough to add to the onslaught I’m feeling.
“Yeah.” I force my eyes open. Back to the onslaught. “Yeah. I’m good.”
I try to smile, and those muscles tensing up makes my ears pop. The pressure in my skull is already mounting, but I ignore it. I want to savor this moment.
“Hey!” Luke cries, crashing into Hayes from nowhere. They both almost topple over, and I briefly question if Luke is drunk. Then I see his artificially blue-tinted lips. So, not drunk then. Just sugar high.
“Here,” Piper says, handing Luke a nearly empty plastic bag of blue cotton candy. “You left it on the Ferris wheel.”
Her lips are just the slightest bit blue too.
Interesting. I wasn’t expecting her to be here, and I definitely wasn’t expecting her to be here with Luke.
She looks happier, though. Even when she smacks Luke with the plastic bag because she’s tired of carrying it.
As if it isn’t basically just a bag of air.
“Hi!” We hear a high-pitched yell from just above us. I strain my neck looking into the setting sun. Shouldn’t have done that.
“Is that Esha?” Hayes asks. I don’t know; she’s too far up, and my eyes are too far gone. She’s my best friend, so I should be able to recognize her in the dark or in the middle of a vision lapse or whatever, but I can’t.
“What did y’all do, leave her up there?” I ask no one in particular, since I can’t see them either. Shit. I can’t see anything. This burgeoning migraine is literally blinding me. I don’t think it’s ever happened that fast.
“She wanted to go again.” I think Luke shrugs. All I can make out is the hazy silhouette of his shape moving its shoulders up and down.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Hayes asks. He’d dropped my hand at some point, and I’m only noticing now because he uses that same hand to grip my shoulder and turn me to face him.
Either his hands are alarmingly cool or my skin is overheating.
Probably the latter. I can feel the migraine fever setting in.
Sensory overload. That’s what this is.
Someone walks past us with a chili cheese dog, and I feel my stomach pitch. I must’ve gagged or winced or something because Hayes’s eyes widen, and Piper steps toward me.
“Okay, let’s get you to the bathroom,” she says, taking over Hayes’s grip on my shoulder and steering me away. She keeps close, which I’m grateful for because the black spots in my vision are fully taking over.
I don’t even know where the bathroom is, but I hear Piper mutter a few excuse me‘s, and then we’re in a too-dark, overly cool space.
The atmosphere is admittedly calmer, even though it very much smells like a county-fair bathroom.
All I can see are the brick walls meeting the tile floors, and I sink down until the grime collecting in the grout gets all over the bottom of my shoes and the back of my pants.
“Here.” Piper hands me a wet paper towel that’s mercifully cool, and I flip my hair up to lay it on the back of my neck.
It helps some, but I think only prescription-grade pharmaceuticals can save me now.
Migraines are the kind of thing you have to nip in the bud early, while they’re still barely growing out of the ground.
You can’t wait until now, when they’re fully bloomed, to do something about it.
I know better than that, and yet here I am, squatting on the disgusting floor of a poorly ventilated and questionably cleaned bathroom.
“What’s going on?” Piper asks. “I’ve never seen you like this.”
I see her white sneakers step into my narrow field of view. They’re probably getting all grungy walking around this dirt pit.
“Migraine,” I scratch out, my voice sounding as bad as I feel. This isn’t part of my carefully curated public image. There’s a reason that Piper has gone to school with me for years and hasn’t ever seen me like this.
If my brain’s the best part of me, it shouldn’t be allowed to hurt this fucking bad.
“Oh, no.” The door opens in a rush of heated air, and I hear Esha step up next to Piper. I can’t see her; my right eye is just completely gone by now. “They said you ran off to the bathroom. I figured you had a headache. It was either that or a period emergency.”
She hands me another wet paper towel, not knowing Piper just did the same thing. I put this one over my eyes.
“Do you have your meds anywhere?” I can tell that Esha is leaning down in front of me. This close, I could probably see her, but I don’t want to take the paper towel off my eyes.
Instinctively, I shake my head. Then I immediately hiss in pain as the motion sends angry blood roaring all around the inside of my skull. I have emergency meds in my car, but that half mile feels like an impossible distance right now.
Someone’s phone rings, and I hear one of them step away.
Esha, I think. She’s the one on my right.
Piper steps away too, and they’re at the other end of the bathroom murmuring to each other.
I can’t hear what they’re saying through the spiking pressure in my ears.
Everything is so sharp and painful. I can only hope no one else walks into the bathroom and notices the girl curled up in the fetal position on the floor beside the trash can.
“Okay. No.” Esha returns, speaking slowly, stooped down to my level. “That was Hayes. He’s gonna take you home. I told him I would, but this way you can leave your car at school, and he can just pick you up for your 8:00 a.m. tomorrow.”
That sounds very logical and all, but I don’t fully understand why Hayes would do that. It seems to go above and beyond the call of being a good project partner. Even beyond a good friend. I don’t know what to do with that.
“Think you can stand up?” she asks, reaching one hand up under my forearm to support me.
“Yeah.” I rise up from my slumped position and stand still for a second.
The dizziness passes in waves, and as long as I keep my eyes mostly closed, I won’t throw up or pass out.
Piper comes to my other side, and she’s wearing some perfume that makes my stomach pitch again. I hope I don’t throw up on her.
One of them opens the door, and the cool air fades into that heated wind. The sun has gone down, lowering the temperature and making the bright lights even brighter in contrast. I feel Piper and Esha step back, and then there’s Hayes. All around me, somehow. He’s anchoring me again.
“I got her,” he mumbles.
I should say thank you, apologize to Piper and Esha and Luke for ruining their night and making them take care of me.
I don’t have a chance, though. Hayes steps to my right, his left hand on my hip and the other guiding my elbow.
He’s a half-step behind me, steering me but still there to catch me if I fall.
“You didn’t have to make such a scene just to get out of going to the fair, Novella.” His breath hits the back of my ear, making the hair escaping my ponytail dance.
I laugh, somehow.
“I’m sorry,” I respond, even though I know he’s joking.
“Don’t be. I got a fried Oreo. That’s all I came for.” He squeezes my waist and mutters an uncharacteristically harsh excuse me to someone I can’t see.
I have no idea where I am right now. I might as well be blindfolded.
Still, I can feel the crowd start to dissipate.
There’s less harsh noise, and eventually, my feet switch from dirt back to gravel.
We made it to the parking lot. At least if I throw up or pass out right here, only Hayes will be here to witness my mortification.
“Here,” he mutters again. One of his hands falls away, and I hear his car door creak open. My hand feels around the cool leather of the seat, and I manage to slide in without injuring either of us.
Hayes pulls the seatbelt across my chest. I chance opening my eyes all the way. I don’t want to miss this, no matter how bad it hurts.
“Thanks,” I whisper. We’re so close that my breath mingles with his. He smiles, and my stomach somersaults again.
Hayes fades away, slipping into the blackness spotting my vision. I hear him shut my door, then open his own. His seatbelt clicks, and the car revs to life. We sit in silence for long moments, and my seat starts to warm up. The heat feels heavenly on the back of my neck.
“Are you still nauseous?” he asks. I can’t see him now, but I probably could if I turned my head a little to the left. I don’t. The seat warmers are actually helping, and I don’t want to ruin it.
“A little,” I admit, even though my stomach is behaving as if I were still suspended in the air in that tin-can capsule. “Don’t worry though. I won’t throw up in your car.”
I won’t. I have remarkable control, even in what’s basically an emergency. I might throw up in the bushes outside my house, but I will not throw up in this ridiculously expensive car.
“I wasn’t worried about that. I just don’t want you to throw up at all.” He shifts into drive and slowly maneuvers out of the minefield of a parking lot.
“I probably won’t,” I mumble. “I rarely do. Most times I think I’d feel better if I actually threw up.” Gravel crunches under the tires, and I can both hear and feel when we get back to the pavement.
My eyes are closed again, but I can mentally define the path we’re taking.
A left out of the fairgrounds, stay straight at the light past the school, take a right then another right.
All the while, Hayes stays silent. He’s even turned off the stereo, so we’re just listening to the hum of the engine.
He takes the last left turn that should lead to my neighborhood, if I’ve been keeping up right. I pry one eye open just a bit. The left one, it’s not so bad. He parks in front of my house in the spot where my car usually goes.
Everyone else is home, and I suspect it will take about five seconds for Dad to realize there’s a strange car in the driveway and come out and investigate.
“Stay there,” Hayes says. He’s already jumping out of the driver’s side and walking around to mine. I open my other eye as he opens the door.
I unbuckle myself, which feels like a feat of strength, given my current level of hand-eye coordination. Not sure I’ll make it into the house without my depth perception … but when I step down, Hayes is there. He catches my arm, leading me by the elbow like he was before.
Just as I suspected, Dad is standing at the door by the time we get to the porch stairs. Time seems to pick up speed from there. I’ve reached the exhaustion stage, where my migraine has officially sucked all the life out of me. Dad calls for Mom, and they all three start talking over my head.
I slump down onto the couch as soon as I reach the living room. I’m so grateful this couch is exactly three steps from the door.
“Hold on, honey,” Mom whispers, brushing stray hair off my forehead. “I’ll get your medicine and your ice pack.”
“I think I need the cocktail.” I groan. Sometimes my migraine meds are enough. Other times, like this one, I need my migraine meds and nausea meds and pain meds. The whole cocktail.
Mom comes back. I swallow a handful of pills with a sip of tepid water.
One ice pack goes behind my neck, the other weighted eye mask slips over my face.
For one blissful second, there’s nothing but silence and heavy, cold darkness and a relief so strong it almost hurts.
Then people are talking behind me, at the door.
Mom and Dad and Hayes. I should probably be more concerned about that, but I just don’t have it in me right now.
Something settles over my limbs—the weight of exhaustion and all that relief.
I blink once behind the eye mask. Then twice.
Just trying to stay awake because Hayes is still here, and I’m on the living room couch and everything hurts, and I have homework so I can’t possibly fall asleep at 7:30 p.m. and I—