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Do I love Neil McNair?
Even if I’m not entirely certain, the reality is that I really think I could.
I have to get off this fucking Ferris wheel.
Life is funny, though: the most romantic moment of my life, and I’m at the top of a Ferris wheel with a yearbook instead of the boy who wrote in it that he’s in love with me.
* * *
The Museum of the Mysteries, located in a downtown Seattle basement, is Seattle’s only museum dedicated to the paranormal. I’m not sure why they need to explain it or why the city would ever need more than one museum dedicated to the paranormal, but there it is on the sign in front.
Can we talk? I texted Neil once the Ferris wheel touched down. I feel really awful about what happened. And I think I figured out the last clue. No one’s won Howl yet, or we’d have received a message blast. I’m determined to make things up to him.
He replied ok without any punctuation, very un-Neil-like. He was clearly upset if he wouldn’t spe
ll out the word, but maybe it’s proof he still feels the way he did when he wrote in my yearbook that he agreed to meet back up. Or he wants to win this game and be done with tonight.
He’s waiting on a bricked street with a rickety staircase that leads to the museum. His hair is mussed, his posture slightly hunched. Why did I ever tease him about those freckles? I love them. I love every single one of them. I love his freckles and his red hair and the too-short legs of his suit pants and the too-long sleeves, the way he laughs, the way he pushes up his glasses to rub his eyes.
I am in love with you, Rowan Roth.
He lifts one hand in a wave, and I melt.
I am in so much trouble.
“Hi,” I say in a small voice.
“Hey.”
“Eerie that it’s—” I say, at the same time he says, “Should we—”
“What was that?” he asks.
“Oh. Um. I was going to say, it’s eerie that it’s open so late.”
“It is Seattle’s only museum dedicated entirely to the paranormal,” he says, pointing to the sign.
He’s not quite as stiff as I thought he’d be. We both reach for the door at the same time, our hands brushing. Then we yank them away like we’ve touched fire.
The woman working here is reading a book behind the counter. She has white-blond hair down to her hips and large purple glasses.
“Evening,” she says, barely glancing at us.
We pay the cheap entry fee, thank her, and venture farther into the museum. A strange soundtrack is playing, a classical piece punctuated by screams. It feels like we’re in a haunted house. We keep bumping into each other, like our feet have forgotten how to walk.
“I, um, got the ‘view from up high clue,’?” I say.
“Me too.” But he doesn’t ask where I went, so I don’t either.
We pause in front of a display about the Maury Island UFO Incident.
I read off the plaque: “?‘The Maury Island UFO Incident occurred in June 1947. Following sightings of unidentified flying objects over Maury Island in Puget Sound, Fred Crisman and Harold Dahl claimed to witness falling debris and threats by men in black. Dahl later took back his claims and stated it was a hoax… BUT WAS IT?’?” I tap my chin. “A little bit of editorializing, I think.”
He just grunts.
None of our silences have been this awkward.
“You could take your sister here,” I suggest, trying to lighten the mood.
