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I groan into her mouth, my fingers lacing through her curls, my hips wanting to press into hers but realizing there’s nowhere to move, stuck on this fucking Ferris wheel.
We’re making out like two teenagers on a first date and still, if I had to choose one of my favorite moments with Lucy, this one would be at the top of my list. And I can’t believe I’ve denied myself the pleasure of the taste of her lips for this long.
A fucking fool.
Half-aware that we’re nearing the end of the ride, I break away. It might be the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, especially when I see Lucy’s dazedfuck melook in her eyes and I know I’ll have to conceal a raging hard-on when I climb out of these seats. Her pleased hum that follows our heated silence shoots straight to my balls.
When the seat finally arrives back at the bottom, I press another quick kiss on Lucy’s soft lips before popping her hat back on her head, my thumb smoothing over her chin before standing up. I hold my hand out for her to take, and I pull her up as she beams up at me. She falls into my side as we walk away from the ride, giddy and effervescent.
We’re making our way toward the exit when Lucy points to the bathrooms. I decide to go as well, and pull her in for one more kiss, insatiable now that I’ve had a taste. I watch her walk away, her flamingo still tucked under her arm, and only make a move when she turns the corner and disappears from sight.
I’m distracted, punch-drunk, and dazed when I turn the corner of an empty booth looking for the men’s bathrooms. Next thing I know I take a blow to the back of the head, my knees hitting the packed dirt hard. I don’t have time to react when the second blow lands even harder than the first. My eyes roll backward, and I lose consciousness.
I should have known that nothing good lasts forever.
34
There’s a lightness to my step when I walk back to where I left Bastian, a permanent smile on my lips, the same lips still tingling from the kiss. The moment we shared atop the Ferris wheel can’t be described as anything other than magical. It’s hard to believe I’m the same person who dropped the coin down the well three weeks ago, when this version of me—the one who was kissed amongst the stars—feels so different.
How can three weeks change a person at such a molecular level?
Maybe there lies the mistake. I was always this person. Bastian just somehow intuitively knows what layers to peel off. A lifetime of brainwashing, and trauma, suppressing who I am, and still, I can feel myself blooming when I’m around him.
Then it hits me.
Maybe I am falling for him…
Maybe the one thing I told him I was not going to doishappening.
But unexpectedly, the thought does not accompany the anticipated dread.
Instead, it brings me joy—a fragile feeling, but one I will never take for granted.
Snapping out of my wandering thoughts, I realize I've been standing here, waiting for Bastian, for an unusually long time.
My smile fades but doesn’t disappear entirely, the corners of my mouth still holding on to the feelings I was just daydreaming about. My eyebrows dip, tucking the flamingo Bastian won for me tighter under my arm as I look around. Instinctually trying to rationalize his whereabouts, I try to ignore my rising heart rate. But after another ten minutes, my smile has disappeared. Still unwilling to entertain my fears out loud, I convince myself that he must have told me he’d be waiting for me by the car, and head for the parking lot.
When I get there, my throat grows tight, hand shaking when I unlock the door and grab my phone from the glove compartment. Although I am well aware that Bastian knew I left my phone in the car, I foolishly hope to see a missed call from him. My heart drops when the only notification I find is from Lenix.
Where would he have gone?
He wouldn’t leave like this… would he?
I scurry into the driver’s seat and lock the doors, now paranoid that someone might be watching me. My sweaty palms wring the steering wheel, my eyes locked on the carnival exit, hoping to see Bastian appear.
He never does.
I sit, rigid in my seat, for an hour, the muted sounds of the fair accompanying my ragged breath as I watch the minutes tick by. Finally, I snap. I rip my hat off my head and throw it onto the passenger seat just to have something to do with my hands. My face falls into my hands and I let out a long groan, fear melting into the sound I am letting out while hot tears fall into the cracks of my fingers. Everything in my being is screaming at me that something is wrong, that something bad has happened to Bastian.
He would never leave like this. Not after…everything.
I do not know what to do. I know crying is not the answer. The tears fall nonetheless as I tumble into a well of frightening possibilities, the feeling of loneliness so acute I think it may suffocate me. After a few minutes of drowning in the terrifying possibility that Bastian might have been kidnapped, I take a few long breaths—in from the nose, out from the mouth—trying to figure out what to do next. I slam the wheel with my palm, anger piling on top of the fear. Sniffling back the tears, I shake my head as if trying to clear my thoughts—enough to drive at least. I start the car, furtively looking all around for any suspicious figures, but find nothing but a sea of cars.
The fifty minutes back to the motel by myself is pure torture. I do not bother turning on the music, the silence acting as a fellow passenger as I continuously check the mirrors hoping not to see a car following me. As far as I can tell, there is not.
I scurry across the motel parking lot, a dim street light in the far corner, the only glow piercing the dark of the night. Shivers rake down my arms and legs. By the time I turn the doorknob to our room, the back of my neck tingles, and fear stabs through my heart while the door creaks on its hinges, terrified of what I will find on the other side.
35
