“The doctor said it’ll probably be a few weeks. And your mom, while a tad on the screwy side, is doing what any good mom would do.”
“I don’t think we’re talking about the same mom.”
“All I’m saying is, don’t make idiotic mistakes and try to fix them by making more idiotic mistakes.”
“Don’t use my words against me. Idiocy is your thing.”
“Idiocy is widespread. And you should be grateful that she cares, at least. Even if you resent the way she does it.”
He was giving me this bizarre, raised-brow, life-coach expression that was very dadlike and particularly unsettling. Snake had never looked like he could be someone’s dad until that moment. And even then, he was a deranged, pretty-boy-meets-grunge-dude version.
We made it to the front of the line, and Snake bumped my shoulder as the girl motioned us into the cart. I slapped him so hard the girl shot me a troubled look before she closed our door. Snake wearing a white T-shirt that read ALWAYS THE VICTIM wasn’t helping my case.
Snake cuddled next to me in the middle of the seat (a completely unwarranted move, I might add). He held his hand on his thigh with the palm facing upward, waiting for me to grab it. He would be waiting a while.
“When the ride starts moving, just think comforting thoughts,” he said, as a family of four loaded into the cart in front of us. “Like how you’ll be on here for the next fifteen minutes without a chance of getting off, and if we get stuck at the top, the fire squad has to take us down via crane. Also, a cord snapping is always a feasible outcome.”
“As long as you think about how your not-so-clever little plan to get me in your lap will end with you suspended in the air next to a very mean and very angry girl who will have no witnesses for the things she could do to you.”
“Is that supposed to be a threat?” He smiled. “Sounds pretty great to me.”
Of course it did.
A creaking noise resounded, and we began to move. Backwards. Slowly. I shut my eyes, holding my lids together so tightly it gave me a headache. I could feel Snake’s warmth beside me. I could feel him staring. One thing was different, though. He didn’t smell the same.
Keeping my eyes shut, I said through clenched teeth, “Snake?”
“You need an arm around the shoulder? A handhold, perhaps?” He was smiling that overconfident, got-this-in-the-bag smile. I could hear it.
“Shut up. I find it necessary to point out that you haven’t eaten a single Twizzler all day.”
He didn’t say anything. With a swell of bravery and desperation for headache relief, I opened my eyes.
Don’t look down. Don’t look down.
For future reference: Telling yourself to not look down only encourages you to look down quicker. Yeah, I looked down. And screamed. Out loud. At a shrieking decibel I didn’t know I was capable of. We were stopped somewhere in the middle. We hadn’t even reached the top, and I was ready to sing my hallelujahs and bow out.
“Shhh.” Snake laughed, trying to calm me. “It’s okay.”
I made an inhuman noise.
He grabbed my hand and laced his fingers through mine. “You win, okay? I’m the one who needs it.”
I looked into his eyes. They were smiling back at me. “But you’re not. You’re fine.”
“It’s not heights I’m afraid of,” he whispered, his breath cloudy against my skin. “Trust me, you won.”
The ride started up again, pulling us toward the blue-blackness of the sky. I dug my nails into Snake’s hand. He groaned in the back of his throat, but tried not to show it. We stopped again, two spaces from the top. I was shivering, from cold or fear or Snake. I hadn’t figured myself out yet.
I had to admit, disappearing into the sky was a whole lot easier holding Snake’s hand. He felt like a vision. He felt safe.
“I haven’t gotten the urge,” Snake said, gently rubbing his thumb against my hand.
“The urge to what?”
“Chew. You said I hadn’t eaten a Twizzler all day. I haven’t gotten the urge.”
“Where does it come from? The urge.”
“I don’t know. Depression, I think.”
The ride kicked into gear again, and I knew the next destination was the top. Once we made it, I was used to the feeling of suspension. It didn’t bother me so much. I could notice things my fear wouldn’t let me.
The air was chilly. We were next to the lake. It was a full moon. Orion and his belt marched across the skyline. Stars. Lots of stars.
I turned to Snake, and he was watching me. I knew that face too well. Desperate wanting. Excessive needing. Desire. He leaned in, his lips parted.
“You can’t kiss me on top of a Ferris wheel,” I whispered into his open mouth.
“No?” he breathed.
“It’s cheesy. They do it in every chick flick.”
“That’s why we have to do it. It’s expected. So expected that the predictability of it is undone when you do it aware of the expectation. It’s reverse irony. It’s so expected, it’s unexpected.”
“That makes no sense.”
He let go of my hand and wrapped it in my hair, clenching tight. His eyes were hungry. Enlivening. Unusually interesting. I leaned into his touch, into his waiting body. I leaned because I wanted to. I needed to.
“We don’t make sense,” he said. A smile escaped him, and his lips touched mine so softly I wondered if I’d imagined it. “Now, shut up and let me kiss you before I’m out of my moment.”
He drew my lips against his in one smooth tug. His breath was hot against the cool wind, seeping into my anxious, eager mouth. He traced his fingers along the back of my neck, and my whole body chilled.
I remembered the first time we kissed, how simple he’d kept it, how it was just an awkward first kiss to get to the slightly less awkward second. But this was the second, and there was nothing awkward about it. There was nothing routine about the way he stroked the skin along my neck or how he gently grazed my lower lip with his teeth or how he tasted like boy instead of candy. He had been holding back on me the first time. Damn him.
We began to descend from the top, or at least I thought we did. We could have been sitting on a park bench or lying in the grass or floating aimlessly through outer space, and it wouldn’t have felt any different than riding a deathtrap in the sky. I could only feel his curly hair tickling my cheeks, his silky lips mastering the curvature of mine, his hands . . . well, everywhere.
When his lips released me, we sat with only a cold, powdery breath between us. His hand was still gripping my hair, and I felt motion sick, or dizzy, or something that had nothing to do with the ride. His eyes were amazing. How had I never noticed how amazing they were? The blue alone was more alive than I ever was, the only difference being his eyes didn’t have a heart trying to claw its way out of its chest.
Of course, my heart was its own monster. A selfish one that kept only itself alive. The rest of me, on the other hand, hadn’t fared so well. I died on top of the Ferris wheel exactly as I’d thought I would. Just not from the kind of falling I had predicted.
Snake and I ran up to his room the moment we got back to his house. I sat on the edge of his bed as he dug through his dresser for a pair of pants. I wasn’t ready to go home yet. After last night, I’d be grounded for life. I figured there was no better way to spend my last moments of freedom than hiding out (see: making out) with Snake.
He yanked out a pair of mesh shorts from the bottom of his drawer. “These okay? They’re the smallest pair I have.”
“Ugly, but they’ll do.”
He moved to the edge of the bed. “Funny. I could say the same about you.”
“Jerk!” I yelled. He was close enough for me to reach him. I grabbed him by the waist and tackled him to the bed. Unfortunately, my sneak attack backfired. He landed directly on top of me, my chest crushed beneath his weight. “Can’t breathe,” I mouthed.
He pushed up on his elbows. His hair was dangling in my eyes, a leg per
ched on either side of my waist. Passionate eyes, the eyes from the Ferris wheel, regarded me through wispy curls. But it wasn’t his eyes I was focused on. It was his lips. His soft, skillful, capable-of-anything lips. I wondered just how much he was still holding back.
“I don’t mean it,” he whispered breathily. A finger glided along my cheek, making an agonizing journey to my neck. His eyes were focused on something too. And it sure as hell wasn’t mine. “You’re crazy beautiful.”
“As beautiful as Carla?” I quipped.
Great. I had brought her up again. I must have been trying to break the record for most stupid comment to make when you’re about to make out with a guy. Bring up his ex-girlfriend—that’ll do the trick.
His fingertip paused at the bottom of my neck. “Stop talking about Carla. That’s not fair.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You want an answer? No. You’re not as beautiful as Carla. Come on, the girl’s worked seventeen years for that title. She earned it. To compare you would be to put you in the same category as her, and I can’t.”
“Then what am I?”
“You’re terrifying,” he whispered, stroking my face. “And destructive. And overwhelming. And, let’s face it, a little violent.”
“So all horrible things?”
“Strong things,” he said, breathing slowly. “All the things I’m not ashamed to want.”
I gripped his hair with both hands, clutching two fistfuls of soft locks between my trembling fingers. “I hate you.”
Relief swept across his face, his eyes glowing like stars and rainbow-colored lights. He’d finally gotten what he needed. And in some bizarre way, so had I. I couldn’t help but think that maybe he was right all along. Maybe hatred really was my love language.
“I was hoping you’d say that.” He pressed his lips to mine, kissing me so hard it felt like I was suffocating under his touch. We collapsed against each other, his mouth frenzied. Wild. I could feel his tongue slide between my open lips. I reached for his shirt and yanked it over his head, tossing it to the floor. My hands were on his back, my nails digging into his skin. The only thing I could hear was his heavy breathing, scorching as it sank inside my ear. His lips traveled along my jaw, all the way down to my collarbone.
“Maks,” I panted.
He stopped completely, snapping his head up. “You mean Snake,” he gasped between breaths. “This is awkward.”
“No, I mean from The Onslaught.”
“You’re picturing Maks from The Onslaught?”
“No. Ew. Bear with me.” I rubbed his neck and pulled him closer. “I was just thinking about The Snake Project. And, I mean, I have no interest in watching the source material, so just tell me. Do Maks and Margaret end up together?”
He smiled guiltily. “No. They both die.”
“Wow, that’s bleak. You said it was a romance.”
“I said it was doomed from the start.”
I gave him a half smile, despite the anxiousness buzzing in my stomach. “Isn’t everything doomed from the start?”
He watched my mouth as he ran his fingers along my cheek. Then he looked me in the eyes, really looked at me, and said, “I like to think people doom themselves.”
I wanted to ask him what he meant. If he thought the reason we were here in this position was because of some inherent fault of our own, and not a matter of forces beyond our control. I wanted to know if he believed in fate.
But instead of ruining yet another moment, I kissed him. I pulled him tight enough to memorize the sound of his heartbeat, no matter how irregular it was in the space between his chest and mine. The harder I kissed him, the more I wanted him to strip me open, dig out all of my pain, and have the choice to hate me or want me or leave me or forget me. I wanted him to regret me the way I would regret him later. If only in the midst of those ragged breaths and reckless kisses, I wanted our idea of enough to be the same. But it wasn’t, and that was an inescapable truth. Except for once, I didn’t want the truth. I wanted someone to lie to me the way only Snake could.
He slid his hands beneath my shirt, and it was gone. Skin to skin. I didn’t know how far I was willing to go, and it didn’t make a difference. I was only an empty shell trying to pretend there was a person inside. A full, living and breathing person capable of staying that way.
“Reggie,” Snake breathed against my neck. I couldn’t find a way to respond. He repeated my name, glancing up at me. “Your phone’s ringing.”
“I don’t care,” I whispered, pulling him to my lips.
“You know it’s your mom.”
“Then I really don’t care.”
We ignored it. It stopped ringing, then started again only seconds later. Snake groaned, tearing himself off of me and sitting up. “You need to get that. It’s distracting.”
The piercing ringtone jolted me back to my surroundings, ripping the veil from my brain and making everything clearer. Suddenly, I realized that I was in my bra. And Snake was shirtless. And his door wasn’t fully closed, and his moms were downstairs. And we had almost just pulled a Carla.
I grabbed the phone and found my mom’s name lit across the screen.
“I’m not answering it.”
“You have to.”
“No.”
“Reggie.”
“Fine.” I grunted and slid the green button. “Long time no see, Karen.”
She let out a dramatic sigh. “Oh, thank God. Are you okay? Where are you?”
“I’m fine. And out.” A man’s voice rumbled lowly in the background. It was confident. Professional. “Mom? Who’s that?”
Silence. Usually a privilege. But not that kind of silence. It was panic silence. Terror. I had a gut feeling this wasn’t about me running away.
“Mom?”
“We looked for you all day,” she cried, sniffling into the phone. “I left you voicemails, and we went around town. Your dad. Your dad isn’t supposed to get worked up . . .”
“What happened to Dad?”
Snake moved beside me and rubbed my back. I could see my fear reflected in his eyes.
“You need to come to the hospital as soon as you can.”
My mind wasn’t catching up. “Why?”
Silence. Too much silence.
“He’s had a heart attack.”
Chapter Nineteen
DEER. A DEER WITH GIANT ANTLERS. They were called bucks, I had been told. Male deer with giant antlers were called bucks. And they weren’t smart. They ran out in front of moving cars and walked directly in front of hunters without knowing it and always somehow ended up at my dad’s shop, stuffed with hardened powder and staring blankly at the remains of their own hides stretched out across my father’s fixing table. Dead. That was their one common trait. Not that they were deer or bucks or stupid, but that they always ended up dead.
“They aren’t dead,” my dad would say, stitching the finishing touches on a six-pointer someone had brought in from a hunting excursion. I sat on a stool across the room, drinking a juice box and keeping my distance. When I was a kid, I had this irrational fear that one would eventually come back to life on my dad’s table and take revenge on all the humans who had had a part in his slaughter. None ever did.
“Yes, they are,” I argued. “A hunter killed him. And now he’s dead.”
“What’s dead about him?”
“His heart doesn’t beat anymore.”
My dad set down his knife and looked at the buck. He ran his fingers along the antlers and touched the space on his chest where hearts were supposed to beat. An empty space. “So, a heartbeat is what makes us alive?”
“Yes.”
“That’s interesting,” he said, his hand lingering on the empty cavity. He studied the buck above the rim of his glasses, as if he knew it before it was nothing. As if he truly cared about what happened to it. “He still has a spirit, though. Doesn’t he? Doesn’t he make you feel something when you look at him?”
I observed h
is giant antlers, his body twice the size of my own. He looked like someone’s dad. A leader.
“He makes me feel . . .” I struggled for the right word. “He makes me feel sad.”
“Why?”
“Because I think he was someone’s dad. And his baby probably misses him. And he might have had a lot of friends. And they probably miss him too.”
My dad smiled. He didn’t smile often, but when he did, it was always a stamp of approval. It was his expression of pride. Pride in himself. Pride in me. “Then he’s alive,” he said, picking up his knife and resuming his diagonal cuts of skin on the buck’s back. “He has a spirit. As long as his spirit touches something living, he’ll always be alive.” He looked at me, and I swear to this day, it was the most strength I’d ever seen in his faded eyes. And then he said, “Nothing ever dies. Not really.”
Snake was speeding to the hospital, flying fifteen over like he was bolting from the cops. I was wearing his baggy, uncomfortable basketball shorts and couldn’t stop pulling on the string and thinking about my dad and bucks and dying.
My mom had told me he wasn’t looking good. His heart attack had been severe enough that the doctor insisted she call my brother in New York. He said my dad had coronary heart disease, where the arteries to his heart were tightened and clogged and couldn’t pump the blood the way they were supposed to. Basically, his heart didn’t like him very much. It didn’t want to keep him alive. And maybe he was right about hearts doing a sucky job at keeping people alive. But I didn’t want my dad to be the buck. I didn’t want him to only be alive because I felt a certain way about him. I wanted his heart to like him. But I guess Snake and I weren’t the only ones with untamable hearts.
It was eleven when Snake dropped me off in front of the hospital. He called to me as I was hopping out, something about parking the car or going home or good luck. I wasn’t listening.
When I got inside, I rode the elevator to the third floor. That was where the people with sucky hearts went. They ended up lying in hospital beds on the third floor, with IVs tacked under their skin and crappy hospital food served to them on trays once their bodies decided they could eat again. My dad was on the far end of the hall, with the people whose hearts were just a little too greedy for their own good.
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