Page 21 of When Stars Collide
“Seriously?” he asked. “Who are you and what have you done with the woman who quoted carnival ride death statistics to me in the car on the way here?”
“She’s over at the polish sausage kiosk, contracting E. coli as we speak.”
“From the looks of that booth, she’ll be infected with a lot more than E. coli.” Peter shuddered.
“Come on, Mena, let’s go,” Jackson commanded as he unhitched himself from Peter to latch onto me.
“Thank you,” Peter said sincerely, right at the moment Jackson began to drag me away.
For a little guy, he was strong. His tiny legs bested even my own. I had to speed up just to maintain the same pace as him as we ambled our way ever closer to the freakishly huge teddy bears. The ride had just finished its cycle when we arrived at the gate.
“We’re first in line!” Jackson exclaimed. “I’m never first in line.”
“That makes two of us.”
A small line was already beginning to form behind us. Little hands pushed into the small of my back, pinning my body against the metal barrier that separated us from the ride. Standing a few feet away, shielded from the mayhem, Peter waved at me with the most annoying smirk spreading across his face. As it turned out, it was the wrong time for me to turn my attention away from the gate, as another push from behind caused me to stumble forward into the opening where the gate once stood.
“Come on, Mena,” Jackson called out to me. “We have to hurry.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying to keep myself from stumbling. “There are plenty of open bears.”
He looked over his shoulder, casting the most incredulous glance in my direction. “Yeah, but I want the blue one.”
Of course, you do.
Running to catch up with him, we passed an empty pink, yellow, and purple bear. “There’s a perfectly good green bear up ahead.”
“Ew. Green is the color of puke.”
The inflection in his voice made me feel like an asshole for even making that suggestion. Up ahead, Jackson leapt into the empty blue bear.A couple seconds later, I leapt in after him, except far less gracefully than he had, and far more painfully when I banged my knee on the ride.
“Oh, sh—” I began, catching myself just as a grin spread across Jackson’s face, revealing two missing front teeth. “—oot,” I finished. “Oh God, please shoot me.” I rubbed my fingertips over my throbbing patella, attempting to massage some life back into it.
“You’re funny.” Jackson laughed.
“I’m here all night.”
“That’s what my mom said.”
Did she now?
The seat inside of the ride was a bench seat positioned in a half circle in the belly of the bear, while the honey pot in the bear’s lap served as a door, opening to allow entry. In front of the bench seat was a circular wheel connected to what was, perhaps, an axle. Whatever it was, it took up quite a bit of space inside of the ride. Had I been any larger I would have needed the jaws of life to extricate me from the cramped interior. As the other bears began to fill up, a few more kids started trickling our way, and it wasn’t long before I found myself seated in the middle of the bench seat, with Jackson on my left and a handful of other children on my right—three girls and two boys who looked about Jackson’s age.
If Elle could see me now.
I’d never been around kids all that much before today, and now I was squished inside of a hollow, steel teddy bear with a half dozen of them, awakening claustrophobia I didn’t even know I had. My heart rate increasing, I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath, letting it out just as a stray elbow jabbed me in the rib cage.
“It’s starting to move,” the rib assassin, a petite dark-haired girl, announced.
“About time,” Jackson said. “It feels like we’ve been waiting forever.
“Wait until you’re thirty,” I added, “a year goes by in a month.”
From farther down the bench, a boy no older than six piped in, “Thirty? Isn’t that almost dead?”
“Basically.”
Now I remember why I avoided kids.
