Page 23 of Can't Stop Now

They went in the lobby, and there were tons of other tourists inside. Jacob picked up a pamphlet from the front desk, as Will got in a long line in front of the elevator. Jacob opened the pamphlet and immediately got nervous.

“Oh no. Ohhhhhh no,” he said.

Fourteen

Will

“Come on,” Will said, pulling Jacob into the elevator after him. “I’ve always wanted to do this, I’ve been seeing my friends’ pictures from the Sears tower, or… I guess they call it theWillistower now, my whole life.”

The elevator started going up, and Will could see how nervous Jacob was.Wow, he really wasn’t kidding about his fear of heights, Will thought, starting to feel kind of bad about making Jacob do this.

“Hey,” he said softly, into Jacob’s ear. “I thought this would be fun, and maybe you could face your fear and I wouldn’t be the only one who made a fool of myself – remember how scared I was in that movie?” Will said, smiling.

Jacob nodded, swallowing and looking nervously as the elevator skyrocketed up, floor after floor passing them by.

“Okay. I’m going up here with you, and I’ll see how I feel at the top. I’m not promising I’m gonna walk out on that glass ledge…” Jacob said.

“Totally. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. But if youdowant to, I’ll be right here,” Will offered, gently putting his hand on Jacob’s shoulder.

Will was excited to get to the top. He had seen so many photos from the top of this tower. It had glass ledges where people could stand and look down over the entire city below them. It sounded thrilling to Will, even if it made his knees shake a little bit. But he didn’t know about Jacob. He didn’t want toactuallyscare him; he had just wanted to give him an opportunity to do something he never thought he could.

The elevator finally got to the top floor, and everyone inside stepped out and onto the floor. Will saw the glass enclosures in front of him. He turned back to Jacob.

“I’m gonna go step onto one. You can just stay here. Sorry for making you come up here. I didn’t realize your fear of heights was that serious,” Will said, sympathetically.

Jacob nodded, so Will turned back around and made his way to the glass ledge.

Wow. He had seen photos of this, but they didn’t compare. He almost got weak in the knees standing on that glass, over a thousand feet above the street and looking straight down at it. He began to get a little dizzy looking down, so he looked up and out at the city.

It really was beautiful. He could see the blue water of Lake Michigan, stretching out in the late afternoon sunlight. The tall buildings sparkled in the light, and the cars on the ground looked as tiny as ants. He put his face close to the glass and stared out, imagining he was floating above the city.

From behind him, he felt a hand grasp his lower arm. Confused, he turned around.

It was Jacob. His eyes were squeezed shut, and he opened one eye a tiny crack, looking straight at Will, specifically avoiding looking down or out at the city.

A huge smile crept across Will’s face.

“Hah! I knew you could do it! You’re above all of Chicago, Jacob,” Will said, and he couldn’t help but wrap his arms around Jacob and give him a supportive hug.

“Okay, okay, I did it, I gotta get the hell off of here now,” Jacob choked out, a grimace on his face.

Will let Jacob go and grabbed his hand to lead him off of the glass platform. They safely were back on the regular floor, and Jacob looked away from the glass windows, taking in a huge breath.

“I cannot believe I just did that,” he said, wide-eyed.

“I can,” Will said, smiling. “We all face our fears sometime, whether it’s in a movie theater or in the tallest building in Chicago.”

Jacob nodded, seeming mostly relieved that it was over, but still nervous to be on the top floor.

“Okay. How much longer until we can go back down that elevator,” Jacob said, and Will laughed. It was the first time Will had seen Jacob so innocent, so vulnerable. He realized that he had involuntarily hugged Jacob on the platform.Oops, he thought,sorry but… not sorry.He had shown more affection than he had planned.

They finally made it into an elevator, and Will saw Jacob’s tension ease with every passing floor.

“Okay. I did what I wanted to do, and made you suffer because of it. The rest of the night is yours. What doyouwant to do?” Will said as they stepped out of the front of the building, back onto the busy streets.

“Well, I think first I wanna track down those Chicago hot dogs,” Jacob said.

“Cool. First place we pass that has ‘em, let’s go inside,” Will said.