Page 16 of So Long, Honey
“You can’t actually promise that because there are about ten thousand things that could go wrong up here,” I said, screwing them shut as tightly as possible.
“Like what?” Ryan laughed and nudged me with his shoulder, causing the bucket to shudder and me to yelp. “I’m sorry,” he huffed with a chuckle and sat still.
“Like the fact that there are no proper restraints on this ride!” I said with a tiny huff as a gust of wind rattled us around. “Extended in the air like this…” My hands trembled as it kicked up again, and the ride came to a rickety halt. “The wind is stronger, and how am I supposed to trust a giant ride put together by people who never graduated high school!”
“Please, Starlight, don’t stop. This is the loudest you’ve ever been.”
“You’ve known me for a week, Ryan Cody! Be quiet! God damn you.” My angry, terrified whispered growl grew louder, but not really. He was teasing me for being loud when really it was a series of hushed, tight grumbles.
“Long enough to know that you’re pretty brave when you want to be.” He was so close I could feel his breath roll down my neck, sending a shiver over my spine. “Open your eyes, Rae.”
“Absolutely not,” I snapped at him, but he didn’t budge from his pressed-up position on my side. His fingers curled around my chin, and I turned my face in his direction, his breath fanning over my cheeks.
“Look at me,” Ryan’s voice dropped to a stern tone, and it took everything in me to disobey him. “Lorraine Field, stop being a coward and look at me.”
“I’m not a coward!” My eyes flew up and connected with his.
Evergreen danced with the twinkling lights of the ride, causing all the air in my lungs to rush out in a tiny, strangled gasp.
“There you are.” He smiled, that stupid crooked and cocky smile that made my stomach do flips. He was so close to my faceit was hard to focus on anything but him. The slope of his nose and the small smattering of freckles that danced across it, the redness to his cheeks. The way his lip twitched and gave away how nervous he really was. If it wasn’t for how pretty Ryan was, I might have been sick to my stomach from my crippling fear.
“Why the hell do you love the Ferris wheel so much?” I asked him with a pathetic trembling lip, needing to understand the logic behind his enjoyment.
Ryan paused like he hadn’t expected to be asked that. He wet his bottom lip, his eyes darting away for a second before looking back.
“Makes me feel untouchable,” he said.
I nodded, trying to focus on his sudden, sad contemplation and not the heights.
“You’re the most popular kid in school, baseball career.You are untouchable,” I said to him with a scoff.
Ryan sighed with a slight nod as his lips curled into a sad smile. “I know you saw more in that parking lot that day than you admitted to,” he said. His shift in personality was jarring and concerning. “Baseball is a way out of that, being popular just—” he stopped. “I’m good at being funny and loud. I’m not so great at all the other stuff. I can swing a bat, run a base, flirt with a girl, but I can’t focus in class. I can’t put pen to paper.”
I watched as he struggled to talk about his weaknesses but realized he was doing it to show that he was even afraid of the smallest situations.
“Up here, I don’t have to be good at anything. I can justbe.” He explained. “Free of any pressure, I can breathe.”
It was the most profound thing Ryan Cody had said to me in the week I had known him. We had more common ground than I cared to admit: the pressure to be the best, to reach for the stars as proxies for our parents. We were both suffocating under theweight of expectations in very different ways, but somehow, we were still the same.
“So, good at baseball, ladies man, but none of that matters in the eyes of my father. If I don’t make something of myself, then I’ve failed everyone who believed me and pushed me to do that, and my Dad is just trying to make sure I stay on track.” He swallowed, and I watched the cotton balls stick in his throat on the way down.
“With a firm hand?” I asked, finding my voice at quite possibly the worst time.
Ryan shrugged; the dismissal was unsettling. “A good crack to the head never hurt anyone,” he said. When he looked back up at me, a fake smile was plastered on his face. “It’s fine. It makes me remember what’s important. It led me to you, " he said.
“That’s an odd way to look at it. I’m not sure your Dad hitting you is kismet, Ryan.”
“Well, I believe it was. Thinking straight gave me the chance toseeyou.”
I stared at him momentarily, nervous to speak and say the wrong thing. With a thousand different options rolling around in my brain, there was a good chance I would anyway.
“Greatat baseball,” I said to him, his brows furrowed. “You said,good,but you’re great at baseball.”
“Alright,” he laughed with a nod, the laugh finally genuine again. “Back to your crippling fear of heights. Count to five and look,” his head nodded to the side, and a few pieces of his hair kicked up in the breeze against the smooth curve of his neck.
“I hate you, Ryan Cody,” I said between two shallow breaths.
“I love you too, Starlight,” he chuckled.