Page 103 of What You Wish For

I definitely felt like we were helping Duncan. And the kids. And the school.

I just wasn’t quite so sure what we were doing to me.

nineteen

One Friday, Babette’s task for us was to go to an amusement park that was built on a pier out over the Gulf. It was just a few blocks from school, and Duncan left Chuck Norris dozing on a dog bed in his office and walked over to meet me around sunset.

Before we’d made it to the pier, the sun had gone down, and the lights had begun to glow—neon ones on the rides, and string bulbs in graceful scallops all up and down the pier. We bought our tickets and strolled along.

Unable to resist a teachable moment, I said, “Wouldn’t this place be so sad if someone had painted it gray?”

Babette actually had a specific ride that she’d designated for us, and it was a roller coaster called the Iron Shark.

Important note: roller coasters are not exactly safe for people with epilepsy. Some people did fine on them, and some people did not—and I was not exactly sure which category I fell into.

Duncan was clearly a fan of roller coasters. “I hear it has a ten-story, face-down, vertical drop,” Duncan said, like that was a good thing. He’d done a lot of things on Babette’s orders so far, with varying degrees of reluctance, but he actually seemed excited about this one.

He was about as excited as I was nervous.

What the hell was I doing?

To be honest, I just wanted to hang out with Duncan. I didn’t want to skip one of our tasks. I wanted to keep things going and not lose momentum. I couldn’t resist a chance to spend time with him.

You know that feeling when you just click with somebody—when something about that person just lights you up? It’s so rare. When it happens, it feels like a little miracle—and all you want is more of that person. I wanted more of Duncan.ThisDuncan.

And if I had to ride a roller coaster to get it, fine.

I put what we were doing out of my mind—and just gave in to being there.

Before I knew it, we were seated side by side in the very first car, and I was starting to question my life choices. I pushed the restraint down and clicked it into place at my waist.

“Wait—” I said, turning to Duncan. “There’s no shoulder harness? Where’s the shoulder restraint?” I reached up behind my head and mimed pulling an imaginary shoulder restraint down over me.

“There is no shoulder restraint,” Duncan said.

I felt a tightening of alarm. “Just—waist? A ‘waist restraint’? That’s not a thing.”

“It works,” he said. “It’s fine.”

But I shook my head. “So the top half of your body is just loose?”

“Well, yeah. That’s part of the fun.”

“Oh, my God,” I said. “We’re going to die.” As I said those words, I looked straight in front of me and saw—really saw, for the first time—the vertical wall of tracks ahead.

A black hole of fear opened up in my stomach. This was happening.

“You okay?” Duncan asked.

I had a clear view of the tracks: They eased out about thirty feet from the loading dock and then curved in a right angle straight up. And up. And up.

“This maybe wasn’t a good idea,” I said.

“Oh, yeah,” Duncan said. “It’s a terrible idea.” He said it with relish—as if the fact that it was a bad idea made it awesome.

“I think I need to get off,” I said, tugging at the waist restraint—which, of course, didn’t budge—just as another coaster car whooshed over our heads and muffled my words.

I turned to look for someone to signal on the platform…

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