7. FIELD

FIELD

I wanted to dig my heels into the soft grass as Ryan shimmied us through the crowd toward the lineup for the massive turning wheel. My hands were trembling by the time we came to a stop behind a few others in the line.

“I don’t think I can,” I exhaled a shaky breath and stared up at the ride.

“I know you can.” Ryan shrugged like it was as simple as that, as if I wasn’t turned inside out with fear over sitting on the rickety, swaying buckets. “Rae,” he said, snapping me from my terrified trance. “Take my hand,” he said, and I listened without protest as he led us up onto the unbalanced steel structure and into a two-person bucket that rocked as we said down.

I shut my eyes tightly and dug my fingers into the top of his hand as the bar came down across us, and the ride jolted to life. Ryan sat quietly beside me, not saying a word as the breeze rustled our hair and bit our cheeks.

“Open your eyes,” he said to me, but I just shook my head. I was too scared to open my eyes and see how high we had climbed. “I’m right here. Nothing bad will happen.”

“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 face it 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 just be. ” 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 the weight 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 to see you.”

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.

“ Great at 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.

I hated how easily he said those words, like they were a compliment or a scientific fact he had read in some textbook. How could he even understand feelings as intense and life-altering as love? He was ridiculous. “You missed the five count,” he smiled softly as his hand left my chin, knuckles brushing over my jaw, and gently redirected my gaze to the football field.

The lights from our height twinkled and pulled in the night sky in the most beautiful way, creating a kaleidoscope of colors that illuminated the darkness. Everyone looked so tiny from this high, and I had braced for the nauseous feeling, but it never came. The breeze licked my hot cheeks and filled my lungs with fresh air. I felt free.

“You alright?” He asked softly from beside me after a few moments of quiet.

I nodded with a small smile. “It’s not so bad.”

“You feel it, don’t you?” he asked, shimmying so he was pressed completely against me, his eyes on me instead of the lights.

“I can breathe,” I whispered and turned to look at him. Our faces were so close that the tip of his nose brushed against mine as I focused back on him. “Why did you call me Starlight?” I asked him quietly.

“Cause that’s where you belong,” he said with conviction. "With the stars."

The response wasn’t what I had been expecting, and I wasn’t sure what to say to him. Ryan Cody confused every rational thought I had all at once. I wanted to be mad at him for dragging me onto the ride, but no matter how hard I tried to dig the feeling up from my subconscious, I couldn’t seem to find it. The irritation, the frustration… it had all melted away, leaving only a flourishing curiosity to understand him.

“You’re staring at me like I have two heads,” his brows pinched tightly, and his signature smile flattened into a straight line. “What’s going on in there?” He asked.

“Astrophysics,” I mumbled, half joking, but it made him bark and throw his head back. His hat fell from his head, and the wind rustled through the dirty blonde strands wildly as he brought himself back and pressed his forehead against mine.

The strands of his hair tickled my face as his eyes darted to my lips and back to my terrified gaze. I must have looked so stupid, frozen still from his touch, unsure of what he might do next but willing to let him…

His chest filled slowly, and his hand lifted to push a few pieces of my hair behind my ear, never taking his eyes off my lips. The brave little girl in me was screaming for him to do it. It would be my first, and what a story it would be.

But my mind was stringing together a cautionary tale in fragments: he’s a flirt, he does this with all the girls, you aren’t the only one, and worst of all, this is all a game to him.

“Ryan,” the panic seeped from me, slowly at first, but then became a tidal away of fear as he inched toward kissing me.

Our lips brushed, so close to contact when the ride kicked to life. I yelped, ducking against his chest and digging my fingers into his sweater. My reflexes kicked into overdrive as he sighed and rested his chin on the top of my head.

“It’s over,” he whispered to me and shifted backward to catch my gaze as the ride stopped again, and the metal bar popped free, letting us off. “You earned some cotton candy,” he said, staying close behind me as I took the stairs off the platform to the grass.

My stomach heaved, and I swallowed the vomit that rose quickly before giving him a small nod. “I’m going to go to the bathroom,” I said, backing toward the school, he stepped in line to follow, but I shook my head.

I needed a moment to clear my thoughts and breathe air that wasn’t tangled with his intoxicating smell. I had almost just kissed him, I had almost just let him kiss me… oh god. Ryan stared at me for a moment. I could tell he was contemplating ignoring me and following anyway, but he nodded.

“I'll go find you some sugar.” He smiled softly and flipped his hat back over his messy hair.

The main hall of the school was open for access to the bathrooms, and there was a small line to wait in, but it gave me time to sort through all the wild thoughts that had been brought on by Ryan. The way his fingers felt on my skin, and he stared at me like I was the only person in the entire world. It was terrifying and exhilarating.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that all of this was contrived. It was pieced together by the school in the form of tutoring sessions and forced interactions. Did Ryan want to be around me, or was I just a silly little distraction?

I needed to ask him.

When I finally got inside, the last stall in the girls' bathroom was empty, and I was almost finished when the sounds of three pairs of feet flooded in the door.

“He’s just messing around,” the voice of senior Cadence Williams huffed over the sound of two other girls agreeing with her instantly. It could only be Georgia and Paisley. “I just don’t understand what his game is, hanging around someone like Loner Lorraine?”

Well, that hurts.

I waited quietly in my stall, tucking my feet against the base and all but holding my breath so they didn’t hear me.

“I heard it's a bet he and Landry made,” Paisley’s high-pitched, droning voice echoed over the door, followed by Georgia’s stupid giggle.

“Sure, who can get in the loser's pants the fastest?” Cadence hissed. “She’s probably so desperate for human attention she doesn’t even notice he’s screwing with her.”

I curled my hands into my lap and put my head down, just praying for them to leave soon. Sitting in the school bathroom crying in my lap about a boy wasn’t exactly my plan for the night. But everything they said made sense. Why would he actually mean what he said? There was more than enough evidence that high school boys were mean and manipulative.

Was he out there laughing at me with his friends? Laughing that I had almost given in after only a week of talk? I must have seemed so pathetic. A tight, disbelieving laugh fell from me.

“Did you hear that?” Paisley said.

“Who’s in here?” Georgia asked next, her boots stomping on the dingy titled floor outside my door. “I bet you it’s her, listening to us talking about how tragic she is. Did you hear that little loner Lorraine? Ryan is fucking with you.”

A sickening chorus of high school bully laughter echoed around the bathroom as the main door opened and swung shut, leaving me alone momentarily. I couldn’t help the tears as they flowed, rubbing my nose on my sleeve as it started to run.

After a moment, there was a soft knock on my door. “Lorraine?” The voice was quiet, sweet even. “Are you okay?” she asked.

Far from it.

I stiffened, whipping my cheeks and popping the latch to find Mary Cooper from third-period advanced biology staring back at me with her glassy brown eyes and round cheeks. “I’m sorry they said those things,” she said as I stood to walk to the bathroom. “They can be really mean, but Cadence’s home life sucks, and Georgia’s mom is cheating on her dad with the baseball coach.”

“What?” I huffed, pausing as I washed my hands and turned my head to look at her.

“Paisley pretends to be better than everyone, but she lives down by the trainyard with her grandma in a trailer,” Mary said as if that answered my question. “I’m just saying they’re only mean because they need an outlet.”

“Was that supposed to make me feel better?” I asked with a sniffle.

“No, but it levels the playing field. They were wrong,” she said, handing me a sheet of paper towel for my wet hands. “You aren’t tragic. They just don’t know how to be themselves without putting others down.”

“You talk a lot,” I said gently as she took the wet towel and threw it out for me.

“But I’m not wrong.” She smiled. “Do you want a walk home? I don't know about you, but I’m sick of this fair… they ran out of hot dogs an hour in, and Chet is running the kissing booth.”

“Chet Perkins?” I raised an eyebrow. The thought of his creepy bird lips sent a shiver down my spine.

“I can see by the haunting look on your face you’ve been a victim to his weird locker letters,” she laughed, her smile so bright it lit up all the dark spaces that were swallowing me whole. “I only live a street over from you. Your house is bigger, but we have a nicer yard that backs onto the lake. No offense,” she hooked her arm in mine and dragged me toward the door. “My Mama said that you were feeling better?” She asked me, and I was a bit taken aback. “She talks to your Mama at town hall. She likes to check in on you after—”

“I’m fine,” I said quietly with the small shake of my head. I wished my Mom would talk to me about anything. “It was just a cold.”

“Lying isn’t a great way to start a friendship, you know.” She scoffed. “Mama said the radiation was hard on your body. That's why you missed so much school before Christmas.”

“Stop, please,” I said in a tiny voice. I didn’t want to talk about that. I didn’t want to even think about it. It was over. That was gone. I was fine.

“I’m sorry, I’ve got a problem. My Mama calls it a waterfall and always threatens to build a dam if I don’t shut up. I just talk and talk. No one is ever really listening, but I talk anyways.”

I had never spoken to Mary Cooper in my life, but here she was, filling the spaces of doubt and fear with her sweet, funny voice and her incessant rambling.

She was shorter than me, her head bobbing next to my shoulder as we wandered through the dark hallways to the other side of the school. I waved hello to Mr. Waters, the night janitor, and he let us out through the front.

For a moment, I felt bad about leaving Ryan behind, but I wasn’t sure how to approach the situation. On one hand, I foolishly wanted to believe his actions and words—that maybe in some insane plane of reality, he really did just like me. But the rational part of my thinking was strong, arming every point my heart seemed to bring to my attention. A lot of ‘why?’ echoed around inside of me. Why me ? Why now ?

Maybe I needed a reality check from people who knew him better than anyone. It had only been a week, so I couldn’t say I knew him—not really. What I knew was what he had shown me… but what had that been?

His sadness.

I swallowed the bile that rose, “do you think maybe Ryan might actually like me?” I asked Mary out of the blue as we walked.

She looked up at me and smiled, “he’s been in the library every day this week.”

My brows furrowed at her response.

“When you’re invisible it makes it easier to pay attention to everyone around you. I help the librarian put books away at lunch. Until last week, I’ve never seen him in the library, except that one time he and Landry streaked through it and were suspended for a week.”

“They streaked through the library?” I laughed suddenly, the sound almost terrifying against the backdrop of all my other problems.

“Butt naked.” She laughed, “I was surprised, Landry has a pretty nice ass.”

“Mary Cooper!” I joined back into the chorus of laughter.

“I’m just saying.” She shrugged. “You should talk to him,” she told me after the silence seeped between us. “He might surprise you.”

I nodded and looked up at the stars. ‘Starlight’ his voice hummed in the back of my mind.

Please don’t break my heart, Ryan Cody.