Wrecked (8 page)

He
chuckled again.

“So what’s
it like being a fighter?” I asked.

“Not bad.
I like the competition.”

“Aren’t
you scared of getting hurt?”

He paused.
“Nobody likes to get hurt. That’s where training and preparation come in. You
keep your head on straight, and the worst you come out with are some cuts and
bruises most of the time.”

“I think
‘Mr. Hyde’ would have to disagree with you—you forgot concussions.”

“Sometimes
it happens. It’s not like I intended to give him a concussion. Besides, Mr.
Hyde’s a big boy. He would’ve done the same to me if he had the chance.”

“Not nice,
but not mean right?”

“However
you want to put it.” He smirked. Suddenly, he swatted at my face. I was
frightened for a moment but quickly realized he had saved me from a nose-diving
mosquito. Damn thing must’ve been resistant to the cold. “So Lorrie, how about
you? I know you’re not a good swimmer; I know you don’t like my apartment; now
I know your name. What else can you tell me? Or do I have to figure it out?”

“By the
way, I am a decent swimmer,” I corrected him. “It’s just different when you’re
trying to swim in heavy clothes and freezing cold water. But other than that,
there’s not much to know. Nothing of importance anyway. I’m just your average
college girl.”

“Normal
right?” he teased.

“Exactly.”

“Any
major?”

“Ugh, I
wish. I’m ‘undecided’.”

“‘Undecided’
is legit. It’s certainly honest. I think most people are in that major whether
they want to admit it or not.”

“I guess .
. . How about you?”

“Physics.”

I raised
my brows. “Physics? Wow, that’s quite a brainy major. Physicist by day, brawler
by night?”

He
chuckled. “The matches help pay for the tuition. But physics isn’t all that
bad. Most of it is just memorizing a lot of formulas. Once you realize that,
it’s a lot less intimidating.”

“Do you
have a particular interest in being a physicist?”

“Eh, not
really. I was just kinda interested in planes and stuff when I was growing up
and thought learning physics would be cool. I’m kinda less interested in it
now.”

Hunter’s
expression seemed to turn unusually despondent and I decided not to pursue the
topic. “I see.”

We came to
a clearing and found ourselves in front of what looked like an abandoned
amusement park. There was a beat up sign over the entranceway that said
“Neverland”.

“Are we
walking in there?” I asked.

“Sure, why
not?”

“It looks
sketchy. What if it’s dangerous?”

He smiled.
“You’re walking with me. If anybody tries something on us, they’ll be sorry.
Trust me. I saved you once already, remember?”

“Okay,” I
said tentatively. I was intrigued by the idea of exploring an abandoned
amusement park. What would a place for fun and laughs be like when it died?

We carried
our sticks with us as we hopped over a broken turnstile and entered the park.
There were yellow and red flags, tents, game booths, a ferris wheel, a
merry-go-round, and a bunch of other fascinating things. Everything was covered
in dirt and rust. Small crevices were filled with iced water. I’d have thought
some of this stuff would’ve been salvaged but it was as if one day people
decided to abandon everything.

“This is
pretty crazy. They just left all this stuff here,” I said admiring the
surroundings. “Do you walk around here often?”

He prodded
a broken styrofoam cup on the ground. “I like to walk around this place
whenever I’ve got a match here. Kind of always had a thing for amusement parks
since I was a kid. There was a fire at this place a few decades back. You can
see some burn marks on the carousel over there.” He pointed with his stick.

I looked
at the carousel and saw half the horses blackened by ash. The other half were
shades of gray and white. It seemed like all of them were supposed to be white.

“That’s
terrible. What happened?”

He
shrugged. “Nobody knows how it started. But it happened at night when almost no
one was around. I think it took one or two people’s lives. Not enough to be a
huge tragedy but I’m sure it affected the family members of those that died—if
they had any. I think the owners got a bunch of insurance money and started
another park somewhere else. It must’ve been a big a deal when it happened but
people kind of forgot about this place over time.”

The story
sounded horrible and hit a little too close to my own personal tragedy. I
wanted to change the topic. “Did you go to a lot of places like this when you
were young?” I asked.

“That’s
the thing. I didn’t go to any amusement parks when I was a kid. I wanted to but
my parents never took me. All the other kids in grade school would talk about
how awesome Disneyland was. Or Six Flags, or Sea World.”

“What kind
of parents don’t take their kid to an amusement park?” I said jokingly. “That’s
like the stuff childhoods are made of.”

“Deadbeat
ones.” He paused, his mouth a thin line. “They were druggies. Real assholes.
Cared more about their drugs than taking care of me. That’s why I got away from
California and came here.”

“Oh. I’m
sorry to hear that.” I suddenly felt bad for asking him about his parents.

We were
both silent for a moment. I contemplated what Hunter had told me about his
parents. Was fighting a way for him to cope with his troubled past like I used
drawing to cope with mine? I didn’t know, but it sounded like he and I might
not have been as different as I initially thought.

Hunter
ended up throwing his branch into a pile of debris near one of the game booths.
It fit right in with the other junk.

“How about
your parents?” he asked.

I was
surprised he didn’t know about me after learning my name. I would’ve thought he
heard about me from rumors around campus. Or seen my picture in the paper. It
was certainly big news across Illinois.

I could
feel the numbness settling in once again. “They’re not together.”

“Divorced?”

Without
skipping a beat, I answered. “And dead.”

“Oh. I’m
sorry.”

“Yeah.”

I could
feel the past creeping up on me again like it always did. Images would flash.
Scenarios would be relived. The stone would appear again, bigger than the last
time, intimidating me like it always did. It would dare me to roll it up the
hill. I’d consider it for a while, maybe even try to push it a few times, but
every time, I’d end up quitting.

“Hey,
check out that booth!” Hunter pointed in the distance, breaking me from the
spell. He tugged my hand and we rushed over. “Look there’s an old milk bottle
still standing up. Did you ever play these kinds of games before?”

I thought
about the time I went to the carnival with Mom and Dad. I must’ve been eight at
the time. Dad handed the operator a few bucks and I was given a ball to throw
at a stack of milk bottles. It was silly for an eight-year-old to think she had
the strength to knock those bottles down. But for some reason I thought I could
do it. I thought I could win. I wound my arm back and threw the ball with as
much strength as I could muster. It ended up hitting the poor operator right in
the nose—a fountain of blood sprayed my overalls. That was the last time I
played.

“Yeah,” I
said wryly.

“Let’s
play.” He touched my hand holding the small branch, sending a tingling through
my arm.

“You can
play. I’ll watch.”

He smiled.
“Nah. I threw my stick away. This one’s yours.”

“Um . . .
I don’t really feel like playing.”

He
laughed. “C’mon, let’s knock the hell outta that bottle. You could win a
prize.”

A small
smile tugged at the corners of my lips. “And what kind of prize would that be?”

“Anything
you like. How about that beat-up looking doll over there.” He pointed to the
corner of the booth. There was a dirty-blonde doll—emphasis on ‘dirty’—with a
pink dress and a dimpled smile on its face as well as various dark stains.

“Eww.
That’s gross.” I made a disgusted face but laughed as well.

“Okay, no
doll then.” He looked around. “How about some cotton candy from that machine
over there?”

I looked
at the decrepit cotton candy machine stand with cobwebs inside the glass and a
bird nest sitting on top of it. I chuckled. “Why don’t I just scoop up a bunch
of dirt and dump it in my mouth?”

He
grinned. “Alright, alright. How about the reward for knocking down the bottle
is the satisfaction in itself for having done it.”

“Wow, that
sounds lame. I’d even take a gold sticker over that.”

He
laughed. “Just throw the stick already, Lorrie. We both know the bottle ain’t
gonna knock itself over.”

Feeling in
a better mood, but still kind of annoyed that Hunter was making me play this
game, I wound up my arm and chucked the damn stick as hard as I could. I missed
and hit the back flap of the tent, tearing a hole in it.

“Wow, you
didn’t win but man that was quite a throw.”

I held my
arm up and squeezed my spongy bicep through the jacket sleeve. “I hope you
bought tickets to the gun show.”

Hunter
smiled at me with his dark eyes then lifted both his arms up and flexed. Thick
bulges peaked through the gray cotton. “I didn’t need to bring tickets. I’m a
vendor.”

We both
laughed before  the tent housing the game booth suddenly started
collapsing. I jumped into Hunter’s arms and he pulled me back until we were
both out of the way.

“Holy
shit!” I cried.

“I take it
back,” he said, flabbergasted. “You won. Definitely won. Feeling satisfied?”

Still
tight against his body, I thought about it for a moment. “You know what, that
was satisfying. Really satisfying actually.”

“Good. It
sure looked like it.”

We both
looked into each other’s eyes. I felt like Hunter was the first person at this
school besides Daniela to treat me like a real person—not a victim, object of
pity, or some freak in a circus show. I hadn’t really felt much of anything
recently but ever since I met Hunter, I’ve felt so many emotions. Annoyance,
desire, embarrassment, anxiousness, fun—anything but numb.

A heavy
silence passed between us. Being this close to him, I could feel his heart
beating. Or was that my own? He was so good-looking it was painful. But I
couldn’t tear my eyes away from his dark irises. He tilted his head down
slowly. My breath hitched. His eyes became heavy-lidded. I tilted my chin up to
meet him, closing my eyes along with him. Just before our lips made contact, I snapped
to my senses, panicked, and pushed him away.

“Is there
something wrong? What’s going on, Lorrie?”

Flustered,
I blurted my unfiltered thoughts. “I’m not going to sleep with you. I know what
guys like you are like.”

His eyes
widened. “Whoa, whoa. What? Did I miss something? Where did you get the idea
that we were going to sleep together?”

“You were
going to kiss me.”

“Yeah so?
Did you think we were going to then roll around naked on the ground, crushing
styrofoam cups and getting dirty as hell?”

“No, but
I’m sure you were thinking about a place. Maybe you weren’t thinking we’d do it
now, but you were definitely thinking about it sometime.”

He sighed.
“One, it looked like you were just as into kissing as I was. Two, kissing is a
far cry from sex.”

“I was
just caught off guard, that’s all. I wasn’t
into
it like you’re
suggesting.”

“What’s
going on? I don’t get you, Lorrie. Why are you freaking out over a kiss? You
can’t get pregnant from a kiss ya know.”

“Hurr,
hurr. Gee, thanks for the bio lesson.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Are we done
with this walk yet? Can we go back?” I turned and took a step in the direction
of the way we came.

“Wait,” he
said. I pivoted to face him again and saw he was looking at the ground.

“Wait for
what?”

He seemed
to be deep in thought for a moment then he met my gaze. “You wanna go on a
date?”

It was my
turn to be surprised. “Whoa, whoa. Where did that come from?”

“You think
I’m a player and that all I want is to have sex with you. But it isn’t like
that.”

“What’s it
like then?”

“I don’t
know. I can’t spell it out for you.”

“You can’t
or won’t?”

“Dude,
Lorrie. I’m not exactly a walking pile of answers. I may be a senior but if you
think I’ve figured out everything about girls or life, you’ll be pretty damn
disappointed. I don’t even really know what you’re thinking, why you’re acting
this way. Hell, I don’t even know what
I’m
doing half the time. But I do
know I like being around you. I want to see you more. So I’m asking if you want
to go on a date sometime.”