“Want to try the Blue Too?” John wants to know, and suddenly I don’t because I want to be alone with this girl. But Violet breaks free and goes right to the roller coaster and lets John strap her in.
The Blue Too isn’t nearly so fun, so we ride the Flash twice more. When I step off for the last time, I take Violet’s hand and she swings it back and forth, back and forth. Tomorrow I’ll be at my dad’s for Sunday dinner, but today I’m here.
The things we leave behind are a miniature toy car we got at the dollar store—symbolizing Little Bastard—and two dollhouse figures, a boy and a girl, which we tuck inside an empty pack of American Spirit cigarettes. We cram it all into a magnetized tin the size of an index card.
“So that’s it,” Violet says, sticking it to the underside of the Blue Flash. “Our last wandering.”
“I don’t know. As fun as this was, I’m not sure it’s what Black had in mind. I’ll need to ruminate on it, understand—give it some good, hard thought—but we may need to choose a kind of backup place, just in case. The last thing I want to do is half-ass this, especially now that we have the support of your parents.”
On the way home, she rolls down the window, her hair blowing wild. The pages of our wandering notebook rattle in the breeze as she writes, head bent, one leg crossed over the other to make a kind of table. When she’s like this for a few miles, I say, “What are you working on?”
“Just making some notes. First I was writing about the Blue Flash, and then about a man who builds a roller coaster in his backyard. But then I had a couple of ideas I wanted to get on paper.” Before I can ask about these ideas, her head is bent over the notebook again, and the pen is scratching across the page.
When she looks up again two miles later, she says, “You know what I like about you, Finch? You’re interesting. You’re different. And I can talk to you. Don’t let that go to your head.”
The air around us feels charged and electric, like if you were to strike a match, the air, the car, Violet, me—everything might just explode. I keep my eyes on the road. “You know what I like about you, Ultraviolet Remarkey-able? Everything.”
“But I thought you didn’t like me.”
And then I look at her. She raises an eyebrow at me.
I go careering off onto the first exit I see. We roll past the gas station and the fast-food joints and bump across the median into a parking lot. EAST TOWNSHIP PUBLIC LIBRARY, the sign says. I wrench Little Bastard into park and then I get out and walk around to her side.
When I open the door, she says, “What the hell is going on?”
“I can’t wait. I thought I could, but I can’t. Sorry.” I reach across her and unsnap her seat belt, then pull her out so we’re standing face to face in this flat, ugly parking lot next to a dark library, a Chick-fil-A right next door. I can hear the drivethrough cashier on the speaker asking if they want to add fries and a drink.
“Finch?”
I brush a loose strand of hair off her cheek. Then I hold her face in my hands and kiss her. I kiss her harder than I mean to, so I ease off a little, but then she’s kissing me back. Her arms are around my neck, and I’m up against her, and she’s against the car, and then I pick her up, and her legs are around me, and I somehow get the back door open, and then I’m laying her down on the blanket that’s there, and I close the doors and yank off my sweater, and she pulls off her shirt, and I say, “You are driving me crazy. You have been driving me crazy for weeks.”
My mouth is on her neck, and she’s making these gasping sounds, and then she says, “Oh my God, where are we?” And she’s laughing, and I’m laughing, and she’s kissing my neck, and my entire body feels like it’s going to fucking explode, and her skin is smooth and warm, and I run my hand over the curve of her hip as she bites my ear, and then that hand is sliding into the hollow between her stomach and her jeans. She holds on to me tighter, and when I start undoing my belt, she kind of pulls away, and I want to bang my head against the wall of Little Bastard because, shit. She’s a virgin. I can tell by the pull-away.
She whispers, “I’m sorry.”
“All that time with Ryan?”
“Close, but no.”
I run my fingers up and down her stomach. “Seriously.”
“Why’s it so hard to believe?”
“Because it’s Ryan Cross. I thought girls lost it just by looking at him.”
She slaps my arm and then lays her hand on top of mine and says, “This is the last thing I thought would happen today.”
“Thanks.”
“You know what I meant.”
I pick up her shirt, hand it to her, pick up my sweater. As I watch her get dressed, I say, “Someday, Ultraviolet,” and she actually looks disappointed.
At home in my room, I am overcome by words. Words for songs. Words of places Violet and I will go before time runs out and I’m asleep again. I can’t stop writing. I don’t want to stop even if I could.
January 31. Method: None. On a scale of one to ten on the how-close-did-I-come scale: zero. Facts: The Euthanasia Coaster doesn’t actually exist. But if it did, it would be a three-minute ride that involves a climb nearly a third of a mile long, up to 1,600 feet, followed by a sheer drop and seven loops. That final descent and series of loops takes sixty seconds, but the 10 G centrifugal force that results from the 223-mile-per-hour loops is what kills you.
And then there is this strange fold in time, and I realize I’m not writing anymore. I’m running. I’m still wearing the black sweater and old blue jeans and sneakers and gloves, and suddenly my feet hurt, and somehow I’ve made it all the way to Centerville, which is the next town over.