Only Tonight

Two | Only Darkness

Two | Only Darkness

When suddenly the ferris wheel stopped to a halt, I didn’t panic. I thought okay, well, maybe they were just stopping it for a while to let us enjoy the view of the city. Or maybe because since we were the last ride of the night, we were getting special treatment—an extended ride. That all made sense until I looked out the window and saw that almost all the rides had stopped and I could barely tell if the blobs of darkness were a person or a pole.

“Well, it looks like we might be here for a while, Paisley,” said Landon, the first person to speak after a silence of observing what the hell was going on.

I looked at him and saw that he hadn’t moved an inch since we halted. Did he really not care we were stranded hundreds of feet up in the air?

“You think we’ll be alright?” I asked tentatively. I didn’t have a problem with heights—in fact, I almost liked them. I was afraid of darkness though. Just the thought that maybe the light wouldn’t come back on for the rest of the night and we’d be stuck.

Landon didn’t look down but he did look across and said, “Don’t worry, look.” He pointed out to the luminous city. “It’s just the carnival out. They’ve probably already got tech support helping out right now to get us down.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “you’re probably right. The circuits must’ve been jammed from so much use or something.”

“Yep,” he agreed. “Just relax.”

So, I did. I didn’t have to worry. The lights were probably going to come back on any second now and it didn’t hurt that we had a whole beautiful view of the city since we had stopped right at the top of the ferris wheel. It almost felt as if we were looking at a painting of some sort instead of the actual thing.

What did worry me were all the suspicious and disappointing things happening.

First, my friends ditched me to go on a stupid ride. Second, I waited in line for the ferris wheel only to get rejected when it was my turn. And now there was a blackout? Was it the universe telling me that I was a screw-up in love that I might as well stop trying so hard because I was going to go nowhere? After finally managing to try out this magical ferris wheel, I seemed to be getting signs that maybe it wasn’t for me.

I pulled my legs up onto my seat to get more comfortable. The whole cart shaked left to right as I did. It kind of felt cool, being dangled in the air in the dark.

“Please,” Landon whispered. I looked at him, remembering he was there. For some reason, in my head, I pictured riding the ferris wheel alone so it was hard to get that illusion out of my head. “Please stop moving.”

And then I noticed how pale he had gotten. “Oh my god, are you afraid of heights?”

He winced as I moved in surprise to my new revelation. “No, of course not.”

“Oh,” I said. Then, I moved my legs again and crossed them, sending the cart moving very gently. “Then you won’t mind if I move around? Stretch?”

Landon’s eyes remained shut as he drew in a breath shakily. “No…,” he said. I tested that by bending to my right to stretch my arm and Landon squeezed his eyes as we moved again. “Okay, fine, I give up. I’m afraid of heights, okay? Go on and laugh.”

I did. I let out a rude howl of laughter. “That’s really funny.”

“Why? A lot of people are scared of heights.” His lips were a straight line.

“Because you look like this badass guy with your fake white hair and your piercing and your headphones in your ears at all time,” I answered, smiling, “and then we get onto this and the minute it shakes, you can’t even breathe properly.”