The Misadventures of Anna Cabbot

Freefall

Two Weeks Later

"This is the stupidest thing I have ever done in my life."

Anna rolled her eyes. Thom laughed so hard he choked; Jamie thumped him on the back. Carson crossed his arms over his chest and stared down the approaching rollercoaster train like it had personally offended him.

"If you really don't want to do this you don't have to," Anna reminded him. She leaned against the metal railing dividing the platform into different lines for the coaster seats. It was her idea to sit in the front row — if they were going to do this they were going to do it right, damn it.

Still, the last thing she wanted was to cause him actual distress.

"I want to do this," he said again. There was a stubborn tilt to his jaw she didn't see often, though when it appeared he had all the flexibility of a goddamn boulder.

"Okay then."

"You'll be fine, I swear," Jamie added.

"No shitty made up statistics about rollercoaster fatalities." Carson nervously rubbed the back of his bicep.

"Cross my heart."

"Same, pal," Thom added. He then fixed Anna with a look as they shuffled over to have a seat on the coaster. "Are you allowed to do this?"

"Yeah. I consulted my cardiologist. He said he hoped I had a good time." She pulled Carson's shoulder restraint down, then took his hand. "Relax."

"Sure. Relax. Yeah. This is fine. This is totally fine."

"We're right here with you, buddy," Thom called from behind them.

"This was a bad life choice," Carson muttered.

"There's still time for you to say no," Auggie — Jamie's youngest sister — said from the queue. She had her arm looped through Hudson's. In his other hand was his phone.

"Huds, are you recording this?" Jamie asked.

"For posterity," he said with a grin. "Fishy'll wanna look at it later."

Carson's head snapped around. He paid zero attention to the ride attendant checking their safety restraints and more or less yelled, "What?"

Hudson blew a raspberry at him as the ride began to move.

Carson squeezed Anna's hand tightly. Down and to the left, by the fence, was a row of familiar faces. Stevie stood next to Auggie's girlfriend, Livvy — a pretty good with brown skin, dark brown eyes, and long black hair she had up in a ballerina bun. On Livvy's other side and sporting a sun hat more at home in the grandstands of the Kentucky Derby was Erin. Adele and Nigel waved maniacally at them while Les stood with his arms crossed over his chest, grinning widely.

"How you doin' up there, Carson?" Jamie yelled as the coaster clicked up the lift hill.

"Bad life choices, Jamie! Bad life choices — oh, my God." Carson had evidently looked at his feet and discovered the coaster was floor-less. They'd neglected to tell him that happy fact, and he apparently hadn't noticed until then.

"Breathe, Carson," Anna said.

"This is how I die." He waved his free hand around loftily.

"Yeah, but what a way to go."

"You're not helping."

Anna cackled.

The front of the car reached the end of the lift hill and started down. Gravity pulled her and Carson flush against the restraints. He grunted, eyes impossibly wide.