The space between us is plenty.
By the time we're back on solid ground, it feels very little like it. Nothing under our feet has been stable since the first time we stepped from the sidewalk to the sand, but we keep walking anyway. The back of my hand brushes his now and then, and I think we’re making a lap around the carnival to avoid making decisions about anything else.
"You called me your friend today," Jamie says after another minute. "Twice."
I remember introducing him that way and forget when else I might have said it, but I trust his ability to count to two.
"Is there a better word for what we are right now?"
“I suggested that once—that we be friends. You weren't sure you could do it.” He doesn’t waste more time reminding me of things I already know, but he slips further away from my side. "We don't really talk."
"We don't. You said I'm not allowed to tell you I miss you—that I'm not allowed to tell you I hurt like you do. And sometimes it'shard to know what else to say."
"Is that what I left on your voicemail? On New Year's? I know I called you, but I didn't—it was late and I—"
"And you were drunk."
"It was New Year's," Jamie says again. "But you stopped saying those things anyway."
"Probably because you were right."
"So, we can be friends as long as we lie about how we feel?"
I stop short at that. There’s an omission technicality, but I don’t point it out. “Do you think we’ve lied today?”
“I haven’t,” he tells me.
“Good. Neither have I.”
A couple of toddlers run past us, chased by their tired parents. I smell popcorn and fries. Then a mob of teenagers—Harper and Lizzie nowhere among them—giggles and pushes and shoves and laughs as they tumble by. It’s all so normal, and as soon as there’s room to do so, I follow, speeding up like I can have more of that and less of whatever made me stand still.
Nothing is wrong. Jamie and I are no worse off than we were before. But after we’ve walked another several minutes in relative silence, it makes perfect sense that we find ourselves in front of the funhouse without having spoken about it first. As long as we're unsteady, we might as well get lost in an attraction designed for it.
The darkness is abrupt, but it could be good for us. The narrow halls put Jamie just behind me, and the first moving walkway is enough reason for his free hand to land at my hip. He takes it back just as quickly, and we climb wobbly stairs before walking through a spinning tunnel and past mirrors that stretch us out or squash us down. There's a ladder we can barely trust, and more metal plates shifting beneath our feet, and then we run into another series of mirrors—literally, actually—a maze welcoming us with maniacallaughter piped through a speaker overhead.
I think I laugh too, collisions impossible to avoid when we don't know where else to go. Some kids scurry past us, and then we're alone for another minute, Jamie using those precious seconds to push his body against mine. With his chest to my back, we're facing a mirror we'll need to sidestep eventually, but for now, I freeze. It's the first time I've seen us together, and even this blacklit visual is enough to choke me up.
We're gorgeous like this. We'rerightlike this.
Jamie moves us anyway.
We land further away from the exit, staring at each other in a corner that will do no good for fair-goers who want a way out. We’re still in public, but nobody could capture a decent picture among the mirrors and darkness, and it leaves us with a bubble I’ll deny we’re in, and makes it so the time we spend together doesn’t count.
Again.
My back is pressed to the glass, and I’m the one more likely to break when Jamie reaches for my head and uses one hand to pull my hair tie free, a stuffed carnival prize still dangling from the other.
"I like when it's down like this," he says, his voice heavy from a day that should’ve been weightless.
I try to smile. "Not a fan of the ponytail? Or the tiny man bun?"
"I'm a fan of everything. But when it's down, it's like you've let something go. Like you've stopped caring so much."
"I care about everything."
Jamie nods and tugs on my hair, watching closely to see what I'll do. My hands move to his waist, and he whimpers when one of my thumbs finds another hole in his t-shirt, brushing bare skin there for the second time today. The speakers continue to crackle with something almost hysterical, and my thumb keeps moving. I know I need to push him away, but he grabs my wrist.
"Please don't," he begs. "Not yet."