When Old Dreams Fall Away

One minute and twenty seconds later, the coaster rolled back into the station.

Only then did their hands quietly come apart.

Mason was still buzzing, waving his arms around, the tips of his ears bright red.

"My heart rate hit one-fifty back there. That was insane!"

Avery laughed at him. "Same."

They went on the way they always did, talking over each other about how wild it had been.

I listened to it with cold sweat drying on my back.

Then Mason turned around. "Lucas, what about you? I didn't hear you scream once."

"I—"

I stalled. I hadn't worked out what to say yet.

Mason sneezed.

It was barely a sound. Avery heard it anyway.

She had her jacket off and around his shoulders before I could blink, scolding him the whole time. "I told you not to ride a coaster in a tank top. Now look at you. You're freezing."

"Worth it. That was fun."

He looked straight at her and raised one eyebrow, so slightly you'd have missed it if you weren't watching.

The next second I watched the color climb from Avery's cheeks all the way to her ears. Her lashes fluttered. Her eyes went everywhere except to him.

Maybe it was the leftover weightlessness. Maybe it was the sting of being betrayed.

Either way, the sight of the two of them tilted the ground under me and turned my stomach.

"Avery, my blood sugar's crashing..."

I crouched down, hurting, and put out my hand toward her.

Nothing came back.

When I looked up again, she and Mason were already thirty feet ahead.

In the sunlight her shadow stretched out long, drifting closer and closer to his, farther and farther from mine.

A park employee got me back on my feet and pressed an energy drink into my hand.

"Sweetheart, if you're here on your own, make sure you're looking after yourself. Hope you have a wonderful day. And happy birthday."

I gave her a thin smile and touched the birthday pin on my chest.

Today I turned twenty-five. Since the minute I'd walked through the gate I'd lost count of how many employees had wished me a happy birthday.

The two people closest to me in the world hadn't managed half a sentence.

My phone buzzed. Avery had dropped a location pin.

Get over here! We've got a surprise for you!

My fingers curled. I sat with it a long time. Maybe some part of me was still holding out hope, because in the end I typed one word.

Okay.

When I got to the pin, a dozen or so couples were up on the stage, Avery and Mason among them.

The sign beside them was impossible to miss: COUPLES' COMPATIBILITY CHALLENGE.

Couples? Compatibility?

I looked up, dazed. The host was already reading the first question.

"What day of the month does she start her period?"

"The eighteenth!"

Avery and Mason said it in the same breath.

"Slow burn, or love at first sight?"

"Love at first sight!" Same answer again.

A few rounds in, ten couples had been cut down to three.

The host lifted the last card. "What was your partner wearing the first time you met?"

"A blue-and-white dress. The color of the sky." Mason's eyes crinkled, and he looked at Avery like she was something precious.

Avery nodded, shy about it. "He had on a black basketball jersey. He'd just come off the court. He smelled terrible."

Mason laughed. The host laughed. The whole crowd laughed.

I was the only one who couldn't, because my chest hurt like something in it had been cut.

The first time those two met, I was in a hospital bed with a cracked rib after passing out from low blood sugar.

Mason stood at the foot of it and laid into her. "What kind of girlfriend are you? If you can't take care of my best friend, I swear I'll never forgive you."

Avery held my hand and apologized over and over with guilt all over her face.

For a month the two of them ran themselves ragged around that bed. Water, medication, meals, errands.

My body hurt, but I remember being happy.

So that was it, then. They'd fallen for each other standing over me while I was flat on my back.

My getting hurt was the thing that introduced them.

The guy next to me elbowed my arm and pulled me out of it.

"You came on your own too, huh? God, look at those two. You can see it in the way she looks at him. That's love."

"They're so sweet. I'd kill for a girlfriend who looked at me like that."

I looked at my girlfriend and my best friend up on that stage and managed a thin smile.

"Yeah. It'd be sweeter if she wasn't my girlfriend."

"Wait, what?" His eyes went round. "She's your girlfriend? And you're standing here taking this?"

I was quiet for a while. Then I said, softly, "Not for much longer."