Cross Country Hearts by Suzanne August

Nine

“Seventy-six rides in total.”

“Tell me again why you wanted to go to Hersheypark?”

I look up from the pair of tickets I’m holding. Jasper stands beside me. This is the closest we’ve ever stood next to each other, and I’m struck by how tall he is, even slightly slouched over with his hands in his pockets. His attention is on the park before him, and his eyes are wide saucers. He looks almost overwhelmed.

“It’s Hersheypark,” I emphasize.

“Yeah, and?”

I shrug. “This place is massive. My sister has been telling me stories of this place ever since she got to go with her friends in high school. She promised she’d bring me someday, but that was before she moved out of state for college.”

Jasper makes a sound of acknowledgment in the back of his throat, but I get the feeling he’s only registered half of what I said. I begin to notice that not only are his brown eyes wide, but he looks a little too pale. He asks me, “How many roller coasters does this place have?”

I smirk. I’ve done my research. “There’s fifteen. Seventy-six rides in total.”

He finally graces me with his attention, and I don’t think he’s taken this news well, because if anything, he looks even paler. “You’re not going to make me go on all these, are you?”

“What, the roller coasters?”

He doesn’t respond, though he does scratch his cheek in a movement that belies how uncomfortable he feels.

My smirk widens into a marvelous, amused grin. “Are you scared of roller coasters, King?”

“No,” he objects, but he emphasizes the single word so strongly that not even a two-year-old would believe him.

“You told me it wasn’t heights you’re scared of.”

The corners of his mouth dip into a faint frown, and before I realize what I’ve referred to, he replies, “People can be scared of roller coasters without being scared of heights.” He returns his attention to the busy park before us and grimaces. “You can ride them. I’m not going to.”

“I wasn’t going to make you ride them, King.”

“How graceful of you, Pierce.”

I sigh, crossing my arms. “What are you going to do then? I might want to be here all day.”

He shrugs.

“You can’t wander around the park all day.”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t.”

“Pierce, you’re the one who wanted to come here. I’m only tagging along.”

I laugh, and it may be the first time I’ve ever genuinely laughed at something Jasper has said to me. “Are you kidding me? You’re forced to be here. I’m the driver.”

He gives me a dark look. “Are you trying to throw that in my face?”

I shake my head, and then something occurs to me. I didn’t like art museums before yesterday, and today Jasper doesn’t like amusement parks. I could fix that. “You know what, King? You dragged me to the Met yesterday, and while I’ll probably hate admitting this later, it turned out to be cool. So, I’m not going to let you do whatever the hell you want here. You’re going to experience the thrill of a roller coaster.”

“No,” he deadpans, voice emotionless, expression steel.

“You can’t say no.”

“I just did.”

He starts walking away, but I lunge forward, grabbing his wrist before he’s completely out of reach. I try to tug him towards the closest roller coaster. “Come on. You can’t get out of this.”

He glares at me, trying to pull his wrist out of my grasp. “I’m not going, June.”

“Live a little.”

“I’ve lived quite a lot, actually. And,” he begins, warily turning his attention from me to the roller coaster I’m trying to lead us to, “I’d like to keep living.”

“Jasper,” I say, and because he’s stronger than me, I let him pull away from my grasp. He takes a couple of steps away from me, like somehow putting any distance between us will save him from my sudden determination to make him experience how wonderful amusement parks are.

I place my hands on my hips. “You were the loner weirdo of our school. I don’t count that as living.” I jerk my head in the general direction of the park. “This? This will introduce you to some living.”

He harrumphs. “The ‘loner weirdo’ was a nickname you popular people gave me.” The way he says popular makes it clear he’s mocking me. “And just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean I don’t have a life.”

I grin. “Prove it then.”

His eyes raise to the sky. “If I go, will you leave me alone for the rest of the day?”

“Sure,” I say, completely honest. “Besides, I don’t know how long I can stand being in your presence.”

He thinks about that for a moment. “Yeah.” He nods once. Then he returns to studying the roller coaster ahead of us. He looks completely intimidated, and when I think he’s going to continue refusing, he says, “Fine. Let’s go.”

“Great!”

~.*.~

“Seriously?”

Jasper doesn’t respond, which is understandable since he’s leaning over a trashcan and puking his guts out. I stand beside him, enduring the curious gazes of the people around us just as much as he is, though I’m more aware of them. When he’s done throwing up, he straightens but keeps his head lowered. He takes huge, gasping breaths.

“You’d think,” I start, “that someone would’ve said something if they know they have bad experiences with roller coasters.”

“It’s been a while,” he rasps. His eyes turn to the roller coaster before us—the one which we stood in line for more than a half-hour. Jasper’s face turns green, and he ducks his head over the can again.

“You’re not going to throw up again?” I ask.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“No.”

“We didn’t even ride the damn thing!”

He glares at me.

I throw my hands in the air. “We stood in line for more than half an hour! And then one look, Jasper, one look, and you’re puking your guts out? Who the hell is still scared of roller coasters at this age?”

“Don’t say anything if you’ve got nothing nice to say,” he croaks. He’s trying to mock me, but it falls hopelessly flat while he’s still holding onto the trashcan for dear life. He can barely catch his breath.

“Oh, shut up,” I say. Then I take mercy on him and pull some tissues from my purse. He doesn’t thank me when I hand them over, but the expression he wears tells me he’s eternally grateful to see a tissue.

“We’ve been harassing each other all day,” I remind him. “Remember the last hour in line? We were getting looks from people with how many insults we were throwing each other.”

It’s true. Some people even looked mortified. Thinking back on it, I’ve started to realize that while Jasper and I are throwing more insults at each other than ever before, we’ve started to take them less and less personally. I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but it does mean we’re having less heated arguments. And that can only be beneficial to our survival because otherwise, one of us would’ve killed the other by now.

Jasper snorts, throwing the tissues into the trashcan before pushing away from it. He starts to pull something from his pocket.

When I realize what it is, I exclaim, “Hey! You can’t smoke those here.”

“I’m not going to.” He pauses. Then he pushes his box of Camel cigarettes back into his pocket without having ever pulled one out. “Never mind. People are going to have the same reaction as you.”

“Well, yeah. You’re not supposed to smoke here.”

“There are smoking areas, you know.” He gives me an unamused, pointed look. “Besides, when have you ever seen me smoke?”

“Actually,” I begin, crossing my arms, “I’ve seen you smoking in our high school’s parking lot plenty of times before.”

His eyes roll. “When have you seen me smoke any of the cigarettes since we left Boston?”

He has a point there. “So what? You quit?”

“Does that please you, Miss I-don’t-usually-care-unless-you’re-in-my-car? And,” he adds, “it’s kind of hypocritical since I know you smoke.”

“I don’t smoke cigarettes.”

“Pot is worse for you, you know.”

“That’s up for debate.” I shrug. “Part of the teen experience, anyway.”

“It’s still hypocritical,” he insists. “You’re being judgmental over cigarettes.”

“I’m not judging you.”

He stares at me.

“Okay, a little,” I admit. I shift on my feet, unwilling to explain my reasons because I do have reasons for disliking them, and I don’t think they’re bad ones if a little over the top. “I can’t help it, King. Besides, I haven’t said anything before now if you don’t count the time you had one in your mouth while in my car.”

“What’s the deal?” he asks, and at least the question sounds more sincere than the annoyance that was lacing his tone moments earlier. Although that might be because his throat is sore from the whole throwing up thing. “Is this part of the whole ‘you don’t know me’ thing?”

“I guess,” I hedge, not sure at all how I should answer that. I sigh. “Look, I’ve just always had a thing against cigs. It’s for me. I’m not going to ban the people around me from smoking. Georgia smokes, you know.”

“Really?”

I nod. “She usually quits in the winter, though.”

She’ll complain that she’d rather not get frostbitten fingers just so she can have one. She can’t smoke in her house; if her parents find out, they’ll kill her. And of course, you can’t smoke in school.

“Besides,” I go on. “You can judge me for doing all the other stuff, like smoking pot, all you want. I don’t care.”

“All right. I’ll do that.”

“Seriously, King?”

His lips pull back into an amused grin. “Hey, you’re the one who gave me permission.”

“Whatever. I don’t even know why we’re still discussing this.” I gesture to the roller coaster, wanting to move on from the subject. “Well, if you can’t go on that, then what can you go on?”

Jasper looks up at the roller coaster with a hopeless expression. If anything, his hands rummage deeper into his jean pockets. He admits, “I don’t go to amusement parks often.”

Help me deal with Jasper King, I plead to myself. He’s worse than me when I was at the Met. “You told me you had a life.”

“I do.”

I sigh. “Is there anything you’ll go on?”

“You said you’d leave me alone after the roller coaster.”

“I said I’d leave you alone if you went on the roller coaster,” I correct. I wave a finger at him, and he doesn’t seem pleased with the motion. “Besides, amusement parks aren’t meant for one person. You’re supposed to go with friends, and since Georgia and Melanie aren’t here, I guess I’m going to have to settle with you.”

He places his hand over his chest. “Gee, I feel so honored.”

I shake my head. “Look, there’s a lot of things to do here. There has to be something you can do.”

Jasper shrugs, and because I’m not a natural at teaching someone to like something they normally wouldn’t like—like how Jasper showed me the cool side of the Met—I’m forced to roam around the park looking for something to do. I’m starting to think I’ve come to Hersheypark only to waste money on the entrance fee and waste time on a stupid road trip that shouldn’t even be happening.

And then Jasper points to a ride called Starship America. “That one.”

“What?”

Eight thin polls rise from the center of the ride, proclaiming Starship America in bright, energetic red. Blue poles radiate out, each one attached to white spaceships. The red, white, and blue colors scream how patriotic the ride aims to be, living up to its name. The most important detail, though, is that it looks like a kids’ ride.

Jasper nods. “I think I can manage that one.”

“It’s…” I’m about to say stupid, but we’ve been here for over an hour and haven’t been on one ride. So, I guess this one is better than nothing. My shoulders drop, but I say, “All right. Let’s go.”

Getting into an enclosed space with Jasper King is hard; it’s already hard enough being in the same car with him, so having to sit next to each other in one cramped ‘starship’ is even harder. We try to sit as far apart as possible, but my leg presses against his, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Despite the contact, we still argue over how high we can ‘fly’ the ship, which is manual.

When we get off, Jasper’s skin has gone sheet white, and his hands shake. I ask him if he’s going to throw up again.

“No,” he says. “No, I’m not going to throw up.”

“Okay,” I say slowly, not convinced. “So… how was it?” He glares at me for what has to be the one hundredth time today. It’s amusing. To me, anyway. “Can I remind you that you’re the one who suggested this ride? It wasn’t even scary.”

He sighs, passing a hand over his head. “Can we get something to eat?”

I study him skeptically. To be honest, with how pale he is, I’m surprised he hasn’t thrown up again. Or at least dry heaved since he’s probably already thrown up everything he had for breakfast. “Are you sure you can hold it down?

“Not entirely,” Jasper admits. “But I haven’t eaten anything since this morning.”

I think about that. “Good point. Let’s go find some food.”

I’ve found that the only thing Jasper and I can agree on is food. It’s surprising to me since I more or less assumed that Jasper and I would never see eye to eye on anything. But over the past few days, when we’ve had to make stops for food while on the road or pick something for breakfast, we’ve agreed pretty quickly where to go. Mainly, we don’t like fast food places, and we both love burger joints and have sweet tooths.

This is why we find ourselves eating ice cream, french fries, and s’mores for lunch. We grab a table in one of the outdoor dining areas, and for the next ten minutes, we eat in silence. I wish suddenly that Georgia was here. She’d be willing to go on any of the rides with me.

“I’m surprised you’re eating the ice cream.”

My eyebrows furrow, and I stare at Jasper. “Why?”

Jasper shrugs. “I’ve heard Melanie complaining about her weight and telling everyone to watch their own.”

I stare at him.

Jasper shoves a french fry into his mouth.

“Melanie’s not obsessive, but she does watch what she eats,” I finally say. “And besides, I’m not Melanie.”

His eyebrow arches. “You’re not?”

I hate how he can raise one eyebrow, and I can’t. I scowl. “You don’t need to remind me that you think I’m Melanie’s obedient soldier. It’s not true, King.”

Maybe, in the heat of the moment, I agreed with Jasper yesterday evening when he accused me of changing myself to fit in. And while part of me agrees… the other part of me rebels. I don’t want to think of myself that way, and I don’t want him to think he’s right.

Jasper smiles, but instead of replying to me, he moves another s’more onto his plate and digs in.

I groan. “Can’t we be nice to each other for once?”

“I could agree with that,” Jasper begins, wiping his mouth with his napkin, “but I don’t really have anything nice to say.” He digs for another spoonful of ice cream. “I know nothing about you, anyway. There’s nothing we could discuss.”

At least he sounds earnest when he says that and not mean. I fall silent because he’s right. Sure, I know Jasper is on the swim team, that he draws, and that his cousin is marrying my sister. But I don’t swim, I hate his paintings, and I’d rather not think about how, in a couple of days, our families are going to be forever linked.

Jasper is right. We know nothing about each other, which is another reason this road trip is likely to fail. But I don’t want it to.

I’ve never been the person to take the first leap. On that account, I suppose Jasper is right. I’ve always been Melanie’s follower, indifferent to what I want because Melanie has always provided a safe path. Yet, I feel that if I’m going to survive days on the road with Jasper, we’re going to have to start getting along, and I mean really start getting along.

Enough of this shaky truce we have going on. I take a deep breath, hiding my shaking hands under the table. “So… tell me about this life you claim to have.”