Beads of precipitation gather on my forehead as Elle drags me into the crowd to reach the Ferris wheel. I’ve never been on a Ferris wheel so the idea is naturally dangerous. It’s tall and high and has nearly fifty carts rotating in the air. Nick is right behind me, to make sure I don’t run away. The way we’re sprinting towards it, it feels like high school all over again. I wonder how weird that is, a twenty-year-old girl being dragged towards a Ferris wheel by her two friends. When we reach there, I look at the topmost cart; I wanna run away. Still, the man at the counter hands me a ticket and sets me into a cart, and locks it. My hands are a tight ball of a fist as I look down at him. He gives me a reassuring smile, as we give to frenzied toddlers, and goes away. The pounding of my heart accelerates as the cart rises higher. And when I turn my head to the other side, the heart is now a beast trying to escape my chest. Her twinkling brown eyes are smiling at me, and the pale hand reaches my fingers. Her brown hair is open and fluttering due to the wind, hiding half of her face behind it. “Kristen?” I have said this name after three months and the face that had been lost for all that time smiles and nods back. “You’ve gotta sing now, the lullaby. Remember? You were gonna sing that day.” She says and I start humming. And slowly those hums turn into words and I start singing. Her giggle reminds me that I’m a terrible singer but I cannot stop. Last time, I was too shy to sing and she went away for three months. I cannot let that happen again. That’s why I’m not wasting time asking her where and how she’s been all this time. As the song ends, her chortle has surrounded the entire atmosphere. Her laugh infects me and I join in. “I know I sing like fingernails on a chalkboard, but can you be a little polite?” I say and she stops. “Okay. Just look at that.” She says pointing at the setting sun. The horizon is distinctly visible and the water beneath it is gleaming like the sky that is on fire. The water is split into millions of ripples gliding along with the wind. Her skin appears golden under the warm rays of the sun, and then the cart stops making my heart skip a beat. I’m dying today! I think and her fingers knot into mine. “It’s alright. Just be here, this way.” She looks at the spectacular view in front of us, while my eyes are stuck on her mesmerizing face. A tier of her hair is tickling her cheek and she tugs it behind her ear. “You haven’t been out in months have you?” She asks me. “No, I don’t like that other side of the world. It doesn’t have you.” I said. I’ve wanted to say that for years, but today I’m not letting any word reach my brain. “It’s okay dragon, it’s all over. The world is home now cause’ it’s full of you and me.” Dragon is not my name, but she just calls me and has been doing so since the first day of school. “Look at the sun, and the water and the sky. This orange is my favorite color. Which is yours?” “I like blue. The blue that’s coming from the other side. The side beyond the sun.” I say and look at her again. She seemed distracted by the crowd below us so I followed her gaze. Elle and Nick are in the cart below us, and they’re making out. The man who shoved me in the cart is holding a board reading “MINOR ERROR. CALM DOWN.” “If it wasn’t for you, I would’ve died freaking out about it,” I say to her. “So, how have you been?” Her question is followed by many other questions like—“what’re you doing? Do you still write in that stupid journal? Did you find someone?” etc. and I answer all of them patiently. As the cart starts moving, Kristen’s enthusiasm rises and she starts talking faster, telling me things about her childhood, the same old stories, in the “Shakespeare old” English. Subsequently, she made me close my eyes like we used to, on the rooftop of our college building. She said all those things she had said just a few months ago. “Feel it, live in it.” When I opened my eyes, we were back on the ground, and I jumped out of the cart. I got thrown away by the throng waiting to get on the wheel. After about five minutes I got out of there and waited in a corner looking for her. She was nowhere seen, not inside or outside of the rabble. “ Hey, wassup?” Elle calls me and I whirl back. “Did you see Kristen? She was with me in the cart.” My eyes are still seeking her face. “Honey, the girl has been dead for three months and there was no one with you on the cart.” She answered
