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“Kris, you… you did all of this, because you love me… right…?”
The only response Kris gives Noelle is silence. This is the closest they’ve been in years, riding upwards on the festival ferris wheel, but still it feels like the last bit of space between the two of them is impenetrable, a solid wall of ice.
Still, Noelle needs this. She needs to say this. It feels silly to confirm, when she’s wearing the Thorn Ring they got for her dutifully. What would it be other than a commitment, a guarantee that they’d be together forever? That they wanted to make up for lost time? Why else would they be on a ferris wheel, together, like they told her they would?
“Well, um, I… I love you too, Kris. I’ve loved you ever since we were little, really; I’ve missed you ever since we stopped talking. So… so… thank you for this. Thank you for everything, Kris. I’m so… so… happy, right now. I don’t know if I’ll ever be happier.”
The cage’s windows have fogged up, Noelle notices; the fall air must be especially crisp, today. But if nobody’s looking in, then maybe, just maybe, she can make Kris give her a reaction.
She leans across from her seat to Kris’s, her palms pressing into the cold metal on either side of her childhood friend, and closes her eyes as their faces draw close together. The sort of picture-perfect, teen-movie first kiss she’s always dreamed of, two lovers at the highest point of a ferris wheel… but before it happens, it’s gone before Noelle’s eyes. Kris’s cold, cold hand presses back against her chest, pushes her back to her seat.
She can’t bear to open her eyes, to break the spell, but Kris’s heavy breathing and a mumbling “Don’t, please…” does much the same.
She’s not loved, not even wanted, Noelle realizes, alone together at the top of the world. Noelle was right. That was the happiest she was ever going to be.