Read Online How to Keep Rolling After a Fall by Karole Cozzo - Free Book Online

hide my blush.
    When we’ve run out of game tokens, Pax asks me, “So what’s your favorite ride?”
    I answer immediately. “The pirate ship.”
    He rolls over to the ticket kiosk and returns a minute later, tearing off four tickets and handing them to me. “Do it up.”
    â€œNo.” I shake my head. I bite my lip and get sort of twitchy. “It just doesn’t seem right,” I finally say.
    â€œNicole.” Pax braces his arms on his chair and looks at me sternly. “If we’re gonna hang out, there are going to be some things you can do that I can’t. It is what it is. My world’s limited in some ways, yeah, but there’s no sense in trying to equalize it by giving up things you like.” He pushes the tickets toward me again. “Ride the ride.”
    â€œFine.” I give him my poster to hold and accept the tickets. “But you have to hold Justin for me.”
    His eyes crinkle at the corners. “Yeah, that’s probably going to take the cake for the biggest indignity I’ve suffered. Catheter changed by strangers? Pssh. Nothin’ on this.”
    O-kay. So maybe he’s not flirting with me after all, bladder control not being the sexiest of topics.
    I head toward the giant ship because going along with the idea is better than thinking about Pax’s lingering medical issues and needs. It’s also better than acknowledging that maybe I prefer the moments when it feels like he’s flirting.
    And ten seconds into the ride, I’m glad he forced the issue. I haven’t done the rides all summer because of my imprisonment, and there is an intrinsic delight in being hoisted high into the air and having my stomach go crashing to the ground at the exact second when I hang in the balance before the boat swings in the opposite direction. I try to bite back my squeals, and sometimes fail. I love every minute of it.
    The smile is nearly splitting Pax’s face when I return. “It was fun watching you.” He nods toward the giant Ferris wheel with the gondolas. “Want to do that one? Use the rest of the tickets?”
    â€œThat’s okay. Let’s just do another game or something.”
    â€œNah, come on. The Ferris wheel. I can ride, too.”
    At first I’m surprised, but after we ascend the ramp, I realize this ride does work for Pax. The doors are wide, and he can wheel right onto our little car from the ramp. Once his wheelchair is braked, he’s as secure as I am.
    Our ascent to the top is slow, and it is several minutes before we’re overlooking all of Ocean Isle: the now-deserted beaches, the length of boardwalk, and the lights of the other beach towns—Atlantic City and Margate and Stone Harbor—in the distance. The ocean is as quiet and calm as the town, an entirely different scene than it was months earlier. Ocean Isle during the off-season sometimes has the feel of a ghost town.
    â€œIt’s kinda funny,” I comment. “Every year it’s the same thing. During the summer, when the town is overrun with tourists, and it’s impossible to get a parking spot near the beach, and the line for Decker’s Doughnuts is a mile long, I think I can’t wait for Labor Day. Then everyone leaves, and I hate how empty and lifeless the town feels. Staying here when no one else does. Always makes me feel like I missed the boat or something.”
    â€œHas your family always lived here?”
    â€œYep. My great-grandfather, he was one of the original owners of Bingo’s,” I tell him, referring to the chain of five-and-dime stores that eventually sprang up throughout the beach towns.
    â€œGet out of here. You really are an Ocean Isle girl, then. The old-money kind. Member of a founding family and what not.”
    â€œIt gets worse.” I smile at him. “I was Little Miss Tan Line. In 2004 and 2005.”
    Pax’s head falls back, and he laughs mightily.