Infinity Read Free Page B

to.’
    ‘I want to,’ she said firmly, switching the lion to the other arm.
    ‘Because it might be scary.’
    ‘I want to,’ she repeated.
    ‘Okay,’ he said, in the kind of voice that was usually accompanied by a shrug. As if he doubted this, her conviction. But
as I watched her face, the careful way she studied the ride as it came to a stop, I envied her for knowing exactly what she
wanted. But it was easy when you’re little, I figured. Not so many choices.
    We got on the ride, and as Anthony pulled the safety bar towards us I craned my neck round, watching to see if the little
girl would get into the next seat. She did, without hesitation, planting her lion next to her and laying her hands in her
lap, as if she was only getting on a bus, or sitting in a chair, the world to remain always solid beneath her.
    As we started moving, Anthony wrapped both his hands round mine and kissed my neck. I closed my eyes as we moved up, higher
and higher, our seat rocking slightly. The Ferris wheel was higher than I’d thought and, staring down, everything seemed to
shrink to a pinpoint. I could see the steeple from the
church on my corner in the distance, beyond that the lights from the football fields. From up high, everything seemed closer
together than it actually was, as if the further away you got, the more the world you knew folded in to comfort itself.
    Anthony was sliding his hands on to my stomach, moving one to the small of my back, one down my waistband, murmuring in my
ear. We were still rising, higher and higher, and someone was screaming a few cars down, but I told myself it wasn’t that
little girl, not her. In my mind, I saw her solid face, her absolute determination, and refused to believe it would be so
easy to sway her.
    We were at the very top when I looked down and felt dizzy. Anthony was pressing against me, his fingers digging, hardly caring
that this was not the place, not the time, so determined was he to win whatever it was he wanted so badly, that seemed so
ideal, at least as long as it shrank back from his grasp. All those nights at the beach, when I’d pushed him
away, I hadn’t known exactly why, just that it hadn’t felt right. But as my view from high up narrowed, I realized that my
relationship with Anthony had done the same, going from a wide endless horizon of possibilities to one pinpoint of a destination.
I wanted to have choices, to know that I could, at any moment, still take the long way home. Sure, there was a quick way to
anywhere. But sometimes, when you took the shortcut, you missed the view.
    ‘I love you,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘I want you.’
    But it wasn’t enough, this time. Maybe later it would have been, but as I pushed him away, I knew that time would never come.
Winning might not have been everything, but Anthony was tired of losing at this game. If he couldn’t have me, he’d find an
easier prize.
    The ride hadn’t even come to a full stop when he pushed the safety bar away from us. It rattled, loudly, and sent a ripple
of force through my metal seat, an echo I felt in my bones. Then he stomped down the
stairs to the sideshows, pushing past all the people lined up for the next ride while I climbed out slowly, taking my time,
telling myself to pay attention to how the earth felt beneath me and not take it for granted any more.
    I’d driven, and Anthony was gone, lost in the crowd of sticky wrappers and screaming children and all the voices of the game
workers, their coaxing and wheedling like a swarm of bees hovering. When I finally got to my car, it seemed like everyone
was leaving at once, a long snaky trail of brake lights leading out to the main road.
    I pulled up behind a pickup truck and then sat there, moving forward in tiny increments, watching the traffic light up ahead
drop from red to green, then climb to red again. Even though I’d only been driving for a couple of weeks it already felt more
natural. Things that before I’d had to think about