We are safely strapped into a ride that hundreds of people ride every day for, you know—for fun. I’m sure this pelican thing happens all the time. No big deal. We’ll just wait for them to shoo it away, and then we’ll get this done.”
“That’s just it, though,” I said, panting now. “I don’t want to get it done. I want to get off.”
“We can’t get off,” he said. “But the good news is, this scary roller coaster seems about average for scary roller coasters.”
“That’s not comforting.”
“I’m just saying, once we get going, it won’t be so bad.”
“I don’t ride scary roller coasters, okay?”
“What? Ever?”
“Pretty much never.”
“So why are you here?”
“It just kind of happened, okay? I was having fun. I wasn’t paying attention.”
Silence from next to me. Then: “You’re only here because of me?”
“Yes,” I said, in a voice that was half frustrated sigh, half eye roll. And then my explanation came out fast: “Babette told us to do it, and you seemed excited about it, I got caught up in the moment, and I wasn’t really thinking.”
“That might be the nicest thing anybody’s ever said to me.”
“Okay. But I think I’m having a panic attack.”
“What makes you think that?”
This came out sarcastic: “Um. Might be all the panic I’m feeling.”
“Fair enough.”
“Hey,” I said then. “I need to warn you about something.”
“Okay.”
I sucked in a tight breath, and said, “It’s possible that at some point I might wind up having … a seizure.”
“A seizure?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Anytime, really.” Then I amended: “Probably not now. But possibly. Who knows?”
He said, “Could you elaborate, please?”
I looked up at the sky while I said the words. I watched the stars, and they watched me back. “So…” I said then, keeping my face turned up, “I have epilepsy.”
“Okay.”
I sped up a little, to get it over with. “I mostly had it in grade school. It was very bad then—I had a lot of seizures—like at least one a month—and sometimes they happened in school, and if you’re wondering if little kids think epilepsy is cool … they do not.”
“You got teased.”
“Teased. Ostracized. Shunned. All of it. Everything. The worst part was—with a grand mal seizure, first you go completely rigid, like everything in your body goes as tight as it can go, and then you go completely limp, like a rag doll. And when I was little, though this doesn’t actually happen to me anymore, I used to lose all control of my bodily functions.”
“Oof.”
“Yeah. Not great in a school situation. I basically had no friends. At all.”
“I’m sorry.”
“But when I got older, the seizures went away. We found a medicine that worked, and then we slowly weaned me off of it, and I was fine. Middle school—less frequent; high school, college—nothing. Totally normal. I thought I was cured. But then it came back just after I moved here.”
“Why did it come back?”
“Nobody knows. Just happens sometimes. And it’s much milder now—like once or twice a year. I don’t even take medicine for it, because the medicine has lots of side effects.” I glanced over. “That’s why I don’t drive.”
Duncan nodded.
“I just try to control it by getting enough sleep, and eating right, and … you know … making good choices.”
“Are those things enough to control it?”
“No. Yes. Kind of.”
Duncan nodded.
“Eating no carbohydrates at all helps some people, so I eat that way. And I don’t drink. And I get enough sleep, and drink enough water, and basically try to keep my life pleasant and drama-free. Because one of the biggest triggers for seizures?”
“Roller coasters?” Duncan offered.
“Stress,” I said.
Duncan shook his head. “What the hell are you doing on this thing?”
“Not my best-ever decision.”
Duncan nodded, like he was really getting it all now. “Because if you were to rate the stress-inducing level of the Iron Shark on a scale of say, one to ten—”
“Twenty.”
“Gotcha.”
“So. If it happens, don’t freak out.”
“I’ll try not to.”
“I’m not going to swallow my tongue or anything—that’s not a real thing. After it’s over, there’s a phase where I go limp. Please just make sure I’m okay to breathe. And when all that’s over, I get really tired—just sleepy and exhausted beyond belief. If you could just help me home, that would be awesome.”
“Shouldn’t I take you to the hospital?”
“Nope.”
“But you had a seizure.”
“If you had a seizure, we’d go to the hospital. But it’s normal for me. Same-old-same-old. No big deal.”
Duncan frowned at me. “Okay. I’m going to help you not stress. I’m going to distract you.”
“How?”
“Did you know I invented