As I made my way through Lakefront Park, my focus went out to Lake Michigan, and my fast pace turned leisurely. I was always amazed by how beautiful it was, endlessly stretching out over the horizon, unable to see the state of the same name some fifty miles across the vast expanse of water. There were only a few boats speckled here and there, and seagulls flew high in the air, where the wind currents would take them wherever they pleased.
I picked up my pace, a spring in my step, excited to see my only real friend. Naomi and I met in elementary school, and even though I transferred schools a lot, we kept in touch. Even now, I get a message from her every few weeks asking me to hang out. I have never been a very social person, but Naomi was one of the few people I actually enjoyed being around, so I jumped at any opportunity to see her.
The entrance to the Dreamland Fun Park came into view. The amusement park was built on Navy Pier and came complete with sketchy rides, overpriced games, and deep-fried foods. Most places would have closed by mid-October, but they stayed open until Halloween. Or once it started getting down to freezing, whichever came first.
Quickly finding Naomi sitting on a bench, her long, beautiful blonde hair over half her face, oblivious to everything but her phone. When I was standing a few feet in front of her, I said in greeting, “Naomi.”
Her head snapped up, and her deep blue eyes met mine; her dazzling smile just about blinded me. “Ruby!”
She stood up, immediately pulling me into a hug. I breathed in the smell of her perfume, taking comfort in her presence; any lingering anxiety from my day melted away.
When we parted, she joked, “Took ya long enough. I was about to find some other girl to go on the Ferris wheel with.”
I scoffed, “Like you could find anyone as cool as me.”
She cocked her head, thinking about it for a moment, “Guess you have a point, you are the coolest girl I know.”
Naomi normally would have bantered back, and the compliment took me off guard. Blood rushed to my cheeks, and I expected to see steam coming off my face as it warmed in the cold air.
Before I could say anything, she touched my cheek, running her finger down my jawline. “I forgot how cute you are when you blush.” Once again, she didn’t wait for a response, grabbing my hand tightly. “C’mon, I’m starving.”
Pulling me along to stand in the entry line, I wondered what was on Nomi’s mind. She had never been this touchy-feely, and the flirting? It was completely different from our usual dynamic.
Confusion was accompanied by a fluttering in my stomach; old feelings that I had long since gotten past started bubbling to the surface. Naomi had never given any indication of being gay, and as far as I know, she had only dated men. Of course, I had a thing for her from a young age; she was the first girl I ever had a crush on. I always kept it to myself to avoid making her uncomfortable and possibly ruining my one good friendship.
My hand felt cold when she let it go to talk to the bored teenager manning the entrance, and after paying, we were inside. There wasn’t much of a crowd since it was in the low fifties, and the wind chill off the lake made it feel even colder.
Naomi grabbed my hand again, fitting into mine like a puzzle piece that had always been missing. She exclaimed, “Food!” She pulled me in the direction of the concession booths.
We each got a couple of hot dogs with everything but ketchup, and a huge piece of funnel cake to share. Finding a bench to sit on, we sat munching on our food in silence, looking out at the inky blackness of Lake Michigan. The silence was unusual. Generally, we would talk and joke constantly when we hung out. I was still reeling a bit from her touch, but I knew something was wrong.
Before I could say anything, Naomi broke the silence. “This is nice. Just existing for a change.”
I smiled at her. “Speak for yourself; existing is pretty much all I ever do.”
Naomi rolled her eyes. “You know what I mean. Just sitting together, silently taking it all in.”
“It is nice,” I replied, returning her smile. “We did this a lot here when we were kids.”
“After you found that gap in the fence, we basically lived here,” Naomi replied. A smile formed on her face, and she looked off at nothing, getting lost in nostalgia for a moment.
My smile grew. “It is hard to believe we weren’t abducted, given how much time we spent alone as children.”
Naomi laughed. “Well, you were always so combative with any adult who approached us. You have saved me from more creeps than I can count.”
“Yeah, I have always been your knight in shining armor,” I said with a dazzling smile, hoping to elicit a laugh from her.
Instead, Naomi drew me into a tight hug. “You have been. You are the one thing in my life that has been there no matter what,” she said, pulling away from me just enough so she could look me directly in the eyes. “I appreciate you more than you could know.”
I could see tears starting to form in her eyes, and I wiped them away with my thumb. “I feel the same about you. Are you ok? You seem to have something on your mind.”
Naomi pulled away from me and drew her legs up, holding onto them with her face in her knees. “Have you heard about the murders?”
I raised an eyebrow, “Nothing specific, but this is Chicago, right? People are murdered here all the time.”
“This is different. The police think it’s a serial killer.”
“How many people have died?”
“Eight, all in the last month.” Then, she looked at me with tears falling out of her deep blue eyes. “Eve Sinclair was found dead last night.”
My heart sank into my stomach. Eve was a drag performer, local celebrity, and basically a saint. She was also a nurse practitioner, heading a free clinic downtown that specializes in helping people with drug addiction. Her charity drag events raised money for the poor, making her a beloved icon of the community; it was hard to believe anyone would hurt her. Let alone murder her in cold blood.
Setting the funnel cake aside, I moved closer, putting my arm around her. As soon as Naomi was in my embrace, she melted into me, sobbing on my shoulder. I held her, rubbing her back with one hand while she cried.
Naomi had idolized Eve since we were teens. She was determined for a while to become a nurse, wanting to follow in Eve’s footsteps and help as many people as she could. That ended up not happening, and she enrolled in Northwestern for business, as her parents wanted. Even still, I knew she looked up to Eve so much.
When she lifted her face off my shoulder, she didn’t pull away, staying pressed against me. “I’ve just been thinking a lot lately…”
When she didn’t continue, I asked, “About what? You know you can talk to me about anything.”
Her head curled a bit more down, so I couldn’t see her face. “Like if I died tomorrow, there would be some things I would regret not saying…to some people.”
“You should probably just tell them. Better to not leave things unsaid, you know?”
She pulled away from me and sat looking out at the water for a second. Then, she gave me a big smile, “You’re right, I should. Wanna play some games?”
Surprised by her sudden change of attitude, I said, unsure, “Games?”
She grabbed my hand tightly, pulling me to my feet and to the array of games set up along the center of the park, “C’mon. You can win me a stuffed animal.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right, I swear every one of those booths is rigged.” I let her lead the way, wondering if she was actually feeling better or if she was deflecting.
Naomi flashed a smile back at me that melted my heart. “You’re right, you are terrible at them. I’ll win you something.”
“You are just lucky that I have never figured out how you can beat them,” I said suspiciously.
“Luck has nothing to do with it; you just don't have my skills.”
I sarcastically exclaimed, “How dare you!”
We arrived at the first game booth: the classic milk bottle toss. Naomi handed the person manning the booth some cash, and the man produced some balls.
She held the first one out to me with a devilish smirk, “Losers first.”
“Give me that.” I snatched the ball from her hand, enjoying the competitive ribbing. My first ball went far left, missing completely.
“That wasn’t even close.”
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I glared playfully at her and tried again. This time, I was able to knock off the top bottle, but the rest remained unmoving.
“Are you even trying?”
My third and final ball ticked against the left bottom bottle, but it didn't budge. “That totally hit!”
Naomi stepped forward, handing the worker another bill, and they produced more balls for her. “Let me show you how a professional does it.”
Her first throw went wide, missing the mark completely.
Now it was my turn to give her grief. “Oh, what was that about being a professional?”
Naomi scoffed, “I’m just getting warmed up.” Her next throw was much better, almost taking out the bottom right bottle, but still not knocking it down.
I whistled and, as sarcastically as I could, said, “Really impressive.”
She paid me no attention and held the last ball with intense concentration; finally, she threw. The ball hit true, right in the center of the bottles, and they all came tumbling down. She raised her arms in victory and turned to me, “What about that?”
I looked at her purposefully, unimpressed. “Pure luck.”
“Whatever.” She came up next to me and placed her hand on the small of my back, running her fingers down it, then settling her hand around my waist. “What prize do you want, babe?”
Her touch had set my pulse racing, and my brain short-circuited. I didn’t even really process what she said, but caught her softly saying to herself, “So adorable.” She picked out the prize for me, “Ooh, that one looks just like Hex!”
The worker handed me the prize with a smile on their face at our cute display. I took the stuffed animal, seeing that it indeed looked like a blown-up cartoon version of my cat. I took it, holding it tight to me as if it were the most important thing in the universe.
Naomi slipped her arm in mine, taking me to the next game, which was shooting a clown in the mouth with water. Once again, Naomi summarily beat me. Having me pick out another prize, she once again put her hands on me. I was getting used to her touch, pushing back into her hand. We continued through the rest of the games like this, the competitive smack talk turning into playful flirting pretty easily.
I was having a nice time, and even though we hadn’t talked about what was happening, this felt good. Naomi was treating me like we were dating, and I was enjoying every moment of it.
After playing every game, Naomi had won me an array of cheap prizes, so we decided to go on some rides. Not really needing this many stuffed animals, we found a cute family with a couple of kids and offered them our prizes. The kids squealed in delight as they accepted our gift. We gave them everything except the stuffed cat; she was mine. The parents thanked us profusely, and we headed towards the rides.
We went on most of them, still acting like a couple of kids on a date. After the rickety wooden roller coaster, Naomi got queasy, so we took a break. After walking around a bit, we saw one of those cheesy fortune-teller machines. The machine housed a woman whose hands hovered over a crystal ball. Dressed in classic Romani garb, she waited for suckers to cough up cash for some false hope.
“We have to try it!” Naomi exclaimed as she ran over to it.
“Those things are a total rip-off. They are just loaded with random cards; it’s basically a more expensive fortune cookie,” I said skeptically.
“You are such a party pooper,” Naomi said, sticking her tongue out at me. “All right, fine, I’ll do it.”
She then inserted the money into the slot, and the woman behind the glass came to life, her eyes glowing with green light. She said with a bad Eastern European accent, “If your future is what you want to know, exactly that is what I will show.”
“How has this thing not been removed for being offensive?” I said, pressing my fingers to my temples.
Naomi ignored me and focused her gaze on the mechanized woman behind the glass. “Hear my voice and make your choice.”
The woman’s hands rose from either side of the crystal ball, and some buttons on the panel in front of the glass lit up for Naomi to press. There were four of them, and they said money, work, and love; the last had a question mark.
Naomi made her choice, grabbing the small card that popped out of the machine. “Your Future has been told; hopefully, fate will look kindly on you.” Then the mechanical woman’s eyes closed, and the machine turned off.
Naomi read the card, looked at it for a moment, then looked at me with a slight flush on her cheeks.
“What does it say?” I inquired, curious.
“Don’t worry about it; I thought you didn’t believe in them anyway,” she said, folding it. “You should try it,” she said, handing me a few dollars.
“Fine,” I said, taking the money, “But only because I want to hear more of that awful accent.” I put the money in, and the woman came to life once again. She gave her beginning line, and then I had to choose which button to press. I was curious, so I pressed the question mark.
The woman spoke once again. “You don’t know what to decide; may my wisdom be your guide.”
I pulled out the card, and the woman shut down again. I read the card, “DUCK.” I raised my eyebrows and looked around me, half expecting an axe to come flying out of nowhere to chop my head off, but nothing of the sort happened. Looking at Naomi, I joked, “Should I get a pet duck?”
She laughed, “Hex would love that. She would get a free dinner.”
Crumpling my card up, I tossed it in the nearby trash can. “That was dumb. What did your card say? Goose?”
Naomi backed away from me, holding the card behind her. “Don’t worry about it.”
I playfully went after her, trying to reach behind her back for the card. “C’mon, let me read it.”
As we played keep away, I ended up backing her into the wall of one of the booths. She was penned in, with me standing directly in front of her; our faces were inches from each other. We both stared into each other’s eyes for a moment. Her beautiful blues looked from my eyes to my lips; I couldn’t help looking at hers in return. I started leaning down towards her, thinking my heart was about to explode, feeling her warm breath hit my face.
Suddenly, an announcement came over the park’s intercom. The voice let everyone know it was eight thirty, and we had thirty minutes until the park closed.
Naomi looked at me wide-eyed. “We need to go on the Ferris wheel before we leave!”
I gave her a wary look. “Seriously? It’ll be freezing up there.”
Grabbing my hand tight, she once again pulled me along. “Don’t be a wuss!”
I let her drag me along to the Gigantic Ferris wheel that was situated at the end of the pier right next to the lake. On a clear day, you had an amazing view from the top; some people claimed to have seen Michigan on the other side of the water. At eight thirty in the middle of October, though, I was unsure of how pleasant it would be.
We arrived, and ans since we were one of the few people still in the park, the operator let us on and started the ride immediately.
The car started moving, and we huddled together. The wind got stronger as we went higher, and we enjoyed each other’s warmth.
Naomi broke the silence, “So you know what I said earlier? About having things to tell people.”
Affirming, I remembered, my heart started beating fast again. After the events of the evening, I had a good hunch as to what she was going to say.
“You have been the one person I could always rely on. Being around you is so easy; I don’t feel like I need to be anything other than myself. So many people wanted to be with me for my looks, but none of them ever really mattered that much to me. I dated them because I was bored or just liked the attention. I never gave much of myself to them because I knew it would never last…”
She trailed off for a second, and I squeezed her hand in comfort.
Naomi brought her attention to me with the saddest expression I had ever seen. “Thinking about death made me think about the people I do care about in my life. Namely, you. Then that stupid machine gave me this.” Naomi reached into her pocket and handed me the card that she had gotten from the fortune-teller. It read, What you’re looking for has been right in front of you. Naomi leaned forward, so she was sitting straight. “I have had a crush on you since you beat up Dillon Brown on the playground for pulling my hair.” As she got this out, she started crying and managed to get out. “You’re the only person I have ever wanted, and I want to build a life with you; I love you, Ruby Hart.”
She looked at me with our faces close, and I said, holding back tears, “I love you too, Naomi.” A bit shocked, I slid forward to hold her hand as she cried, and I said, “Why have you never told me before?”
Naomi looked from my hand in hers up to my face and said, “I don’t know. I’ve always been so nervous because if you didn’t feel the same way, I might lose you as a friend. I couldn’t handle you not being in my life.”
My throat tightened as tears started spilling out of my eyes, too, and I held her as we both cried. “Of course, I feel the same about you. I was always too nervous about my feelings to say anything to you about it; I decided to settle for being your friend. I thought there was no way this gorgeous girl would ever be interested in a dork like me for anything other than friendship.”
Naomi gave me a loving look. “You are a dork, but you’re my dork.” Then she brought her face close to mine. Looking at my lips as if asking permission. In response, I moved the few inches separating us, and we shared our first kiss. It seemed to last for an eternity. The noise from the people and rides melted away, and it seemed to be just us, sharing this special moment in time that we both apparently had waited a very long time for.
The Ferris wheel shifted to a stop, and we parted as both of us wiped the tears from our eyes, crying and grinning like mad women. “That was nice,” was all I could muster to say.
Naomi cuddled up next to me on the seat and said, “Yeah, it was; I can’t believe it took as long as it did.”
I giggled and said, “Better late than never, I guess.” As soon as I said that, a deep sense of foreboding grew in the pit of my stomach, and I heard a loud animal screech that seemed to bite into my very soul.
Naomi, sensing something was wrong, said, “Was that an owl? Are you ok? You got cold all of a sudden.”
I tried saying, “Yeah, I’m-” I was cut off by a loud snapping noise coming from below us.
Suddenly, the world shifted to the right as something in the Ferris wheel broke, and we were both thrown against the side. As we hit, something else cracked, and the entire right side of the car suddenly dropped. The momentum flung Naomi and me, still holding hands, into the air. Thankfully, she was able to grab hold of the armrest, and we both dangled from the Ferris wheel. The only thing keeping me from falling was Naomi’s hand in mine, and I screamed, “Don’t let me go!”
Naomi had a terrified look on her face as she struggled, trying to pull us both up. “Just hold on; I’ve got you! Can you grab onto anything?”
As I dangled there, I looked around. The Ferris wheel was at the very edge of the pier, coming out over the lake; it was currently leaning just enough that all I saw below me was inky black water a few hundred feet below. Hitting the water from this height would be like hitting frozen concrete. Looking around myself, I was way too far away to ever be able to grab onto anything. “There's nothing I can grab onto; just hold on until they get a rescue crew out here!”
Naomi had tears streaming down her face, her voice cracking as she said, “I don’t know if I can! I’m not strong enough!”
I stared up at Naomi, her face twisted in a pained expression as she struggled to hold on. If nothing changed, we would both go down. I could feel her grip loosening, and I made the decision, “If we stay like this, we’re both going to die!”
Naomi's eyes went to mine, horrified at the realization of what I was going to do. “If you fucking let go, I’ll bring you back and kill you myself!”
I smiled sadly up at her; the last thing I said was, “I love you, Naomi,” and I let go. We slipped away from each other as I plummeted through the cold night air, in what felt like slow motion.
The last thing I heard was Naomi screaming my name. As the wind roared in my ears, I saw her getting smaller and smaller. As I fell, I closed my eyes, making a wish that Naomi would have a long, happy life. I hit the water, and just like that, there was nothing.
