“Well, I think we should probably wait until I’m out of this hospital bed before any copulation takes place,” I tell him. “Then again, you’re the doctor.”
He laughs. “I think you’re going to be fine,” he says.
“Glad to hear it,” I tell him, but I’m getting tired. Something about having a seizure just takes it right out of a person. “I hope you don’t mind, but I think I’m going to power down for a little while. It’s been a long day. I had to go to the doctor where we conducted a procedure I’m pretty sure isn’t in the AMA guidelines, and then I apparently fell down somewhere and danced like it was 1999, so I’m kind of beat.”
“That’s fine,” he says. “I’ll check in on you when I can. If I’m not here when they’re getting ready to discharge you, let me know and I’ll make sure either Yuri or I can give you a lift home.”
“Thanks, sexy doctor man,” I mumble.
If he says anything else, I’m asleep before I hear it.
***
“I really don’t think we should be doing this,” Jace says, looking up at me from 10 feet below.
“Yeah, you said that last time,” I tell him. “Are you coming up, or am I going to have to enjoy this view by myself?”
He just stands there, so I keep climbing.
It’s about 3 o’clock in the morning and I’m climbing the metal-rung ladder welded to the side of the old, broken-down Ferris wheel.
What Jace is so worried about is the fact that it’s only been about 36 hours since I was lying in that hospital bed after having my second seizure.
What I’m not telling him is that I’m terrified of heights. Up until my diagnosis, I was perfectly content to remain acrophobic, but something about having my lifespan significantly shortened made me want to change that.
In fact, if I could die without any remaining fears, that would be spectacular.
The fear of death, now that’s going to be a particularly relevant one, but I think it’s best to tackle one thing at a time.
I’m about halfway up and my heart is pounding so hard, I’m a little nervous it’s going to affect my equilibrium. Naturally, it doesn’t, but that hardly makes my anxiety go away.
Below me, I can hear the metal clang, clang, clanging of Jace as he begins to follow me up the ladder.
I’m committed now, if I wasn’t before, but that’s kind of the point.
When I was in college, I was usually the one standing at the bottom of the Ferris wheel to make sure that no security guards came by, but it was only an honorary position, achieved by the fact that I was the only one there with breasts, and I wasn’t afraid to show them.
When I reach the top of the ladder, I
freeze.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but in order to get into one of the Ferris wheel’s cars, I’m going to have to just climb up and into it.
It doesn’t make sense that there would be some magical, rail-enclosed platform, but that’s more along the lines of what I’d told myself to expect.
Jace catches up to me before long — apparently, heights aren’t such a big deal for him — but I can’t move or speak. I can hardly breathe.
“Are you all right up there?”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “I’m just trying to figure out the best way to go about this.”
“Take your time,” he says, and I wonder if he can see me shaking from where he is below me. “We can go back down if you want. I think you’ve proven that you can do this.”
For whatever reason, that statement is all the motivation I need to take a step up to the next rung and lean forward, one hand still on the top rung, the other hand on the car sitting at the top of the wheel.
I know these cars lock if you roll them too far either forward or backward, but it doesn’t seem like that knowledge is going to help me here.
I take another step up the ladder, making sure to lean as far forward as I possibly can, and my body from breasts up is over the car.