Page 275 of Dante
I don't look away. "You're beautiful."
She rolls her eyes. "You've said that before."
"I'll say it again." I reach over and take her hand. Her fingers lace through mine automatically. "Every day. For as long as you let me."
Her smile softens.
"Dante—"
The train lurches forward.
Marina's grip on my hand tightens. The car climbs the first hill with a mechanical clunk-clunk-clunk that sounds like a countdown. Each click brings us higher. The park shrinks below us. The people become dots. The world becomes small.
We reach the top.
For one suspended moment, everything stops. The wind. The noise. My heartbeat.
Then we drop.
Marina screams.
Not a scared scream. A joyful one. Pure and loud and completely unrestrained. Her voice tears through the air as we plummet down the track, the wind ripping at our clothes, the force pressing us back against our seats.
I open my mouth and yell with her.
The sound that comes out surprises me. Something I've kept locked inside for thirty-six years finally breaking free.
We hit the bottom of the hill and rocket up the next one. Marina's scream turns into laughter. Wild, breathless laughter that shakes her whole body.
I'm laughing too.
I don't know when it started. Don't know how. But the sound is coming from somewhere deep in my chest, mixing with hers as we twist through a corkscrew turn.
The track banks left. Right. We plunge through a tunnel and burst back into sunlight. Marina throws her free hand up, fingers spread wide, reaching for the sky.
I watch her instead of the track.
Her hair whips around her face. Her eyes are squeezed shut. Her mouth is open in a permanent smile-scream hybrid that shouldn't be attractive but somehow is.
This is what she looks like when she's free.
This is what I want to give her. Every day. For the rest of my life.
The train slows as we approach the final stretch. The brakes engage with a hiss. We coast back into the station, the attendant already moving to release our restraints.
Marina turns to me, breathless. Her cheeks are red. Her eyes are wet. She's still laughing.
"Again," she says. "We have to go again."
I should say no. My stomach is somewhere around my ankles. My hands are shaking in a way they never do when I'm holding a gun.
But she's looking at me like I hung the moon.
"Again," I agree.
She throws her arms around my neck and kisses me. Right there in the roller coaster car. In front of the attendant and the people waiting in line and anyone else who might be watching.
I kiss her back.
