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  “And hanging around with other guys—”

  “Friends! Parker is a friend. I told you that. He even gave you his couch to sleep on. Do you think he would have done that if there was something going on between us?”

  “You have to choose, Megan. Me or this stupid park.”

  Chapter 22

  Decisions, decisions…

  Go back home with Nick:

  Pros: Nick and I stay together

  Cons: Too late to get a summer job anywhere; no money; will miss my new summer friends; giving in to Nick’s demands; no compromise (do I really want a boyfriend who says it’s his way or the highway?); live at home while Mom and Sarah…

  Stay here:

  Pros: Weekly paycheck; playing on the lake with new summer friends; can get to know Parker better (Will he kiss me again if I don’t have a boyfriend? Do I want him to?)

  Cons: No complaining boyfriend.

  I didn’t remember choosing. I didn’t remember giving Nick an answer.

  It was like I suddenly woke up and found myself alone beside the lake, with his words We’re so over echoing around me.

  Just like that. A snap of the fingers. We were no longer together.

  Why had he really come? Had he really thought that I would just pack up and go?

  Everything was suddenly blurry, the lake seen through a mist of tears.

  “You okay?”

  Parker. I swiped at the tears that I didn’t even realize I was crying until that moment. “I’m fine.”

  “Nick said he wouldn’t need my couch tonight. That he was driving back home. Like, right now. That’s crazy.”

  “As crazy as us breaking up.”

  “You broke up?”

  “Am I in an echo chamber?”

  Parker wrapped his hand around my arm and turned me. I guess I’d missed a tear or two because he ran his thumb along my cheek. “Is that why he came here? To break up with you?” he asked.

  “How the hell do I know why he came here? He gave me an ultimatum. Go home with him or break up. So I guess we broke up.”

  “And you’re sad about that?”

  Were all guys idiots?

  “Have you never had a girlfriend? Have you never had anyone break up with you?”

  This was a first for me, and I really didn’t like it. I wrapped my arms around my stomach. I wanted to double over. “Why does my stomach hurt? Shouldn’t the pain be in my chest, where my heart is?”

  “You need some serious heartbreak intervention,” he said.

  “What?”

  And even as I asked it, I thought I knew where he was going with his intervention plan. A kiss to take my mind off Nick.

  Only I didn’t want a kiss, not even one of the heat-seeking kind that Parker was so good at.

  “I know just the thing to make you feel better.”

  “Nothing is going to make me feel better.”

  “This will. Come on.”

  We started walking back to the house. Parker pulled out his cell phone and called someone. I couldn’t hear what he was saying. His voice was quiet, mysterious. I didn’t care.

  I didn’t care about anything. I was devastated. I couldn’t help but wonder if my mascara had run. Would people look at me and know that I’d broken up with Nick? Would they think it was my fault, that there was something wrong with me?

  Should I have gone with him? Should I have thought that he meant more to me than anything else in the world? When you loved someone, weren’t you always supposed to do what made that person happy?

  Did that mean that I didn’t really love Nick? Had I ever loved him?

  Could you fall in love then fall out of love? Did you have to be together all the time in order to stay together forever?

  “I don’t want to go into the house,” I said, as we got nearer. “I don’t want to see anyone.”

  Parker had finished talking with whomever he’d been talking to and put away his phone.

  “We’ll make a wide circle around the house,” he said. “We’re heading for my car. I’m going to take you somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  I wasn’t sure that I wanted any more surprises tonight.

  He took me back to Thrill Ride!

  A security guard was waiting for us at the entrance. I was too numb to object when the guard opened the gate and Parker nudged me through.

  “Call me when you need out,” the guard said.

  “Thanks, Pete.”

  I guess when you worked here for three summers you got to know everyone.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  “You’ll see.”

  “I am so not riding the roller coaster.” Although I was so lethargic, I might actually be able to ride it without feeling any sort of emotion at all. I was totally numb.

  “Not the roller coaster,” Parker said.

  The park wasn’t completely dark. A lot of the lights were turned off. All the lights in the buildings and a lot of the lights that lighted the path. But the lights that identified some of the more popular rides were still on. Just the signs, beaming out their names. Just enough light to see where we were going.

  I supposed I should have been excited, or at least interested, to see the park when it was closed down, but I couldn’t work up any sort of enthusiasm about anything. I’d never broken up with anyone before. To use Nick’s favorite term, it sucked. Big time.

  It didn’t help that the carousel came into view. My favorite ride. Nick had refused to ride it with me earlier in the day. “A kiddie ride,” he’d called it.

  “What are we doing here?” I asked.

  Parker dangled some keys in front of my face. “I have a master key that opens the control box for all the rides. Go get on your favorite horse.”

  I laughed, a strange sound when I’d thought I’d never laugh again. Or at least not so soon. “You’re kidding, right? Won’t you get in trouble?”

  “Only if I get caught. I don’t plan to get caught. And I don’t think you’ll snitch on me. Go on. Get on a horse.”

  He walked over to the control box, fiddled with some switches or something, and the bright lights on the carousel were suddenly shining. I was smiling when I stepped onto the wooden platform and climbed onto a horse. A prancer. Three of its legs were down, one lifted slightly and bent. Colorful, carved flowers adorned it.

  Music began to play. The horse began to move up and the platform began to rotate.

  I knew it was silly, but it made me feel good, made me happy again.

  As I came around in a full circle, I saw Parker standing there. He grabbed the outside pole and leaped onto the platform. He stepped over until he was standing next to me, holding the cranking rod that moved my horse up and down.

  “Carousels always seemed magical to me,” I admitted.

  “They are magic. The horses on this carousel were carved in the late eighteen eighties. They’ve been renovated. Think about how many people have smiled while riding them.”

  “Thank you for doing this for me,” I said.

  “No big deal.”

  Only it was a big deal. He’d known what I needed more than I’d known.

  “I’m sorry Nick hurt you,” he said.

  I was sorry, too. Sorry that maybe I’d hurt him, too, by not being willing to choose him over the park.

  “I was probably silly to think that our being apart for so long wouldn’t change things for us,” I said.

  “People do it all the time, have long-distance relationships.”

  “It’s harder than I thought it would be,” I admitted.

  “It always is, and my parents haven’t set the best example, but I’ve seen a lot of relationships weather the storms.”

  “But we barely lasted a month apart.”

  “His loss,” he said.

  But it felt like mine, too.

  Chapter 23

  It was strange to check my e-mail and not find a daily message from Nick. Not t