Maeve Fly by Cj Leede

Author:Cj Leede
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Thrillers, Psychological, Horror, Fiction
ISBN: 9781250857859
Publisher: Tor Nightfire
Published: 2023-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

XXII

One day every other week we get one extra-long break at work. I change into casual clothes and take a walk through the park. Kate usually joins me, but today she has to talk on the phone to Derek about the upcoming role. I spotted bruises beneath her collarbone that she shrugged off and said she did not remember receiving. I started to push the issue, but she laughed it off, and Cinderella entered so I left it alone. Kate likes rough sex, so it’s likely nothing more than that. Still, maybe we’ll talk about it later.

I walk through the faux Hollywood now, the miniature Los Angeles built here with the Theater, Backlot, and Farmers Market. This city built to feel like the park. This park built to feel like the city. I stroll past the highest-end dining establishment of the adventure park, and to what I know to be the best section.

If Little Hollywood is Los Angeles in miniature, then the bear peak section is California in miniature. A small mountain wilderness here in the park with national park–themed merchandise, towering pines, real and fake boulders. It feels, insanely, as though the air is fresher here than in the other “lands.” This is usually the least crowded section of the park and always the most beautiful. Sure, it attracts a particular brand of high-sock fanny-packed visitor, but it also attracts me. I nod my chin to one such visitor who is actually security in disguise. They place them all around the park, dressed as tourists, watching and noting nearly every person’s every move.

The main draw, besides the enormous stone bear-shaped peak at its center, is the twisting and turning water ride that promises to soak its passengers every time.

I stand before it now, but the water is drained, the attraction momentarily down. Apologetic signs posted. Kate and I used to come and stand in a particular walkover viewpoint from which we could see the exact moment the families and solo riders were sprayed. We would place bets on who would laugh, who would squint their eyes, who would lean over and away, screwing over the people sitting next to them.

I am brought back to a particular moment, one that I am often reliving.

Standing on the viewpoint by myself. The day before, my grandmother had not emerged from her bedroom in the morning. I did not know if I should leave her or go inside. She had never failed to wake early, but she was capable and strong, and who was I to comment if she chose to sleep in a little? Hours passed, and by the time I found her and then the ambulance came, she was unresponsive. My grandmother, the pillar of my life, my entire foundation, lay in a hospital bed at Cedars in a sudden-onset coma while I stood on this viewpoint trying to contemplate what a life, even in the short term, without speaking to her could possibly look like. Contemplating whether I could go on living in a world without her in it.

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