Member-only story
Who’s Going to Hold You When You Scream?
She’s Got a Ticket to Ride
Cate wound through hordes of sunburned vacationers. Up ahead were her aunt’s friends, old enough to know better, but young enough not to care. Blue-lipped from chomping cotton candy, they dared one another to dangle hundreds of feet over the ocean on a ferris wheel that should have been retired decades ago. They laughed, marveled at dumb side shows, and kept telling her this was as good as it gets in Ocean River, New Jersey.
Amusement parks were for little brats.
Being dumped at her Aunt Elayne’s house for the summer?
What parents do when they can’t handle a sixteen year old who wants to know what’s wrong with her sister and why they keep crying.
She hated her parents.
She hated amusement parks.
She didn’t know yet if she hated Aunt Elayne, but maybe her, too.
How were these twenty year olds her friends? Why did they hang out with a forty-something year old woman?
Because Elayne had a beach house on the water.
Because Elayne was stupid generous. She fed them, gave them places to sleep, and paid them to do gardening, cooking, and cleaning they never did.
