Get Over With

Sweating, Frankie and Katie walked away from the ride in pain, leaving without the slightest compensation.

“Are you… feeling alright?”

She asked the girl the same pointless question again, staring futilely at her unmoving mask. Katie simultaneously looked more happy than she’d ever been and like Atlas giving his last breath as he let the world drop.

Frankie almost jumped when she started giggling.

“I… get it now…?”

She blinked. Katie was shivering.

“Got… what?”

“Ew… I think I want to throw up again.”

“Oh, god, are you not feeling well? Here, let me get you to a bathroom-“

“No… no. I mean, I get what you always said now.”

Frankie seized up. Katie was still joylessly smiling, but- she could see from here that everything inside her had turned to infuriated, putrid bile.

“About… what?”

“Something about… hating… theme parks?”

Katie collapsed to her knees. Frankie saw droplets of water hit the concrete beneath her face as she started loudly laughing, causing a scene.

“Katie. Katie, Katie.” She leaned in to hold the girl, put a hand on her back. “It’s okay. Tell me what’s wrong. What is it?” She acted like she was comforting her, but she was really only soothing her own fear as the girl broke down.

“I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

Frankie recoiled as her sister let her hands slide off the ground, allowing her nose to bash against it again as her head fell.

“Katie!”

She assisted the girl in getting up, only for her to do it again.

“KATE!”

She forced her sister around so that she was staring up at the white fluffy clouds with her red-covered, gray-speckled, brown-dotted face.

She looked up at those clouds with a big dumb smile still stapled to her face.

“I really hate these places now…”

Frankie started crying, hugging her tight as the girl then mumbled something.

“…get… over with…”

She couldn’t hear her under the sound of her own sobs.