I did, and it was goddamn delicious, but it didn’t fix anything. It just made my throat feel gluggy.

“Maybe we should head off soon,” Ainsley suggested. “You look like shit and I don’t wanna get home too late. Do you think Brougham will mind?”

Brougham.

Suddenly, I remembered the extra texts that had been sitting on my phone. I scrolled through my messages. There was mine to Brougham telling him we were gonna be behind doing the rapids. A text from him saying no worries. Another text with his location. A third message asking if I was off yet. A fourth message saying things were feeling off with Winona, but he couldn’t figure out why. A fifth, with his updated location, and a plea for help. Then a response from Ainsley, telling him we needed a dinner break—she’d obviously not read his previous messages. And, finally, one more from Brougham.

Winona just ditched me

My sniffles cut off as I read his message, and all my sadness was replaced with horrified guilt and frustrated rage. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I hissed, then I picked my tray up and slammed it down on the table. “WHY IS LOVE DEAD?”

Now everyone really was staring. A few parents were glancing nervously between me and their precious, innocent children. I shot them all a dirty glare. “Don’t blame me! I’m not the one who murdered Cupid!”

“All right, let’s go,” Ainsley said brightly, grabbing me by the arm and dragging me, still loudly ranting about the injustice of it all, away from the café before anyone could call security on us.

NINE

It was getting close to dinnertime for regular people now, and the restaurants around us were filled to the brim with diners and people cutting through to get somewhere else, all lit up by warm orange lights. The music from a number of different lands all mingled together at this crossroads, a mishmash of flutes and trumpets, smothered by the chatter of hundreds of strangers. Ainsley and I pushed past several families hovering smack in the middle of the walkways as we fought our way across the bridge to get back to the entrance to Pixar Pier.

Not far from the flashing lights of the Pixar Pier sign, Brougham stood with folded arms, leaning against the stone base of a towering, Victorian-style lamppost. Behind him, flashing lights in every color reflected on the black water beneath the pier.

Leaving Ainsley, I joined him wordlessly and stood facing the water, leaning my elbows on the ornate, swirling metal top of the barrier. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“We didn’t fight or anything.” His voice was measured.

I turned around to face the same way as Brougham and leaned my back against the barrier. “Oh?” I’d been expecting him to bring up my disappearance. I guessed he had bigger things to worry about.