Heather and her friends stood in a semicircle at the edge of the bounce house line, frowning and rolling their eyes at the seeming success. Sharon stood next to Heather, intently staring across the parking lot. I followed her gaze to Del and Summer and prayed she wasn’t going to try to cozy up to her ex since Jess wasn’t around.

Mark was seated next to me, and he leaned over. “I’m so proud of you. I know it wasn’t easy to be in charge of all of this, especially with everything that went down this summer.”

I gave him a grateful smile. “Thanks. I didn’t think I could pull it off, but here we are.”

He leaned in for a kiss, but before our lips could meet, a strong wind blew across the parking lot, sweeping the tickets off the table.

I had just bent down to pick them up when another gust, this one stronger, made the tickets scatter across the asphalt. I’d stood up to collect them when I heard screams.

My head snapped around the parking lot—booths were swaying, and the signage was nearly horizontal to the ground, the thin metal stands bending in the wind. The balloon arch swayed dangerously back and forth.

“I thought it was supposed to be sunny today,” I said to Mark as my heart began to thud in my chest.

He looked bewildered as he began to rise from his chair. I stepped away from the booth as another gust of wind came through. This one, though, was sustained, like an enormous fan had been turned on. Hair blew backward as the booths began to fall.

Then, two things happened. The balloon arch began to pop, loud bangs echoing like gunshots as children started to scream. Worse, though, the bounce house started to lift off the ground.

“Oh my God,” I shouted as I watched the four workers struggle with the lines and sandbags that were supposed to keep it grounded. “Mark!” I said before I broke out into a sprint toward it. As I ran, I frantically searched for Jack. He had been in line just moments ago, but I didn’t see him. Melissa and Tony huddled around Emily and their children, protecting them from the debris whipping through the air.

I was nearly hit by a flying lollipop as I ran toward the bounce house. Instead of dying down, the sustained gust grew stronger. The bounce house lifted off the ground and fell to its side, the screams of the children inside and the parents clouding my vision. My hair blew back in the wind, and my skin felt like it was being rubbed by sandpaper, but I kept running.

Mark sprinted ahead of me, reaching the bounce house, and began to wrestle it to the ground. A worker began to reverse the inflating mechanism. The yellow and red sides began to wrinkle as it slowly sank to the ground.