“I always try to be honest with her.” He shrugged. “My parents weren’t always honest with me. It’s what ended my father’s life.”
That made me freeze and stare up at him. He waited, staring right back. I wouldn’t ask the question, not even if he wanted me to. I knew what it was like to be asked about my parents. Were they high when their bus crashed? Did I miss them even if they were never there in the first place? Of course they must have been drinking, right?
None of it mattered.
They were gone.
“Well, it’s good we’re here.” I turned back toward the castle, covered in lights that made it shine in broad daylight. “Let’s see what the universe throws at us.”
“The universe isn’t concerned with us,piccola ragazza.” He pointed toward a rollercoaster and we made our way over.
The finality of his words sank in. Bastian didn’t think I was big enough for the universe to care about, but every speck on this planet moved the universe in a different direction.
20
Bastian
Nothing about this park was tranquil. Cade texted to say he’d meet us in an hour as walking with the stroller was taking longer than he’d anticipated. The man thought he could control everything with technology but some things he had to still navigate in real time.
Luckily, he’d managed to get us passes to skip most lines. Morina and I decided to take on the biggest ride in the park. It was well known and took pictures of the riders.
After checking the signs, I ushered Morina to the faster line. We needed our cards and fingerprints to get through but Cade didn’t disappoint and they worked fine. Even so, we waited about ten minutes.
Taking in the park while we stood in the shorter line was an eye opening experience. A man told his son to stretch taller and taller just to get on a ride.
Morina watched, wide-eyed. “Do you think he’ll make it?”
I shook my head when the devastation occurred. The park employee dressed in full get up told the son and father he still wasn’t tall enough. The father yelled, and the kid’s face fell.
“Oh, jeez.” Morina said it like it broke her heart too. Her hand had left mine after literally minutes, and now it turned those beads on her wrist.
I wanted to punch the father, if not for the kid’s sadness, then for Morina’s.
That emotion wasn’t one I should’ve had, but it looked like one I’d need to deal with for the foreseeable future.
“He shouldn’t be held accountable for something he can’t control,” I mumbled more to myself than anyone else. When a kid can’t control an outcome, their parents can’t possibly hold them accountable.
My father had. It stuck with me far more than I wanted it to.
Morina heard though. “No, he shouldn’t. His father is human too though. He's probably working through something himself. At least they’re here.”
I glanced around while the theme park music played softly on speakers above us. All these parents navigated one another, pushing their kids around in strollers, doling out food from backpacks, all with smiles on their faces. They were definitely different from the parent Mario Armanelli had been. My father would never have brought me here. This whole park was full of parents who wanted to do right by their children.
Mario wanted to train me, not love me.
“Yeah, this is not a place my family would have ever come.”
Morina moved up in the line. It was supposed to be a rollercoaster that splashed us half way through. I wasn’t looking forward to getting my suit wet but the pictures would serve us well.
She thought about it for a second, her leg jutting out so she could tap. “Maybe my parents would have if they hadn’t been so occupied with their own stuff. Not sure.”
She didn’t seem bothered at all by this admission the way she had been before. “Were your parents ever not occupied with their own stuff?”
She glanced away. Ah, there it was, the past pain we both had.
“I guess we’ll tackle family relations later in our marriage.”
The word had her snapping her attention back to me. “I think we need to decide when that should happen.” Her hair blew in the wind, flying back enough to expose her neck. There was just a hint of blush there, like she was embarrassed to bring up our arrangement.