Chapter 43: Like the Starry-Eyed Girl I Am
** Harper **
In the end, Eli won the fight, mostly because Harper wasn't really trying anyway. It was embarrassing to let him keep those pictures, true, but on the other hand, she secretly liked the thought that the two of them got to share the same picture frame again after so many years.
It turned out, however, that Eli's mission didn't stop there, and he ended up working hard at it for the rest of the evening — one by one, they checked every roller coaster in the park off their list, and he had no qualms buying all the photos that resulted from the adventures. Harper expected that by the time they returned home, there would be three dozen emails waiting for them with idiotic snapshots.
"I can't believe you," she exclaimed in a reeling state of residual high as they exited the gate of Tower of Scream. "My expression is exactly the same in all these pictures. Is there really a point in getting all of them?"
"Of course, it's the collector's edition." Eli was practically glowing with satisfaction. "Besides, you don't look exactly the same. There is a clear correlation between how wide your mouth opens and how tall the ride is. Too bad we don't have the pictures from ten years ago, otherwise we could've determined how much remodeling the park has gone through based on that data."
Harper pinched his arm. Eli grinned with a fake ouch.
"The place did change a lot, didn't it?" She mused at the topic, her mind slowly coming back down to the world around them. "There are a ton of new rides now. Even this walkway feels different. Must be new too."
They were strolling aimlessly along the channel as they spoke. The wide promenade was covered in smooth cobblestones and lined by short bushes trimmed into lively animal shapes, no longer the narrow, crowded footpath from what they remembered. Beside them, the ocean splashed and foamed, so close to their feet that Harper had a brief moment of illusion that they were simply drifting on the waves.
Or maybe it was just her head still spinning from all the thrill she hadn't felt in years.