Disclaimer: I know this doesn't really have much Phantom stuff in it, but I still don't own it, and yes, I do say Oy vey, I'm not Jewish, but I have friends who are and I picked it up from them.

It was a fairly typical day by Northeastern Ohio in September standards: warm, sunny, just a bit of a breeze. I wasn't thinking of that, though, as I followed Dave Savarnich out to his car. I was only thinking of another day:

Raining, windy, with no hope of sun. The day I had met this crazy maniac, back in May.

Despite my predictions, though, it did eventually stop raining, after a two-hour bus ride took us all the way from C.F. to Sand. in north-central Ohio. Sand. is right on the lake, and home to one of the best amusement parks ever, according to my friends. I had personally never been there. But that's what we were there to experience, on this day long trip.

When we got off of the bus I went with my friends: Lourdes, Liam, Willard the Annoying Science Nerd, and Joel my Algebra class partner. Also with us was one of Liam's other friends: Dave Savarnich. I had seen him around school but didn't really know him. He seemed like a loner, but a harmless one. Unremarkable. Everyone knew he went by Dave, but Lourdes kept calling him David. She was sometimes formal like that.

As we stood in line to pay for a locker to put all of our excess raincoats and CD players in, Dave and Liam entertained us with their thoroughly random ways of talking. I looked over this new guy, this 'older man' (as he was a sophomore to my freshman at the time) one more time and saw a certain attractiveness that I had missed before.

I have this fear of roller coasters that I've never been able to cure. I can't even look at one without freaking out, so I've certainly never ridden on any besides the kiddy coaster that one time at a carnival that came to Ak. when I was six. That was the one that terrified me. But here we were, and with the exception of a few water rides and rides meant more for younger kids, roller coasters were all there were.

"The I.D. isn't that bad," Liam told me. "It's not even like a real roller coaster. It's just like a high-speed sky ride."

But looking at it I didn't see Liam's description at all. I saw something that tilted back and forth and would make me sick. "Oh, come on," he said. "Don't be such a baby." Lourdes gave me similar encouragement, but without sounding so mean. But then I saw her queue up with Liam-- of course she'd want to use today as a way to get closer to him.

"You gotta ride," Dave said. "You can kill me if you don't like it." I swallowed and nodded, thinking, Dave, you're a dead man.

"So, who are you gonna ride with?" Dave asked me when our group got closer to the front of the line.

I looked at the other possibilities. Willard- noooo. Never. He'd probably develop a crush on me if I showed the slightest bit of niceness to him. He did on Lourdes. And for some reason I just couldn't picture my first roller coaster ride with the boring Joel Hammer. So it was Dave. "You, I guess," I said. "After all, you said I could kill you..."

He laughed. "If you're scared you can always... hold my hand."

Now I was attracted. I took him up on the offer, for that ride, for every ride. At the end of the day we got back on those buses and I spent some time flirting (and trying to tell Willard to sit in the empty seat in front of me so I could talk to Dave easier).

So what changed? I thought. Why did you begin to hate him?

When I got home and signed online, there was an e-mail waiting for me from Henry Ischmer-- my long-time crush. He was a college freshman in Ox., in southern Ohio, studying art history. He probably didn't even know about my crush, and just thought we were friends. But we had been e-mailing for a while, just to talk.

In this particular e-mail he told my about how he was writing it while studying under a big tree on campus-- the way he wrote made it sound so beautiful, and I was once again completely in love with him and completely disgusted with myself for my flirtatiousness earlier. I took a long shower and tried to forget Dave Savarnich.

I suceeded. But he didn't forget me. He would try to talk to me, between second and third periods, when I was at my locker (right across the hall from his religion class). After a few days of that (including once when he ended up following me downstairs when I could barely walk because I was wearing three-inch-tall wedge sandals and all I wanted to do was escape from him) I decided to just lug my first through fifth period stuff with me until lunch. I couldn't stand him. I couldn't stand the embarrasment in admitting that I had forgotten Henry for those few happy hours.

So now, yes, I cannot stand Dave Savarnich. My bit of embarrasment has transformed itself into full-blown fear and hate.

Which doesn't explain why I was getting into his car. Maybe I was tired of being afraid. Maybe I felt that, as Phantom and Christine, we needed to have some connexion. Maybe I just didn't want to wait around until four-thirty for a ride. Whatever it was, I got into Dave's car: a big red Plymouth Montana minivan. The liscence plate said it was from P. county, which made me laugh: my history teacher, Mr. Leon, had said many times that P. County was full of "Blue-collar, redneck, white trash people." Certainly gave me another reason to never think about liking Dave. The back of the van was decorated with the name of a business (I assumed) and a Masonic symbol.

Oy vey, I thought. What am I getting myself into?

"Mizuage," he said.

"Eh?" I asked.

"It's Japanese. It's what I call my car. Mizuage."

"What does it mean?" I asked.

"I'll never tell," he said, teasing me.

"Fine," I said. I would not allow myself to be interested in anything he did. If he wanted to give his car a freaky Japanese name and not tell me what it meant, it was fine by me. But then something occurred to me. "You're Japanese?" I asked him. He didn't look Japanese, but who knows? Liam's Japanese, he just happens to look more Irish.

"No," he said. "I'm Polish and Slovakian. I just really love Japanese stuff."

"That's cool," I said. Cool? I thought. Since when is that cool? But then my other voice chimed in and said: Of course it's cool, you moron, who was the one who watched Rurouni Kenshin obsessively when it was on Toonami last spring? Doi.

He laughed. He had a nice laugh.

After the first stoplight, between W.L. road and S.C. road, he stepped on the accelerator like he was trying to kill it, and we were off like a rocket. "What the fuck?" I yelled. "This is a minivan, not some NASCAR thing!"

He laughed. "She thinks she's a race car," he whispered, as if trying to keep 'Mizuage' from hearing. "I treat her as such."

I shook my head. Why was I doing this?

By the time I got home, I felt physically ill. My stomach can only take so many NASCAR-style jackrabbit starts. All I wanted to do was lie down with a cool glass of water and read the newspaper. Because that's what I do, being a news junkie and all. But when Dave stopped the car, he leaned over to me and said: "You're hilarious, Nelia. I like your voice." Then he opened my door for me and I slid out. As I passed by his half-open window (Mizuage's air-conditioning was on the fritz), I felt I couldn't leave without saying something.

"I like your voice too," I said, heart pounding with every second his car was there in my driveway for all the world (or at least all my super-snobby hometown) to see. "Thanks for the ride."

"No problem."

He drove away, and I knew relaxing was going to be totally out of the question.