When May finally arrived in her big truck, she didn't get any water and the area for her enclosure hadn't been staked out in advance. The only open grass patch that was available had had trucks rally over it and no shadowy spot at any time of day. Pete forgot to arrange for people to help him set up and so May had to wait in her stuffy trailer for some accommodations to be made for another hour or two after the two day long journey.

I walked by the truck two times because I couldn't stomach the thought that no one was here to greet her but also didn't want to intrude on Pete's business. The third time I came by, I finally couldn't resist her eager stomps. The trailer swayed with her nervous movements but no one was there to ease her. So I did.

"Hey, big girl." I said, effortlessly finding the voice that always worked with her. "Long time no see."

I was close to tearing up when she stuck her trunk through the gaps of the battens to beg for the travel carrot she hadn't received yet.

"I don't have one for you, sorry."

Sulky, she trumpeted once and retreated.

"Sorry, big girl." I lensed through the gaps and found a horrible mess of dung and the hay she was supposed to snack on during the trip. Clearly no one had bothered to clear out the trailer in the two days. "We will get you out of there soon."

Another trumpeting.

"I know." I told her in the most confident tone I could muster. In the end, I couldn't help her. She wasn't my responsibility and it wasn't my right to voice an opinion. But I could try.

I waited an hour for Pete to show up and then act as if I hadn't seen him coming.

"What you doing here, Ruskin?" He had a rough voice from all the smoking he did and balding white hair. I hadn't seen him perform in the ring for ages and his frail posture wouldn't suggest he'd cut a fine figure. There was little space for old men in the spotlight.

"I was just checking on her. She always gets anxious during long rides."

He grumbled and lit a cigarette. After taking a puff, he relaxed. "It sure was hard work to get her in there. Took five of us."

I took a deep breath at the thought of some workers ganging up on her. If there was one person whom I didn't want to show my sadness to, it was him. "Really?" I began and pretended to ponder. "She's usually a very good girl. Very obedient."

As if May knew, we talked about her, she squeaked and the trailer wobbled even more.

"Oh, so it's just that she doesn't like new people." He blew the smoke away from the trailer and rubbed his bulbous nose.

"Probably." I had to admit.

"A shame that you don't want to work with her any more."

I ignored his taunting and let my anger fade before I changed subject.

"Do you need help setting her up?" I tried to sound casual. "Maybe it would help her warm up to you."

Now it was on him to let me wait. He took ages finishing his smoke, pretending to be in deep thoughts while I pretended not to care. I was fully prepared to be brushed off and already thought of a new plan to keep me near May but he surprised me.

"The others are shitting their pants and gave all kinds of excuses why they're busy right now. You're in. How many people do you need?"

"As many as you need to set up the fence. I take care of the rest."

While Pete was off to gather more helping hands and ram the fence posts into the ground, I took care of the trailer and May. Gave her water and cleaned out the hay. I could tell, she wanted to play the same intimidation game she had put on for the others, but we quickly found our rhythm again. She moved when I moved and she played even nicer when she finally got her carrot. Once I was done, I stomped the shovel on the ground two times - The call to attention I always used to prepare her for her exit.

"Best behavior!" I pointed the handle at her and she flapped her ears playfully. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the men gathering at a safe distance.

I called for Pete. Since I was only here to help, he needed to be the one she was fixated on from now on and it would be unwise to appear like I disregarded the Boss's ruling. Threatening his authority was probably the last thing you wanted to do.

The moment Pete stepped next to me, May charged at us, almost toppling the trailer with her force. Quickly, I stepped in front of him, arms high and spade higher.

"Hey, hey hey! Drop it, May!" I tried to act firm but also keep my training voice. If she saw fear, she'd play on it and exaggerate even more. Once she relaxed her ears, I dared to inch forward. "Relax, big girl. We're going to get you on the pasture."

She flailed her head and stomped backwards, getting ready to charge again. I stopped my pacing, she relaxed a little more. I threw away the spade and her movements became smoother, more balanced. She even took the time to look at her surroundings.

"Did you chase her with the spade?" I directed my question at Pete.

"Might've."

"Don't do that. She will learn to hate it and you'll have to scoop out the dung with your hands."

He huffed in response. We waited until May came to us. Once I got rid of the spade, it only took a minute for her to find back to her usual self, even enough to ask for another carrot.

"You scared the crap out of Pete." I scolded her and she tried to argue with me.

"No carrots for bad girls." I smiled and petted her trunk.

She patted my head with her trunk once and asked again.

"Don't apologize to me."

Grudgingly, she walked over to Pete who did his best not to stumble backwards in fear, patted him on the head once and instantly asking him for a carrot.

"You need to give her a carrot. She apologized."

He did.

When she willingly walked into her not yet finished enclosure, Pete dared to come up to me again.

"How do you talk to it like that?"

"Well, I acknowledge that she has her own will and that her will mostly consists of carrots and pets." I joked and put the spade back into the trailer. "After that it's mostly arguments about not doing stuff. But when you get her excited and when she likes you, it's fair game."

"And how do you get her to like you?" Pete seemed discontent with using a human pronoun on an animal but I liked that he still tried.

"Patience. And… Carrots." I laughed and threw him a handful. "And don't threaten her. Because she's smart. She knows that she's bigger than you."

"Sure thing." he was hesitant and wiped his forehead with his forearm.

We walked over the pasture together and I decided to take another leap to probe a little more. "What are you going to do with her at the show?"

He sneered and the full weight of his desperation found its way to his face. "I don't know what that elephant is capable of and I can't even get her to enter the trailer."

I offered to show him her tricks, reassured him as much as I could without really reassuring him. If he found the courage to handle her without me, the whole hoax would be over.

We spent until late afternoon on the pasture while a handful of men completed the fence around us. I showed Pete some of her easiest tricks like lifting her foot and putting it on a bucket. Basic tricks she needed to know for us to care for her. Then I jumped right to the most difficult ones. The ones where you worked with your own body. Rolling, Jumping off of her, balancing on her. I asked if he wanted to try. His response was "Fuck no. I'm not getting on that thing. She tried to kill me a day ago."

All went great.

When the fence was erected, he asked me to postpone the try-outs until tomorrow, I agreed gladly. One more day of making myself useful was safe. He was waiting and carefully watching how I finished up the enclosure with May's help. She strutted after me every way I went and helped carry heavy objects. It had taken us years to get to this point and I had to force my smile to cover the ache in my chest at the thought that I was on the verge of losing her once and for all. She carried her water trough out of the trailer and waited next to it until it was filled with water. Every time I turned my back to her, she sprayed me with the water I had filled up and pattered her feet in excitement.

For her, everything came back to normality again. Everything but my mood. She so desperately tried to summon my playful mood with her tricks but I couldn't fake more than a strained smile.

When I'd finished, I took more time than usual to say my goodbyes to her. In the back of my mind, it could always be the last.

"See you tomorrow." Pete yelled over the pasture on my way out and I gave him a tired wave. My act could only be kept up a limited time and I had felt my self control slipping more and more with every hour. I wanted to hide under my blanket and cry until the stress of the day relinquished its grip on me. But I was met with another distraction in front of my trailer door.

"What are you doing here?" I hesitantly approached Patrick, not really sure how to handle the first real encounter again. It felt like years since our imprudent escape and I had so much on my mind. His presence felt different.

"Hello to you, too." He laughed and instantly went for a hug. Why wouldn't he? Resigned, I buried my face in the curve of his neck and tried to force my insides to relent their turmoil. A childish voice tried to talk me into blaming it all on him. He beguiled me into running away, leaving my responsibilities. I did it with him, maybe even for him and for the ridiculous dreams he bewitched me to have. And it was only me who paid the price. I had to live with the consequences. Me and my family. But he, he could turn away any time he wanted to. This childish part of me screamed unfair through every vein in my body and it was so very hard to ignore it.

"Is your tent up already?" I asked dutifully and leaned back as far as possible without seeming too awkward. If I was sure it wouldn't hurt him, I'd retreat my hands and create the distance that I so desperately craved. Just for a moment. A second of not forcing myself to not feel all my emotions.

"You've been crying." He deduced and swept my hair behind my ear. A gesture so soft, it woke the worst fit of shame I'd ever had to suffer.

I shrugged and tried to pull my lips into a smile while he eyed them so attentively. "Not since yesterday."

He misjudged my efforts and pulled me into a harsh kiss. I tried to ease into him but it felt too much like an apology for me when it should be me who apologized. Before I fully realized, he retreated already.

"I can't stand it when you lie to me." he muttered with closed eyes. I furrowed my brows as if in pain. As if he'd stabbed me with his words. My bitten lip begged him to not push me over the threshold I so terribly tried to keep up. But still, he commenced. "And I can't just stand by when I know I can make your situation better."

I finally freed myself from his arms and pushed him away in the process. "That's why you're here? You want to make it better? It's too late for you to make it better, Jane! Everyone made their judgement already and I am the one who's guilty. Not you. Never you. I should not have left like that. I know that now. But they're punishing me – Me and my family – for something we both did. They're punishing me, so please for the love of god, let me deal with it."

I raged so much that I was completely out of breath once I was finished. When my rant was over, I just stared at him, slowly realizing that what I had so carefully stored away, came lose no matter my struggle.

He looked as hurt as I felt. It took a lot of shame and false pride for me to not take back what I'd just said when I looked into his eyes. My attempt to find anything familiar in them were futile. I imagined him looking at his father the same way and it broke my heart.

After everything I'd said, he remained somewhat calm. A characteristic he surely had to refine with his difficult upbringing.

"You are angry at me because I'm not the one dealing with the consequences but you also don't want me to do anything to deal with them. I don't know what you want, Angela." He was very good at keeping his voice even but a slight quiver made it through his carefully set up control.

"I don't know – I don't know what's best. I'm this close to losing everything. Actually I already lost it. And only a miracle could bring it back to me. The Boss was about to sack us, you know that? My family has been with this fair for generations." I breathed against my shaking voice and the surge of sadness that tried to overcome me again. "The one thing he offered me as retaliation was becoming a spec girl and I will not – never do that. You've seen how terrible townies can get. We're barely humans to them." It took me a moment to get rid of the bitter taste in my mouth when I thought about the morning meeting. "I hoped we could run away from all the chaos for a moment but I hadn't for a second dreamt of it becoming worse when we get back. It's so much worse."

I'd rarely seen Patrick look so disgusted by a narrative. He barely let a second pass when I'd finished. Vividly shaking his head, he confessed:

"You can't demand I'd just stand by while all this is happening. Don't ask me to just wait and watch you suffer, because I can't. I will not let them do this to you or your family. Don't exclude me from the consequences like all the others do. Let me help!"

I watched him pour his heart out and beg me to reconsider and it caused me physical pain to utter my next plead. "I can't let you make it worse, Patrick. Please. Stop pushing me."

He wouldn't relent. Instead, he brushed up to me, putting his hands on both sides of my neck like he wanted to kiss. "Don't you see that it will only get worse if we don't fix this together? If we appear weak now -"

"They will never forget. I know." I tried to evade eye contact, feeling his spell working on me again and my sense slipping. I felt the delicious drug flow through my system, ridding me of every doubt and fear.

"Let's show them we are strong."

I hesitated with all my might. But I felt the dream rekindle. The dream of a better future for us. A feeling only he could paint so lively in front of my eyes that I couldn't resist.

"Trust me, Annie."

Finally, I nodded and he rewarded it with a kiss. His lips so desperate for hope that I got high on it.

"What do you think of doing?" I asked timidly when he retreated.

"Having a very important talk. With your father." His smugness reappeared as fast as it had gone and before my cheeks could lose the color of his kisses, he had already knocked on the door.

Effortlessly, he pulled me by his side, holding my hand tightly, and sternly ignored every objection I could come up with in the minute it took my father to reach the door. Patrick stepped into me to avoid the swinging net and wing but he didn't let it show.

The moment my dad registered Patrick, his face went blank with anger. "Angela. You have two seconds to tell me why that scrub is blocking my door before I rip him a -"

"Mr Ruskin, I came to talk to you and I will not leave before we spoke." Patrick wasted no time explaining himself and the way his voice was steady and strong made my knees weak.

My father watched me for any reaction and I tried to put on my best puppy eyes to convince him to give Patrick a chance to talk. Even if that was the only thing I could do, being just as confused as he was.

"Fine." he agreed but didn't bother to invite Patrick in. He just let go of the door and disappeared into the dark of the trailer.

I exchanged one terrified look with Patrick before we entered and that was all the consolation I'd get for the next hour.

Patrick was wonderful. He explained our situation and why I had to go with him, generously excluding me flirting with a townie. But he made the possible threat seem so believable that even I didn't question our decision. He declared his intention to date me and treat me well and he did all that presenting as an equal to my father. Not once did he use any kind of deception or manipulation and hadn't we been sitting in front of my dad, I'd jump on his lap and kiss him until tomorrow for the way he carried himself. It was a thing of such beauty and enticement that I had never considered possible.

My father took a long time to weigh all the information he's been given but we came to the conclusion that actions needed to be taken to revert all the trouble. He also said he'd have appreciated it if I'd come to him first but considering the circumstances I didn't dare to negate his wish.

I also told them both about my plan to cheat my way back into caring for May, maybe even performing with her again and they agreed with my reasoning. But there needed to be extra steps taken for the two faults in this plan.

Firstly, the Boss. We all knew if we tried to go behind his back, we were out. So he needed persuasion.

Secondly, Pete. An old man scared of losing his hard earned place in this world so late into his life. We couldn't risk dragging him into trouble. But we also couldn't succeed if his fear hindered us.

We had three tasks for three people. Everything needed to work simultaneously or the carefully crafted plan to safe my family would come crashing down. The next few days would tip the balance. Everything or nothing. The performance of our life.

Thank you guys for commenting and coming back to my little story after a two year hiatus. It means so much to me that people are still interested in reading. Thank you!