The night after was terrible. After what had been the most thrilling hours of my life, there followed the cold reality of my continuous heartbreak. The delightful blindness we had preserved in Patrick's trailer vanished once we reached the street. From the moment we left the coziness of our hideout, we had heard the subtle voices but thought nothing of it. We were too blinded by bliss.

Patrick held my hand, spun me around, grabbed my waist. His hands were all over me as if he hadn't touched me enough yet. Even the rain had stopped for us. We crossed the parking lot with no worries on the horizon, no space for doubts and we reached the street to reencounter all the crumbling hopes and dreams of our people.

The courtyard of our Motel was crowded by every person on the carnival while no one was sitting on the benches. Patrick and I exchanged one look before he dropped my hand and we grudgingly joined the ominous gathering. Mariah found us first, even before we reached the crowd. The look she gave me was both unreadable yet significant but she looked away before I could investigate further.

The voices we had before assessed as a normal conversation turned out to be the unnerved complaints of multiple groups that had all simultaneously decided to get some air at the same time. Unlikely.

"I should go find my parents and see what's up." I proposed and looked for Patrick's approval. The worried expression on his face did nothing for my nerves.

He nodded and seemed to look for answers in everyone's faces but mine. Leaving his side so soon after what we had just done seemed like a crime especially without a kiss. My body didn't want to leave his presence but I forced it to. This was not the right moment to have childish fits. There would be enough time in this world to kiss him or cuddle the whole night, I reminded myself. Tonight was not this time.

I found my parents on the far end of the crowd. Close to the Boss who's appearance sent cold shivers down my spine once again. He had secretly become a reminder of all the bad things that could possibly happen and seeing him now flooded me with unreasonable panic.

"What's going on?" I asked when I reached my mom. She barely looked at me when she answered. In fact, she barely even took notice of me or my late arrival or the disheveled state of my hair or my smeared mascara. "There are rumors that the fair is to be gutted. Apparently he already made agreements."

There was no need to ask who she was referring to.

"Agreements with who?"

"Multiple other fairs or circuses. We don't know yet." She whispered as if scared to miss the beginning of a speech if she got too deep into explaining.

"What did he sell?" I was confused. We had lost our main attraction and the Big Top and everything in it but our lives. There really was nothing of value that could be divided between multiple other carnivals.

"Us." My dad answered dryly which could only mean he was in the worst state of anger. The only other time I had seen him this furious was when he had sat Patrick down to reprimand him.

"What do you mean us?" My voice was so high, it barely carried to my mom.

"He sold his acts. Us. He sold us to join other shows." Mom hissed between her teeth, loud enough to carry to the one person everyone was angry at.

The Boss sighed dramatically and raised his arms in the air as if he had nothing to do with it or was well aware that he was in grave danger of being shot. Both could be equally true.

"Listen up!" He demanded attention that was begrudginly granted. "I did not sell anybody! In fact I only tried to give you all a chance to keep working. I saved you, if nothing else."

"You gave up on us!" Came a yell from the crowd and a few angry, approving fists were swung in the air.

"I could never give up on you. We are family. I try to safe my family. Everyone who wants can continue working for me. If anything, I'm the good guy here." He made one of his elaborate arm gestures but people were not buying into it.

"Yeah. We can go work for someone else. Not here! What is the fucking point of a few staying if the rest leaves? And we should be fucking thankful for that?" Some worker complained from the safety of the crowd.

"We haven't even had the chance to salvage the situation. Maybe there's a way to keep everyone together." My mom tried to diffuse the tension but she didn't realize that openly talking against anything the Boss said would only lead to him shutting down. He was not used to his authority being so nonchalantly threatened even though he set himself up for it.

He barked back at her. "Maybe you want to put all your money into it, Silvia? It's not worth betting on it. We don't have a tent and we don't have the elephant. Your family's worth is gone. We have nothing to draw a big enough crowd."

Dad visibly tightened his shoulders as if he prepared for a fight but none of my parent's dared a reply. The Boss wasn't wrong. If there was no tent, there was no trapeze act and there was no big animal number without a big animal. Two of the main attractions rendered useless can't be made any better by arguing.

The Boss turned back to the uneasy people surrounding him. "I have lists which group needs what personnel. They will come through during our off season and you can join them if you so chose. Or you don't and stay here until I come up with a plan for next season. A smaller show with specific acts and attractions. We're gonna start over."

So he really threw his hat. He didn't word it like it, but offering to let go of people if they chose was as good as admitting defeat. I wanted to be mad or disappointed but I couldn't.

We've been with this fair ever since I can think and my parents before that. This fair was all I knew and now it dissolved in front of us. To say I had still had hope would be a lie but I hadn't thought it would end so soon. So confidently. What remained after this speech was nothing worth keeping.

I had imagined our community would fizzle out over the winter, maybe even carry through a smaller spring season. But all of the sudden seeing our family die in everyone's faces was horrific.

The Boss was the first to leave the courtyard. His steps were the only noise heard and slowly more followed through his silence. It felt like a funeral. The way no one knew if it was yet time to start going or if it was disrespectful to continue with your day so soon after it happened.

I settled on it being close to discourteous to leave this sight of tragedy. The grounds that stood witness to our death. I watched the people retreating into their own little bubbles to mourn, shaking their heads, weeping silently. I heard my parents talk about sending Danny to bed and looking for work tomorrow.

"We need to look through the lists." My mom said as all three of them set to leave the scene.

"I'm going to stay a little longer." I murmured absentmindedly and I didn't see their nods, didn't particularly care if they agreed or not. I couldn't yet bear to carry on. The back of my knees found a bench and I sat down, feeling the courtyard getting drained of spectators as the cold crept in again.

Through the thinning crowd, Patrick found me again. He silently pulled my shoulders into his hip like the remnant of a hug and I pressed my forehead against his mid. I closed my eyes hard, wanting to force the tears that clouded my mind and burned in my chest but they wouldn't redeem me. Finally, I sniffled and looked up at Patrick.

"What are we going to do now?" I asked, trying to beg him for logic because I couldn't find any in myself.

"We don't have to do anything different than what we planned."

Why didn't I believe his words?

"You don't think Alex is looking for work outside the fair already?"

Patrick sneered. "I don't think he ever looked for work anywhere. Don't worry."

"Patrick!" Both our eyes followed the call and found Alex standing in the shadows under the arcades with the Boss and a stranger in a suit.

Exchanging a look, we took too long and Alex yelled again. "Move your lazy ass over here before I come to get you."

I felt Patrick's posture stiffen even though his face barely showed any agitation. He left me without daring another look at me. The men encased him in their shadow and they disappeared behind a door that was probably the Boss's rooms. The door locked behind them and no matter how much I stared at it, it wouldn't admit to me the secrets that were discussed behind it. I would have to keep my mind off of it until I could actually ask Patrick what they wanted. Or I could try and guess and drive myself mad with imagined scenarios.

I forced myself to avert my eyes, counting the seconds of my breathing to remain calm. My arms wrapped around my middle and I looked at my shoes moving pebbles around with every movement. Maybe, if I moved enough pebbles, I could disappear in the hole I dug.

A sigh escaped me and it almost echoed in the emptiness of the courtyard.

"That's a very worried sigh." Mariah walked around my bench and sat down. Her shawl was thicker now than the fringed one she had always wrapped around her during summer and the stockings under her long skirts draped over her shin in dense folds.

"It's been a worrisome few weeks."

She glanced at me through the corners of her eyes and tightened the shawl around her shoulders while she wiggled herself comfortable on the cold, hard bench. "You seemed to hold up well."

I didn't know what to answer. Just thinking back to the multiple times I was crying made me tear up again and I didn't feel like thanking her for complementing something that was clearly not true. "I made it through."

"How is your sleep?"

I opened my mouth but no words came out. Something about her interrogation felt ambiguous enough to not be satisfied by a simple reply of good or bad.

"What do you really want to know." I said instead. Not in a rebellious tone, but tired of the effort it took to uphold conversations with people who don't know everything already. However selfish that might be.

She huffed at my offensive shortcut but relented. "How are your dreams?"

I blinked at her, thinking how that question was supposed to be anywhere near more meaningful and honest than her previous.

"Last thing I know you had unlucky visions of Patrick. Then you disappeared and we thought he kidnapped you. Thank the Gods you came back unharmed."

I almost laughed at her accusations towards Patrick but a small part of me believed she only worried about me so I at least pretended to be respectful. "Who's we?"

Her serious glance scolded me silently for even the thought of laughing.

"You know I warned. Since he is in your life again, you have nothing but bad luck. Bad, bad coincidences. I don't think he wants evil or means evil. He loves you, I see that. But sometimes the people who love us, still hurt us."

All I could hear was that she saw that he loved me. It was all I needed but I couldn't tell her that or she would feel validated that I had lost my mind.

"Why do you dislike him so much?"

Now it was her that sighed and she turned to me, folding her skirt around her thighs tightly while she readjusted.

"I don't dislike him, sugar. I know you like him and I know he tries his best. He came back for you which was more than any other boy would have done for you and probably will ever do. But -"

For a moment it seemed like she thought twice if she should really say what she wanted to say. Then she teared up and it was the first time, I saw her controlled exterior crack a little. Enough to be vulnerable. "But every time I see you with him, I feel an ominous shadow over you." She pressed her fist against her chest. "I can't shake the feeling and it scares me for you. You're my baby. I've watched you grow up. You made your first steps in my trailer and you always came to me when your parents send you to bed and you needed to hide. You don't come anymore and that's fine. You're a woman now. But I can't be happy that a boy casts his unlucky shadow over you. Not you. Not my baby."

I bit my lip, torn between hugging her and defending my choices. "He's good to me, Mariah. Maybe it doesn't seem like it because so much has happened since he came back. But those things would have happened either way. The carnival would be at the exact same point. It's not his fault."

Mariah rubbed her chest like she was trying to calm her crying heart while she turned away from me. The vulnerability disappearing again behind her elegant sternness. "I know, I know." Her knowing didn't sound honest but I didn't push further.

"But I love you, Mariah. And I've always been thankful for your open door and your advice."

She took my hands and petted them like she was trying to soothe me or herself.

"Just promise me something, yes?"

"Sure."

"Don't give too much to him yet. It will only make things more complicated for you to decide."

I swallowed and searched her face for a sign that would allow me to promise this lie.

"I can't promise you that." My voice was a whisper, as embarrassed as I was tense.

Mariah sighed and patted the back of my hand again. "Then it's over already. The thread is spun."

I nodded and something in me urged me to be honest to my first confidante. "We will leave before spring season."

Her smile was agonized but she managed to find gentle words for me. "I know you will be very happy until the end of your life. Promise me to come back with your little girl. I want to meet her before she's five."

"What are you talking about?" I laughed, almost too moved by her prophecy to question her.

"The daughter." She repeats, eyes glazed over and far away.

"I'm not even 18. I haven't even thought about children."

She suddenly snapped back to our conversation. "I sure hope so! You're still a baby yourself. If he lets anything happen to you, I will whoop this boy's behind." Mariah was back in her scolding tone and the ominous prophecy was quickly forgotten. If it even was a prophecy. It seemed too happy to come from one of her visions. She never prophesied happy endings like that.

One last pat to my hand and she stood up. "I'll make you tea just to be sure."

"What tea?"

She was already walking across the courtyard and for the silence around us, her words were way too loud. "Women have always come to me for tea. Why do you think I don't have children of my own? Ha!"

I willed the ground to open up and swallow me but since my wish was forsaken, I decided to follow her before she announced to the whole world that Patrick and I had had sex.

"Can you please not yell so loud." My voice was inaudible behind my blushing.

"Sugar, the only thing more obvious than his hands all over you is a baby on your hip. So you better drink that tea and you will listen to what I have to say."

"You're a little late for the birds and also the bees." I tried to joke but inside I was dying a little. My worst nightmare played out exactly like I had panicked about before.

"Never too late for not making me an aunt just yet." She hurried up the stairs and I tried to keep up.

"Just don't tell anyone, please. Not the tea thing and also not that we want to leave. Promise me. Please."

She thought about it the rest of the way to her room up until she unlocked her door. "I promise."

Thank you for staying around for another chapter and for your comments. xx