Carnival Read online

  Everything he says is true.

  “When did you know you weren’t actually going? Was it after you hooked up with him?”

  “No,” I say. “Of course not.”

  “As much as I love you, I was willing to let it go. Willing to let you go and do whatever it was that you needed to do, hoping that someday you would come back to me. But it’s become apparent that I’ve lost you.”

  “You don’t have to lose me,” I say tenderly, and then like drums beating, preparing for war, I continue, “but you can’t have me.”

  The world goes silent.

  He pinches the bridge of his nose with his fingers, then rolls them into his eyes, wiping away the tears that I’ve just noticed are actually there. I will forever be the first person to ever make Dylan Parker cry. The punch against my stomach is intolerable.

  “Fine,” he says, defeated.

  “I’m sorry,” I say under my breath. It’s so quiet that I know he can’t hear it.

  “Go back to your carnie.” He waves me off with his hand. “He’s waiting for you.”

  He walks away, probably for good. And I’ve never bled as badly than I am in this moment, watching someone I truly care about walking out of my life against the neon-lit background of a carnival painted against an impossibly black sky.

  This is what it feels like to lose innocence.

  Blue’s breath against my skin startles me. I have no idea how long he’s been standing there. He’s fully dressed now and I’m a blank-faced, emotional mess, yet somehow I still manage to notice the way his shirt sticks to his sweaty chest, outlining every muscle in his upper body. Must be the Molly.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah…” I trail off. “Let’s go somewhere.”

  His eyes light up. “I know just the place.”

  * * *

  We’re lying in the grass beside Blue’s Jeep. We’re just on this side of the chain-link fence that separates the field from the carnival. Above us, the Ferris wheel cycles perilously close to the fence. A strong wind could topple the six-shot revolver of death onto us. But I’m growing fond of living life on the edge, and it doesn’t even feel dangerous anymore.

  In slow motion, faded neon colors brush against the cool skin of Blue’s face. He’s different in this light, and I’m seeing things in him that I’ve never seen before. Just underneath his beautiful blue eyes, under the right one, is what appears to be a scar hidden by lapses of time. There’s a story there and there’s nothing I want more than to know what it is.

  But how do I bring it up?.

  “You’re looking at my scar, aren’t you?”

  I guess that settles it. I answer with a nod.

  He rubs his forefinger against his tongue, getting it wet, and then rubs it across the skin surrounding his eye. The scar bleeds into life, and time hasn’t really hidden it at all.

  “What happened?”

  “It’s a long story,” he says. “One of those in my past things.”

  And I guess it’s one of those things I’ll have to wait to find out. There seems to be a pattern here.

  “It happened during a bar fight.”

  A soft laugh swells deep in my throat. Of course it did. He’s like a bad boy that’s not so bad. Not like all those guys you see on television, covered in tattoos with a bike or two stashed in their non-existent garages. Not at all. He has a string of bad decisions under his belt, but who doesn’t?

  I scoot across the damp grass to get closer to him. He puts his arm under my shoulder, and he cradles me, pulling me close. He kisses the top of my head and I can’t wipe the smile off my face. I’m one of those girls who have the best boyfriend in the world. And all the other bitches who think they do are just fooling themselves.

  “Tell me more,” I say.

  “Huh?” he asks, rolling his head toward me.

  I look up to his face, his confusion prominent. “About the scar.”

  “Well,” he sighs, “it hurt like a bitch.”

  “Yeah?”

  He nods his head. “Ever had a beer bottle smashed against your face?”

  My lips purse. “Nope. Can’t say that I have.”

  He smirks and brushes my hair back out of my face. “That’s good. I’d hate to have to kill someone.”

  Then something passes over his face. I can’t pinpoint the emotion, but the smirk fades.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You’re intuitive.”

  “That’s what everyone says.”

  “It’s nothing.” He combs his fingers through my hair. He knows I don’t believe him, probably because I’m a terrible actress. Being a movie star was never in the cards. “Really, don’t worry about it.”

  “Can I touch it?” I ask. I’m fixated on his scar and desperate to change the conversation from something he doesn’t want to talk about to something he already has talked about.

  He blinks as he nods his head again.

  I reach slowly toward his eye. I’m not sure if it’s the effect of the drugs wearing off or just my nature, but I’m being very gentle about the whole affair. Too gentle. My finger connects with the tip of the scar below his eye. It’s raised and uneven. It’s not the most intimate we’ve ever been—hello… House of Mirrors–but this feels different. Sure, he’s been in me twice now, but this is vulnerability right here.

  I trace my finger down, over his eye that is now closed, and rub against the bottom half of the scar. Then it hits me. “You wear makeup,” I accuse as I laugh.

  He opens his eyes and pushes my hand off him. “Yeah, yeah. Get your laughs in.”

  “I didn’t mean to laugh—”

  “I get it,” he cuts me off. “It just happens.”

  “I don’t think you should.”

  “Cover it up?”

  “Yeah. It’s beautiful.”

  He slips his arm back underneath me and holds me tight. That word, beautiful, is one of the last things most men want to be associated with, but Blue’s not like that. Even though it wasn’t about aesthetics, something else—something deeper. Something about our histories defining us. Something like that, but it’s too complicated to think about in this state, so I think I’m just going to stare at the stars.

  Between the glow of the carnival and the dark clouds that long ago settled in the sky, they’re not very visible. But in the center of the darkness, there’s a cluster of stars, but it takes some squinting to see, and I’m so not in the mood.

  “We should stay here,” Blue muses out loud. “Forever.”

  “That’s quite a commitment.”

  “For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m home.” His arm shifts under me. “And you’re a big part of that.”

  My cheeks flush, filling with happiness—much cheaper than Botox injections.

  “I’m being serious,” he continues.

  I turn on my side to face him. “What about Vegas?” I question. “We talked about it when we first met.”

  “I remember.” A smile hitches up the side of his mouth. “It’s on the to-do list.”

  “Could you really spend the rest of forever here?”

  His turn to roll onto his side. “Happiness is hard to find, so I think that once you find it, you should do everything you can to hang onto it.”

  “I’m inclined to agree.” I pause and think how to say what comes next. “But Lakeview has never seemed like home to me.”

  His head tilts sideways. “Then why haven’t you left?”

  “I’ve always wanted to leave this place behind,” I sigh, “but after my parents were divorced, my mom was a complete wreck. I kind of figured I owed it to her to take care of her, after everything she’s done for me. Then, out of the Blue,” I smile, immediately catching the unintentional pun, “she gets better and she wants me to go to college, and I don’t know if that’s what I want anymore. And I’m stuck here until I figure it out.”

  “At least you don’t have to be alone,” he says. “Because I’ll be stuck in the mu
d right next to you.”

  * * *

  Emptiness. It’s devastating. Walking through a fresh-cut field and there’s no one around. That’s not the emptiness, though. It’s something else. My five senses are on overload as they try to absorb anything past the thickness of nothing.

  I stand still. The world rotates around me, giving me a panoramic view of everything between the moon and me, but something’s missing, and I can’t quite put my finger on what.

  The sky above me begins to illuminate and my eyes shift upward. The sky is being painted in neon colors. Happiness floods through my veins as if the mural somehow completes me. A face begins to form in the neon swirls.

  It’s Blue, his face formed with brushes of paint that Photoshop couldn’t clone. He reaches out to me, his arm stretching an impossible distance. He grabs me by the hand and lifts me into the sky. Beneath me, the field blurs into a calm sea as I’m pulled into the stars.

  Up here, we’re nothing but clouds. Blue places his hand beneath my chin and raises it ever so slightly. His eyes are the perfect storm of neon-blue whirlpools.

  The colors of the world swirl around us—wrapping us in its beauty, and pushing us closer to each other. Just as we’re about to kiss, there’s a clap of thunder and everything goes black.

  * * *

  I was in the clouds, and now I’m looking at them. My legs hang over the side of Blue’s Jeep and my body lies against Blue’s bare chest. I must have been dreaming when Blue carried me over to the Jeep, and I wonder if he did so as he lifted me into the sky.

  I turn into his chest and press myself close to him. My head rests just below his, and I tilt upward and land a kiss on his cheek.

  The last thing I see before I drift back off to sleep are the clouds rolling away, revealing a picture-perfect rendering of the starlit sky. Nothing in this world compares to being here, beneath this neon sky. That moment when your reality becomes better than your dreams can’t be described. It can only be felt. And I got the feels.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Everybody talks about how great Molly is—the people adventurous enough to try it, anyway—but nobody ever talks about the day after. It’s like going to heaven and then being ripped out of a world that isn’t ready for you to leave. Once you’ve been to the sea of Molly dreams, reality has a way of pulling you back to reality. I wonder if I would have done it if Blue had warned me that I would feel like an emotional hurricane the next day.

  Probably.

  All I want is to lie down, even while knowing full well I couldn’t fall asleep again. We turn onto my street and a part of me isn’t ready for the night to end. Sure, the sun is well into the sky, but these last twenty-four hours feel like one night divided by artificial definitions of time.

  A cool breeze, warmed by the piercing rays of the sun, brushes against my skin. Blue’s hair blows in the September wind. He looks so damn sexy in his knock-off Prada glasses. I could spend the rest of forever in this Jeep. Sex is the furthest thing from my mind—looking at him is enough for me to melt.

  All my life, I thought I would marry Dylan. Even after we broke up, I could never shake the feeling that my life would come full circle with his. Then there is this boy who never should have been a part of my journey. Some people look at fairs and carnivals as festering grounds for lost souls. I never did. To me, they were magical places full of memories, especially for youth. Many first dates have transpired in these places. I don’t know the statistics, but I’m almost positive I’m one of a few who have ever fallen this far for a carnie. If my life leads me to the latest Jerry Springer knockoff, then that’s my decision to make.

  We pull into the driveway and I rest my head against the seat. The clicking of his seat belt draws my attention to him.

  “I had a real good night,” he says.

  “Me, too.” I rub my thumbs against my eyes. “I don’t want to walk inside. Can I just stay here in the Jeep?”

  He smiles. “You can do whatever you want.”

  “I should probably go inside. My mom’s probably worried.”

  He brushes my cheek and pushes my hair behind my ears. “Call me crazy, but I think I’m going to love you someday.”

  “Someday?” I ask with half a smile, almost tired of hearing that word.

  “Someday soon.”

  Releasing my seat belt, I lean across the gear shift. “I think I love you today.”

  “Like, right now?”

  I just nod, unable to pull my eyes away from him.

  “I’m cool with that.” He leans closer to the point where our noses glide past each other. The only thing that separates us is a thick slice of a breeze. It flows between us like the colors of the wind. “It seems like a good day to fall in love.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “A carnival. I’m a carnie, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  We both move closer still. His lips brush against mine and I feel as high as when I was on Molly. Excitement. Bliss. Loved. He caresses my lips, taking his time. His lips become softer with every lap. He presses his tongue against my lip and slips into my mouth as he pushes me backward and climbs atop me.

  I’m not even worried what the neighbors might think. I’m not worried about anything, because there’s nothing left to worry about. My hand slides up his back, running along his smooth skin.

  In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve discovered something with Blue—the elusive thread of truth that we seem so privy to while the rest of the world looks on in utter disbelief that anybody could be this happy living within their own rules.

  * * *

  The front door is unlocked, which is very unusual. From a very young age, my parents harped on the dangers of unlocked doors, and I spent many hours as a child learning how to properly lock them. Seriously, hours.

  I push the door open and quietly shut it behind me. It almost feels like I’m sixteen again, sneaking into the house after an all-night drinking binge. It’s a little past noon, so there’s probably no reason to be too quiet.

  I make my way to the kitchen, ignoring the girl who’s sitting on the couch. I pull the door of the refrigerator open and grab a carton of orange juice. As the door closes, I realize there was someone in the living room. I sit the carton on the counter and leave the kitchen.

  I backtrack into the living room to see that it’s Summer, dressed in jeans and an Ohio State jersey. The game was the previous day, so I’m not sure if she’s being a skank or has simply lost track of her days.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “Your mom got called into work. She said it was an emergency or something.”

  “Okay…” I say confused, about why she’s talking about my mom.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I was up all night, so I’m a little tired.”

  She stands up, her feet grinding into the floor. “It’s okay not to be okay.” She steps closer to me. “God knows that I’ve been through the wringer.”

  Something’s wrong. “Is everything okay with you?”

  “Wha— how can you even ask me that? Of course I’m not okay.”

  I rush to her, embracing her tightly. “What’s wrong? Did something happen at college?”

  “I’m talking about Dylan.”

  I step back. “What about him?”

  She pinches her face with her palm. “Oh my God,” she says, and turns around. “You don’t know.”

  “Know what?” I grab her and turn her around to face me. Her eyes water and for the first time, I notice how incredibly red they are. “Summer! You’re scaring me.”

  Her throat tightens. The color of her skin drains to a pale white. “Dylan died last night.”

  I shake my head, laughing gently. “He’s fine. I saw him at the carnival.”

  “He was leaving and he was hit by a truck.”

  “You’re wrong.” I bite hard into my lip and reach for my phone. I look at a black screen for a good thirty seconds before I remember it was dead all night. I
throw it on the couch where it bounces off and rolls onto the ground. I rush into the kitchen and rip the home phone off the counter, and dial Dylan’s number from memory. It begins to ring and some stupid country song begins playing.

  Summer steps into the kitchen. “Charlie—”

  I push a hand up to her. “Stop talking.”

  “What’s up?” Dylan asks through the phone.

  “Thank God,” I say, running my hand through my hair and glaring at Summer.

  “Hold on, I can’t hear you.”

  “Dylan, people think you’re dead.”

  “What?”

  “People think yo—”

  “Psych!” he yells through the phone. “You’ve reached the voicemail of Dylan Parker. Leave a message, but I probably won’t get back to you.”

  I hang up and dial again, putting the phone to my ear.

  “Charlie…” Summer says and moves closer.

  “Stop,” I command.

  That damn country song drives me insane. There’s nothing I need more than to hear Dylan’s voice, but it’s becoming clear that that’s not going to happen.

  “The caller you are trying to reach has a full inbox. Please hang up and try again at a later time.”

  The line goes dead. I hold the phone to my ear, still waiting for him to talk. Staring at nothing, even though I’m not the one who died, I see his entire life flash before my eyes. Everything I ever felt for him, every time we made love, every time we fought… it all comes pouring back to me.

  “Charlie, you need to sit down,” I hear Summer say. It sounds like she’s all the way on the other side of the world. And she might as well be there, because in these seconds of paralyzing sobriety, walls heaven-high spike up around me.

  “I’m going to be sick.” My voice barely registers a decibel. I feel the weight of Summer push past me, presumably to get a trash can. She’s not quick enough. I hunch over, choking on my throat as I vomit on the floor.

  With my back to the wall, I slide down and rest on my heels. I dial Dylan’s number and weakly put the phone to my ear. I’m waiting for a miracle. Waiting for a change of fate that will never come. “The caller you are trying to reach has a full inbox. Please hang up and try again at a later time.”