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Circus

Rob X KF

I can't believe I let myself get sucked up into this. Why did Red Tornado have to insist we 'hang out' like normal teenagers? If it wasn't for him, M'gann wouldn't have gone out and bought the dumb tickets. I don't want to be here. I want to be far away from here. This place was too painful. So, where am I, you may ask?

The Circus.

All the sights and the smells are so familiar to me, I know how to run most of the machines here, I can make pop corn, cotton candy, caramel apples, I can even stand on the trunk of an Elephants nose! The first ten years of my life were made of that kind of stuff.

"Rob, come on your falling behind." I looked up, Wally was a few feet in front of me waving me over. I shoved my hands into my pockets. "What ate your Reese's Puffs this morning?" He asked, his brows knitting. "You've been in a bad mood all day. It's the circus! You're supposed to be happy!" He patted my back, and most times that would help my mood a bit, make me happier or think that it would get better, but today, it did nothing to help me.

Not even my best friend could make me feel better.

"Come on. We need to get going or we'll lose our seats." I say, brushing his hand off my shoulder and heading inside the big tent. A wave of nostalgia washes over me. I've never actually been in the crowd before, so it's weird to see the rings rather than being inside of them.

I take my seat on the end, next to Wally, the others are sitting in the same row. M'gann and Kaldur are the most excited about this. Artemis seems like she would rather be somewhere else and Connor...well, he's just being Connor. Wally had a bag of Popcorn and Cotton Candy, as well as two apples. It'll all be gone in less than ten minutes.

The lights turn out and everyone gets quiet, I lean in my chair, just wanting this to be
over.

I make it through the animal tamers and the Elephant show, the Clowns were as un-hilarious as ever with their over done skit. At least when I was in the circus our clowns were actually funny. There are fire dancers, and gymnast, all of them in flashy costumes, there are freaks too, the attached twins, the man-face-woman-body, that sort of thing. I was starting to think they didn't have what I had been fearing, but I was wrong.

They were the closing act.

The trapeze artist waved as they were introduced, a man and woman, I didn't bother catching their names. My eyes were locked on them as the man took off first. I tried to push them back, I really did, the memories. I used to soar through the air just like them, The Flying Grayson's. Man, we used to be a hit. I used to love it, now it was just an open wound with jagged edges that would never heal. The woman took off and the two danced in the air, without a care in the world. Then it happened.

The woman jumped from her beam, arms held out to catch the hands of her partner, their fingers brushed, but didn't lock. The crowd drew in a quiet gasp, I stood up. "NOOO!" I screamed, feeling my inside shaking. How? How could this happen again?

Memories flashed before my eyes, my mother reaching out for me as the cords snapped, the last thing that left her mouth wasn't even a scream, it was my name. My name. There was a net. The woman was caught, she stood in the net, waving to show she was fine. There was no net for my parents. We were a much more daring family. This woman made it. My parents didn't.

"Dude, way to freak out." Wally said jokingly.

I looked at him, trying to pour as much of a glare out at him as I could. I don't think it worked, not with sun glasses on anyway. "I've got to go." I moved out of the isle and up the stairs, running as fast as my legs could take me. I shouldn't have come here, I should have tried harder to make up an excuse. This was too much, this was too painful.

I ran until I was out of the tent on the grounds, then I stopped hunching over, the tears were swelling up and I missed them so badly. Mom, Dad. They were the only things in my thought process in that moment. It kept replaying over and over and over in my head. Them falling as I sat on the beam, watching them plummet to their own death. The crowd the shock. And all I could do was sit there and cry, I to be dragged down. Even at ten I had wanted to jump down after them. Why hadn't we used a net?

"Rob--" I jerked, feeling a hand on my shoulder. I turned and looked up, met with a pair of pale green eyes and light tan freckles. "Dude, are you okay? Did it scare you that bad? She's okay-- she got right back--" I hit him. Not hard, but it made him grunt. He stood up straight, and I followed suit, my glasses fell off but I didn't care. He stopped, staring for a moment. I knew what he was looking at. Bright blue eyes surrounded by red from tears.

I punched him again. He just stood there, not even moving as I punched again and again at his gut. Then, I grabbed him. I moved quick about it as I wrapped my arms around his torso, burying my face in his chest. He didn't hesitate to put his arms back around me. "It's not fair!" I cried, pulling him in as close as I could. It was as if I was holding him against the open wound, trying to make the pain go away. "Why-- Why didn't we have a net!? Why did mom and dad have to fall to their deaths!" I started blabbering, but I didn't care. I kept saying things like that, and to tell the truth I don't remember a lot of what I said to Wally. But he stayed there, just holding me and listening. He didn't complain that I was getting snot and tears all over his shirt, he didn't even make a comment on the two of us hugging in public, he just held me against his chest tenderly, even after I had punched him.