"When you're down, run off and join a circus." they say.
But this circus has secrets that violate
the strings of life-
✴︎✴︎✴︎
"We can dance until we die...
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✭I'm forced to deal with what I feel, there is no distraction to what is real✭
Five days.
Five days I have been avoiding the boy's gaze. Five days I have skipped spending meal time in the eatery with the others all because I knew what the conversations would entail.
I knew that he would ask about what he saw. And I knew that I couldn't—
I can't tell him or anyone else what happened. Because it isn't the first time nor will it be the last time it happens.
I've accepted that the last time, may never come.
I climb up the bleachers, my eyes stuck on the boy as he laughs and converses with the people he's grown close to in the past two weeks.
I've felt terrible for how I've had to treat him. I've felt like a villain taking candy from a smiling child. He seems like the brightest flower in the bouquet, the liveliest person here.
I don't want him to be shattered in this place. The people who have been here the longest have lost themselves. They couldn't tell you how life was before being sucked into this nightmare we all call home.
I walk back and forth at the top of the bleachers, the old wood creaks underneath my feet. I look across the room at Cameron just as he looks up.
His smile falters just a bit but his eyes stay glued to mine. I walk down the wooden bleachers and out into one of the train cars, my feet hanging out over the wet rocks.
I hear footsteps coming close to the car before Cameron sticks his head around the corner. I lift my leg, press it against my chest, and lay my head on my knee.
He slowly walks up to me, lifting himself to sit directly beside me. Silence fills the air. A thick yet moderately comfortable silence.
"Hi." he breaks the stillness. He looks down at his lap when I don't reply. "I'm uh," he runs his hand over his face then grips the metal of the car in both hands. "I'm sorry I followed you. Again. I'll go—"
My hand flies out to catch his arm almost as fast as instinct.
"No!"
He looks down at me like he's completely taken aback. Like he had expected anything but this reaction. He sits back down beside me, his gaze never leaves the side of my face.
His mouth opens but instantly snaps shut. I let out a solid breath of air before breaking the unmoving silence.
"I uh, the night when you saw the—" I glance over momentarily. Only long enough to see how engaged he is. His eyes stare back at me unblinking and determined.
