Holding My Breath [Wattys 2016]

4 1 ~ R u s t y

                

Present Day ~ July 10, 2011

By the time we are finally getting out of the truck, it's dark out and the excitement at the fair has already begun. All we can see from the parking lot is a blur of flashing lights.

The children are skipping along to the music and the other groups of teenagers are already scattering. They all see this as a potential for a great night, a night to remember because it only comes once a year. Because it will be fun.

There are policemen directing traffic into the parking lots. The fair is in a town just a couple exits back towards my hometown, away from the relative safety of Wallen.

It takes a good twenty minutes more before we are walking into the center of the chaos.

Bailey, Blue and I all wait by the front. Sawyer and Colt were still finding a parking place when we came in. I don't know how exactly I plan to split up from them or when, but I will have to go on my own exploration at some point.

Blue reaches over and pulls my cap down over my face and I glare at him. He laughs, and I can't help but smile. This entire situation, if I weren't so terrified, would be great. Standing on the threshold of the excitement, dancing lights performing their own kind of music, I can understand the entire novelty of it all. The entire place feels like a theme park that makes you want to run wild like you're a kid again.

"How long should we wait before going to get a funnel cake?" Bailey eyes the fried food cart just a couple of feet from us. I can tell that Blue is excited too, because he's zoned out, looking around at the dancing fire of a juggler's torches by the entrance.

The urgency and anticipation in everyone around me must be contagious, like a disease, and I can't help but give into it for a few minutes. Colt and Sawyer come in screaming and hollering like little girls, jumping around like they've just escaped jail or something. I laugh.

Before we've even gotten to the first food truck, we are all dying in laughter.

"I challenge any one of you to an eating contest!" I yell over the beat of the rap music blasting from the speakers on this side of the fair.

"Oh hell no!" Bailey grabs my arm and pulls me over to a cart of cotton candy. "That's our finale. You are not getting sick this early!"

"Nah, I think I can beat her," Blue comes up behind me and I glare at him.

"Is that a bet?" I ask, grinning.

"Yep. Loser has to try that," he says, pointing over to a cart selling 'red hot ghost pepper chili'.

"It's a deal," and we shake on it.