Page 25 of The Masks She Wore

?“Fuck off, guy,” he ordered, breaking character.

?I immediately frowned.

?“He made you bleed,” she said, touching the spot on my neck his knife had just been.

?The male with the hunting knife just stared at him. His presence cold and dominating. He kept in character, not saying a single word as he gripped that hunting knife in his hand.

?The machete guy scoffed and shook his head, joining chainsaw guy quickly. “Fucking prick.”

?Viv took my hand just as the hunting knife guy turned back towards me, his dark blue eyes shining. “Come on,” she insisted, pulling me away from them. “You wanted to do everything, so we need to go.”

?I searched his eyes.

?“Rae,” she pushed, tugging on my hand again.

?I watched him, my heart beating against my ribs at the way he stared at me.

?“Rae,” Viv said, pulling me away. “Come on.”

?This time I rolled my eyes and let her pull me away. I didn’t understand what her deal was. We were safe. Just as safe here as we were anywhere else.

?I suppose I should give her some grace. She had decided to come just because I kept pushing and pushing. I needed to let her act the way she needed in order to feel safe, so if dragging me away fromthis actor made her feel safe, then so be it.

?She was the only friend I had in this life. I couldn’t remember much of my childhood. It was just a blur of private schools and expensive shopping trips, and while most would roll their eyes at my dislike for how I grew up, it made me uncomfortable thinking about it.

?It wasn’t that I didn’t like my childhood, I just couldn’t remember a lot of it. There were big gaps in my memory I couldn’t quite pull up. Years I had just forgotten, and while it was normal for some to forget their childhoods, mine was more than that.

?I couldn’t remember anything. I never told anyone that. Not Viv or Donna. Especially not Max. I never had the real opportunity to speak to my mom about it and therapists were an absolute no in my life. Mom and Donna didn’t believe in them.

?I thought about telling Viv once, but I was sure she would make some joke about it being the brain rot I watched on television.

?But it wasn’t that, I knew that for certain. It was something else. I often wondered if maybe I had been in a car accident or perhaps I had fallen down the stairs at my mom’s house at some point. I had gotten a concussion. Maybe it had been the drugs I had experimented with. Whatever it was, the memories I had of my life seemed scattered and sometimes incoherent if I tried to think too hard about it.

?Sometimes it worried me, it scared the shit out of me honestly,but people were always preaching online about living in the present moment, so that’s what I tried to focus on.

?If I lived in the present, focused on who I was now, there was no need to remember who I had been before, right?

?It was a poor rationalization, but it was working for me. Besides, Donna and mom were both gone, so unless I found one of my old doctors, which I hadn’t been able to locate yet, there was no way for me to confirm any kind of accident.

?Besides, I had Viv, so if I truly wanted to know about something that happened in my past, I would just ask her. We had been friends for years, after all. Which was another reason why I wasn’t so worried. If something terrible had happened to me, an accident of some sort, she would have known, I was sure of it. She would have told me.

?We walked across the grounds, taking our time until we finally reached the carousel line.

?It took 20 minutes to finally get on the ride. Every horse was undead. Dripping in fake blood, bone shards sticking out of them, some had their heads sawed off, others were decaying and covered in moss.

?While most avoided the stickiest ones, I embraced the gore, finding the only untouched one on the entire ride.

?It was covered in fake blood, the head hanging on by tendons, one of the legs snapped at an odd angle.

?“Rae,” Viv warned as I grabbed the blood covered pole, running my hand up and down it, the blood pooling around my fingers.

?My eyes lifted to hers, finding her face twisted in disgust.

?I rolled my eyes. “It’s fake, Viv.”

?“You’re going to be sticky the rest of the night.”

?“I’m going to look like I just got into a fight withMista J,” I beamed and swung my leg over, feeling the cold liquid slide against my fishnets, my skin.

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