Page 3 of The Circus

Lips pressed together, her chin begins to tremble, and with her hands balled into fists at her sides, she storms out, leaving the mess behind.

“Ouch,” Cash mutters around a mouthful of food. Everything returns to normal, the janitor slinking by with his mop in tow. “Poor kid. Mom isn’t supposed to say shit about her patients, but her dad is on death’s door.”

My eyes cut to his, something twisting painfully in my heart. Eden always kept herself shrouded in mystery, and what few classes we shared together over the years, she never spoke to me. Hell, I don’t think she ever even looked in my direction. The voices tend to calm in her ghostly presence, though, the haunting allure she exudes enrapturing. She’s an enigma, and to a man like myself, that’s very, very dangerous.

“With what?”

Cash slows his chewing, a sinuous smirk snaking its way onto his lips. There are two holes underneath his bottom lip thatmatch mine. We’d pierced each other one night with safety pins while bored, and received a month’s detention the next day for displaying them proudly. “Why so interested, Tedster?”

Leveling him with my own smirk, I say smoothly, “Just curious.”

He rolls his eyes, pushing a piece of chicken around saucy rice. Just as quickly as our fun has started, it evaporates when the smile vanishes from his eyes. Cash has a big heart but plays the asshole jokester to keep everyone at bay. We both know one another’s deepest secrets, though he thinks mine are way cooler.

My heart gives a heavy thump in that pause.

“Cancer. Pancreatic, I think. Terminal and near the end. He refused chemo or something.”

My mouth fires off the next question before I can stop myself. “Where’s her mom?”

He shrugs.

“Not in the picture, I think.”

“Why?”

Slapping his hands on the table with an incredulous laugh, he snorts, “Jesus, Teddy, why do you care so much all of a sudden?”

I don’t know why, and it’s bugging the hell out of me.

I shrug, feigning nonchalance. “She’s a freak, too. We know what it’s like.”

He crosses his arms and glares at me. “No.”

“No, what?” I ask, brow crinkling. He motions to the doors she escaped through moments ago.

“No, she’s not turning our duo into a trio the last few weeks of school. I have to draw the line somewhere for your compulsions.”

Fucker.

“Then you’ll understand they’re obsessive, too, right?”

He grits his teeth, jaw flaring as he does.

“No.”

I hold my palms up in surrender. “I have no choice.”

“Yeah, you do. Get medicated like the rest of us, asshole, and stop catering to your impulses.”

“Sounds boring,” I say, looking at my cuticles. Cash huffs. He enjoys being my getaway driver far too much to deny me anything.

“Fine, whatever, but keep her away from me. She’s freaky. As in…probably speaks to the dead and dances naked in the moonlight worshiping Satan freaky.”

The smile that curls on my lips is predatory in nature, and I see it reflected in Cash’s eyes.

“Perfect.”

THREE

---