The fairground wason the other side of town, past where the houses thinned and the streetlights disappeared. I walked most of it. Liked the freedom of it. Gave me time to think, not trapped within the same four walls.
The sky was purple and heavy. The air smelled like dust and cold metal. When I got there, the place looked like a memory someone had dropped. Rusting rides frozen mid-spin. A carousel with no horses. A ticket booth with the glass punched out. The place made my chest loosen and tighten at the same time. Like it was already ruined enough that nothing I did here could make it worse.
Fires burned in metal barrels dotted around making the rides look haunted. Music thumped from a car with its trunk open. Under car LED’s pulsed in time with the bass.
People were already dancing there—silhouettes leaning against bumpers, sitting on the ground, laughing too loud.
Mia spotted me first. She grinned and jogged over. “You came!”
Her happiness was too big. It hit me like a wave.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess.”
She handed me a beer. I took it without thinking. That wasn’t true. I thought about it very clearly. I just didn’t care what happened after. The first sip barely touched me. The second one slid warm into my veins. The third made my shoulders loosen. The fourth made the hollow in my chest blur.
My inhibitions and insecurities seemed to melt away as I let Mia supply me drink after drink. She dragged me from group to group introducing me to everyone she knew. Faces blurred, names blended into each other. That wasn’t true. I thought about it very clearly. I just didn’t care what happened after.
By the time the moon was high in the sky, a single point of light in the mellow darkness we were lost to, we joined the rest of the guys I’d met at the beach. Drax was leaning against a car, smoking a joint. The sweet, sharp scent reached me, making me sigh.
Dix was sitting on the hood, legs swinging, laughing too loud at something Jet said. Mia bounced up to the guys, hugged them in turn and stole Drax’s joint whilst he was distracted.
“You little shit,” he grumbled, shaking his head.
“You did promise me one,” Mia whined, taking a drag.
“Yeah,” Drax huffed. “Your own one. Not mine!”
“Well,” Mia took a long inhale before passing the joint off to me. “Looks like I’ve lost mine.” She shrugged and sidled up to Drax. “Could you make me it now?” She fluttered her lashes and kissed his cheek.
Drax rolled his eyes. “Anything for you, poppet.”
“You owe me twenty,” Jet crowed, slapping Dix on the back “Knew he’d cave if she went all cute as fuck on him.”
Dix snorted. “Like we all would dick! But—” She handed over a twenty. “—It did take him less than 30 seconds to fold.”
“Thank you,” Mia curtsied dramatically. “So, beach boy how’s things with the hot daddy?”
I choked on the smoke in my lungs. “Uh…what?”
“You know. Hot, older daddy who came storming down the beach the night of the bonfire.”
My body flushed with heat as the memory hit. Anthony had looked a bit like an avenging god that night until… I shook my head. “Not much better than they were.”
“Huh,” Jet mumbled. “I thought something would have happened by now.”
A deep sigh slipped past my lips as the edges of the world softened and I planted myself on the hood next to Dix.
“You can talk to us, Elliot,” Mia said and leaned down to ruffle my hair. “We know what it's like to feel invisible.”
“Yeah,” the guys agreed.
“What’s your story? You guys wanna know mine but I know nothing about you.”
“Fair,” Drax agreed. “Well Dix and I were neighbors in high school. We’d sit in the woods out the back of our houses as our parents beat the shit out of each other.”
“Yeah,” Dix huffed, running a hand through her hair. “We made a deal by the time we graduated that we’d run away. It sounded good when we were thirteen but we did it. Kinda.”
“Yup,” Drax smirked. “We run Outta Banks surf shop at the far end of the cove. We made a life for ourselves. And then these two turned up one by one. And now this is our family.”
