He’s never made an effort to stick around back here. He usually pops behind the curtains, tells me I did great, then slips away, and we all eventually meet up to walk home together.
I don’t know what changed. Other than…
Oh, my God.
He’s probably heard me…
Anxiety drips through a catheter in my spine, my mind flashing to each time I propped my leg up on the wall and took my mind off the horror show. I think I kept myself quiet every single time. But I don’t know for sure. I mean, I cover my mouth and the shower hisses loudly.
He could have heardsomething, though.
Zombified, my feet plant to the floor and I take a step away from the dangling silks.
“Bun?”
His concern snaps my focus up to him. “Hm?”
Everyone’s gone… We could get away with so much right now.
An ache that needs pacified thrums between my thighs. But not knowing if he sees me like that or would even be interested in having benefits behind closed curtains parches my mouth with an insecurity that leaves me feeling small.
Studying me in the shadows, he rears an arm back and throws the curtains open. The light instantly pierces my eyes, and since I’m already feeling ashamed of the robust emotions, my shoulders gravitate closer to my chest, and I drop his intense gaze. “I’m ready to go.”
“What’s goin’ on, little bunny?” he asks, loosely gesturing to me with the ears of my mask.
Please don’t do this to me right now.
I snap a smile on and straighten my spine, giving him a coy shrug and hustling around him adjusting his beanie. “Nothing. I’m okay.”
I so desperately want to ask him why he listens to me shower. What motive he has behind it. What impulses him to get out of bed and press his ear to the old wood. But even just the consideration of confronting him blotches my chest in hives visible above the sweetheart neckline of my glitzy one piece.
Making it to my dressing room, I thrash my arm back and close the curtains, frantically clawing at the back zipper that’s beginning to feel like it’s tightening.
A whimper rattles my throat, forcing my arms as far back as they can go and clawing at the flapping plastic I can’t get a grip on.
I’m suffocating. My ribs are bowing in and preventing my lungs from taking in a fulfilling breath and this… this… “This outfit!”
Twisting and fighting through the flames boiling up my arms, a tender touch grazes my desperate fingers—and the plastic teeth release me.
I suck in nauseating amount of oxygen, hooking my hands into the sequins and ripping the firm material halfway down my chest. “Thank you.”
“You don’t need to thank me… But I would love to know why you’re bein’ strange with me,” Razor says, his usual controlled tone disturbed with worry.
“I’m not,” I squeak, swallowing roughly and yanking my top from the vanity.
Being on the cusp of ripping my skin off because it’s constricting me is not an appropriate time to battle around words and explain things. I can barely get my top on without stumbling over my own feet.
“I’ll just, uh… I’ll wait for you out there.”
The defeat in his voice torches me with guilt, and the screams from the rollercoaster next to my tent are echoing like they’re manifested from my mind.
I quickly get dressed in my clothes from earlier and hang my performance outfit up, then rush my face to the mirror and start rubbing at the red patches of angst rising up my neck.
Mentally, I wish to be normal, so that I could find flattery in Razor’s interest. But physically, my body is a glutton for disaster. It thrives to make me sick and tie my tongue.
It loves to see me suffer.
Finger combing my curled ends with one hand, I use the other to pat away the veins from my tears and head for the curtains.
