Eight Count ✔️

SIX

I smile like there's no tomorrow.

For me, there isn't. There is only today and this performance left. My problems have solved themselves. The plan, like time, works without flaw.

I approach, my trainers tapping against the pavement rhythmically. I raise my palm to Dax, readying for a high five.

Dax frowns.

The expression is complete with no room to debate the meaning.

He dismounts the bike. His shoulders slump and eyes on the hot asphalt. "I-I'm sorry."

He's stuttering.

My stomach is like a package dropping off the back of a delivery truck. An accident that is forgeten, one of benefit to some while simultaneously completely destructive. I have the package flying off the truck.

Dax stuttered rarely, only during presentations, when he was nervous, or when in a confrontational situation.

None of the above does anything beneficial to my plan. If anything–. No. I refuse to let that outcome focus here. I will not let that stand as the closing imagine.

"Dax," I say. My voice is surprisingly steady. "What happened?"

Not meeting my gaze, I'm forced to stare at his straight black hair and the tip of his chin. "I went there. I really did. It was closed, Dawn! Closed! I looked just as crazy as I am, didn't I? Did I? I must have. I mean, what else could that have been: me tappin' the glass, bangin' on that door... I-I don't know what happened."

"For the love of logic, get ahold of yourself." The way my gaze drifts, wavering back and forth from Dax to the sky shares the silent pleas I have left to make with this world. There is nothing for me here. Nothing with the close to this day. The curtain falls here. I come undone here too.

Why did I trust him?

Dax doesn't calm his hysterical hurricane, and I find myself drug into the swim of depressing thoughts spoken aloud.

He claims he has failed me. He claims he should have known better. He claims he should have never gotten involved. He claims a lot of things, but my mind clips to a personal newspaper elsewhere, one article stuck forever in my mind. The headline sticks.

You failed.

The headline is bold and in all caps. There is article after article with variations of the text, memories of the shit that's happened in my life. The newspapers are a cast of everything that I am and was. These old, weathering papera are what I have of myself. They are what I've become.

I have a weathered paper with a title of failure.

I can't dance the showcase without an undamaged costume.

"You gave me the wrong number. I know it. I kept calling and calling you. I did.. I swear." He takes a breath for what seems like the first time in twenty seconds of speech. "I got here as soon as I could to tell you what happened. I know I shouldn't have gotten involved" He shakes his head, realizing he's said that thrice now. The rise and fall of his chest increases. "And, and... I sorry. Too sorry. I tried. No costume still, but we can do something. Right? Tell me you can do–"

"Stop talking." I grab him by the shoulder, robotically gesturing to a railing to lock his bike to and the exit I recently came from.

I know he says more words, but I can't bother to listen. There I only a small annoying buzz in my head and a calamity of raining papers. Why would I trust him? Why did I entrust this stranger with my career? Why didn't I go and do that shit myself. I have Samantha's number. I grasp my phone but quickly release it. It's too late for that. She said she was busy. She needed me to call prior. I gave him not one, but two wrong numbers. Vaguely, I remember glancing up from his phone, my finger slipping from the nine and landing on the eight. Twice.