FREAK SHOW

Chapter 13: Heart-Shaped Box

Chapter 13: Heart-Shaped Box

~"Deep in her stomach peered a half-empty wine bottle and beyond the pale glass, her gaze must be nearly half a mile away. 'The light must distort it, but the distortions are the world,' she returned to the wine bottle, 'we've grown up with it, distortions we don't notice.' He touched her chin, 'tell me how I am.' 'That's what artists are for,' she said."~ Victoria Elena M.

WARNING FOR THIS CHAPTER

The months seemed to fly by, in an almost dreamlike sequence for Scarlett. With July in the air, she got to wear her ratty converses again instead of those awfully tight winter boots. And with a certain type of sadness, longing and dreadful homesickness, she realized that she would be officially a senior in highschool by now. The school year had already finished and all of her friends would be on summer break then. Her grief never lasted long though because usually her eyes would land on Charlie and they would both smile and practically run at each other and kiss passionately as if the world was ending around them and Scarlett would forget. Completely forget about it. Forget that she had an actual life before him, before this. It was almost like a sickness, how he completely numbed her from her melancholy and hope for escape. In a way, he was trapping her there, whether he knew it or not.

With the winter months over, the shows had started back up. Scarlett had long gotten used to the stage, with the ridiculous outfit they threw her in and the amount of makeup on her face, no one would recognize her; she was a different person and being a different person made it easy for her to be in front of hundreds. They finally added Scarlett's picture on the side of Irene and her's caravan also. Whoever painted it, however, did a horrendous job as the female on the side looked nothing like her, and perhaps it was done to protect her identity as the poor kidnapped girl. The most peculiar thing about becoming a different person for the show was that she became a fan favorite. Apparently, a lot of people enjoyed 'The Scarlett Bunny's' singing. Often after shows she would get little girls coming up to her with admiration in their eyes, always leaving Scarlett with a watery smile and flattered, blushed cheeks. Sometimes the occasional older man would try to smooth-talk her (Charlie would somehow magically appear and terrorize them) and that would be the only downside for her new singing 'career'.

Axel's broken arm eventually healed, to Scarlett's dismay, and Bruce's nails grew back; it was like everything died down and life there was peaceful again, as peaceful as it could be. Charlie and Scarlett even made it their own private joke to make a show out of calling each other brother and sister in front of Axel, just for the fun of it. The man still hadn't gotten the message that they were making fun of him. Scarlett was happy to know that they made his plan backfire.

For the fourth of July weekend, they were open almost twenty four seven. In the new town, tons of people flocked to the sideshow and the shows Scarlett had to be in were almost continuous throughout the day. Though on the actual day of the fourth of July, there was only one show, earlier in the day, and then a fireworks show at night sponsored by local dealers that sold cheap fireworks for them. It was a hard weekend with the amount of chaos around the freakshow, everyone busying around and getting things done. Scarlett often thought she lost her voice more than once to the amount of times they had to preform, but she didn't complain because then she would think about how Nina and Irene trapezed without safety ropes (she, herself, nearly died doing it), how Ebony breathed fire (not a pleasant experience at all to do), and how Charlie was in a pit with lions (already proven not safe.)

But it all paid off on the fourth of July. After the one show, they were finished. And with the dinner canceled for the firework show that night, Scarlett got to finally enjoy herself. More importantly, Charlie and her were planning to have a picnic as they watched the fireworks. It had been nearly seven months since they had started dating. Half a year, Scarlett realized. She had never known someone as deeply as she knew Charlie and had never had someone know her as deeply as he knew her.