Désolé • E. O'Connor

The first thing Dove learned about pain was how to hide it.

It was a lesson taught in bruises that bloomed under harsh lights and broken bones wrapped in glittering ribbons. The circus was both a prison and a stage, the centre ring echoing with applause as she swung effortlessly between heaven and hell. She was their aerial angel-every spin, every somersault, an illusion of freedom.

But freedom wasn't in the applause. It was in the way she imagined vanishing into the night, slipping the chains of the trapeze, and falling somewhere no one could reach her.

And one day, that fall came.