Chapter Forty
DAZE
Returning to Santa Fe hit me harder than I anticipated, and I spent most of the day hiding on the aerialist bus. Tucked into my temporary bunk, with the curtain drawn, I avoided everything. I nearly forgot to eat lunch and almost missed dinner, consumed by the war raging in my head.
The city brought up memories I’d rather forget and tugged at wounds I’d worked so long to heal.
It didn’t help that Night and I weren’t speaking again.
We spent the night together in Dallas, and I considered staying. I really did. But when the sun rose and I realized we were leaving for Santa Fe, I slipped out of his trailer without waking him and did the walk of shame back to the bus.
Truthfully, I didn’t trust him not to ignore me for the entirety of the road trip to New Mexico. Though he’d promised in his drunken stupor that he wouldn’t, and that we could work things out, I didn’t want to get my hopes crushed. Again.
It had happened far too many times over the last few years.
We could talk eventually but, for now, I wanted— needed —space.
Everything was a fucking mess, but I knew one thing: I was thankful Arina had joined me tonight. She could have gotten angry with me for waking her in the middle of the night, but she didn’t. Or if she was mad, she didn’t show it, and I was still grateful.
I lay in bed for hours, trying to calm my chaotic mind, only to realize I couldn’t do it on my own.
What I needed was a distraction.
I watched as she unlaced her boots and kicked them off before marching over to the ladder.
Trying my best not to stare at the way her hips swung when she walked, I slipped off my own shoes and followed behind her.
She started up the ladder without a word, scaling the metal rungs and putting distance between her and the ground.
“If I fall, are you going to catch me?” she called over her shoulder.
I laughed. Her falling off the ladder on the way up would be a first—I’d never seen that happen in my years with the circus.
“Sure,” I said as I followed behind her. “But you won’t fall. Just don’t look down.”
When Arina reached the top, she shakily crawled onto the platform, and I could tell her nerves were finally getting the best of her.
Her knees wobbled when she tried to stand, so she opted to sit until she got used to the height.
I sidled up next to her, draping my legs over the edge, and she timidly joined me moments later, sitting cross-legged instead of letting her feet dangle.
Heeding my word, she refused to look down.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?” she asked, gesturing around us to the empty arena. “How easy it is to fall to your death?”
“I mean, I guess you could if you miss the net.” I leaned far enough forward to see the wide, white safety net below us. Arina squeaked and grabbed my shoulder, dragging me back from the edge, which made me laugh. “I’m fine, I promise.”
She huffed as I sat up again. “You’re stressing me out.”
I would really stress her out when I told her the fastest way down was to jump onto the safety net, but I’d break that piece of bad news to her later.
“So, I take it you won’t be trying out for the aerialist team anytime soon?” I joked.
She snorted a laugh. “Sorry to disappoint. This is… terrifying. And you do this every weekend?”
“And some weekdays.” I winked at her. “You get used to it. Sometimes, it just takes a while.”
A beat of silence passed, and I stared at her profile. I’d memorized each of her features and spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about them. However, nothing could top seeing them in person.
The soft line of her jaw and her plump, kissable lips. Her wide, gray eyes that reminded me of storm clouds and the way her nose tipped up slightly at the end. Her dark brows, pale skin, and the single freckle on the apple of her cheek.
When she was dolled up with a face full of makeup for the show, she was pretty.
But like this, she was perfect.
“Thanks for hanging with me,” I said, dragging my eyes away from her. I looked out across the arena, wondering what she was staring at. “I really was going to find you earlier. Today was just…”
“It’s okay. Really.” She bumped her arm against mine. “You don't have to explain it to me.”
My insides twisted, churning with the truth I’d been considering for the last several hours.
“That’s the thing, I… want to.” My cheeks heated, and I did my best to shove down the emotion threatening to clog my throat.
I wanted to tell someone how difficult it was for me to visit my home state and the dark memories it brought up. I wanted to share the weight of the thoughts I carried, to open up about the things I’d kept buried for so long.
And I knew Arina would listen.
She might not understand, but it was something. More than I had currently.
Night would never ask, and if I did open up to him, he wouldn’t care. I’d known him for too long to believe otherwise.
“Well, I’m here to listen,” she said. I looked over to find a smile curving her pouty lips. “However much or little you want to share.”
I ran my tongue over my teeth, contemplating.
This was it; she’d given me the green light. She wanted to hear me out, to know what was on my mind.
Then why am I nervous?
I figured the best way to get through it was to just start talking. To pick something, anything, and go from there.
But it was hard to think with her eyes on me.
I blew out a breath.
“I lived in Santa Fe my entire life, nineteen years of it anyway. Just Ma and me. I worked here”—I gave the familiar arena a sweeping glance—“to help her pay the bills, and everything was fine. We didn’t have a lot, but we weren’t struggling to get by.”
She scooted over closer until our legs brushed, and it took everything in me not to wrap my arm around her and drag her against me.
I was trying to be patient, to not throw myself at her every chance I got.
I wanted to spend time with her, to learn the things that made her tick, rather than just shoving my tongue down her throat.
I wanted to understand her and strengthen the connection between us.
“What happened?” she asked gently.
At her question, darkness bled into the edges of my mind, leeching into my thoughts. It brought with it all the pain, hurt, and bad decisions I’d made in the past. All the things that led to me leaving Santa Fe.
“One evening, she decided to go to the market. There was something she wanted to make for dinner, but we didn’t have all the ingredients.
She asked me to go with her, but I’d just gotten home from a long shift, and I really didn’t want to.
” I managed to keep my voice level as the memory replayed in my head like it was yesterday.
“She asked again right before she walked out the door, if I’d go with her, and I told her no. I wanted to shower and take a nap.”
I hesitated, knowing what came next, knowing there was no way to avoid it. Even though it happened over three years ago, the grief was fresh as ever.
“She never made it home,” I said. “A stray bullet took her from me.”
“Oh, Daze…” I saw Arina’s jaw drop in my peripheral, but I didn’t meet her eyes. Instead, I stared out across the arena, afraid I’d lose my nerve if I saw pity in her eyes.
I didn’t want pity.
“After she died, I was… lost.” That was the best way to describe it.
She was the only family I had in the states; all of her living relatives were back in Mexico.
My father left when I was a toddler, and I never saw him after that.
Without my mother, I had no sense of direction, no purpose.
I just went through the motions, numb to everything.
“My grandparents told me to come stay with them in Guanajuato. I had a passport; it would have been easy to get away for a few months. I told them I’d think about it, because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go. ”
Originally, I’d planned to think about it for a few days.
But the days turned into weeks, those weeks into months.
I lost countless nights of sleep contemplating, and I video chatted with my grandmother every other day about it.
She was supportive and understanding of my hesitancy, even though I knew she wanted me there.
“I didn’t go.” I swallowed hard, my eyes dropping to my lap where my hands were folded. “I was too afraid to leave Santa Fe, afraid that somehow it would mean I was abandoning my mother’s memory. I know it’s silly but…”
“It’s not silly.” Arina’s voice was soft, and she placed a comforting hand on my thigh. “I felt the same way when my mother died, like I needed to be somewhere connected to her somehow. That’s why I was trying to get to Houston.”
I dragged my eyes up to meet hers and found her biting her bottom lip. She looked worried, concerned, sad.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized quickly, worried I upset her with my story. “I can stop talking about it, I just?—”
“No,” she cut me off sternly. “Keep going. What happened next? Did you ever get to see your grandparents?”
The question was a punch to the chest, and my gaze dropped again.
“Umm, no… I didn’t. Not in person, anyway. They both died before I got the chance.”
Arina squeezed my thigh gently, and I slipped my hand into hers. “That must have been so difficult to deal with. I’m sorry.”
There it was: the pity I’d wanted to avoid. I didn’t want her to be sad for me. Losing loved ones was a part of life. A tough part that everyone experienced at one point or another. It sucked, but as much as it hurt, I knew they were all somewhere better.
I didn’t believe in Heaven—I’d tossed that idea out a long time ago—but I knew whatever existed beyond our mere existence had to be… better.
“Thanks,” was all I could say. “And I’m sorry about your mother. It’s not easy losing a mom.”
This time, when I looked up, she was blinking away tears. “No, it’s not. She was the only one really in my corner. I didn’t realize just how not in my corner my dad was until she died.”
Seeing her hurt broke me and knowing that my story had forced her to face her own grief was like a slap to the face. I didn’t know what to say. What could I say?
I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “How long ago did she pass?”
“Almost five months now, I think.”
Fuck.
Here I was moping about something that happened years ago, and she just said goodbye to her mom a few months ago. Regret burned up my insides.
“Shit, Arina, I’m sorry. I feel like an asshole for bringing all this up,” I said, wishing I could take it all back.
“Seriously, don’t be.” She wiped a stray tear off her cheek. “My mom was sick—super fucking sick. Of course, I miss her like crazy, but I hated watching her suffer. I’d like to think she’s proud of me, but I don’t know. I’ve done some crazy shit since she died.”
“I bet she is.” I nodded adamantly. “In fact, I know she is.”
She was doing her best to hold back tears, but they kept slipping down her cheeks. Her reply came out as a whisper, barely audible. “How do you know?”
“Because I’m proud of you.” I reached over and wiped one of her tears away with my thumb.
“I’m constantly impressed by your bravery, the way you never back down from a challenge.
You might not have had a plan to begin with, but you figured things out,” I said, putting on my most reassuring smile for her.
“And if I can see all that after only knowing you for a little while, someone who’s known you your whole life would be even more impressed than I am.
She knows everything you’ve had to overcome, all the fears you’ve had to conquer.
There’s no way she isn’t insanely proud. ”
Arina’s bottom lip wobbled, and I finally broke, wrapping my arm around her and pulling her into my chest. I rested my chin on top of her head, blinking away the sting at the corners of my eyes and held her close.
“I needed to hear that,” she whispered, nuzzling into my chest.
I smiled into her hair, closing my eyes. “I’ll tell you as often as you need to hear it.”
“Your mom would be very proud of you, too, you know?” she said, pulling away to look me in the eye. “Knowing she raised such an incredible human. Daze, she’d be so proud.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. My eyes prickled until tears spilled over, and I looked away, not wanting her to see me cry. I hadn’t cried in so long, possibly years, that it felt foreign.
Despite all the shit Night had put me through, the number of times he ignored me and pretended like I wasn’t there, I’d never shed a single tear over him. It hurt, sure, but not enough to break me.
But being here with Arina, finally feeling seen and understood after so long, had emotions crashing into me like waves, and I wasn’t sure how to handle them.
So, instead of trying to decipher them or apologize for breaking down, I pulled her to me again and settled into the comfort of her company.
And, for a moment, for the first time since we arrived in Santa Fe, I was completely at peace.