Freeks(42)

“Fine. I’d categorize it as a lie by omission, but whatever. You left something out. I don’t care how you want to think of it,” he said in exasperation. “The point is that I didn’t do anything. So I don’t understand why you’re mad at me.”

“You didn’t have to do anything.” I shook my head. “I saw it in your face.”

His brow furrowed in confusion. “Saw what?”

I swallowed hard. “Contempt.”

“Contempt?” He scoffed. “Why the hell would I look at you with contempt?”

“Because.” I stepped back from him, hating the twisted pain that grew in my chest when I thought about the names I’d been called by guys who I had thought liked me, by people I’d thought were friends, and by strangers who didn’t even give me a chance.

“Because why?” Gabe pressed.

“Because that’s what they all do!” My voice was quavering, and I was practically shouting. “Once people know who I am, and they see that I’m just some poor loser traveling with a freak show, it all changes. I become like subhuman garbage to them.”

“I am sorry if anyone has ever made you feel that way, Mara, I truly am,” he said, and the softness of his expression and the hurt in his eyes made me believe he really was. “But those are just really shitty people, and I am not them.”

I shook my head, fighting back tears. “You can’t lie to me. I saw the look on your face when I told you what I really was.”

“That wasn’t contempt. It was the realization that you were leaving.” He shrugged his shoulders helplessly. “I was sad, and I was a little angry that you knew you weren’t going to be here very long, and you didn’t tell me.”

I lowered my eyes. “I didn’t think you’d care.”

“Why wouldn’t I care? I like you.” He moved closer to me. “And until last night, I thought you liked me too.”

“I like you,” I said softly. He put his hands on my waist, gently, warmly, and I lowered my arms to my sides and let him pull me closer. “But it doesn’t change anything. I’m still leaving soon.”

“So?”

I looked up at him. “So?”

“You knew you were leaving since the day you met me, and you still kissed me. And you kept seeing me. Why?”

“I don’t know.” I raised one shoulder in a lame shrug. “I just wanted to be with you.”

“Let’s just be together then, for as long as you’re here.”

I smiled despite myself. “Okay.”

“Good.” He bent down, kissing me on the mouth, and just when I put my arms around him, he abruptly stopped and stepped back. “Sorry. I just feel like your mom is gonna walk in at any moment, so I thought I should stop that before things get too heated.”

“Good call.” I laughed.

“Why don’t I take you out on a real date tonight?” Gabe suggested. “We can see something outside of the carnival. I’ll show you everything that Caudry has to offer.”

“I have work to do, but I could probably be done by six,” I said. “And I’d have to be back by eleven to help take things down.”

“So, between six and eleven tonight, you’re mine.”





23. bedouin

Gabe had been gone for all of thirty seconds before my mom came back into the Winnebago, meaning she had been waiting and watching. I’d already turned, pushing aside the beaded curtain to go into the bedroom.

“So you’re not gonna tell me what that was about?” Mom asked.

“You mean you didn’t hear it all from wherever you were spying?” I asked, but I was mostly teasing.

I knelt on the floor and opened the drawers underneath my bed to rummage through my clothes. Mom waited on the other side of the curtain, so I couldn’t really see her, but I knew exactly how she was standing—arms folded over her chest, toe tapping anxiously on the floor, her lips in a thin line and her eyes cast down in a mixture of anxiety and feigned indifference.

It wasn’t that my mom didn’t care. In fact, it was the opposite—she cared far too much. But we were now at that awkward stage in our relationship where I was legally an adult, but still a teenager who lived under her roof, albeit a small and nomadic roof.

Not to mention that her job was taking a toll on her, so she wasn’t able to do as much as she once had. That meant many of the adult responsibilities—like cooking and cleaning—had fallen to me.

“I only watched through the window of Gideon’s trailer,” Mom said, as if she hadn’t had her nose pressed to the glass. “I wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“Gabe’s perfectly safe,” I told her, but the second the words were out of my mouth, I wondered how I could be so sure. So far, everything in Caudry wasn’t exactly as it seemed, and everything had a sinister edge to it.

Finally, Mom had enough of talking to me through the curtain, so she pushed through the beads and sat down on her bed behind me.

“Then why haven’t you told me about him?” she asked. Underneath her concern, I heard a pained current.

I temporarily abandoned my search for an outfit, and I sat with my back still to her. “I don’t know.”