DAILY NEWS
The Circus from HELL
Following an explosive one-night circus in the town of Nowhere last week, a string of missing persons has been reported in the area.
Local authorities are currently treating these incidents as connected; however, there are no current leads on the case.
If you have any information that could help please contact the police department at 555–0125.
A FEW DAYS BEFORE
Once upon a time, in the town of Nowhere, Helen Thomas was trapped in a box, slowly suffocating under the weight of the world, and scared she’d stay trapped forever, never to be seen or heard again …
“I’ve been thinking about this for a really long time now, and you’re great … I just think we’d do a lot better if we had more time apart…,” Helen said to her reflection in the rearview mirror.
The car was empty and mostly quiet, save for the heavy pelting of rain against the metal roof of the beat-up Mustang, accompanied by the swishing of the windshield wipers, which made a disturbing screeching sound each time the blades cleared more rain away.
She sighed, cleared her throat, and tried again.
“Asher, I think we should take a break. It’ll be good for the both of us. In a few weeks, summer will be over, and then it’ll be senior year. You can finally focus on football and college applications. And I’ll be working to save up for the move to Los Angeles. I want to focus on my future, and I don’t think I can do that with a boyfriend … we can try again maybe in a year or so or…” She stopped herself mid-lie, slumping a little in defeat, but then a moment later, she sat back up again.
If she was going to do this, she had to do it properly. She had to be honest. But the truth was so much harder to acknowledge, let alone admit to herself in the dark.
She adjusted the rearview mirror, flicking the car’s interior lights on above her.
Now illuminated, she could see herself more clearly, though it took her a moment to recognize that the girl in the reflection was indeed herself.
Or rather, an exhausted-looking version of herself. There was a subtle dullness to her dark skin, her relaxer-reliant hair a mess and frizzing up from the rain she’d gotten caught in minutes ago, and her red lipstick smudged from the day’s wear.
Helen quickly pulled her bag onto her lap, dug around in it, taking out a small golden tube she’d swiped from her mom’s dresser some weeks ago. After pulling the mirror down some more, she popped the lid off the lipstick and pressed it to her mouth, staining it bright scarlet. She pressed her lips together, smoothed her damaged hair down with her hands, and began her breakup monologue again.
This time with all intentions of telling the truth.
What was the truth? She wasn’t sure anymore.
She’d been living the lie for so long.
Helen cleared her throat. Pulled on a serious face. And opened her mouth.
“Asher—” she began, but was immediately cut off by the sound of the car door being thrown open as the pale grinning face and bright blue eyes of the devil in question appeared before her.
Helen’s heart stopped for a moment, her deep-brown eyes widening as the truth lodged in her throat.
“Shit, Asher. You scared me!” she said, placing her hand over chest and her now erratic heartbeat.
Asher scrunched his eyebrows together, his wet brown hair plastered to his forehead as he stared at her in confusion. “Were you just … talking to yourself?” he questioned, as he maneuvered his lanky body into the driver’s seat of the car.
Helen felt cold rush through her, both from the open door and from the thought of nearly being caught. “No…” she replied—another lie.
He didn’t look convinced, but it was obvious he found it all so amusing.
“I’m pretty sure I even heard you say my name … Were you having some alone time?” he asked, his voice dropping an octave as he placed his large pale hand on her dark brown knee. “Because if you were,” he whispered, “I can help finish you off.”
She watched as his hand slowly moved under her dress, and she quickly shoved it away. “Stop being such a dog, Ash. One, I’m not doing anything here with you. We’re at a gas station because you wanted to stop and pee. Two, we’re already late for the movie,” Helen said sternly, pulling her dress back down over her knees.
“You’re right. Let’s get to the movie,” Asher said, in an uncharacteristically resigned manner. The usual Asher would shoot back a retort of some kind, something that would definitely result in Helen rolling her eyes while ruminating more on why she was still with him in the first place.
But instead, Asher moved away, tipping his head back onto the headrest, his expression flat and subdued.
For a moment, she feared he’d heard her breakup speech. She wasn’t sure why that made her feel sick, but it did. She didn’t want to hurt him, though maybe him overhearing her would make things easier. It would mean she’d finally gotten this over and done with.
But then why did the idea of no longer being with Asher make her feel worse?
“Are you okay?” Helen asked hesitantly, waiting for him to turn to her with his big glassy puppy-dog eyes and tell her that she’d betrayed him or something, but instead he did something else entirely.
Asher shook his head but didn’t look at her. “Bowie died over the weekend,” he said.
It took Helen a few moments to process that sentence.
“Oh…” she said, blinking at him slowly. “The singer? I didn’t know you were a fan—”
He shook his head and finally looked squarely at her, those eyes of his disarming her in an instant. “No, not the singer, my sister’s poodle named Bowie. I guess she must’ve named it after the guy. I was pretty close to him even though he wasn’t mine,” Asher continued. “I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t want to ruin our date, but then you said the word dog, and I remembered—”
“Oh, Ash, I’m so sorry,” Helen said, taking his hand and squeezing.
“No, no, it’s fine, I don’t want to bring the mood down. I’m good.”
“You sure?” she asked.
He nodded and smiled at her. “Yes, I’m sure. Thanks for asking though. You being so caring is one of the many things I love about you.”
Helen felt her stomach twist. She couldn’t tell if it was because of the food truck burger she’d had earlier or if it was this whole situation with Asher. He looked at her with so much expectation, like there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that she wasn’t a liar.
She needed some fresh air.
“I think I’m gonna get a water from the 7-Eleven. You want anything?” she asked him, opening the car door as she did.
Instantly, the cold swept inside and the rain along with it, which grazed her arm and gave her goose bumps.
“Nah, I’m good. I’ve got everything I need right here,” he said, stroking her arm now.
His touch felt like one thousand little critters dancing on her skin.
“Cool!” she said, pulling away from him and clambering out of the car into the rain. “I won’t be long—don’t get impatient,” she said, then slammed the car door behind her and hurried into the 7-Eleven before Asher could touch her again.
She couldn’t remember a time she’d actually enjoyed Asher’s touch, and they’d been together for three years now. All through freshman, sophomore, and junior years. He was her first boyfriend, her only boyfriend. Her first everything really.
Was that weird? That she didn’t like the feeling of making out with her boyfriend after all this time? Or holding his hand? Or telling him she loved him? Or doing anything intimate at all?
Asher wasn’t perfect, but he wasn’t a terrible person either. He liked watching films as much as she did, and he treated her nice. Got her expensive gifts. Complimented her all the time.
He’d always tell her how much he loved her hair, her skin, her body.
Her friends would see them together and remind her of how lucky she was to have a boyfriend who adored her.
But why did she feel the opposite of lucky?
The chiming of the store’s bell as she entered the 7-Eleven disrupted her thoughts.
That was enough thinking about him now. She clearly couldn’t end things tonight, especially not when his family dog had just died.
“Hello?” a voice called out from somewhere outside Helen’s head.
Helen looked up to find a girl standing in front of her.
She had dark brown skin, a small coily Afro, and circular spectacles that framed her face perfectly.
“Do you need any assistance?” the girl asked, with an arched eyebrow and a smile. Her face was so striking, filled with all sorts of perfectly placed angles and contours. Helen almost forgot her words.
“Um, yes, water, I need water—a bottle of it preferably,” Helen said, her voice a little high-pitched.
“I believe we do have that,” she replied in an almost-teasing way. “It’s over here. Follow me,” the girl said, and Helen did.
As she walked behind the girl, she noticed her peculiar fashion sense. Not that Helen could judge much, seeing as her own go-to colors were boring earth tones.
But it was hard not to notice the brightness of the girl’s orange waistcoat, light-green corduroy bell-bottoms, and her chunky bright red boots. They were colors that were meant to stand out. She clearly didn’t mind being seen.
“Here we are,” she said, sliding open one of the refrigerator doors and handing Helen a bottle, their fingers brushing together for less than a nanosecond as she did. Yet that fraction of time felt much longer.
“Th-thanks,” Helen quickly said, and the girl smiled even wider, revealing an endearing snaggletooth.
“No problem at all. Need help with anything else?” Gas Station Girl (or GSG for short) asked.
Helen shook her head. “I should be, uh, good with finding the rest of the, um, stuff myself.” Her words stumbled clumsily out of her mouth, like she no longer knew how to structure a sentence.
She didn’t even know what else she was looking for or if she even needed anything else. She just knew she wanted to be normal again and was struggling to be right now.
“Okay, well, give us a shout if you need anything,” GSG said, before turning away and going back over to the checkout station.
Helen couldn’t help but watch her walk away. Taking in more details, like the lemongrass scent she left behind and her movements, confident and strong.
The more Helen looked at GSG’s clothes, the more she found herself liking them.
It wasn’t necessarily something Helen would wear herself, but they somehow suited this girl. Made her look good.
Helen’s eyes traveled up to the girl’s face, and she startled when she saw the girl staring right back at her. Catching her red-handed.
Helen shifted her eyes away, pretending to find interest in the jar of pickles in front of her, grateful to her own complexion for hiding the heat slowly creeping up her face.
A few moments later, Helen found herself in front of the girl once again, ready to pay and go back to the car, where she could no longer hide from her own man-made house of horrors.
She placed her items on the counter, and the girl smiled at her in this strange knowing way while tapping the objects’ values into the cash register.
Helen pretended not to notice the girl’s expression, looking instead at the bulletin board behind her, where several rows of the same bright poster hung on the board.
Circe Des Rêves —Here for One Night Only
A circus like no other. Come and see our world-class acrobats, our trained circus pets, our fire-breathing men, and our terrifically terrifying Clowns!
This special event will also be televised for the first time!
Helen felt a jolt of excitement at the mention of cameras. Her sudden interest must have been obvious because the girl was now turning to look at the poster too.
“You like the circus?” the girl asked.
“I guess it sounds … cool,” Helen said, which was a lie. She didn’t care much for the circus itself but rather the fact there’d be cameras, which meant she could be seen by hundreds of people. Maybe even more than that.
“I wouldn’t peg you for a circus girl.”
Helen raised an eyebrow at her. “What kind of girl would you peg me for?”
“Hmm … I don’t know yet. I guess that part is a mystery for now—oh fuck.” The girl groaned as the bag she’d been placing Helen’s purchases inside ripped. “I’ll need to double this, hold on a moment,” she said before turning around, sliding a footstool in front of her, and climbing up to get more bags from the storage behind the checkout.
Helen tried to watch as subtly as she could while the girl dug around.
“There we go. These should do just fine,” the girl said, jumping down from the stool and turning back to Helen.
“Thanks,” Helen mumbled, as she averted her gaze again.
Quiet crept in while the girl carefully double bagged her things.
“What’s your name?” the girl asked suddenly, disrupting the silence.
“What?” Helen asked as a reflex. She hadn’t expected a question.
“Your name. What do people call you?”
“Oh … Helen.”
The girl nodded thoughtfully, but before Helen could ask for her name too, the girl was speaking again. “Helen, like Helen of Troy … the girl who launched a thousand ships. Very … fitting,” she said, staring directly at Helen, or rather through her, like she was somehow reading all her thoughts, turning them over one by one.
Helen didn’t know much about Greek myths, so she didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing.
“I’m actually named after my aunt Helena, but my mom didn’t like my aunt much and so got rid of the a,” Helen clarified, as GSG turned to grab some store coupons from the shelf. Helen tried not to look at her too closely once again.
“Well, then … Helen without an a…” the girl said, her back still to Helen. “In the future, you should ask a girl to dinner after you finish checking her out. It’s only polite…”
Helen stilled, taken aback by the implication. “I wasn’t—”
“I know. I’m just joking,” GSG said, still smiling. “That’ll be a dollar and fifty cents.”
Helen’s face grew even warmer.
She quickly slid across three fifty-cent coins and then took the bag off the counter. She wanted to leave before this whole exchange could get any more awkward. She mumbled a thank-you and goodbye and quickly turned to walk away, but she was stopped by the girl’s hand on her wrist.
“Wait,” the girl said, and Helen was forced to look up at her once again.
Helen’s heart stuttered when she did.
GSG yanked one of the circus fliers from the board and handed it to Helen. “It’s my uncle’s circus. We’re kind of a nomad family. We travel every few weeks to different towns and cities all around the world. You should come along.”
“You work here and the circus?” Helen said. Those were all the words she could muster.
“Just the circus. I’m covering a few shifts to help an old friend of my uncle’s out while we’re here, but the circus is my main thing. I have this whole act where I dress up as a clown and scare all the kids with my evil clown laugh,” she said with a wicked smile. “I promise it’s a lot of fun and I’m not just saying that because I have a vested interest in all this.”
Helen looked down at the flier and then back up at her. Helen nodded, feeling her heartbeat in her throat. “Oh, uh … yeah, I guess I’ll see. My boyfriend loves this stuff, so it might be worth checking out,” she said, cringing internally for using Asher to prove some benign point to this girl. The point being that Helen was the sort of girl who had a boyfriend. It all seemed so silly to even mention it in the first place.
It wasn’t all a lie though—Asher did have a strange obsession with clowns. He’d even made her watch that Poltergeist movie that had come out last year for this reason alone. Yet she still felt like a fraud for bringing him up.
The girl did not flinch at the mention of Helen’s boyfriend. She just smiled at her and said, “Good, I hope I do see you there. It was nice meeting you, Helen.”
The way she said her name, combined with that snaggletoothed smile of hers, made it feel like they were playing a silent game of truth or dare and she had just issued a dare.
Helen nodded, smiling tightly back at her. Not quite accepting the dare, but also not turning her back on it either. “It was nice meeting you too…”
The girl answered Helen’s unspoken question: “Beatrice.”
“Beatrice,” Helen repeated, liking the feel of her name on her tongue.
“But my friends call me Tris,” Beatrice added.
Was that an invitation? Helen thought. To be friends?
“Oh right … Tris,” Helen said.
Something in Beatrice’s expression shifted, and Helen could tell then that she had won the dare.
Without another word, Helen rushed out of the 7-Eleven feeling breathless, as if she’d climbed ten thousand steps. The cold wet air coated her skin as she flung the car door open before climbing in quickly, as though Beatrice would catch her and expose more of her unuttered secrets.
The door slammed shut loudly behind her, the sound like a gunshot ringing in the air.
“What took you so long?” Asher asked when she got back.
She almost startled again, somehow having forgotten he was there. “I got distracted, sorry. Let’s just go,” she said.
He started the car once again and placed one arm back around her as he began to reverse out of the gas station. She couldn’t tell if it was the vibrations from the car or her own internal shaking; either way she felt on the brink of collapse.
As Asher drove away, Helen did not look back to see if Gas Station Girl was visible in the window. Even though she so wanted to. Instead, she turned to look at her boyfriend.
She felt something inside her break at how underwhelming the feeling was. She truly felt nothing. No tingling when his fingers grazed her back. No nervousness when he looked at her as he drove along the wide stretch of the road, nor joy when he leaned over to kiss her forehead before returning his gaze ahead.
Just an underwhelming nothingness.
You should ask a girl to dinner first after checking her out, it’s only polite.
Beatrice’s teasing words echoed inside the dark corners of Helen’s mind, and when she closed her eyes, she could see Beatrice again.
This wasn’t the first time Helen had seen a stranger and felt weird, confusing things. Sometimes she felt this way when she was watching a film and some beautiful tall actress would waltz onto the screen; uncomfortable feelings would swirl inside, and she’d be overwhelmed by them all.
It was so much easier to switch off a movie when it got to be too much—much harder to switch off a person.
That didn’t mean she couldn’t try.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to erase the unease. She thought of things that made her truly happy. Like the future and what could come of it.
A future where she would no longer be an insignificant, unknown, unseen thing in an insignificant, unknown, unseen town. A day when everyone would know the name Helen Thomas, and she’d finally be seen on screens all over the world. In her dreams she would get to Hollywood, and she’d star in the most wonderful pictures. She’d be something. Be someone. Not just Asher’s girl.
Something real.
Something of her own.
“Wake up sleepyhead, we’re here,” Asher said.
She felt his hot breath against her ear and everything inside her twisted and shriveled up. She opened her eyes, disappointed to see it wasn’t the future yet. She was still in this car, still a nobody. “I wasn’t asleep,” she said, though she had been dreaming.
“Sure, you weren’t. I’m gonna go grab some popcorn and collect our speakers for the film. Want anything?”
“I’m good,” she said.
He nodded and went off to fetch the food, while she stared ahead at the giant screen and the many cars parked around them, waiting for the film to start.
They would be watching the 1966 Batman, a classic and also a favorite of theirs.
Looking into the other cars, she caught glimpses of couples making out. Some were chaste kisses, others accompanied by passionate heavy petting.
She thought about what it would be like to kiss someone and have it not be a lie.
She thought about what it would be like to kiss Beatrice. Helen guessed Beatrice was a good kisser.
Not that Helen would ever have the chance to confirm this suspicion.
There was a sudden bang on the roof of the Mustang, and Helen jumped, looking up as though she’d somehow be able to see what had caused the loud noise through the opaque material.
Just then, there was a knock on the window. She turned, but there was no one there.
Is it hailing outside or something? she thought, but the sky had cleared up since the rain from earlier; it was now just cold and damp.
Suddenly, she heard a third bang, but this time she saw something.
In the windshield, towering over the car, a face hidden behind a white clown mask appeared.
Helen froze as the clown’s face stared down at her in the dark. She couldn’t breathe. The clown moved slowly toward the driver’s side of the car. The intruder stretched one hand up as if grabbing something from the roof. A weapon, she suspected. She felt air return to her lungs once more and started breathing fast. She heard the car door unlock and quickly scanned the interior for something that could be used as protection, but annoyingly, Asher’s car was empty.
She wanted to cry, to run, to do something, but as usual she choked. Unable to flee even when everything in her screamed for her to do so. Instead, she sat frozen as the clown reached for the door handle.
She watched in horror as the car door opened, and the masked intruder casually slid inside, careful not to spill the popcorn in his hands.
Helen could hear a low chuckle as the clown lifted his mask, revealing the face of her annoying soon-to-be ex-boyfriend.
“Oh my God, you should have seen your face, Hel! Priceless. Absolutely priceless—” He was cut off by Helen’s hand swiping him across the head.
“That wasn’t funny, Asher.”
He smiled, rubbing his temple. “It was funny to me.”
She folded her arms and sat back in the seat, annoyed that he’d do that to her. He knew she scared easily.
He leaned in close, placing his hand on hers. “I’m sorry, Hel. I just wanted to surprise you, raise the spirits and all.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t like my spirits raised in that way. Next time you pull something like that, I’m going to chop off your head along with that creepy mask and feed it to a pack of chickens.”
Asher found this very funny; he threw his head back in laughter like it wasn’t a serious threat. “Hel, you’re hilarious,” he said, plugging the speaker into the Mustang’s radio compartment.
“Thanks, I want to be a clown when I’m older,” she answered sarcastically.
“Well, you’re halfway there with this mask and that hair of yours,” he said with a jovial smile.
Helen self-consciously brought her hand up to her hair, smoothing it down gently. She caught a glimpse of it in the rearview mirror again. She was overdue on her next appointment but hadn’t gotten a chance to go to the salon in a while. The relaxers burned her scalp, and she never looked forward to that feeling.
Helen thought about asking him what he meant by that, but she remembered his sister’s dead poodle and decided to play nice.
It wasn’t the first time Asher had made a strange remark about her hair, but for some reason, this time his words made something inside her burn. Like indigestion, but worse—deeper … darker.
She dropped her hands and her courage and decided to ignore his comment. “I think the movie’s starting,” she said instead, noticing the flicker of the big screen.
Asher sat up, eager as the movie began to play.
But Helen wasn’t watching the screen anymore. She watched him.
If it weren’t for Bowie, this might’ve been the perfect time to just come out with it. While he was still distracted and under the influence of cinema magic, but unfortunately, the dog was dead, and in many ways, so was she.
The film went on, and the crowd was mostly quiet; that is, until Lee Meriwether appeared as Catwoman. There were some jeers from the crowd, people whistling as the feline bombshell sauntered onto the big screen.
Helen had watched this movie more than once, and her reaction was the same whenever Lee came on the screen. She’d feel her heart pick up its pace, causing guilt to rise inside her.
Asher sat forward, grabbed a handful of popcorn, and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing loudly in a manner that felt unbearably obnoxious even though it probably wasn’t.
“She’s so hot, right?” Asher whispered, and Helen looked at him with an eyebrow raised.
“She’s okay I guess,” Helen said with a shrug. “I love Catwoman though. You know, I hope they do a Catwoman movie or show that I can audition for. I really want to play her someday.”
Asher snorted. “You want to play Catwoman?” he asked in a tone she didn’t like.
“Yeah … that’s what I just said.”
He shook his head.
“What?”
“You don’t exactly look like Catwoman, I guess.”
Helen narrowed her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, for one—and I mean this with love, Hel—Catwoman is a bombshell. It would disturb the whole sanctity of the role, you know? I think she needs to be depicted correctly, not just by anyone. Also, you know I support any dream of yours, but I don’t know, I just think it’s better to be realistic. You don’t get hurt that way.”
His words pierced through Helen, digging out almost all the joy and hope inside her. Almost. She thought about arguing with him, mentioning Eartha Kitt and her iconic portrayal of Catwoman in The Batman television series. She thought about telling him how much seeing Eartha in that role had made her feel seen in ways she usually didn’t. How seeing Eartha had made Helen realize she wanted to do it too, to go to Hollywood, to be an actress.
But she didn’t say any of that; she wouldn’t let Asher kill any more of her dreams.
“Didn’t realize you were such a big fan of Catwoman,” Helen simply said, her voice wavering only slightly.
He shrugged, stuffing more popcorn into his mouth. “She’s okay, you know, for a girl supervillain. Lee Meriwether is so hot though, so I guess I am a fan.”
Helen nodded and sat in silence. She took out the circus flier, focusing on it and ignoring the heaviness in her eyes and on her lashes.
She had to stop being such a coward about it. She had to end things before she was stuck in this lie, in this town, forever. Breaking up with him was her only way out.
When the film was almost over, she felt a little courage finally settle inside her.
“Hey, Ash…,” Helen said softly.
“Mm-hmm?” he replied, not looking at her. Too taken by the film.
“There’s a circus in town tomorrow. We should go.”
Asher’s eyebrows shot up, and he finally looked at her, interested. “We totally should, make the most of our summer while it lasts. Maybe you can finally spend the night,” he said with a smile.
Helen forced a smile. “Yeah, maybe … but you know how strict my parents are … so we’ll see.”
In truth, Helen’s parents would probably be fine with her staying the night. They loved Asher more than she ever could. He represented everything they wanted for her. A white picket fence and an eternity spent in suburbia.
Helen had grown so accustomed to lying to herself that the lies she told others slipped out with ease.
She could end things at the circus, a place where he’d at least find some joy in the aftermath.
And secretly she hoped for other things at the circus, like maybe seeing Beatrice again.
He brought his hand up to her face, moving her hair back and staring directly into her eyes. His unsettling blue met her terrified brown.
He leaned in and kissed her.
She let him.
He tasted like sweet popcorn and entitlement.
She counted the seconds it took for it to stop, and when it did, she felt like she could breathe again.
Tomorrow Helen wouldn’t have to pretend anymore.
Tomorrow she’d finally be free.
The circus tent had been set up at what felt like the edge of the world but was really just a field in a nonresidential corner of town.
It looked majestic. The cone-shaped tent, with its black, red, and white spiral stripes, jutted into low-hanging clouds, sticking out boldly against the evening’s dark blue sky. The pattern on the stripes created an optical illusion, making it seem like they were swirling and moving around.
Helen had spent the entire journey practicing her speech in her head, as she had been for several weeks now, but it never seemed quite right.
Maybe it was because it seemed like she had no real reason to end things other than the feeling that something just wasn’t right.
In an alternate universe, there was probably another her walking about whose dream it was to be with Asher forever. Sometimes she envied Alternate Universe Helen—she didn’t have confusing thoughts and feelings. That imagined world was probably one of the many reasons Helen was scared to end things. But a life with him wasn’t a dream for Helen in this universe, not even close.
“I didn’t realize this was such a big deal. It’s weird I didn’t hear about it until you mentioned it—had they even been advertising it?” Asher asked, his hand clasped in hers.
She shrugged. “I didn’t see the flyers until yesterday either. Apparently it’s a family business or something,” Helen replied, remembering what Beatrice had said.
They were in the long line outside the circus tent, waiting to enter, near the back because Asher had made them late again with his incessant need to pee every thirty minutes like a toddler.
Asher looked at her and laughed. “You look a little ridiculous with those sunglasses on. You haven’t taken them off all day, and the sun has practically set now.”
“They go with my outfit,” Helen answered simply, even though that wasn’t the reason she’d opted to wear sunglasses today. But she was sure he wouldn’t like to hear that his comments yesterday had resulted in her crying herself to sleep. Her eyes were still red rimmed, and she’d prefer not to have questions asked about it.
She just wanted to get tonight over and done with.
“If you say so…,” he muttered, as they moved down the line.
Half an hour later, they were inside the tent (which looked much bigger on the inside than it did on the outside, if that was even possible). There were many townspeople, some people she recognized from around her neighborhood and others who were complete strangers.
It was so crowded, there was barely any space to think or breathe.
“Oh, look, Hel, they have video games,” Asher said, gesturing to a row of gaming machines with small crowds of boys who couldn’t be more than twelve gathered in clusters, watching the screens intently.
“You want to go and play? I don’t mind doing my own thing for a while,” Helen said, partly wanting to put off the inevitable as long as she could.
“You sure? I don’t want to abandon you here,” Asher asked, his eyes focused on the machines and not on her.
He clearly didn’t want to leave her alone.
“I know you want to play, go ahead. I’ll keep myself entertained. They seem to have a lot going on,” Helen said, wincing at the bright lights and the loud noise of the crowd as people rushed about excitedly.
Asher quickly planted a kiss on Helen’s mouth and whispered, “You’re the best,” before hurrying over to the crowded gaming machines with her red lipstick smudged on his lips, jumping at the chance to play games with like-minded people.
His smile was wide; he looked so happy.
Good, Helen thought. At least tonight won’t be all bad.
She scanned the expanse of the large tent, looking for things to distract herself from the conversation she’d be having soon.
The one that would start with I want to end things and end with so many unanswered questions, like: Why did complete strangers excite her more than her boyfriend of three years? Why did the thought of kissing other boys instead of Asher make her feel just as uneasy as he did?
And why was the idea of kissing girls more appealing?
Helen squeezed her eyes shut, wanting to delete that last thought permanently from her mind.
When she opened them, her head was clear, but her vision was not. In her direct line of sight, watching her from the corner of the room was … a clown.
A very familiar-looking clown at that.
The clown’s dark brown skin was painted white with a bold red smile, her hair a black Afro, her clothes bright and circus-like.
The clown smiled at Helen, raising her hand to wave at her.
And Helen, unsure of what to do with herself, awkwardly smiled and waved back.
It was like those cheesy movies Asher hated but Helen secretly loved.
That scene where the boy surveyed a busy crowd, looking for something of little to no significance, when he was struck by the thing that would forever change him. He spotted the girl of his dreams in the crowd, and he knew in that moment that today was the first day of the rest of his life.
Clown Girl, also known as Beatrice the gas station girl, smiled wickedly at Helen before pushing herself off the wall she was leaning against and making her way through the crowd over to Helen.
It felt like the girl was moving in slow motion; Helen couldn’t quite believe that she was even here to begin with.
“Hello, Helen of Troy,” Beatrice said, when she finally got to her. “Enjoying the circus so far?”
Helen felt like she could barely breathe, but she somehow managed a nod and a quick reply. “Yes. It’s very … busy.”
Beatrice’s smile stretched even wider, her eyes searching like they’d done yesterday, sorting through Helen’s thoughts, seeing right through her unstable exterior. There was something weirdly comforting about Beatrice’s appearance.
“You look, um, really different,” Helen said, wanting to contribute something to this conversation and not have Beatrice think she was uninteresting.
Beatrice looked down at her clown costume. “I do? I thought I always looked this colorful. That’s disappointing.”
Helen panicked. Had she accidentally insulted her or something? “I just meant you looked really good—cool, I mean, really, really cool. Better than usual even…”
Clown Girl’s eyebrows furrowed. “You’re saying I look better as a clown?”
Helen kept putting her foot in her mouth somehow. She wasn’t sure why this strange girl made her feel so nervous; what was there to even be nervous about?
Clown Girl’s expression broke into one of amusement. “I’m just pulling your leg, sorry. I’m a bit of a menace when I’m in costume. Helps with the character I’m building,” she said.
“What character is that?” Helen asked, her arms folded, hoping her embarrassment at being so easily fooled wasn’t noticeable.
The Clown Girl stepped close to Helen, closing almost all the space between them. “It’s a secret.”
Helen swallowed. “A secret?”
“Mm-hmm, and if I tell you, I’d unfortunately have to kill you,” Clown Girl said in a low whisper, and then she stepped back, wearing that mischievous look on her face.
“Ah … Well, I quite like living, so I guess I won’t ask.”
“Good choice. It’s hard to get blood out of polyester,” Clown Girl said.
Helen nodded, gesturing to the girl’s outfit. “Not to mention white. It’s also hard to get blood out of white.”
“Exactly,” Clown Girl said, maintaining eye contact.
Helen smiled shyly, then caught herself and returned quickly to a neutral expression.
She anxiously searched for Asher, who was still by the gaming machines, but this time he was playing, and the crowd was watching and cheering him on.
“Have you managed to check out any of the attractions yet?” Clown Girl asked.
Helen pulled her eyes away from her boyfriend and back to her. “No, not yet. I was just looking around for something interesting to do while I wait for my boyfriend to finish playing video games. Got any recommendations?”
At the word boyfriend, Clown Girl turned back to the machines, her eyes searching the sea of people for the boy. Helen couldn’t tell if she identified him, because Clown Girl turned back to her with a shrug. “Depends on what you fancy really. I can give you a rundown of how things work here?”
Helen nodded. “That’d be useful,” she said. It was too overwhelming trying to figure it all out herself.
“All right then, follow me,” the girl said with a smile and a wink.
And Helen did just that.
They circled the room, Clown Girl showing Helen the exhibitions, such as the fire-breathing acrobats, the clown balloon show that she’d be joining later, and the men on stilts. Then she showed her the random games they had to offer: pin the tail on the donkey, pinball machines, as well as other game machines, some much like the one Asher had been glued to, and others that all had some variation of smashing a ball into something and possibly winning a giant plushy toy.
“And lastly, we have this attraction. I recommend it for people who aren’t so fond of the crowds but still want to be entertained.” Clown Girl gestured up to a banner above this new section of the tent. The words read Hall of Mirrors.
“Sounds right up my street,” Helen said, still reeling from all the information as well as the growing size of the crowd inside the tent.
Clown Girl smiled. “I take it you’re more of a homebody, like to keep to yourself, unseen and whatnot.”
Helen shrugged. “Sometimes, I don’t know, I get overwhelmed. But I actually love being in front of people—in performance, not so much in the everyday. I guess being in a crowd when you’re one of the faceless many is not the same as being in front of a crowd when everyone has come to see you.” Helen wasn’t sure if she was making any sense, but Beatrice didn’t seem confused.
“Performance? You’re into singing?” she asked, and not in a way that felt mocking, but instead with a genuine curiosity.
“Acting,” Helen corrected.
“Wow, I see that. You’ve got the looks for it. I’d pay to see you,” she said.
Helen felt her face warm. “Thank you. My boyfriend tells me girls who look like me aren’t big-picture material, so that means a lot.”
Her face screwed up, and darkness fell over her features as she looked directly into Helen’s eyes. “He has no idea what he’s talking about, Helen. None at all. Don’t listen to him. No offense to your boyfriend or anything but men aren’t that bright.”
Helen smiled a little at that. “No offense taken.”
“So, the hall of mirrors it is?” Beatrice asked.
Helen nodded, looking ahead at the dark room through the attraction’s entrance. “It’s not scary, is it?”
“Not at all, kids love it. Some say it’s like facing up to all these versions yourself and coming out better in the end with a new clarity. A kind of spiritual experience, I guess. But if you do get scared, you can just knock on any one of the mirrors, and someone’ll be right out to help you.”
Helen felt better hearing that. “Thanks, that helps.”
“I’ll let you go in then. Have fun, and tell me how it goes,” Beatrice said with a smile, before stepping away.
Helen nodded, looking back as she walked away, then shifting her gaze over to the games, where Asher seemed to be wrapping up and talking to the guys around him now.
She quickly slipped inside the hall of mirrors before he could spot her too.
Like a coward, she hid, wanting to buy as much time before the truth had to come out.
As expected from a place with the name hall of mirrors, there were mirrors everywhere. On the walls, where she could see herself pass by. On the ceiling, where she could only see her head and shoulders and not much else. And on the floor, where it felt like she was walking all over her own shadow.
Beatrice had been right about this attraction. It was much quieter.
Eerily so.
The only sound Helen could hear were her kitten heels against the plastic of the mirrored floor.
It really did feel like she was alone, the only person left in the whole entire world.
As she walked along, her reflection followed her, staring back at her with the same bewilderment she felt about herself, her present, and her future.
She watched as her reflection suddenly turned and stepped away, abandoning her in the dark and leaving the mirror empty. Helen stopped walking, blinking fast, wondering if this was real.
How this was real.
She quickly walked over to the next mirror panel and saw herself again, but this time it wasn’t a version of herself she recognized.
She looked a few years older, exhausted and withering away. Alternate Universe Helen, she immediately thought.
Helen moved to the next panel, and there she was again.
This time, mirror Helen was dressed in a white gown and wore a long glittering veil.
When she got to the next panel, she almost gasped at the sight of Asher, who stood behind this version of herself. She looked back in the room, searching for the real Asher, but he wasn’t there. She was alone.
This Asher was a mirror fake, holding on to the rounded stomach of mirror Helen.
Another alternate universe, one where she stayed with Asher, choosing a life with misery—the third wheel in their unhappy marriage. This Helen had the white picket fence her parents coveted for her. When Asher went out into the world and worked, this Helen remained at home, hidden in the shadows of suburbia, her body a factory for pumping out kids to populate their own house of horrors.
Helen frantically moved past the other frames, watching this potential life unfold in front of her.
A life with Asher, trapped together in this town of Nowhere, where she stayed imprisoned in her skin, never becoming anything, never being seen by anyone.
In the next panels, mirror Helen shrank in on herself, until she became nothing but dust. But Asher was still there, smiling at her menacingly. In some frames, he was laughing, others he was judging her, and the rest he was just grinning.
“I can’t breathe,” Helen whispered in the dark hallway to herself and all the versions of herself trapped behind the glass.
She needed to get out of there.
Helen looked around frantically, her vision shaky, her limbs vibrating as she paced around before finally taking off into a run when the terror got to be too much for her to stand still.
She stumbled as she ran through the haunted halls, then banged into a mirror at a dead end. She turned back, running the other way, but found herself running into another wall with no exit.
She was trapped; there was no way out.
Her breaths became uneven as she turned to find another mirror reflection of herself. This Helen was crying. She couldn’t tell if this one was real. If this one was really her.
“Helen,” she heard a voice say from somewhere in the dark, and she saw Asher again in the mirror, stepping out from behind her.
“Leave me alone, please,” she whispered.
Silence followed, then footsteps.
“What happened?” he asked, his eyebrows bunching together.
“I need to get out,” she said, her voice rising. She felt itchy and tired.
“The exit is just over—”
“I don’t want this. I don’t want to be trapped forever hating myself and hating you,” Helen said, shaking her head, blinking hard to erase him forever.
“Helen—” false Asher said, stepping forward into a different panel, his arm almost lifelike as it reached toward her.
She panicked and screamed. “Get away from me!” Despite knowing none of this was real, she felt something overtake her completely as she shoved him away from her, hard. She waited for the feeling of the impact, waited for the stinging in her palms, expecting it to feel like her hands were hitting the plastic mirror, but instead she felt the familiar softness of his chest.
Helen watched in horror as Asher, who suddenly seemed to be real, stumbled backward, losing his footing completely and hitting his head on the sharp corner of the wall.
Helen heard a crack as he slumped to the ground.
He’s real. Asher was real.
And he was lying there like a doll, unmoving.
“A-Asher…,” she said quietly, hoping his eyes would open. But he didn’t move an inch.
“Asher, stop playing,” she said, stepping closer to him. Her voice was wobbly as she watched the life slither out of the boy. His eyes were open wide, his jaw slack.
“Asher, please,” she said, getting on her knees, her hands shaky, searching his neck, his wrist, his chest for a pulse, but she realized quite quickly that she had no idea how to check if he had one.
Everything about him was so quiet. So unlike Asher.
She felt sick.
What had she done?
“Helen…,” she heard again, feeling her heart stutter as Asher mumbled her name once more.
He blinked and opened his blue eyes, which were luminous under the bright spotlighted ceiling.
Thank God, she thought.
She slowly helped him to his feet.
“I’m so sorry, Ash—oh my God, you’re bleeding!” she said as she looked down at the ground and saw splatters of red.
Asher placed his hand at the back of his head before presenting his bloody fingers to her. “Why…?” he started, blinking quickly. “What were you doing in here?”
She didn’t know what to say in response to that, so she said nothing.
“You said … you hated me … that you were trapped,” Asher continued.
“I don’t—I didn’t,” she began.
He shook his head, his brows furrowed. “You did say that though. I heard you.”
He was right; she had said it, and she’d meant it. And from the way he was looking at her now, she could tell he knew that too. The truth was written all over her face, smudged by the tears on her cheeks.
“I think we should break up,” Helen finally said.
There was a beat of silence, and she watched Asher’s face for a change of expression, but he just stared at her in disbelief.
“Why?” he said, placing his hand on the back of his head again, presumably to stop the bleeding.
“W-we just have different futures … and goals … I—I want to g-go to Hollywood, star in pictures—”
He scoffed in her face. “Hell, that’s not a real reason.”
She felt her nerves thrumming through her bloodstream, or perhaps it wasn’t nerves at all but something else. “It is—” she replied, cut off by his laughter.
“Fuck, Helen … you can’t just go to Hollywood. That’s not real. Not for people like us. Who’s the last person from Nowhere that you heard starred in a picture? That’s right, no one. You’ve been going on about this for years, and I hoped you’d start to take life more seriously, but you just keep picking at this dream of yours—”
“What’s wrong with dreaming?” she said, cutting him off this time. Her voice was cold and hollow.
He looked at her, almost pityingly. “Well, Hel. You gotta wake up at some point, right? Even if a girl from Nowhere could make it to the pictures, that girl probably isn’t you … for one, all those fancy actresses are blond and, you know…” He hesitated, not saying the quiet part out loud. “You gotta wake up, realize how good I am for you, how good we are—fuck, my head kills.”
She didn’t let herself take in his opinions. They didn’t matter anymore.
“I am wide awake, Asher, believe me,” she said.
She heard him laugh again, but before he could say more demeaning things to her, he was interrupted by fate.
Fate being the familiar figure of a clown behind him.
Helen watched in what felt like slow motion as the clown raised her hand high, revealing a large butcher’s knife, which she plunged into Asher’s shoulder.
The sound he made could only be described as inhuman. Bloodcurdling, shrill, and filled with unfathomable agony.
It was the sound Helen heard inside too, every time she told herself a lie.
No more.
Helen stepped back, her limbs shaky as she saw the clown appear in every reflection. The clown tilted her head at Helen, as if asking, What now? It’s your call.
The knife was still deep inside Asher, the clown’s gloved hand gripping the handle.
Asher pleaded, crying out for help. But his voice just echoed, bouncing off the reflective surfaces, only to be swallowed whole by the dark. He frantically reached out for Helen, but she was only focused on the clown, who nodded at her and grinned wide as she yanked the knife out of Asher’s shoulder—which only made him scream more.
She watched Asher fall to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
As her ex-boyfriend squirmed on the ground, Helen held her hand out for the knife, finally answering the clown’s silent question.
What now? It’s your call.
Asher lay on his back, looking up at her, his eyes wide and afraid. He started kicking and clawing at the ground, groaning as he tried to escape.
The clown handed her the knife, and Helen took a deep breath.
Now she would finally end things.
Raising the knife above her head, Helen took three confident strides over to Asher. Then she let every lie, every muted emotion, every version of herself she had played spill out as she sank the knife into his heart.
Another scream ripped from him. Helen knelt and took him in her arms as his voice began to fade. The last thing he would see was her. Her statement was the last thing he would hear before he was fully devoured by the endless sleep that was death:
“Let go, Ash, go to sleep. There is nothing wrong with dreaming,” she whispered, and then he fell still.
For a few moments, the world followed suit, still and silent, and then Helen remembered she was not alone.
She turned to find the clown, Beatrice, still standing in the corner.
“I’m glad you got your clarity,” Tris said.
“What now?” Helen asked, in a state of shock. She couldn’t believe what she’d just done. Couldn’t believe she had killed someone. That someone being Asher.
Asher was dead because of her.
She caught sight of herself in the mirror once more. The reflection staring back at her was different. A new iteration of Helen, this one dressed like a clown, blood dripping all over her, from head to toe. Her clown smile, much like her regular smile, was a performance, painted on for the world to see.
Beatrice walked over to her, and Helen pulled her eyes away from the reflection, her gaze now on the crime scene.
“Now … we take him to my uncle’s trailer, and I’ll handle the rest.”
As the circus raged on, the sound of laughter and high spirits in the air, the two girls dragged Asher’s body out into the night, careful not to drop him.
The area was deserted enough that they were able to walk along the path in the field to where the trailer was parked.
Helen did not look Asher in the face. It would be like staring directly into the truth, something she had never been good at doing.
Nearby, the sound of people talking rang out, and Helen felt like throwing up.
“We need to hurry,” Beatrice said, watching over Helen’s shoulder as the group’s shadow loomed around the corner. “We’re almost there.”
Thankfully, they made it to the door of the vehicle. Tris quickly opened it, and on the count of two, they hauled Asher’s body inside.
He fell to the ground with a thud, and Tris sighed. “Wow, your boyfriend was heavy,” she said.
He’s not my boyfriend, Helen wanted to say, but she couldn’t bring herself to.
It didn’t matter anymore.
“I need to run back and get some supplies real quick. Wait here, okay?” Beatrice said.
“You want me to wait in here alone? What if your uncle comes back, or what if someone finds me—?” Helen started.
“He won’t, they won’t, you’re safe here, and I won’t be long, I promise,” Beatrice said.
Helen wanted to fight back, but she wasn’t sure what other options she had at this point, so she nodded, and the girl smiled at her and then left Helen alone in the trailer with nothing for company but Asher’s corpse.
Five minutes passed, then ten minutes, then twenty, and the girl still hadn’t returned.
It started to dawn on Helen that she didn’t know this girl at all. It was very possible that Beatrice had set Helen up. Maybe that was what she was doing right now: calling the cops.
Any moment now, they’d be here, and Helen would be put in handcuffs and escorted straight to the local county jail.
Helen let out a shaky breath. This had to be one of her twisted nightmares. None of it felt real. Not the versions of herself she’d seen in the mirrors, nor the fact that she was standing right next to Asher’s dead body.
She felt dizzy and unwell, like she could die right then and there.
She needed to get out.
Helen nearly stumbled over Asher’s body on her way out of the trailer, her breaths getting more uneven as she burst out of the supposed safety inside and out into the scary unknown.
Helen walked a short distance from the trailer and felt tears anchor her eyes closed as she took a deep breath of the crisp night air, almost choking out a cry but was stopped by the sound of something terrifying.
“Helen?” a voice said in the dark.
Her eyes flew open.
She’d been found. It was too late for her. Someone had finally seen her, and she was screwed.
She turned toward the voice, and relief almost knocked the wind out of her.
It was just Beatrice, standing with a worried expression and what looked like another dead body at first but revealed itself to be a medium-sized rug all rolled up.
“Are you okay? Did something happen?” she asked.
For a few moments, Helen didn’t say anything, she was still reeling from all the events of the night. Or rather, all the events of the past hour. “I—I’m f-fine, I—I j-just couldn’t b-breath in that trailer a-alone.”
Tris nodded. “That’s okay. I’m here now,” she said, reaching out to squeeze her hand. Helen felt herself immediately relax. “Let’s head back in.”
Helen nodded reluctantly. They returned to the trailer, and she let Tris go back inside first before following suit.
But when they returned, something had changed.
“What the—” Beatrice began as they stepped back into the cramped trailer. Helen came in behind her, her eyes following Tris’s gaze over to the empty space on the ground where Asher had been only minutes before.
Helen’s heart stopped altogether as the rug slipped out of Tris’s arms and onto the ground with a thump.
“Wh-where did he—? How—?” Tris began, turning back to Helen with a look of horror.
Helen shook her head quickly. “I—I don’t know.”
Beatrice rushed forward, looking under the bed in the corner of the trailer, then in the built-in cabinets, even in the small sink cabinet, as though Asher had somehow come back to life and hidden himself away.
Then again, this was the most likely of the scenarios playing out in Helen’s mind.
The first scenario being that Asher had vanished into thin air, leaving no trace of him, living or dead, behind.
The next was that Asher was now a ghost and had slipped out of the trailer through the walls because there was no other way. There was only one door, one exit, and the two girls had been standing right next to it, meaning they would have seen him if he’d somehow managed to get up and get away.
“Okay, so … new plan: We need to get out of here as quickly as possible,” Tris said, turning to Helen, who was on the brink of a meltdown.
“But A-Asher, h-he—”
“Do you trust me?” Tris asked her earnestly, placing her hands on Helen’s shoulders to ground her again.
Helen looked at Tris, whose clown makeup was partially wiped away, leaving behind her soft striking features and intense gaze.
Could she trust a stranger? She wasn’t sure, but her gut told her she should trust this one.
She nodded slowly. “I think so.”
The girl nodded. “Okay, this is going to seem weird, but you’re going to need to change clothes.”
A few minutes later, Helen was dressed in a clown costume identical to the one Tris wore.
The girl knelt by the dresser, pulling out an assortment of face paints as well as an instruction guide.
“I’ve left a note for my uncle explaining that I left early and told him I will be meeting him at our next pit stop in Los Angeles. We’re traveling in the trailer registered to the circus, so you need to blend in when we get there. Once we’re there, you’re free to become whoever you want or need to be. Here you go. Follow this guide to do your face paint. I’m going to make sure the engine is good to go; meet me out front when you’re done,” the girl said, smiling softly at Helen before stepping out of the trailer and into the night once again.
The girl’s words echoed in Helen’s mind. You’re free to become whoever you want or need to be. Something about those words made her feel light.
Helen looked down at the paints and the painting manual and then at her reflection in the mirror on the side.
She almost gasped at the sight of herself. So different to the mirror images she’d seen before.
Those visions trapped Helens in various picturesque scenarios, they’d resembled the parts of herself she recognized and hated most.
This Helen, however, the one in the reflection right now, she was unrecognizable, and something about that … excited her.
She picked up a brush and dipped its edge in the paint pots, following the instructions until she was yet another version of Helen she didn’t recognize.
When she was done, she stepped out again, this time as a new person, one who didn’t want to be scared anymore but couldn’t help still feeling petrified.
She knocked on the window at the front, and Tris opened the door, letting her inside.
Helen took a seat on the passenger’s side, feeling exhausted. She’d gone through so many emotions in such a short time frame, it felt like her brain could combust at any moment.
“Engine’s running fine,” Tris said quietly to Helen.
But Helen wasn’t listening; she still couldn’t shake the guilt that eclipsed her.
“My parents…” she said. “I won’t get to say goodbye to them.”
“I’m sorry,” Beatrice said. “Maybe we can make a quick pit stop—”
“It’s okay,” Helen said, shaking her head. “It would just raise more questions, and they might try to stop me … might even turn me in.” She remembered just how much they loved Asher.
Asher whom she killed. Asher whose dead body had disappeared and could be anywhere.
“I’m so fucked…” she whispered, mostly to herself.
Tris’s eyes burned fiercely with what resembled pain as she stared at Helen in the dark. “You’re not fucked, Helen. Not in the slightest.”
“You don’t know that,” Helen said, looking down at her fingers, which were still trembling and stained with Asher’s blood.
Not his real blood, of course, just the blood her guilty conscience kept conjuring and making her see.
Tris slipped her fingers into Helen’s, stilling them. “I do know that. Because I know what fucked actually looks like. Being fucked looks like having an abusive alcoholic dad who’d come home each night and beat the shit out of your mom. Being fucked looks like your dad driving your mom out of the house and turning on you next. Being fucked looks like being driven over the edge by such a fucked-up environment and then while retaliating, literally giving your dad some of his own medicine, you get your clarity. And then you go to your favorite uncle, the weird one who owns a traveling circus, and he lets you escape your mistakes. That’s fucked, Helen, and you’re nowhere close.”
Helen didn’t know what to say to all that. It was so much, and it made her understand why Tris was so willing to help her.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” Helen finally said after moments of quiet.
“Didn’t say it did,” Tris replied, and then leaned in close. “You aren’t the first person who found clarity in the hall of mirrors either. We have a lot of people get their clarity there.”
“What do you mean by that?” Helen asked. But she was pretty sure she knew what Tris meant. That the circus wasn’t only a circus. It was a place where people got to shed their demons, real and imagined.
“I mean … that you aren’t alone. You get a fresh start. You get to escape and write your own future.”
“I get to escape,” Helen repeated in a whisper.
“Yes, you do,” Tris said softly.
“Okay,” Helen said, “I’ll do that.”
“Good,” Tris replied, moving in even closer.
“Before I do, though, I have a question,” Helen said, once their foreheads were touching.
“Go on,” Beatrice whispered. She placed her hand on Helen’s face before sliding her fingers behind her neck.
Helen felt the truth weighing on her like it always did, but this time she didn’t turn away from it.
“Can I kiss you, Tris?” Helen asked, and it was the most courageous thing she had ever done.
Tris smiled. “I thought you’d never ask,” she said, closing the gap between them.
Far, far away from the town of Nowhere, Helen Thomas finally lived.