Shay hangs his arm around my shoulder, casually, like he’s silently saying
hey, we’re going to be in the same traveling show.
That’s a positive I cling to.
“For Somnio,” Helen continues, flipping another page. I inhale without the exhale. “We want numbers eighteen, five, six—” she traces the line with her finger “—forty-eight, twenty-eight.”
My heart skips at that close number.
Please twenty-nine.
“Thirty,” Helen continues. “Ninety-two, eighty-eight.”
Shay’s shoulders lift at the sound of his number, and his smile explodes. I can’t hug him yet, not when Helen reads quickly and my mind has already lost count of the spots left.
“Twelve, thirty-four, thirty six, thirty-nine…”
Shay begins to tense as much as me.
Please twenty-nine.
“Nineteen and…”
Helen flips another page.
“Twenty-one.”
I shut my eyes, a swift kick to my chest. This isn’t how this was supposed to go. It’s barely processing…
you didn’t make the cut, Thora.
Stop. I don’t want to hear it yet. I can’t…
“Congratulations to every number I called. To those I didn’t, there may be spots open next year. So we encourage you to submit videos again. You were all great, but you’re just not what we’re looking for at this time.”
These are the horrifying facts that keep berating me: I spent seven months in Vegas. Away from family. Pushing my body to its limitations. Stepping outside my comfort zone. Struggling to support myself. I tried. I tried
so hard.
And then Shay flew here. One day. One time.
And he made it.
I can always try again. There’s always next year. But it’s exhausting. Mentally, emotionally, physically, financially—there are reasons why people give up after a while. Why they move on.
“Thora…” Shay squeezes my shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”
I slowly rise to my feet, my eyes welling. And I collect my gym bag before I break down in front of him. “I’ll see you later?” My voice is a whisper.
“Yeah,” he says. “I’ll text you, okay?”
I nod stiffly and dazedly exit. Now what do I do. I pause in the middle of the hallway and think
where do I go from here?
I’m lost.
I let out a tight breath; my body is hot as nausea brims. I need air. I need a lot of things, but air is definitely the easiest to obtain. So I ride up the elevator, a few other dejected acrobats with me. And then I walk through The Masquerade’s lobby, following the signs to the pool.
Don’t cry.
Don’t cry.
I’m crying.
“Thora!”
The voice comes as soon as I push through the doors, into the chilly forty-degree night, high-rises lit and dazzling. Cars honking. The city never sleeping. It’s exactly the same as it was seven months ago. Those noises, those smells, those lights.
Nothing has changed besides the person behind me.
“It’s fine…” I barely whisper, not able to look Nikolai face-to-face. He must’ve been waiting for me in the lobby. And I didn’t see him.
I just set my bag on one of the white lounge chairs. The enormous pool is black in the darkness. I numbly head towards it.
“Thora!” Nikolai calls, his voice nearer.
Wake up, Thora James.
I need to wake up.
For once in my life. I don’t want to be hurt anymore by failures. I just want to succeed. Please. I shut my eyes. And I walk straight into the water, the icy plunge enough to grip my chest.
I stay beneath for a second.
And I scream.
As loud as I can.
Emotions barreling into me. I just scream.
My voice is lost in the water, but everything pours out of me.
Then a figure splashes down beneath and scoops me in his arms. My head breaches the surface with Nikolai’s and I gasp, the cold even worse up here. But I feel better.
Without a word, he pulls me out of the water. I wobbly stand, my teeth chattering. He towers above me with the most concerned look.
“I’m…okay. I just…I needed that,” I try to explain, tears rising again.
No, don’t cry.
“You didn’t make it,” he assumes right.
I nod, watching water drip from his shaking body, the cold biting our skin. His gray shirt is plastered to his chest, his jeans soaked. I can tell he wants to lift me in his arms and carry me to warmth, but I’d rather stay outside. I feel less in a daze. So I walk to one of the outside cabanas with an overhang and pillows.
I rub my nose with the back of my hand.
Nikolai collects a few white pool towels from the
take one, please
stand. And when he returns, I already claim a seat on the soft cream cushion, hugging a navy-blue pillow to my wet body.
He pushes the long strands of his damp hair back, and climbs on, spreading his legs in front of me so I fit more between them. But he’s still facing me. Which means he wants to talk. A serious talk.
“You don’t…have to say anything,” I tell him.
He wraps two of the towels around my shoulders. “I have to.” He uses the other to dry his hair that keeps dripping. “This isn’t over, Thora.”
I laugh weakly, my voice cracking. “That’s what I always say, you know? It’s not over yet.” I point at my chest. “
I can do this.
” My chin trembles and I shake my head a couple times. “But I can’t do this anymore…I can’t spend another year
trying
just to see the same outcome.” I stare off, my eyes pooled with hot tears. “I’ve been defeated…okay?”
He cups my face with one hand, brushing away my tears. “No, myshka. I’m not okay with that.”
Why can’t he let me give up? “Let me give up,” I say, pain fisting my lungs. “I don’t want to fight for this anymore.”
“Let’s go down to the office.”
My body shudders with a cry. “No.”
I’m done.
He pulls me closer. “Let’s tell them the truth.”
“Give up on me,” I beg. “Please.”
His bloodshot eyes bore into me. “Let’s tell them how you should be in Amour. How you know the aerial silk routine.”
My face contorts in confusion and hurt. “I don’t…”
I don’t know that routine.
“I don’t know that routine.”
“You’ve never seen it performed. So how would you know if you do or don’t?” He wipes some of my tears while my brows knot, processing, but not understanding…
“Thora,” he says lowly, “
I
taught you that routine. For months, I’ve been teaching it to you.”
No…
“Every trick,” he explains, “is one that you needed for Amour.”
It hits me like a forty-foot wave. I sway back, and he holds my hips so I don’t drift too far. I barely whisper, “The death drop.”
“The modified straddle slide,” he rephrases.
I digest our months of time together. I never saw the aerial silk routine. It was removed from the show before I even arrived in Vegas. And I never watched Elena and Nikolai practice together. I remember that Nikolai was incessant I drop closer to the ground for the straddle slide. He wouldn’t let me leave it at seven feet.
He wanted it to be perfect, I realize. To the choreographer’s standards.
“No…” My voice cracks again. “No, you didn’t do that.” I shake my head again and again and again.
“I did,” he refutes, his emotions welling to the surface, his features as brutal as mine.
“Why would you…?” It doesn’t make sense.
“Because I wanted you to be my partner.”
“Elena—”
“Never had chemistry with me. And the entire piece is about
passion
.” The way he says passion, it’s with his entire soul. “And you—
we
had it. From the first audition, it was there.”
I point at him accusingly, tear-streaked and still overwhelmed.
He taught you the entire routine, Thora. He wanted you to be his partner.
“You tricked me.” I don’t know why I land on this statement, of all statements. But it’s what comes out.
“Because you wouldn’t have wanted me to teach it to you,” he explains. “You would’ve thought I was screwing over another girl.”
My stomach drops. “Did you?” Elena was fired. She was let go because she couldn’t “cut it”—was he resigned with her since he had a backup plan? He had me.
“No,” he says. “I didn’t screw her over.”
“But she was fired—”
“For not showing enough emotion on stage,” he clarifies. “There was a point, Thora, where I needed Elena. I thought you’d be going to Somnio.”
I shut my eyes tightly as I recall the timeframe of all these events. Elena was fired after we learned that Somnio was being revived. So he was genuinely upset when she was let go. He truly thought his act would be retired. Because I wouldn’t be in it.
“I was prepared to lose you,” he suddenly says.
My chest rises in a sharp inhale.
He was prepared to let me go to Somnio.
“Why?”
Beads of water still roll down his temple. “You worked hard to land a contract on your own, and I wasn’t going to take that from you.”
We’re closer. We’ve drawn together somehow. I’m clutching onto his arms. And he’s holding me around the waist, his body warm.
“Even if it benefited you to have me stay?” I ask. If I left, then there was a greater chance they’d retire his act. After months of training me for that role—he’d give it all up.
His eyes dance over my features, reading me well. “I knew what I was losing. But you would’ve been more proud of earning a spot in Somnio than feeling like I pulled strings for you in Amour.”
I wish he was wrong. But this isn’t the purest avenue. It’s cutting corners. I will cut corners if I go down to that office and tell them what I can do in Amour.
You know the routine.
God—how did I not realize? He had to have taught me it in fragments, trick by trick.
He adds, “If you landed a role in another show, I wouldn’t have offered Amour as a choice.” He’s saying that I would’ve never known he taught me the routine.
My eyes sear, scald. Burn. “Why?”
“You know why.”
I do. There’s a stigma attached to this role:
you slept your way to the top. You’re only in Amour because Nikolai is your boyfriend. You cheated.
“…so the only way I could ever be in the circus is by being with a guy,” I say aloud. I feel ashamed by it. Every time I think of myself in this role, I will hear my conscience say
you didn’t do this right. You don’t deserve this. You’re not good enough to be here.
I don’t want to feel that. Not even a little bit.
I just want to be happy and proud. That I finally made it.
“You’re wrong,” he says, holding me tighter. He looks at me like he so desperately wishes I could see his view. Where it’s better. And brighter. I wonder if that’s usually where I stand.
“Don’t you see it?” I breathe, tears dripping. “Had I not met you, I wouldn’t be here.”
“Had you not met me, you wouldn’t have the skills to try out at all.” He removes the pillow from my chest, so there are no more barriers between us. “If you think for a second that you haven’t succeeded, you need to look at my little sister.” His voice softens.
And I notice more redness in his eyes, from stifling tears.
“You inspired her. Not because you were with me, but because you tried. You never gave up on the things you wanted. So she tried harder, she became better, and she accomplished her goal.”
“She made Noctis?” I’m happy. And proud. I’m proud of Katya.
He nods. “She made it.”
“I’m glad,” I whisper. “I’m happy.”
He’s too perceptive to take faith in my words. “You’re in pain,” he states.
“I’m trying not to be.” I exhale, but my chest is still tight.
You can still be in the circus. It’s not over.
I’m searching for my lost optimism.
“I know this still feels like failure to you, but there are two things you need to always remember.”
I listen intently, letting him rope me into his gunmetal eyes. He lifts my chin, our lips close, aligned as much as we can be.
“Regardless of what anyone else thinks, you earned this spot. You trained seven months for it. If you couldn’t land those tricks, they’d never even consider you.”
I nod, letting this sink in. He’s certain that it’ll only take a run to the office to land the role. And maybe a small demonstration. If I know the routine—if Aerial Ethereal doesn’t have to spend money to train someone else—I can see how it’d be easier to hire me.
“What’s the second thing?” I ask.
“Every day you’re on stage, prove them wrong.”
I nod again, tears rolling.
Prove them wrong.
“That you deserved to be here from the start. That they made a mistake, that
you
and only you, Thora James, my little mouse…my demon—were meant for this role.”
He begins to fill me with things that I’ve lost.
Thank you
, I want to say.
And he kisses my cheek, his lips scorching my flesh. “Your choice,” he whispers.
My choice.
He wanted me to have this role. Maybe even before we started dating. Maybe when he propositioned training me. I wonder if we weren’t in a relationship—if I would’ve had an easier time saying yes to this offer. I know I’d feel less judgment, but I don’t regret that first date. Or all our times at The Red Death.
Love isn’t a mistake.
Neither is courage.
And I want to be courageous enough to not care about what other people think.
My choice.
In my heart of hearts, I know what it took to reach this place. I know how hard I worked. That’s all that should matter. My heart, my love, my passion.
My choice.
What are you going to do, Thora James?
Act Forty-Seven
I’m in the circus.
I wonder when it’ll stop feeling surreal. Maybe when I perform on stage in Amour for the first time next week—then it’ll hit me. Right now, it’s the third day of practice with Nikolai at The Masquerade’s gym, and the directors greenlit the aerial silk act yesterday, when we went through the whole routine.