Kaazu bought Cliff from his family when he was five years old. I was two when that happened, so I don’t remember it, but what I do remember was a few years later, when I was about six. We were in one of the RVs, driving to a new location, and I was watching Cliff in his bed, holding an old newspaper. It was nighttime, so the only light we had was from headlights that flashed through the windows of the RV.
I was in one of the bunk beds built into the back, the one highest up with the curtain pulled back part way so I could see Cliff across from me. I watched him hold up a tiny flashlight on the crumpled, slightly stained paper. It was the comic section, and every so often, he’d smile wide, and it didn’t even seem like he felt the split lip on his mouth or the tug at his swollen cheek that he’d gotten from Kaazu.
I remember thinking that I wished I could read what was on that paper, because I wanted to know what he was smiling at. There never seemed to be anything to smile about in the troupe. Training was hard, and even though I wasn’t performing yet, I knew it was coming, and it scared me. I didn’t want to get bloodied and bruised. I didn’t want to fight like Cliff had to sometimes. He was so much smaller than our older troupe members, and I was even smaller.
“Wanna see?”
My eyes widened as Cliff held out the comics to me. I reached out so far and so fast that I nearly came off the bed and fell down to the floor between us. Luckily, I caught myself and snatched it up, greedily looking over the cartoons as soon as it was in my lap.
With a frown, I tried to follow the pictures, but without knowing what was in the bubbles, I grew more and more frustrated. I passed it back with a sigh, and Cliff took it with a questioning look.
“I don’t know what there is to smile about,” I said with an accusatory pout.
Instead of getting mad at me and ignoring me for the rest of the night like the others would’ve done, Cliff just cocked his head, his flashlight making his blond hair glow. “You can’t read, huh?”
I glared at him. “What’s it to you?”
“I could teach you. If you want. I learned all my letters before I got here, and I’m real good at sounding everything out.”
His offer bloomed a sudden hunger inside of me. It was something I could do that didn’t have anything to do with Kaazu.
Even so, I looked at him warily from my bed. I learned at a very young age to be wary of my troupe members. I once made the mistake of telling Susan, one of the adults, that I found candy backstage and ate the whole chocolate bar. She turned around and told Master Kaazu. I got five lashes to the stomach for putting junk into it without his permission. Candy was not acceptable for the body of one of his performers.
Kaazu had us all on such tight strings, we were all too terrified to be involved with anything that might displease him. Things like that—going behind each other’s backs to gain favor with Kaazu—were just another day in the life of Troupe Delirium.
“Why? So you can tell Kaazu and get me in trouble?” I challenged, like I was daring him to try. I’d lie and deny until my face turned blue to get out of a punishment.
Cliff shook his head, rubbing his boyish eyes with his fist as he yawned. “Nah. I won’t tell.”
In reply, I gave him another scowl and then snapped my curtain shut without so much as a goodnight. Cliff just laughed, but I stewed.
It wasn’t until nearly three months later that I finally trusted him enough to let him start teaching me letters. I was like the feral animal in the zoo that had to be conditioned slowly to trust.
Surprisingly, Cliff was up to the challenge of earning that trust, which shocked the hell out of me. Truth be told, I wasn’t liked much, even back then. That fact didn’t change throughout my childhood, teenage years, or even now as an adult.
Admittedly, I’m not easy to get along with. I’m a bitch, but it serves me well. I made sure no one fucked with me in the troupe outside of our fights, and Cliff was the only friend I ever had or wanted.
“—and always rescues the damsel. Ain’t that the best part of it?”
I blink, realizing how far I just walked down memory lane, and that Trucker is still talking. About Western books. I clear my throat. “Umm, yeah.”
He gives me another too damn friendly smile. “Shoot, I’ll tell you. Right now? I could do with goin’ off into the sunset, while my damsel rides my steed, if you know what I mean.”
Aaaaand there it is.
His happy-go-lucky truck driver persona just cracked, and the perverted come-on that I’ve been waiting for from him just showed through.
My eyes cut over to him, and my animal’s hackles rise. I look him up and down, and it’s not a nice look. Then again, I’m not sure I’m capable of a nice look, anyway. I have a permanent Resting Bitch Face. It’s my best quality. “Don’t use a shitty line about Western books to proposition me for a fuck. It’s not happening.”
He blinks over at me with wide eyes as he takes in my less than pleased expression. “Wh-what? I wasn’t,” he assures me. “You got your head in the gutter, sweetheart.”
I look at him suspiciously, but his earnest expression settles me. “Oh. Well, then...good.”
He nods, another damn smile already returning to his face. I don’t know how his cheeks tolerate it. “As I was sayin’, those Western books are the best lit-ra-chure you can buy, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t.”
He goes on, either because he’s a little deaf or a lot oblivious. “Anyway, where you from?”
Nice segue.
“Here and there.”
He chuckles, his hands moving down the large steering wheel so he can rest his arms on his thighs. “Aww, come on now. Everyone’s from somewhere.”
Irritation simmers in me, but that’s basically my default setting. The guy’s been harmless so far, so I guess it wouldn’t kill me to talk to him.
“I was adopted,” I answer, giving the barest of truths. “The person who adopted me...we travelled a lot.”
“Ah. That’s where you get your wandering spirit,” he says, as if he’s got me all figured out.
I snort. “Sure.”
If I never saw another suitcase or highway, it would be too soon. After twenty-four years of moving around week after week, my spirit is tired. But at this point, I’m so conditioned to that lifestyle that I don’t even know what it would be like to stay put in one place.
“You like your adoptive folks?”
The idea that anyone would call Kaazu a parental figure is laughable. “The only good thing he ever did for me was leave me the hell alone,” I answer truthfully. Having Kaazu’s attention was never a good thing.
Trucker hums thoughtfully. “Well, that’s a real shame. How about friends or a boyfriend? You got them, don’t you?”
Cliff’s face pops in front of my mind, and guilt and worry start to attack each other in my stomach.
No, I don’t.
Because I left him behind.
Because I let him sacrifice himself to save me.
Because I don’t have anyone outside of Cliff who gives a damn about me.
Every time I try to sleep, those thoughts peck at me, piercing the backs of my lids until my eyes water and burn. I have no way of knowing if Cliff is okay. I have no way of knowing if Kaazu suspected anything or if one of the other troupers saw something.