Wheel of Fortune

Written for a 'Take This Prompt' contest. Because there is another kind of heartbreak that isn't given nearly enough of a voice - when you cannot love in the way someone else wishes you did.

His hand strayed toward hers again, grasping for some sort of connection. Just as quickly, hers slid sideways, beyond his reach to fiddle with the brightly coloured beads that encircled her opposite wrist.

Even in the corner of her vision, she could see the disappointment that crossed his face, pursing his lips and furrowing his pale brows. The eyes between them turned in search of hers, blue as the bead that she rolled between her fingers, and she found another excuse to be looking elsewhere.

At the sea of faces on either side, a blur of smiles, stoic stares, nausea and boredom. The ones who were genuinely pleased to be there looked to be badly outnumbered, surrounded by the aching, pretending, those who had been dragged there by others and those who had found their way to the carnival's flashing, clashing lights with little less to do. Hands wrapped around cheap prizes or cones of cotton candy as though they'd forgotten they were holding something at all.

In that stretch of awkward silence, she couldn't help but feel something of a connection with the people who looked so much like they were trying to wish themselves to someplace else. Wondering, as her fingers migrated to another bead, what the rest of them had hoped to gain by coming there. Whether they'd failed, or had realized in the end that it wasn't or wouldn't be nearly as good as they'd hoped.

Of course, her own answer to the question was the one that loomed in thought. Walking at her side in his ill-fitting jeans, a jacket meant for the wrong season, glasses perched close to the tip of his nose. A nest of thick blonde curls that hadn't been tamed once in all the years she'd known him, and those blue eyes sliding back to meet her gaze again.

Accusing her without a word, or so it seemed in that uncomfortable moment. Slowly, that restless hand fell back to her side, rendered heavy and still by all of the questions that he could have asked and didn't. Paralysing her through all of the excuses that she'd offered as he reached out with greater speed and insistence to take her hand in his. Fingers wound around hers in order to still their fidgeting, warm and vaguely clammy.

Constricting, raising a spark of petty annoyance in her that she hadn't realized she was capable of feeling. Couldn't he see that she'd been happier having that hand to herself? He spent enough time looking at her face, couldn't he tell that she was ready to go home?

That spark died in the next moment, extinguished by a rush of shame and all of the thoughts that she'd forced on herself since morning. He was trying to make the best of the situation as well, that much was clear in the tautness of his face and tightness of his fingers. Like her, he was trying to do what they were meant to be doing, no matter how much it felt like being wrapped up close and hot by a boa constrictor.

The thought was even less welcome than she'd expected, calling her mind back to the night before and the minutes that had seemed to take hours to pass. When the sheets had tightened around her like snakes, hair had managed to wrap itself too thick around her throat, and his breath had fallen hot and erratic against her face. When they'd both wrestled through the hesitation and awkwardness to do what they were supposed to be doing.

Everyone had said that it would be better afterwards. That it was something she'd been missing, and that she was supposed to be relieved in that moment. Basking in a glow other than that of the wheeling, blinking lights that surrounded them.

She couldn't just keep lying to herself about it, could she? After that long, after all that people had said, she had expected it to feel better. Not for her body, but for the little ball of emotion that seemed to wind itself larger and heavier in her chest with each minute she spent at his side. She should have been dancing, yet she couldn't even bring herself to smile.

“Lucy?”

The sound of her own name shouldn't have caused that little thrill of dread, the fear of what he might want to say or do. She shouldn't have had to force her voice or face that way, doing her best to look and sound as though there was no place she would rather be. “Yeah?”

Of course he noticed. It was clear to see in his deeper frown, the troubled curl that his lips always took on when he wasn't sure how to proceed. He seemed to dismiss it in the end, however, raising his free hand to point across the crowd.

“You said yesterday that you wanted to ride the Ferris wheel,” he prodded her memory, “Right?”

Had she? It seemed like such a long time ago, too many events separating it from where she stood and how she felt. Lifting her attention from the back-and-forth rush of the throng, however, she found her vision dominated by a sparkling reminder.

The same one that had dazzled her once a year since her earliest memories, rotating ponderously above the fray, shining like constellations fused into long, metallic struts. Standing there, she could remember all too well how it looked from above, teetering over the whole of the carnival as the sun slipped away.

Like looking down on a river of fireflies. Every other place in her life could be invaded somehow by someone, but when she reached the top of that wheel, she was untouchable.

If she rode it with him, that was going to change, wasn't it?

The thought seemed to drop into her mind, like a stone landing with a near-audible thunk. With it came all the heat, the constriction, the coiling of her stomach that she'd felt since disentangling herself from those sheets the night before.

Everyone, everyone had said that it was supposed to be better. So why did she feel like something was closing in on her from every side, stealing even the part of her that could have said 'no'?

“Lucy?”

“I-” The word seemed to stick immovably in her throat, thick as cotton candy. The idea that she wouldn't be able to speak it at all was a new assault of fear, and in that moment, she knew she had to try.

Because if she said yes to that, to every little thing no matter how it made her feel, she couldn't even guess at where it would stop. Because 'everyone' had lied, and what they'd said would make her feel better had only left her with tears brimming in her eyes.

“I can't.” Forcing it out felt like opening a crack in a straining dam, letting it crumble inside as all of the things she should have said and felt since that morning spilled down her cheeks and from her lips. “I can't,” she repeated, just to assure herself that it could still be said. That it was still hers to say. “Not this, not- not us. Not ever.”

He hadn't realized, had he? The look on his face, the widening of his eyes and slight parting of his lips. He'd had no idea, and she had just-

But it had been right �" the right thing to do and say. She was free to pull her fingers from his, and for the moment, it didn't matter who might be watching. Let them stare as she turned to push her way between them, dragging knuckles across her eyes in a vain attempt to clear away the tears.

Because when that moment ended, they'd all still be there, where they didn't want to be. She'd be the only one who wasn't, and suddenly, that seemed worth every second they might spend staring her way.

“The wheel of fortune goes spinning around...”

So many times, so many friends had made fun of her for the song that wheezed and crooned from her bedside stereo. They'd tried to tell her what she was 'supposed' to be listening to, the same way they'd told her what she was supposed to be doing. What, when, with whom.

'He's perfect for you,' they'd all said, usually followed or preceded by a fit of giggling. They'd insisted, he'd blushed, and she had tried to convince herself that they were right.

“Will the arrow point my way, will this be my day?”

Lying there in the dark, coiled in the warmth of her own sheets, she let the words sink deep. So much like the voices of her friends, telling her how life was going to be and how she was meant to feel about it.

“Oh, wheel of fortune, please don't pass me by. Let me know the magic of a kiss and a sigh.”

Beyond rows of houses, all rendered as black silhouettes by the depths of night, the lights of the Ferris wheel were winking out one by one. Bathing its circular frame in gradual shadow, reducing it to a lifeless husk beneath the moon's brilliant glare.

“While the wheel is spinning, spinning, spinning, I'll not dream of winning fortune or fame.”

She would go back the next night, she decided in that moment, arms drawn tight around her knees. She'd walk beneath the lights without a hand to hold, and she'd board one of the little cars that swayed in its centre.

“While the wheel is turning, turning, turning, I'll be yearning, yearning for love's precious flame.”

She'd look down on the carnival from above, on that river of light, and hers would be the only sounds that broke the silence. For the moment, however, she leaned away from the sight, settling into the softness of a bed that she would never be forced to share with anyone.

“Oh, wheel of fortune, I'm hoping somehow...”

With one hand she groped through the darkness of her familiar room, setting a finger on the button that would quiet the stereo's earnest plea.

“If you ever smile on me, please let it be no-”