“We’ve never done anything together that I’ve actually cared about.” Sterling said as he stared blankly at the burning remains of a bright red circus tent.

Micah’s expression didn’t change, but she felt a sharp spike of despair stab at her heart. It wasn’t like it was news to her, though. Her relationship with Sterling had always been as coworkers, after all. They never had much time for anything other than the show. She had truly been happy like that, spending her days practicing elaborate tricks and finding new ways to combine pieces of her wardrobe, and her nights on a brilliantly lit stage surrounded by an audience. Sterling and the others were like a second family to her. Unfortunately, her care for them couldn’t erase their lack of it, and it couldn’t extinguish the fire that now burned away their only semblance of a home.

“And yet we did so much,” Micah protested weakly. “We all did.”

“None of it mattered.” Sterling shrugged, gesturing halfheartedly to the fire. As blunt as his tone was, it was clear to Micah that he was devastated all the same.

“I guess so.” Micah smiled, trying her best not to cry.

The only other sound beside the crackling of the flames was the gentle ringing of the windchimes that Micah had hung around the clearing when they’d first set up here. The ringmaster was certain that they would help to entice the townsfolk into buying tickets and Micah obliged. They had been nice to listen to during the quiet of early mornings that she’d spent picking flowers in the field to replace the vases in the entryway. They were haunting now, though, like every soul of a lost performer was pushing its way through the metal in a feeble attempt to have their voice heard one last time.

“What do we do now?” Micah asked, looking over to Sterling. His face was smudged with ash and blue face paint, and she wondered how terrible she must look.

“We leave. We clean ourselves up. We find work. We move on.” Sterling glared at Micah, an expression that made her feel sick. “And we pretend to be normal.”

“We can pretend, Sterling, but it wouldn’t be right, you know that.” Micah felt like she was pleading with a statue, one that stared at her with an unmoving anger.

“All we’ve ever done is pretend!” Sterling shouted, and Micah flinched. “We joined a circus, for God’s sake! Did you really think that any of this was real? That any of it mattered? None of this meant anything, Micah, surely you can see that!”

Micah was stunned into silence. Not once in her two years of performing alongside Sterling had she ever heard him yell, and especially not at her. She couldn’t hold back her tears any longer, and her face stung as salt leeched into fresh wounds. Sterling didn’t seem to care.

“All of this, every day we’ve spent here, it was all a lie.” Sterling stood up, kicking a rock into the flames with an angry grunt. “We put so much effort into believing that there was somewhere we could fit in that we never even thought to try and fix ourselves! What if all of this could have been avoided if we were normal? If we fit in? Maybe they’d all be fine!”

“You’re upset,” Micah reached out a hand, grabbing onto Sterling’s firmly. His anger seemed to waver for a moment. “I know you are. But we shouldn’t have to change ourselves just to fit in somewhere that doesn’t actually care about us. All of this… Everything that happened… It wasn’t our fault, Sterling. It wasn’t yours.”

Sterling’s eyes fell shut and Micah squeezed his hand, trying not to touch any of the burns on his wrist. He took a deep breath, wiped the ash from his face, and opened his eyes. Instead of acceptance, or even understanding, they just looked blank. Unfeeling. He pulled away from Micah, who tried not to sob.

“No.” Sterling shook his head. His face seemed void of any real emotion as he turned to look at the fire again. “You can lie to yourself all you want, Micah. I’m done with this. I’m done with you.”

Micah wanted to yell at him as he began to walk away, she wanted to convince him that he wouldn’t be happy out there, but all she could do was watch as he vanished into the forest. She sat there, alone in a burning field, until she couldn’t bear to stay still any longer. Micah stood up, her mind swirling with a mix of betrayal and longing, and she set off into the forest in the opposite direction, determined to prove Sterling wrong.