"AND YOU'RE SURE YOU DON'T WANT ME TO COME WITH YOU?" Robert asked as they were stepping out her front door.

Jen gave his hand a consoling squeeze. "You know this wouldn't be the best time for you to meet my parents."

He let out a small, defeated sigh, looking mildly disappointed. "I know," he conceded. "And I get it. I just...I want to see where you're from, that's all."

The two of them had spent the past couple of hours lounging on her couch, but Jen's dad was due to pick her up in five minutes so that she could go with her parents to the county fair tonight. Since it was held only half an hour away from Woods Crossing and was by far the most exciting thing that ever happened to that gloomy town, it was a longstanding family tradition for the three of them to go.

She felt guilty for not wanting to bring her boyfriend with her. Ever since the whole dinner fiasco last weekend, Jen had noticed him becoming increasingly bothered with how separate they kept their relationship from every other aspect of their lives. She could understand why he didn't want any more surprises being thrown at them. She liked feeling safe, like there was always a safety net under her in case something came along and swept her off her feet, and she could barely imagine what his reaction might be if he found out that she had been hiding a messy history with their boss from him.

She was buying herself time to figure out how to explain all of that, but for the immediate moment, she was deflecting by saying that him showing up unannounced with her when her dad came to pick her up was a terrible idea. Though she was fully aware it was a very temporary fix to a problem that wasn't going to go away any time soon, it was a terrible idea regardless.

"I'm sorry," she said, and she truly was – just not enough to sacrifice her ability to keep him isolated from all of her issues just yet.

She tried to convince herself that she wasn't being entirely selfish, that it was for his sake as well as her own. The fact that their relationship was starting not to feel brand new anymore didn't mean that they could stop being vigilant—she hadn't come this far just for news about their relationship to somehow find its way back to work after they'd managed a whole month of secrecy. Even so, it was relieving to know that this arrangement – the part of it where they hid their relationship from everyone else – had an expiration date, even if she would be left with no excuse at that point not to tell him all about Nora.

Jen placed a soft kiss on his cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Be safe," he hummed, reluctant to let go of her hand. "And have fun."

For him, it sounded lackluster, and she felt the corners of her lips tilt down into a frown. Her eyes examined his, searching and rummaging for why he was upset, and she was slightly unnerved when she observed that they didn't look very upset at all. Just a little distant, which was somehow worse.

She tried to shake off the tension by being playful and giving him another kiss, this time on the lips. "I assure you it'd be more fun if you were there," she murmured in assurance. "I'm just trying to stick to the plan. We made it this far—let's carry it through to the end."

She slipped her hand out of his and brushed past him to go meet her dad, who liked to park in a public lot around the block whenever he came into town. It wasn't that Jen at all wanted to be in a rush to leave Robert, but she was nervous that if she dawdled too much, her father might come looking for her and see that she wasn't alone.

As she expected, his truck was already parked in the lot once she got there. She hurried over, realizing once she was closer to the car that her mother was already with him, sitting in the passenger seat. This surprised Jen—Mom wasn't much of a fan of car rides, so she'd assumed they'd be picking her up from the house after Dad retrieved Jen.

So she climbed into the back seat, something she hadn't done in several years. She wasn't even sure when the last time the three of them had ridden in the car together was. Something about riding in the back row made her feel like she was in high school again, which wasn't a particularly pleasant feeling, but it reminded her of how far she'd come since then despite rarely feeling like she was making the progress she wanted to.

Having Mom there made small talk in the car go much more smoothly than it would have were it just Jen and Dad present. She did most of the talking, so all Jen really had to do was smile and nod at the right moments. She was actually somewhat excited to be coming back to the fair. Up until the accident, the three of them had gone together every year, but they'd been inconsistent at it ever since then due to both the new strain on their relationships and Jen's decision to remain in Chicago after college.

As her eyes kept drifting back to her parents' interlocked hands on the middle console, a tightening sensation formed in her stomach. Swaths of trees outside her window passed in a continuous blur of browns and greens until they eventually rumbled into the gravel parking lot at the fair, which was packed with cars and almost completely full.

The pebbles crunched beneath her shoes as they walked up to the ticket stand, and Jen suspected that her soles would be coated with a fine sheen of ashy powder by the end of the night as a result. But her heart expanded at the sight of the festivities, a wave of nostalgia rolling over her like a wave when they stepped through the front gates. Kids were running around and tugging on their parents' hands, their little fingers stained with powdered sugar from whatever deep-fried delicacies they'd been munching on. Groups of teenagers happily chattered amongst themselves while they waited in line for the rides and carnival games. The bright, flashing lights, loud music, and shrieks of delight made the air feel like it was pulsing with excited energy, creating the kind of invigorating atmosphere that you didn't find anywhere else.

"Where should we start?" Jen asked.

Mom gave her a sideways look, one edge of her mouth tugging into a knowing smile. "Wanna ride the ferris wheel?"

Jen broke into an unabashed grin—the ferris wheel was their favorite ride to go on together when she was little. She'd already grabbed her mother's hand and started to pull her off before she thought to turn around and check if Dad was coming with them.

He lightly shook his head. "The benches only fit two, anyway, so I'll wait for you guys at the exit."

Both girls nodded and rushed off towards the line, hand in hand. The queue was one of the longer ones, winding back and forth like the body of a snake, but she was willing to wait. They wouldn't get this chance again for at least another year. When they finally got to the front of the line, she scampered on with all the unfettered, eager delight of a child.

Jen was never afraid of heights. Being so far up in the air made her feel lighter, made breathing a little easier. Existence up there felt untainted, like they got to spend a few minutes in a new small universe that was untainted by all of their mistakes. The stars above seemed almost close enough to touch, while the neon galore below seemed like it was a whole world away. From here, she could simply look down on it and admire its beauty without being sucked into all of its chaos. So as they rose higher into the air, her spirits lifted, also.

"So, how has my little girl been?" Mom asked her once they were nearly to the very top.

"I'm happy," Jen murmured a little dreamily, still gazing at the wonderland beneath them.

Mom's eyes, reflecting the warm flood of light from below, gleamed like fire. Mischievous amusement was dancing through them as she questioned, "Are you still seeing that boy?"

When a giggle slipped out of Jen's mouth, she was grateful that no one besides her mother could hear it. "Yeah, I'm still seeing the boy."

Mom took Jen's hand, which was resting on the metal bar across their laps, in her own. Rubbing comforting little circles with her thumb, she asked, "Do I get to know anything about him yet?"

Jen went quiet, not wanting to disappoint but not wanting to pretend either. There was a part of her that wanted to keep Robert for herself, that wanted to hide him forever. And another piece of her that was scared that what they had was too good to be true, that it would all somehow crumble to dust as soon as she showed him off to anyone. That he wouldn't forgive her for keeping secrets.

"I don't think I'm ready just yet," she eventually admitted after a long pause.

"That's okay," her mother told her. "Take your time."

Jen looked ahead into the darkness, watching the pendulum of the pirate ship ride swing back and forth and feeling like she was letting everyone down today. Like everyone around her wanted the same things and she was getting in their way.

"That's very patient of you," she said quietly.

She felt her mother gently squeeze her hand. "You're my daughter. I'll always be patient for you."

After meeting Dad at the exit of the ferris wheel, the three of them wandered around to various games and rides for a little while. When they played skee ball, she was reminded of her date to the arcade with Robert, and more guilt prodded at her heart. He would have loved to be here playing it with her. It would have been so fun for the two of them to team up to defeat her parents, and he'd win their affection just as easily—he was so good with words. She should have let him come.

She would apologize to him later. Letting go of control scared her to death, but she needed to try. She didn't want to be the only one who had any agency; she didn't want to be manipulative. She didn't want fear to turn her into the type of person she hated.

Next to one of the food stands was a small photo booth, which surprisingly had no line. Jen supposed everyone in the vicinity was too hyperfocused on their funnel cakes.

Mom's expression brightened when she saw it. "Can we do it? It's been ages since we've gotten a family photo."

No one protested, so Jen found herself squishing onto the tiny bench between her parents and smiling for the camera, her eyes watering when the flash went off. She had to blink several times to readjust her eyes to the dark once they stepped back outside.

Mom snagged the glossy strip of photos after it printed, then passed it to Jen as they got into the line for refreshments. As she stared at it, a ball of tightness gradually rose in her throat and lodged itself there, making each of her breaths feel more and more strained. She was nestled there between her parents, smiling a big, pleasant smile. Mom was grinning from ear to ear, and even Dad looked happy, too. They looked like a family and they looked happy together, so she should have felt happy, too.

She should have felt happy, and yet all she felt was sad.

She cleared her throat softly. "Dad, can I talk to you for a minute?"

His expression hardened slightly, but he nodded; Mom just looked confused. "...Do you want me to get us a table?"

Jen's eyes glanced across the square of picnic tables that had been set up to the other side of the stand. There weren't very many left available. "That would be great."

She tried to lead Dad away as un-awkwardly as possible, but there really wasn't any nonchalant way to do it. The only area that looked relatively private was near the edge of the fairgrounds, close to where a small group of teenagers was smoking cigarettes and listening to a Nirvana album with their boombox. Their eyes lazily drifted to Jen for a second or two, but they seemed highly uninterested in anything besides themselves. She turned towards her father, resisting the unhelpful urge to cross her arms in a defensive stance.

He himself had no such qualms. "What is it?"

"We can't keep living like this—you have to tell her what happened."

His breath slid out from between his teeth in a frustrated sigh. "This again–"

"I can barely stand to look at this picture of us," she snapped, holding up the row of photos that she'd shoved into the pocket of her denim jacket. "It doesn't feel real, and I just– I want us to feel real so badly. Is that so hard for you to understand? I want us to feel like a real family and none of our happiness can be real while you're stubbornly insisting on staying the past–"

"Because you never stay in the past at all."

"Your marriage is a lie, Dad!" she cried, her voice loud and defiant like a crack of thunder. "It's all fake!"

He took a few steps towards her and she raised her chin slightly, refusing to let herself be intimidated by him this time. "You better listen to me carefully, Jennifer." His tone was warning, calm on the surface but sharp underneath, like the cutting edge of a knife he'd use on her if he had to. "I wake up every morning and I make sure that she has everything that she needs to get through the day. I pay someone to make sure she's taken care of when I'm not home, and I go work for ten hours a day so that she never has to go without anything. Do not tell me I don't love your mother."

Jen shook her head, praying that her voice wouldn't wobble when she spoke. "But you haven't forgiven her. And don't say that you have—you can't, not when you've never talked to her about any of it. You can't love someone and hide that much from them."

"Sometimes loving someone means protecting them," he shot back. "Sometimes you have to carry the pain so they don't have to."

She lost all of her cool. She didn't care. Her heart felt like it was splintering into hundreds of pieces, shards that served no use except to be thrown back at him.

"But the person you were supposed to be protecting was me!" she exploded. "Your choice to shield her means that I have to deal with all of it. I stopped being your child and became your freaking marriage therapist. I was the one who took all of your anger, who faced him. You choose her over me over and over and over again and I– I can't take it anymore, Dad, I can't. If you don't tell her, we're both gonna be stuck in the past forever and the present is never going to mean anything."

"Stop–"

"No," she cut him off. "I am not going to stop. I want to live and all we've been doing for the past four years is survive. Do you really want to get to the end of your life and realize that so much of it meant absolutely nothing?"

He was glowering, glaring silent daggers at her. And it was awful, the kind of look she didn't believe any parent should ever give their child. So she turned on her heel and looked away, knowing that hot tears were about to start trickling down her cheeks, and stormed off across the gravel towards the parking lot.

The ringing in her ears drowned out the crunching under her feet. Her vision kept blurring until she angrily blinked the moisture, which slid down her cheeks in streams, out of her eyes. She didn't even know what she was supposed to do for the immediate moment—her parents were her ride, so it wasn't like she could just leave, but she couldn't stand to be around her dad right now or watch her mom looking at him with her big doe eyes, believing their marriage was perfect.

It felt as though her stomach had done several somersaults in her abdomen by the time she got back to her dad's truck and leaned against the door, the cool metal pressing against her shoulder blades, and let out a sigh. It felt like this day had turned into a series of giant messes coming one after another.

Jen heard gravel crackling under someone's footsteps nearby and briefly glanced over to look at the offender, but then froze. That silhouette was entirely too familiar, and he seemed to notice her at the same time she noticed him.

"Did you follow me?!" she demanded, her voice jumping up as Robert approached her.

He stared at her incredulously. "Follow you—what kind of person do you think I am? Christ, I'm not going to stalk you. You dropped these." He both looked and sounded highly unamused as he reached into his pocket and held up her house keys. "I just thought you might want to be able to get back into your apartment. Sorry if I was wrong."

Embarrassed, she stepped forward and took them from him, her fingers wrapping around the cold metal and letting its grooves dig into her skin. "But how did you find me?"

"There are advertisements for this thing all over the place, Jen," he told her. "All I had to do to find the address was grab a newspaper."

She pressed her lips together, staring at the keys. "Okay."

He crossed his arms, which she was far from thrilled about, but a singular shred of her conscience screamed that she was only really irritated with her father. "Why are you mad at me? If this is about last weekend–"

"How many times do I have to tell you I really don't care about Violetta?" she sighed again, suddenly feeling very tired. "Really, I'm over it."

"I didn't come here to see your parents, I swear–"

"Stop talking, Robert," she blurted, feeling shockingly self-aware considering that she was developing a headache. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment and then reopened them. "Please. I'm not mad at you, I promise. I'm mad at them and I just have all this pent-up anger I don't know how to get rid of."

He moved closer to her to cup her cheek with his hand, brushing away her tears. His fingers were gentle yet firm, soft despite being slightly calloused, but most importantly, they were familiar to her. Jen placed her hands on his shoulders, her fingers scrunching in the material of his jacket, and looked up at him.

"Are you angry with me?"

"I can't stay angry with you," he said to her, his eyes dark and his voice barely above a whisper as his thumb ran along the hollow of her cheek. "But it does make me angry that you always seem to be hurting and nothing I'm doing is stopping it."

His jaw was tight, his eyes lingering on hers as he awaited her response. "I think," she breathed. "It might help if you kiss me."

He hesitated for a few seconds like he wasn't sure if it was a good idea, but then he closed all of the space between them and crashed his lips against hers, kissing her like he depended on it to keep his heart beating. Her own heartbeat was staggering in her chest, and a sharp, pleased breath hissed from her lips as his arms tightened around her waist and they backed up against the car with a metallic thunk.

Jen's skin was ablaze, her body feeling hot all over with his pressed so close against hers, and her hands fumbled to shuck his jacket off his shoulders so she could run them over his arms. She was very unskilled in the art of undressing men, but they both ignored the inelegant way the fabric flopped to the ground.

His eyes were wide when he momentarily pulled back from her, their breaths ragged and uneven. His cheeks were flushed with heat, his eyes silently asking her if she wanted him to keep going. Her fingers tightened in the hair at the nape of his neck, drawing him back towards her. She titled her head back, gasping and letting her eyes fall shut while his lips started on a path from her jawline down towards her collarbone and the hollow of her throat. She held him even more tightly than he was holding her, an unspoken plea for him not to force her out of the safety of his arms.

Where he was, there was no pain. 

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A/N:

just 4 chapters left!