We were up. “Now, welcome, the lovely and flexible, brought to you all the way from Paris, France, the Delacroix Sisters!” The spotlight flashes in our faces, and we pose for applause. We hurry to our places, and we begin our act. I manage to bend myself into the box, and as Hannah is showing the audience in another striking pose, I heard the worst sound in the world. Crack.
Pain pulses through my right arm. I can’t stop now, I’ve got to continue. I untangle myself, and pull myself from the box. Though my arm is broken, I continue. These people came to see a show.
Hannah continued as well. She didn’t know about it. She twisted to her normal position, and I showed the audience.
Climbing time. Only then did Hannah notice, when I started climbing up one handed. I was able to do most of the moves one handed, but most of them I would have to pull out of early. I would feel myself drop a few feet, and immediately tighten my grip on the cloth. Hannah watched me closely and saw me cradling my arm. She mouthed the words, ‘Do you want to stop?’ I shook my head no, and continued.
We were up to when I would have to jump to her side, but she jumped my way instead. We did the whole routine backwards as the audience applauded and I had sick panic in my stomach. She had taken my role and I had taken her’s. Thankfully, we knew each other’s moves perfectly.
Now to jump. We had to jump back and forth, about thirty feet up off the ground, no net, and me with a broken arm. Swell. I was going to have a hard time keeping my grip. I jumped, grabbed a fist full of cloth with my good hand and wrapped my bad arm around in the cloth. Hannah then mouthed again, ‘Are you sure?’ I nodded.
I jumped a few more times, each time feeling pain surge through my arm and to my head. One more jump was left. This was at the same time. I felt sweat trickle down my cheek. I’d never once broken into a sweat while jumping before.
I crawled up a ways, made sure my grip was good, then gave all my strength. Hannah jumped at the same time, below me, though. As we passed each other, my foot caught her shoulder. I was so used to being underneath when it came to the jumps that I didn’t bring my feet up. A sick feeling filled my stomach to know that both Hannah and I were in trouble. I reached out for the cloth, but missed. I began to fall. Hannah had missed the cloth as well. We both began to fall.
The sick feeling of that fall held so close to my body that I finally woke up with a start.
I sat up in bed and looked around the dark room. It was two in the morning. It was very cold. Of course, no matter what time of year it was, Hannah had to have a fan going somewhere in the room and the air conditioner, making it below freezing.
I looked across the room at her. She was peacefully asleep, off in her own little dreamland. And yet, here I was, freezing my butt off, scared of a little dream. Pathetic.
Why had Hannah and I been a couple of acrobats? And acrobats of all things? Yeah, right. The closest we’d probably come to acrobats would be with those three-year-old, dust-collected yoga tapes my mom had bought me for Christmas. Stupid dreams. They never make any sense. Just a bunch of crazy stuff.
I lay back down, and pull a pink and purple pock-a-dot comforter up to my chin, hoping to fall back asleep, and hoping another acrobatic nightmare won’t intrude my sleep again. I hate the circus.
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