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The Worst Day of 2005

Katie Cobbs

    Eva was standing in line for the Ferris Wheel at the carnival in the seaside town of Rosslare, Ireland. She closed her eyes as the salty breeze blew in from the sea that was just a few yards to her right and took a deep breath. The air combined with the sun setting in the west reminded her of all the times she and her friends would have adventures in California where she moved from. They’d set up tents on Redondo Beach and stay up until almost sunrise, laughing, joking, dancing, and making out. But then the company had screwed her father over big time by implicating him in a Fortune 500 pyramid scheme and so they had to run in the middle of the night leaving almost everything. But once they got here and she settled in, she realized that it wasn’t so bad.
    “Earth to Eva! Hello?” Eva’s twin sister, Maevri says from right beside her making her jump.
    “Jesus, Mae! Can’t you see I was meditating?” Eva growls as she opens her eyes. Maevri rolls her own and throws her long blond braid over her shoulder and that’s when Eva realizes who is standing directly behind her.
    “ƒanna?” Eva asks looking as though she’d just been punched in the stomach.
    “Yeah, can we talk?” He responds with a question of his own. Before Eva could even answer though, a hand grabbed her and pulled her out of line.
    “Wha- oh. Hey, Rose. I thought you weren’t going to be able to make it.” Eva says as her best friend pulls her towards the food stands.
    “Yeah, well. My ma figured that since everyone was going to end up here I needed to be here as well to run interference and I happened to agree with her. Turns out we were both right.” Rose explain as she stops and looks up at the giant signs over the stands for only a moment before she drags Eva off to the far right towards a truck that has the most heavenly scent wafting gently from as though an angel were blowing the magical air through the crowd. Once they got closer they noticed that the line was longer than any other stand.
    “Come on, Rose. Let’s just go back to the Ferris wheel.” Eva says in a sad tone as she turns to walk away.
    “Absolutely not! This carnival is here for three days, and you are going to experience the world-famous Irish funnel cake. Don’t worry though, there’s no booze in it...I think.” Rose says as she pauses at the end which causes Eva to crack up laughing.
    “Is that a laugh?” Rose teases as they slowly inch forward.

&bvsp;
    “Eva, I am so sry!” Is the text that Eva receives over and over again. Eva can register what they’re saying, but she can’t feel her fingers enough to even respond.
    “Eva, look at me please.” ƒanna pleads from beside her in the bucket seat that’s been stuck at the eleven o’clock position on the Ferris wheel that Rose finally broke down and agreed to go on after Eva begged her to go on just once with her.
    “Why should I look at you? You cheated on me with my fucking sister.” Eva says in a voice devoid of tone. She should have taken Rose’s advice and not looked when she told her. She should have listened, but she was always so damn stubborn, always had to do things her way. She followed Rose’s line of sight and that’s when the world was pulled out from underneath her feet. Standing over by the cotton candy stand was her own sister and now ex-boyfriend making out. Rose had drug them over to the Ferris wheel whose line was shorter than the other one near the entrance to the carnival and now it was extremely apparent why the line was shorter. “We are extremely sorry, but we are going to have to ask the remaining patrons to please leave the carnival immediately due to an emergency. Again, we are sorry, but we must ask that everyone please leave due to an emergency.” A man calls over the loudspeaker and it sounds like it’s coming from some eldritch creature from the deep.
    “Baby, please look at me!” ƒanna begs and that one word is what sets Eva off. Her eyes that were trained on the horizon for the past forty-five minutes suddenly narrowed as she slowly turned her head to look at the boy who’d so easily ripped her heart out.
    “Exactly what excuse do you have for what I saw with my own two eyes?” Eva hisses and she hears over the rush of the evening wind, that’s so much colder now that she’s this high up, Rose gasp then begin to scramble around in her seat to see what’s happening.
    “Baby, it wasn’t what you thought it was!” ƒanna lies through his teeth and Eva feels the rage that she’s been holding back for the past two hours suddenly fly free. She shoves her phone in the pocket of her hoodie and for a split second ƒanna looks as though he’s won. He looks as though this simple lie has managed to get him off the hook, but that look is replaced with one of shock and fear when Eva draws back her fist and slugs him in the nose as hard as she can. The results of this is loud crunch followed by blood flowing from his nose. “You might be able to lie to Maevri and get away with it, but I’m smarter!” Eva growls just as the Ferris wheel starts to finally move again. Ten minutes later, she and Rose walk through the exit of the carnival with their arms slung over each other’s shoulders laughing hysterically about what should have been the worst day of 2005.

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