Chapter 365 Carousel
Logan
I was eight years old. The walls of our house were cold and uninviting, filled with the scent of cigars and the persistent feeling of tension.
My father’s office was the epitome of this atmosphere-a sanctuary of order and discipline. Mahogany desk, leather chair, and shelves teeming with meticulously arranged books. He sat at his desk with the stern posture that always intimidated me, his icy eyes scanning through documents on his laptop.
“Dad, can we go to the fair? Matty and Greg are going with their families,” I said, barely containing my excitement. I clutched a crumpled flyer for the fair in my tiny hand, complete with pictures of cotton candy, carousels, and game booths.
But my other hand was clenched nervously into a fist, my knuckles white with anticipation.
Leonard’s gaze lifted from his computer and met my eager eyes. His face was like a chiseled statue, cold and unyielding. “A fair?” he sneered, as if the word itself was a blemish on his refined vocabulary. “Why would you want to go to a fair?”
“Because it’s fun, Dad! There are rides and games. Matty said he won a huge stuffed animal last time. And there’s a carousel!” The words rushed out of my mouth, each one loaded with the innocence and enthusiasm only an eight-year-old could muster.
Leonard stood up, his 6’2″ frame towering over me. He plucked the flyer from my hand and glanced at it, his lips curling in disdain. “This is nonsense, Logan. Absolute nonsense. A carousel? Stuffed animals? Do you think young Alphas have time for this childish idiocy?”
I looked down, my excitement deflating like a popped balloon. “I thought it could be… fun,” I mumbled, my voice barely audible.
“Fun?” My father’s voice became menacingly low. “Fun’ leads to distraction. Distraction leads to weakness. Young Alphas in our family don’t have the luxury for such foolery. We have businesses to run, work to do. You don’t see Harry in here throwing a fit over carousels, do you?”
“But Dad-”
My plea was interrupted by the sound of footsteps. My mother walked into the room, her expression anxious. She looked at me and then at Leonard, sensing the charged atmosphere.
“What’s going on?” she asked cautiously.
“He wants to go to a fair,.” Leonard spat out the words, throwing the flyer onto the desk with a look of utter contempt.
My mother picked up the flyer and studied it. “It sounds like fun. Maybe we should-”
Suddenly, a sharp slap echoed in the room. Leonard had struck her across the face, his eyes ablaze with fury.
“Don’t undermine me,” he snarled. “Especially not in front of him.”
My mother’s hand went to her cheek, her eyes welling up with tears. But she said nothing, her silence even more heartbreaking than a scream would have been.
“Do you understand why we can’t go?” Leonard looked down at me, his eyes piercing into mine.
I nodded, too terrified to speak, too terrified to even breathe. My eyes met my mother’s, but her expression was stony, her eyes fixed on the paperweight sitting on the corner of my father’s desk.
“Good,” my father said, returning to his seat. “Now go to your room. And don’t ever bring up such foolishness again.”
I turned around, my feet heavy, my heart heavier. I felt my mother’s eyes on me, her silent apology, as I walked out of the room. I remembered how the door slammed shut behind me, and I heard the sound of my father hitting her again. And again. And she never once screamed.
Pulling Ella toward the carousel, I felt a surge of childish excitement and a cathartic sense of liberation.
The revolving platform, adorned with meticulously carved horses and beaming lights, seemed to call out to me. It was as if the universe had given me a second chance, a do- over to claim a piece of the joy that was snatched from me all those years ago. It was as if my mother was here, standing on the sidelines, smiling at me.
I reached out and handed our tickets to the operator, a friendly, middle-aged mad. “Step right up!” He grinned and gestured toward the carousel.
Before Ella could resist, I scooped her up in my arms effortlessly and settled her onto one of the colorful, fake horses. Her cheeks flushed a rosy hue, caught off guard and likely embarrassed by my impromptu move.
“H-Hey! Logan!” she hissed, clearly taken aback.
“Shh, the ride is about to begin,” I teased, settling onto a horse next to her.
The music chimed to life, filling the air with an enchanting melody as the carousel began its journey. Spinning around faster and faster, the world blurred into a pastel panorama of lights and faces.
And amidst it all was Ella-her hair falling in waves, tousled by the wind, her lips stretched into an uncontrollable smile no matter how hard she tried to hide it. She was beautiful, and not just aesthetically. Her presence was a light that made even the scars in my past seem less painful.
As we spun in circles, I spotted the brass ring dispenser mounted next to the operator’s booth. A challenge for riders to grab as they passed by. I remembered hearing about it from friends when I was a kid. A ‘prize’ in a game I had never gotten the chance to play.
As we neared the dispenser, my hand reached out, timed to perfection, and I felt the cold brass slide onto my fingers. I turned to Ella and presented it to her.
“I got a prize for you,” I said, my voice teeming with a joy I had not felt in years.
She looked at the brass ring, then at me, her eyes twinkling like stars in a clear night sky. The carousel’s lights cast vibrant hues on her skin, accentuating her beauty in that instant. “You grabbed it! That’s… Thank you, Logan.”
Her words, simple yet sincere, became the most significant prize of the night. The carousel continued its rotation, but in that moment, time felt irrelevant. Everything seemed to pause, allowing us to exist in a vacuum where the weight of my past didn’t drag me down.
As the carousel continued to spin, the rest of the world seemed to blur away. Here I was, an ‘Alpha’ according to my father’s rigid definitions, engaging in an act he would have considered frivolous.
But the strength I felt in this ‘frivolity’, the healing it brought me, and the happiness it brought to both of us, felt like a defiant stand against every toxic notion he ever implanted in me.
I looked at Ella’s smiling face, still captivated by her new brass ring, and realized that the real prize wasn’t the piece of metal in her hand; it was seeing her like this, free and beautiful and smiling so wide I was certain her face would split right open.
As the carousel began to slow, coming to the end of its cycle, Ella turned to me, her face somehow more radiant than I had ever seen it before.
“Well?” she asked, sliding down off of her horse, her hair tousled from the wind and her cheeks rosy from the cold. “How did you enjoy your first carousel ride, Mr. Barrett?”
