"And do you, Jaren Smith, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in wellness and in sickness, in wealth and in poverty? " As soon as the words were said all eyes were on me, and suddenly my heart stopped. Why did I do this? What made me do this? Oh right, my parents made me. They forced me to ask this poor girl out and then they forced me to propose to her. It's not like I don't like her, she's sweet and cute, but she's just not my type. Like at all. Let's just say my type is less feminine and more, how do I put this, not a woman.

Yeah, getting married to someone of the gender that you don't feel any form of attraction to shouldn't sound ideal to anyone, but my parents just don't seem to be able to grasp the fact that I'm gayer than a rainbow plastered across a guy who claims he just hasn't found the right girl's face. They have always been accepting of the community, just as long as I or my brother weren't apart of it. You know, classic hidden homophobe style.

So that was how I got here, at the altar with someone who I don't even love. And everyone was waiting on me to say those two words which would bind us together until I gave in and got a divorce. I'm not sure how we managed to go this long without more than kissing, maybe it's that I told her that I was waiting until marriage.

I can't do this.

"No," I whisper out quietly, I'm pretty sure only the officiator and the woman across from me heard. She gasped. "I'm really sorry, but I can't do this, it's not you, I'm just gay." her eyes go wide at that, she must not have been expecting her groom to come out on her wedding day. I turn to the crowd of people and start to walk down the steps of the venue, heading toward the doors to leave, people starting to whisper and gasp, I get about five steps off of the stairs when a hand is placed on my shoulder and pulls me back.

"Where do you think you're going?" My father's voice says, hissing out the question through clenched teeth.

"Away from here," I say, not turning to face him as I try to shrug off the hand on my shoulder, but his grip is firm and he pulls me to turn and walk back to the altar.

"Why? You're marrying the woman you love-" I flinch at the word woman- "what could possibly make you want to leave?"

"I'm gay, Dad!" I rip my arm from his grasp and shout it to him, maybe the raised voice will show that I'm serious, "And I'm way too young to be getting married to anyone! You know that I like guys and you still forced me into a relationship with someone who you know I could never love!"

"This is preposterous, Jaren, you are in love with her, you've told her yourself!" He was starting to raise his voice, getting more and more annoyed with me, and I with him.

"Yeah? Well, people lie, I'm sure you wouldn't know anything about that though," I know that I'm speaking without thinking, but what else am I supposed to do when he won't listen and hasn't listened for years upon years of me trying to tell him.

"You don't know what you're talking about, Jaren, now get back up there and get married to that nice girl, you're breaking her heart." His hand is back on my arm and is squeezing even tighter than before, it hurts a bit.

"NO! Let go of me!" I struggle to break away from his grasp. When I finally do, I turn to make a break for the front door of the venue. I can hear my dad shouting at me and my mom calling my name but that doesn't stop me as I run out the door and into the empty streets, racing to the park that was near where we were. I kept running, even as I made it to the park, I wanted to be as far from them as I could get, even if that meant going off the path in the woods to hide better.

The trees were getting taller and taller as I moved further and further into the forest, not looking back and not slowing down until my lungs ached for air and my legs felt like they were made of jello. I leaned against a nearby tree, my breathing had increased tenfold and my heart was beating faster than ever, mostly because of the exercise but also partially due to the adrenalin running through my veins.

When I am able to, I look around at where I was. In the middle of a forest with no sense of where I came from. Sure, I could turn around and head back that way, but I had taken so many turns due to dead ends and trees in my way that I don't even know which way was "back".

I let out a sigh and drop my head, my hands on my knees as I let out more pants. I go to look around again, and this time something catches my eye. It looks like an opening, or maybe a clearing. It looks like there's also some sort of statue in the very middle.

I stand up fully and walk over to where it was, and it turns out to be a clearing of trees with some sort of statue of a man standing with his hand outstretched. Everything about it seemed odd but the thing that put me off the most is that he's facing me, directly. That could just be a coincidence but for me to find this statue after running away into a forest and off of the trail be pure chance, now that would be very strange.

The statue was a man who looked around my age, maybe older, he had on the outfit that you would see a stereotypical ringleader of a circus wear, the waistcoat buttoned up at the front and a tie tucked into it, he looked like he had gloves on but it was hard to tell because he was made of marble. He had a tophat on that covered most of his short hair apart from a tuft that fell just above his eyes. His lips are pulled into a confident smile that seemed to be asking me a question even though he couldn't talk. He's handsome, I'll admit that, but he's also a statue.

I walk around the statue to see if I can find any writing that could tell me who he is, but to no such luck. He's not even on a podium or anything, just standing out in the open with his hand held out as if waiting for someone to take it. Once I'm back in front of it again, I start to feel a strange urge to place my hand in his. It's not like the childish urge to play around on a statue but more of a voice in the back of my head telling me to, or even like a shoulder angel saying that I should do it.

I go to reach my hand out to place it in his but stop to look around to make sure no one could see me, which is stupid because I'm lost in the middle of the forest. I look back to the statue whose eyes have started to almost glimmer, even though he was made of marble and-

As I place my hand into his as if to let him pull me off to wonderland, I feel that the marble isn't cold like I expected it to be, in fact, it's warm and almost human-like. That's not the weirdest part though, because as soon as my hand touches his, his hand closes around mine just barely and I see his smile get bigger, then all I see is a bright light that makes me close my eyes and I feel super dizzy, so dizzy that I nearly fall over only to be caught in the arms of someone in a dip-like position.

When I open my eyes I expect to see some stranger holding me up in the middle of the clearing with the statue in the same position that I had last seen it in, but what happens is I open my eyes and see, not a complete stranger, but the statue holding me up, only now he looks human, the color of his skin is slightly paled and the tuft of hair is a light brown, his waistcoat is the traditional red and black, but his tie is white with a black undershirt. His eyes are what shock me the most. They're a light bluish-green color and seem to go on forever. He's even more handsome now. Wait.

"What the fuck." I say, not knowing what else to say, this dude was a statue, not even a minute ago how, and why, is he holding me up from falling? Also, where are we, I look around to see that the sky had gotten much darker and stars were scattered everywhere and now we were in what seemed to be an open field. And why did his smile grow cockier just now?

"Looks like you just fell for me." My face flushes when he says that. Holy shit he even sounds hot, and he was flirting with me? What the hell is going on? "You seem confused, let me explain." he pulls me to m feet, spinning me around so my hand moved from one to the other and his free hand took my empty one, holding my arms in a crossed position.

"My name is John, I own a circus for people who need a place to escape to-" He says and continues to pull me along into a dance, and for some reason, I know all the moves and steps- "people come here to be with others like them, freaks, outcasts, people like that, and you just so happen to be one of those people." he spins me to face him and we start to waltz again.

"Wait. Me? I'm sorry to tell you this sir, but I can't be in a circus I-"

"Why not? You're already here, and you didn't like your old life." The hands that were placed on my waist pull me along in the dance that we had started and doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon.

"I have friends that would wonder where I went-" I start to pull my hands away from his shoulder and his grip to push his chest away from me. "and on top of that, I'm not talented in any way, shape, or form to even think about being in a circus and I'm almost positive that I would need to be even somewhat acquainted with-" I'm cut off by a pair of lips, my hands freezing as I stare into closed eyes, and slowly my eyes also start to drift close, my arms wrapping around his neck and pull him closer. For someone I just met, I was surprisingly enjoying this. Too soon, though, he pulled away.

"You think too much," He lets go of me and turns to head off to what looked like a carnival of some sort. How did I miss that before? "come along," he said back to me. I could only stare at him, stunned into silence by both his forwardness and his nonchalance, but since I have no idea where the fuck I am and it seems like the carnival is the only civilization for miles, then I have to follow him.

"Wh- ok, um, I'm sorry, but where are we going?" I try not to think about the kiss and focus on what seems more important.

"To a place that is safe from greed, anger, and boredom." He said it with such confidence that made me feel like he wasn't lying, and something in the way he turned slightly to look at me made me want to follow him to where ever we were going.

"I'm still not sure that I'm what you want for a circus, but I'll at least check it out," I say, making my way next to him as we walk to where the light was coming from. There are people running around and talking to each other, it looks like fun.

"You have no idea what you're capable of, Jaren." He says, looking over to me with a side glance that looks to have some sympathy and a gleam of something that I can't quite decipher.

"What the hell does that even mean? And how do you know my name?" I ask him, exasperated with him at this point. First, he's a statue that I find in the forest, then he's alive and starts to dance with me telling me that I should join the circus? And then he kisses me and brushes it off like it was nothing and tells me I don't know what I'm capable of and he knows my name. Today has sent me curveball after curveball.

"I'll explain everything once we're at my tent." He says as we get to where the light was coming from, there were fairy lights and lanterns strung up around the place, large and small tents and stalls with carnival games and other things that a typical circus might have. We walk further into the carnival and I start to see more people walking around, mostly workers that were running around and trying to get to places and fix things it seems, but now and again a patron would wander around looking for a bathroom or something. John leads me to a more desolate location that has a singular tent that has a lantern on inside. We walk in and I look around, there are only a few things inside, a lantern, and a desk with a chair on either side of it. There's no bed nor anything that would show someone lived in it.

He goes to sit behind the desk and gestures to the chair in front of the desk, telling me to sit, which I do.

"So, where should I start? Let's see," he pulls out a stack of papers and flips through for a second before stopping and pulling out a few with what looks like a timeline on it, "Ah here we are. So you grew up in a family that didn't accept you and made you hide, forced you into a loveless relationship, and made you build a life based on lies leading you to leave your bride at the altar, did I miss anything?" I stare at him with wide eyes as he tells me the basics of my life story.

"How did you-"

"I've kept my eye on you since the day you were born, I knew you had it in you to join us," I look at him with million questions but the most prominent one being how old is this guy and he seems to see my confusion, "Time works differently here, a year to you is only an hour for us, so to me, you've only been alive for a day, and I have my ways of seeing people that I know are special."

"But why me? I'm sorry to say but I don't have anything 'special' about me like you keep saying." He smiles and stands, reaching out his hand again for me to take. I hesitate for a second but, when I do place my hand in his, I see the bright light that I saw earlier when I first grabbed his hand, this time I didn't feel as dizzy but it was still very weird and I had to close my eyes again. When I opened them, I looked around to see that we had moved from the smaller tent into a much bigger and more populated tent, it must be the main tent where they do most of their shows or performances, I can tell because there are trapeze, tightropes, and some fabric that's being held up by a wire on a rig.

"I know you have it in you to do great things, here-" he grabs onto the fabric and holds it out to me- "try and use these to the best of your ability." I hesitate for a second again, not sure where to even start with them, but eventually, I take the two long pieces of fabric into my hands suddenly I feel confident in something, so I grab one of the silks and start to wrap it around my arm doing the same with the other on the other side making a candy cane type look around my arms and allowing myself to grab the silks in my hands. My hands move out to my side in a way that makes it look like I'm being held up by the silks and my legs start to point upward, using my upper body strength to start spinning my body in a forward roll, letting the silks ball up around my bicep and hold me up in the air.

I start to do backflips, making my way back down and holding a pose in the air for a second before continuing my descent to the ground. Once at the ground, I unravel my arms from the silks and reach up to grab them from up high and pull myself up, doing a large kick to propel my body into the air and hold myself upside down as I do some spins and start to wrap my leg around the side, still holding on with one hand as the other lets go and stretches out as I'm upside down. I pull myself back up and climb up a bit so I can wrap my feet into a foot lock in the silks so I can spread out into the splits midair. I balance myself by holding the silks in my hands before letting go and just hanging for a second. Then I pull myself up again and take my feet out of the lock, flipping my body to have one leg wrapped around the silks, using my hands to pull the silks around my body and into a loop, allowing me to start spinning downward on my side with my legs out in the splits.

Once I reach the ground, I let go of the and back away from the silks. I jump when I hear clapping coming from behind me and spin to see John standing there with a wide smile and a look of awe on his face. I blush at the attention from him and do a small bow before I realize what just happened.

"Wh- how did I do that?" I ask with a bewildered look on my face as he starts to walk up to me and take my hands, "I could not do that yesterday."

"You see, you do have something, I was able to pull that something out from deep inside your core and allow you to use it to your fullest ability." He says as he places a hand on my waist and pulls me into yet another dance. What is it with him and dancing?

"And how did you do that?"

"It depends on the person, but usually a kiss brings it out."

"Wait so you've kissed everyone in this circus and not just me?" I ask, feeling a bit less special than before, but then he shakes his head.

"Not properly, no, usually just pecks on the cheek or forehead, but you were a special case." He says as he winks at me, causing a blush to cover my cheeks and making me look away with a small smile. "I find you very interesting and I would love for you to join me and my cast in our circus, we have everything you could ever want and more, throw away your old life and start anew here, with us, with me." his voice gets softer and we stop dancing as he looks into my eyes and I know that he really wants me to join.

I let out a breath.

"Ok, I'll run away and join the circus." His smile gets impossibly wider when the words leave my mouth and he lifts me by my waist and spins me around which makes me laugh along with him. When he puts me down we take a moment to just stare at each other before both of our faces heat up and we look away. "So, uh, do you have any clothes I can change into? I kinda don't want to be in my wedding suit that I never got married in."

"Yeah, follow me and I'll show you around and we can get you situated and introduced to everyone." He smiles and starts to walk away before stopping an turning back to me. "Oh, also, do you want to have a stage name? Something we call you while introducing you or even what you go by to everyone now that you're throwing away your old life?" I think for a second before a name pops into my head.

"Smiity," I say with a confident smile on my face, I like the way it sounds.

"Smiity?" He asks with a smirk, and I love the way the name flows off his tongue with ease.

"Smiity." I confirm.

"Well ok then, Smiity, shall we?" He asks as he holds out his hand to me.

"We shall." This time I don't hesitate to take his hand and he pulls me out into my new life.