Sara loved fairground haunted houses. She enjoyed knowing she would be frightened, scream, and immediately laugh. When she asked Vedran to join her, he said of course. In truth he disliked even corridors where the light switched on slowly. But Sara looked happy, and he imagined her holding his hand afterward, grateful to be with someone afraid of nothing.
At the entrance he already began talking too much. He commented on plastic spiders, poor music, and the actor obviously wearing a rubber mask. Sara laughed, assuming playfulness. In the second room something struck behind a wall, and Vedran jumped so sharply he dropped his ticket. He tried laughing, but his palm grew sweaty. He was not ashamed of being frightened once. He was ashamed of knowing it would happen at every subsequent step.
At the curtain leading farther inside, he stopped. Sara went ahead, then returned when he did not follow. He said he did not want to continue. At first she assumed another joke. When he repeated it seriously, she looked around and asked an attendant for the exit. She neither demanded he endure a little longer nor pulled him ahead insisting it was not frightening. They emerged into daylight beside a store of empty boxes.
Vedran expected teasing. Instead Sara asked whether he wanted to sit. He said he had spoiled her fun. She replied that walking beside someone suffering while pretending otherwise was less enjoyable. She did not stop loving haunted houses because he disliked them. She simply did not believe the evening had to end along the route they entered. She bought candy floss and offered some without joking about consoling a child.
They sat on a low wall while the fairground's rhythm returned around them. Vedran admitted wanting to appear brave. Sara said she needed no bodyguard against rubber masks. Then she described fearing reaching into a deep kitchen cupboard because she always imagined a spider. Vedran laughed only once she did. He did not use it to even the score between their fears.
They ended the evening on a gentle miniature sightseeing train. Sara held his hand exactly as he had imagined, but not because of his performance of courage. The following year she entered the haunted house with a friend while Vedran waited with hot drinks. On emerging, breathless and happy, she kissed him outside. He did not ask who had protected her inside. He knew she chose him for entirely different reasons.