Oh, when you were youngI feel like I'm being systematically dismantled from the inside out as Ben pretends interested disinterest, asking what Lochlan and I talked about in his absence. If we got anywhere. What we have decided and how we'd like to proceed. Later Loch wants to know if I feel different with Ben back. If I have regrets or a change of heart or relief. Caleb wants to know when I'm coming back to him, suggesting it will be easy if Ben distracts Lochlan like he always used to. August wants to know what's really going on in my head. Joel wants to see if I'm free for breakfast this week. Duncan subtly implies that Ben probably fell off the wagon but got back on while he was away and Batman wants to see if I'm finished with the drama of trying to juggle two human beings at once and possibly ready to move toward something stable, something new.
Did you question all the answers
Did you envy all the dancers who had all the nerve
Look around you now
You must go for what you wanted
Look at all my friends who did and got what they deserved
So much time to make up everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way
So much water moving underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away
It's one of those days when flinging myself off the wrong side of the cliff seems like a perfectly viable option and it's a great day for PJ to hold my hand very tightly while he plays music I adore and reminds me that this is exactly what happens when I find myself in over my own head in my relationships with this bunch.
He only lets go when he has to turn on the oven or use the bathroom and each time that happens Sam steps in to keep me grounded. Oh, that's a good idea, I think as I hand Sam my last pound of flesh. But Sam doesn't say much. He's letting August do the heavy lifting and then he can maybe take the place of the good guy. I stare at him evenly as he pretends to be in deep conversation on the phone with Matt and as he talks I smile reassuringly and pull my hand away, backing up from my chair and heading for the door. Sam doesn't notice what he's done and I make it all the way to the side door but when I open it Loch is there sitting on the wall with Ben's guitar and he's singing old songs we used to listen to on the little radio we kept on the counter in the camper in 1983 and I want to cry because it sounds so familiar and yet now the words mean something completely different.