The only time I ever openly, purposefully defied Lochlan was the day they were short a clown, and so they asked me to fill in. The only thing I had to do is run in circles during introductions, cue the audience around me to laugh or clap when appropriate and get shot out of a cannon at the end of the clown show itself, just like the others.
I was in full costume and makeup. Lochlan was on labour/vehicle duty that day (fixing trucks, hooking up trailers and such). I didn't think he would even find out. No one had any reason to share it with him but on a break he came in and stood in the back of the big tent just as the spring platform shoved me out of the cannon at a hundred miles an hour. I shrieked as I flew through the air, hitting the net (which hurt a lot more than I would admit at the time) and fell into the horizontal net. Lochlan came around and pulled the net down, pulled me out by my ankles and told me to change and wait for him at the camper. Someone asked how he knew it was me and he said the scream was distinct. That he knows what I sound like when I fly like that, having made me fall (via LETTING GO a hundred times from the aerial bars so that I would trust the nets and now suddenly he doesn't trust the nets at all.
That's because there's force in this. Falling doesn't have the same danger.
Death is the same result.
What kind of show shoots teenagers? Jesus Christ. I ought to call them in but we need this job. You ever keep secrets that could get you hurt again and I'll...I'll...
You'll what?
He never answered.
This morning Matt was eating breakfast in the kitchen when I came down.
No food downstairs?
Sorry. Sam doesn't shop much, does he?
No need. He eats with us most of the time now. Nice to see you home.
It's not....
My eyebrows go up while I wait for him to trivialize his own presence here.
...not permanent. We talked late and he asked me to stay the night.
And?
I accepted.
BOOM. Matt flies through the air and Sam catches him in his heart and the relief sets them both back a hundred years in therapy over splitting up. Some cannon this is.
Lochlan comes down. We have a Skype with Ben in five. Oh, hey, Matt. You back?
No. Well, Maybe, I don't know yet.
They're...talking, I tell Lochlan.
Mmmmm. I see. He lifts his eyebrows at me and says, ready?
Yes.
I didn't last long in the call, I'm afraid. Ben's trip extends another week and after that he's accepted a job offer to work a run with Dalton close by and he took it before he ran it by us because as he said, it was a time-sensitive thing and it's good money and better exposure and who am I to get in the way of Ben's....uh..networking? You know, that same Ben who said he was 'retired' now who suddenly is dusting off his CV and pressing flesh, playing notes, getting invites and becoming some kind of hot commodity in a genre he has zero use for anyway. One he says he hates but of course it pays better than most.
It's for less than a year, Bee.
I only hung up on him..four? Maybe five times. Tops. Okay it was eight times but no one's counting.
I climbed into the cannon since Matt was through with it and was told to hang tight. They're inspecting the net before any more runs.
I said not to bother. I'm so good I don't even need the net. Just fling me into oblivion and hopefully by the time I've found my way back here they will have learned what it means to keep their words to me and to each other. Not like I don't keep all of mine, here for the world to see.
