I mistakenly called it clairbuoyant when I was little and he never said it the correct way again.
***
Everyone keeps asking me (no I haven't finished Heidi yet. Working on it, rage-reading) how I'm doing and I just widen my eyes slightly and point. Guess they have the wrong person. Guess everything I've been though is but a drop in the proverbial bucket in comparison to Ben, and Daniel, who have seen more hardship in their lives than I, but also Ben took a double-blast as he tried to shield Daniel from the worst of it, charring his skin to a thick shell, keeping it turned toward the rest of the world thereafter.
Ben has dealt with some terrible things, and he ended up in recovery finally (AA not the room outside surgery) only to have Caleb come for him and fuck him up just enough that the hospital pumped him full of drugs (!) (!!) (!!!) to make him comfortable for the fight to go home.
And here he is.
He's been through his shit, and you've been through yours. August is holding a glass of ice water against his t-shirt and it's soaking through. But he is intent and focused on my face, waiting for the tell-tale expression that will give my hiding place away.
My shit is not relevant this week.
It is. Too you and the people who care about you and you don't need to backburner your own struggles to achieve martyrdom for looking after Ben.
Was I? Can you cite any concrete examples?
You've been a machine this week?
I try and change the subject. How is virtual burning man? (It's trash. Don't look) I smirk for good measure. August is not an internet boy. He gets the news when someone tells him. He phones the bank to do transfers. He is practically Amish and I love him for it though he also sends me naked, headless selfies so the potential is there and it's not even...untapped.
(Snort.)
Burning building, Augie. I told you it was important to save Ben first. Now it's really important. It's like I knew already and have just been doing drills.
Maybe you foretold the future-
My eyes grow wide again and I turn and hurry back to the house, back to Ben, back to the safety of the coloured lights illuminating the late summer birthday sky, away from what was supposed to be a guess, that got it right so readily I knew then for sure that I really was dealing with the Devil himself.