"In this treacherous world there is neither truth nor lie; everything is like the color of the crystal through which you gaze." – Mexican proverb

---

In Texas the sky stretches out like nowhere else I've ever been, and it makes me think about forever.

I was eight, the first time I came here. We were driving to Abilene; my grandmother had just died and we had to drive across most of the state in a hurry. My father did all the driving; he sat up there and gripped the wheel and didn't say anything, and my mother sat beside him just as silent, like saying anything would break whatever shell Daddy had over his grief and let it all come spilling out.

Nobody wanted that. I curled up in the back seat, just barely eight years old and totally clueless. Nobody explained to me, see, what it meant that Grandma was dead. Nobody told me what I was allowed to say, or what the funeral would be like, or what Daddy was thinking as he grimly went through the motions.

I kind of wonder, now, if it was anything like what I thought as I climbed into my first big rig and realized that I would probably never see him or Mama again. But then, I didn't know anything except to be quiet and let things happen. I sat and I stared out the window at the sky, the endless Texas sky, and I thought about God.

God, and heaven, and all that pale blue hovering always out of reach. I felt dizzy when I finally stopped looking because I needed to ask to stop at a restroom.

Back then, I thought I might actually understand things. The sense I could make of it was that Grandma wasn't coming back, simple as that. Because she left this world, and once you do that, the world is too small to find your way back.

It's just too small, swallowed up by the great big sky. It's funny, I guess, how I'm always in Texas when I think about things like that. Because we're two hours out of Austin, just past San Antonio, and Logan is behind the wheel and I'm looking out the window, and it's a little like déjà vu. Logan is silent, grim like my father, maybe already mourning someone he hasn't admitted to losing yet, and I sit beside him just like my mother all those years ago, still and anxious.

But it's not all those years ago. I know that; I'm still me, grown-up me with little girl memories echoing through my mind, and I gaze out at the far-off horizon and feel a twinge of fear.

I nearly lost my grip on the world, I realize. I see the road passing in a blur, sliding by so easily, and the thoughts that bubble up inside me are scary. I think about opening the door and tumbling out; I think about maybe never hitting the ground.

I think about finally floating away. I think I could, and that it would be easy, and it would last forever -- just me and the Texas sky.

I make myself look away from the road and the sky both, and I reach to find Logan's hand where it rests lightly on his leg. His fingers tangle with mine, strong and responsive, and I squeeze them hard. Logan is...Logan is my lifeline, I think. He's been tethering me since the day we met, keeping me where I need to be. He hasn't been perfect, exactly; he's gone off and stretched alarmingly far, but he hasn't ever broken away. He snapped taut just in time; he reeled me back in before I could fall over the brink.

So I hold his hand and I hold it tight, and I close my eyes and try not to think about forever. I try to think about right now, right here, and about how Logan won't let me go until I'm ready.

I doze off before long, old habit always rearing its head, and when I wake up I'm alone in the parking lot of some run-down old diner. The car windows are open and a dry breeze is flowing around me, but it doesn't really help ease the stifling heat. I can feel sweat sliding between my breasts and down my spine, and when I reach up to rub my eyes my face is slick, oily.

Logan comes back before I start to worry, and he shoves a grease-spotted bag at me as he gets in. "Burger," he tells me shortly. "We can find something else if you want."

"This is fine." And it is; I'm suddenly starving like I haven't been in ages. I tear into the bag and don't pause until I have a messy mouthful of meat and pickles and ketchup, all flooding my taste buds like the most wonderful thing ever. I glance over and Logan is watching me, his lips twisted in a small smile, the kind of smile that always used to reassure me that I was something good and comforting in his life.
"What?" I mumble, as soon as I manage to swallow.

He shakes his head. "You're a pig."

Yeah, well. "I'm hungry."

"Fine: you're a pig when you're hungry." He reaches over and swipes the side of my mouth with his thumb, then licks the bit of ketchup from his skin. I can't help but watch the quick flash of his tongue carefully and remember how it felt on my skin. "Disgusting, the way you shovel it down."

I crinkle my nose at him and try not to smile. I know what he's thinking about, what he's remembering, and there was a time I never would have imagined that could be a happy memory. I hadn't eaten in nearly two days when I met him, and I'd never much liked jerky. But when it comes down to it, that was maybe just the first sign of how it's always been with us. He gives me what I need, and I'm always a step or two behind in figuring out that it's not so bad after all. I'm absurdly grateful to him for bringing that to mind. "Oink," I say, and take another huge bite.

Logan just laughs quietly and starts the car. He leaves me alone again while he gets the permits we need to cross the border, and then suddenly we're in Nuevo Laredo and it seems too easy, somehow. It seems like cheating, like defying the enormity of the state and the country and the life we're leaving behind.

It seems like it has to be a dream, and like I'll have no choice but to wake up soon and find myself somewhere else.

But I don't. By evening we're in Monterrey, and while I gaze in amazement at the mountains that rise up in the distance, Logan drives with purpose, like he knows precisely where we're going. And apparently he does; before long I'm following him into a hotel room, one that's far nicer than anything I expected, and Logan is dropping his duffel on the single large bed in the room.

I go straight to the window and fling open the curtains. The city is all right there, spread out below, and the mountains spring up against the horizon like they decided to pick a fight with the sky and won, like they staked out their spot and are there to stay. I don't even think about it, just whisper, "It's beautiful."

Logan chuckles behind me. "Thought you'd like that," he says. "I figured we'd stay here a few days, at least."

His words sound strange to me, and it takes me a minute to realize that they're being filtered through a swell of emotion that I finally recognize as relief. I want so badly to stop and be at rest; I'm perfectly content with the idea of remaining in this strange new place for at least a little time to come. I slide my eyes one last time across the scene in front of me, and then I turn to the scene behind me.

Logan is rifling through his bag, pulling out clean clothes, and I interrupt by going and sliding my arms around his waist. He turns and pulls me close, snug up against his chest, and for a moment it's just like I used to imagine back when I was still full of hope, when I thought he would come back before too long. I'm warm and secure and I'm somebody else, somebody I might have been able to be in a different life, somebody who has never felt fear or anguish or pain.

I'm somebody who has only ever known happiness. For this moment, this one stretched out moment in his arms, I feel like I might have slipped into heaven without even noticing. It's not permanent; it doesn't last long at all. My problems start to creep back in to tug at the back of my mind, like they always do, but I won't let that matter just yet. I close my eyes and press my face into Logan's shoulder and I manage to relax.

Because here's the thing: right now I'm glad he saved my life. I'm glad he brought me here, glad I agreed to come. And for as long as that lasts?

It'll be enough.

---

I don't sleep well that night. By morning I'm back to...to what I've come to consider as myself, and no matter how hard I try I can't figure out exactly when this helpless, paralyzed creature took the place of the girl people used to expect to see. It seems strange, that I could change so much and not even know when it happened.

But then again, there's a lot about my life that got strange right around the time I decided to give kissing boys a try.

I crawl out of bed without waking Logan up, and I go to run a hot bath. While the tub is filling I stare at myself in the mirror, and I don't like what I see. My eyes belong to a stranger -- they're cloudy and shadowed, smudged dark underneath. My hair is limp and dull and broken at the ends, and my face is too thin. My body, too, and when I look at how my skin stretches over my jutting bones, I feel sick to my stomach.

Looking at myself, I'm really not sure how Logan can bring himself to touch me at all. It's not a fun thought, but neither is it one I can shake off.

I'm sitting in the bath when he gets up and knocks on the door with two short raps, and I stare at him as he pokes his head in. "You mind?" His voice is still gravelly from sleep and he doesn't even bother responding once I jerk my chin in invitation; he just comes in and goes straight to the toilet. Once he's done, he closes the lid and sits on it, tugging up the legs of his thin sweatpants. "We should go out and do something today," he says.

I draw my knees up to my chest and rest my cheek on them, and level a curious, sideways gaze on him. "Why..." I start, but trail off as I start to think better of my question.

He misunderstands. That, too, has become normal in a way that I don't really like. "We've been in the car for days, Marie. Aren't you going stir-crazy by now?"

I am, a little, but that's beside the point. "That's not what I mean." I squeeze my eyes shut and blow out a frustrated breath. "Why do you bother?" I ask. "What is it about me that makes you willing to try so hard?"

It's a dangerous question and I know it. But I feel like I need an answer, so I force myself to meet his eyes as he frowns. "Haven't we covered this?"

"No. We've covered that you care in the first place. But I still don't get why."

He leans forward and stares at me; it's unsettling and almost scary, because something's going on in his head and I don't have any idea what it is. I might have, once, and that makes everything with him weird; I have to realize that I never had any right to understand him, and don't even have the ability now. I knew him for a few days and yeah, he saved my life and was nice to me and all, but then he went away. He left and he didn't come back, and people aren't supposed to construct elaborate relationships based on that kind of thing.

But we're not normal people, he and I. I stole things from him and used them as the basis of beliefs, beliefs in friendship and attachment and longing and destiny. I did it consciously and unconsciously, letting him always lurk somewhere in my mind over the years, and I made a habit of thinking I knew him.

I don't, not anymore. He keeps surprising me in ways that make me wonder if I ever did at all. Somehow I doubt this is going to be any different. His eyes narrow thoughtfully, and I just have to wait for it. "Let's do this a different way," he finally says. "How 'bout you tell me why the hell I shouldn't care."

Only for about a million reasons, I think, but just go with a few of the obvious ones. I don't even have to think to come up with them. "I'm ugly," I tell him promptly. "I'm fucked up and mean and crazy. I keep trying to be some other way but I can't, and I say things that -- I don't want to say them but at the same time I do. When I say them I mean them, even if I regret it later. And I --"

My body betrays me; a lump rises sudden and painful in my throat, and I have to stop for a second. I nearly gag, unable to take a deep breath, and tears well up in my eyes. "I'm not normal, Logan," I tell him, when I can speak again. "There's something broken in me that I don't know how to fix, and it's making me a horrible person."

He doesn't react, not visibly. He just sits there and stares at me, and then says evenly, "You're right about exactly one thing." Then suddenly he's on his knees next to the tub, and his hand is pushing through my hair, moving back to cup the back of my head in his palm. "Something got a little messed up in here. But we're gonna get it sorted out, Marie, you got that? You and me."

'You and me', he says, and I suddenly want to laugh sharply, angrily. I spent far too long banking on that notion of us, and it was never anything other than a disappointment. But now, now that I think it's probably too late, he's here, touching me, watching me with all this level-headed concern and doling out the right words, all the nice, comforting phrases, and my god, it pisses me off. "You can't just sort me out," I snap, and I jerk away from him and get to my feet in a surge of water. I grab a towel from the rack and swipe it roughly over my skin even as I storm into the bedroom. "I'm not a puzzle, okay? I'm more than a bunch of pieces that got put together wrong. You can't rearrange me to get the pretty picture you want!"

I hunt quickly through my bag for clean clothes, and Logan just stands over by the bathroom door, his arms folded over his chest. He watches as I yank my underwear on and struggle to get my bra situated properly over my damp skin. He finally says, just as I'm about to scream in frustration, "Let me know when you're ready to hear what I actually said."

I heard, I think; I couldn't help but hear. Maybe it wasn't in so many words, but I heard. "I heard you just fine," I tell him, too loudly. I can't stop crying, and big messy tears stream all over my cheeks and make my vision blur. My nose threatens to start running and --

-- and I'm out of control; a small part of me understands that. I have to stop, because this isn't how I want to be. But that part of me is just too small, and it's far too late. "I heard you," I repeat. "You think I'm a head case."

"God fucking dammit, Marie, you said that, not me!" One thing I've always found fascinating about Logan is that when he loses his temper, he loses it good. And I'm getting better at making that happen, I guess; he didn't even yell the other day in the car. "But I'm starting to agree," he goes on. "You are fucked up, and mean, and a pretty miserable bitch to be around most of the time lately. You make it real easy to think Jean is right and you've gone absolutely fucking nuts."

I have this odd sensation suddenly, like the world has just ground to a halt underneath me, almost fast enough to send me flying. My hands start trembling violently and I drop the jeans I was about to pull on. "Jean said that?" I ask slowly, blinking at him. "Jean thinks I'm crazy?"

I used to blame it on Logan, how desperately I wanted Jean's approval. I used to think it was just part of his thing for her, just an urge that had seeped into me. But the more I got to know her, the more I figured out it was just me, just loving her, just reveling in the kindness she was always ready with. I haven't talked much about my problems, to anyone, but when I have talked it's been to her. And the thought that she would say something like that -- I can't breathe. I can't process it.

And Logan winces and comes forward, trapping me in the wide space between the bed and the window. "No," he mutters. "She said -- look, she didn't think this was such a good idea, you coming with me. She just said she thought you should be in therapy, maybe trying some medication. I shouldn't have made it sound like – fucking Christ, Marie, do you even hear yourself when you start this shit? Nobody knows what the hell to do for you."

I stare at him, but my mind focuses on my breathing. It whistles in and out, in and out, rasping through my throat and open mouth, broken only by occasional sniffs. The panic about Jean recedes a little; she's said that kind of stuff to me, gently, for a long time. But to me, it seems like Logan making it sound like Jean said it might mean that...that Logan believes it, that he was just putting his own words in Jean's mouth.

That he's been thinking he could help me, fix me, just like last time, and here I am convincing him that I'm a lost cause. Here I am, giving him plenty of reasons to give up and walk out, just like he did before. The thought of that makes my stomach hurt and my head pound – but it also makes me grit my teeth and gather my nerve and make myself stop, censoring the harsh response that wants to well up and escape. It works; my anger dissipates quickly, but in its place is a panicky desperation to find some way to ensure he doesn't up and leave.

So I take a deep breath and whisper, "I'm sorry," and it sounds like someone else is speaking in my voice. I step closer to him and wind my arms around his neck, and press fast, almost desperate kisses against his mouth. An icy shock of fear runs down my spine when he doesn't respond, and I kiss him harder. "I'm sorry," I whisper again. "I don't want to be like this."

There. His lips soften slightly, in just a glimmer of reciprocation. "What do you want?" he murmurs, and his hands settle lightly on my hips.

"I want to get better." I fiddle with the tie of his sweatpants. "Here, with you. With your help."

I could almost believe it's the truth, if I didn't know better. I could almost believe that I'm capable of saying anything and meaning it at all. But all I know is that here is where I am, and that being with Logan, for however long I can keep him with me, is better than some doctor and his world of pills. All I know is that Logan tastes dull and stale when he finally kisses me but I don't care, I don't, not when he lets me caress him through his pants and then fumble those open, shove them down.

He tries to stop me when I drop slowly to my knees, but he doesn't try hard. I can't really blame him for that, not after I take him unceremoniously into my mouth. "Christ," he mutters explosively, and I run my hands up the back of his legs and palm his ass and force myself to take him deeper. I don't have much idea of what I'm doing; I've only done it once, with Bobby when we were still together, and I didn't like it. He was sweet enough never to ask me to do it again.

But it comes back to me, how to guard my teeth and flick my tongue, how to take note of extra-sensitive spots and manipulate them. And Logan helps me along; his hands tangle in my hair and his fingertips caress my scalp, and he just barely guides me. He pushes my hair back with one hand, collecting it in a loose ponytail grip with the other, and I follow the pace he seems to want. The only control I exert is to establish how deep I take him in, and how far I withdraw, and at one point I try moaning and feel a flash of triumph when he curses, tightens his hold on my hair, and thrusts forward once, twice, like he can't help himself.

I feel oddly used; I feel like I'm using him. I feel like this is the most fucked up thing I've ever done and he's letting me, he's helping me, he's all bound up in me and I don't have to let him go. That excites me, but I also get that it's not exactly a good thing. So I understand, I really do, when I roll my eyes up to meet his and see sadness on his face, just before he comes in my mouth.

It's just that right this second? I find it hard to care.

---

Vacillating like has become my habit lately, I start to care before too long. A surge of shame overcomes me while I'm still on my knees in front of him, and I sit back on my heels for a moment and then scramble to my feet. I’m desperate to -- to something. To get away, to avoid looking at him, to escape from everything else because I am never, never going to be able to escape from myself.

I should have known that Logan wouldn't let me. He catches my arm and yanks me against him, and then he kisses me so hard that it's like drowning, like being consumed. I'm dizzy by the time he breaks away, and I don't resist when he pushes me down on the bed and kneels next to it, tugging my underwear down my legs.

All I can really think, when his shoulders are digging into the backs of my thighs and the heels of my feet are digging into his back, and he's slowly driving me mad with his lips and his teeth and his tongue -- Christ, his tongue -- all I can think is that his hand is comfortingly heavy on my stomach. His other hand is certainly doing its part, long fingers stroking inside me, but I can't help but fixate on the arm he hooks up onto the bed, on the palm he presses flat just above the jutting ridge of my hip, on the fingertips he moves in grazing strokes that would probably tickle if I could be bothered with anything so carefree as laughter.

I think of paperweights, and anchors. I think of long summers back home in Mississippi, of summer breezes that whistled in through open windows to stir dust and flutter loose pages on Daddy's desk and dead leaves from Mama's house plants to the floor. I think of hitchhiking all those long months, feeling fall turn into winter, and the wind that buffeted across open highways and threatened so many times to blow me over, to sweep me away like I was absolutely nothing.

I think of being bound to the Statue and how I wished I could just fly away. I screamed and screamed and screamed, and I woke up to find that he had cut me loose; he had set me free. I loved him then for his part in unleashing me, and I realize now, suddenly, that I love him even more now, for everything he's doing to bind me back into place.

It's what he does, I guess. He's always known exactly how to rescue me; he's always figured out how to save me from myself. His tongue flicks across my flesh and coaxes the last shreds of my control to disappear, and as I arch up against his hand he presses me back down, reins me in, lets the wild parts of me escape while holding fast and tight to the rest.

Tears are sliding from my eyes, I notice, trickling their way across my temples. I have no idea, actually, if I ever stopped crying at all, and I decide wearily that it's not important. I put it out of my mind and put my hand on top of Logan's, tugging slightly. Then I crawl backwards along the bed as he stands. He tilts his head sharply and the sound of his neck cracking sends a shiver down my spine.

"I really am sorry," I tell him again, my voice soft. No motive, no tricks. I have no pressing need for his forgiveness right now. I simply mean it. It's an amazing feeling, to actually have a truth worth telling.

And he gazes down at me and I shift, feeling a little uncomfortable to be stretched out before him in nothing but my bra. I was such a kid when I was with Bobby; we were both such kids, and we fumbled through a lot of mutual discovery. And with Logan...Arkansas feels like this distant dream. It feels like a vague memory of joining desperately at night and lazily in the morning, with no time taken for this kind of awareness.

So this is different. Logan stands there watching me, hard again and stroking himself slowly, and I feel myself flush under his eyes. "I'm sorry," I say one last time.

He tips his chin in acknowledgement. "I know." Climbing onto the bed, he kneels between my legs and slowly stretches out on top of me, pinning me beneath his weight. "Don't say it again."

"But I --"

"Ever." He tangles his hand in my hair again, holds my head still so that he can kiss me, several short times in a row, his tongue sliding shallowly against mine each time and making me want more than he's giving. A troubling theme in the story of my life, actually, the story of us. I strain unsuccessfully to lengthen each kiss and whimper softly each time I fail, and I barely notice as he shifts and slides into me.

But then he stops and lifts his head and looks down at me, a serious glint in his eyes. "If you ever feel the urge," he says, and it takes me a second to remember what he'd been talking about, "say something else. Like what's really going on."

I nod slowly; it makes at least some sense. I bite my lip as he draws slowly back and then pushes in again. "Logan?" I say cautiously, and lift my hands to touch his face gingerly. "You never told me why. I -- I need to know."

Out, and in again, torturously slow. "Do you?"

I nod again. I do, I need to know. I need to hear it, and understand it; I need someone to give me some hint -- no some reminder, of who I am and why it matters. "You're so fucking beautiful," he says, his eyes locked on my face.

And I frown at him, and open my mouth to call him on his lie. But he shakes his head sharply, like he knows exactly what I'm going to say, and then pushes up a bit, holds himself up on his arms and surges into me, again and again. He never once looks away from my eyes as he continues. "You trusted me before you even knew me. You asked if it hurt and you asked me to stay -- nobody'd ever done that, Marie, not a single fucking person. And you have to ask me why?"

I can't stop the tears from flooding up and spilling over again, but I don't let myself close my eyes. Not until I pull on his shoulders and he lowers himself back onto me, still thrusting smoothly, and he catches my mouth in a long, probing kiss. His lips eventually drift across my cheek, and along my jaw, and behind my ear. "Stupid question anyway," he mutters against my skin. "Be hard to love you so much if I didn't give a damn."

My breath catches sharply in my throat and it feels like my heart stops. I dig my fingernails into his shoulders, and he growls softly into my ear. "Do you get it now? Any of it?"

"All of it," I manage to choke out, and I think I do. I think I must have gotten under his skin just as surely as he ever got under mine. I wrap my arms around him and I just hold on.

I wish, briefly, that I never had to let him go.

---

"So what if I kick you into a higher octave?" I ask later, feeling lazy and content as we lie side by side and stare up at the ceiling. I've settled into a soothing calm; my thoughts fall into place like bricks in a path, fitting together and making sense again. "Can I say it then?

"Are you planning to do that?"

His worried tone makes me laugh. "No," I admit. "But really -- never?"

"Never. And don't think of trying to work your way around it by using different words. If it means you're sorry, I don't want to hear it."

"Okay, okay. Just checking." I sigh softly. "I want to, though. Right now."

Logan rolls onto his side and gazes at me. "Something else," he insists. "Anything."

I turn my head and stare into his eyes. I could get in there, I think. I know so much about him but it always just...slips away. This feels like drawing him in with my skin did, only it feels -- it feels better, I realize with a start. Better because it's not as easy, and not as stolen. Seeing the way he watches me is like picking up something he put out with the expectation that I would find it, and labeling it 'love' brings a surge of trust. Faith. Confidence.

I believe what I see, when I look at him like this. But I decide to tell him the truth anyway, because I need to make him understand how conflicted I am. "I believe you, you know," I say quietly. "That you love me. And I'm glad, but...it also scares me."

"Why?"

God, for so many reasons. I return my gaze to the ceiling and go back to the beginning. "Because I fell in love with you when I was seventeen."

"No, you didn't," he says firmly. "You had a crush on me."

And that's true enough, I suppose. But I remember my Dickenson from high school; you can tell the truth and still tell it slant, and I don't think this is the right time for that. We've had that time, too much of it, and I think we need to be ready for some superb surprise. So I tell him gently, with a small smile, to shut up and listen. "To me, back then, it was love. Sure, it looks different in hindsight, but -- it was overwhelming then, okay? And I was so young and stupid...I knew you cared about me then, from touching you, and I had all these fantasies about it becoming love, about you coming back and declaring that you wanted me -- that you needed me, that I was perfect for you."

"But I didn't come back."

"Well, no. But the problem started earlier than that, Logan. Do you remember what you said to me, after you woke up?" I glance over and see a questioning frown. I remember it like it was yesterday; I've never let myself forget. Maybe if I had, none of this would have happened. "You said 'don't make yourself into that, Marie.' I guess I understand now that you just wanted something better -- something easier for me, but back then I let it get all messed up in my head. I joined the team and I knew I was changing and...and I kind of figured that even if you came back, you wouldn't like me much anymore. Because I was different from the girl you knew."

"Marie --" he starts, but I shoot him a warning glance. I roll over onto my stomach and fold my arms under my cheek, and I sigh slightly as he reaches to stroke my back.

"I'm not saying it's your fault I went sort of nuts, Logan. Or even that I went nuts over you. This is just a tiny part of how I got so confused about myself. But it's the part that matters to why I'm scared right now."

"Which is?"

I drag my teeth nervously over my lower lip before answering. This is dangerous territory; this kind of honesty threatens to rip me apart for good, because if he's wrong...if he's confused about me, about his feelings, I'm about to point it out. It feels like telling the bank they've accidentally given you an extra hundred dollars, even though without it you don't know how you're going to eat this week. But I gather my nerve and I do it.

I think I owe him that much, at the very least. "All that stuff you said, about why you care about me? That was all years ago, Logan. That's not me anymore. I'm scared because I think you think you know me, but you really don't. I'm scared you're going to figure that out and then I'll lose you all over again, and -- and it's going to hurt just as much as before, because I've gone and fallen in love all over again."

Logan stays silent for a long time. His expression is thoughtful and his hand moves slowly up and down my back, and I close my eyes as I wait for his response. When it comes, it actually surprises me. "When did that happen?"

I blink at him. "I don't know. But I realized it -- well, just a little while ago. When you were --" I stop and flush, memory rising up and making my skin pebble with goosebumps. "You had your hand on my stomach, and that made me feel really safe. Like you were saving my life again, and nobody had to get hurt for it to happen."

He lets his hand go still on the small of my back. It's a gentle weight against my skin, large and warm and comforting. "Why are you so convinced I don't love you now?"

"I told you: you don't even know me anymore. Have you -- have you ever seen cicadas come out? They come up out of the ground, tons of them, and they climb up trees or anything they can, and they crack open their shells and crawl out and leave that part behind."

Logan raises an eyebrow. "This some kind of metaphor?"

Of course it is. They were everywhere one summer when I was pretty young, and all I really remember is those shells. Clinging to everything -- the trees, the lawn furniture, the support stand for my father's outdoor grill. They littered the lawn and the sidewalk, and they crunched underfoot.

I was terrified of them, those dried-out husks left behind like a testament to life as it used to be, as it never would be again. I was a happy child and didn't like to contemplate change, and cicada shells spoke of nothing but.

"It's what I feel like," I tell Logan quietly. "Like the rest of me, the part you would know and recognize and -- and love, like that part went away, and now there's barely anything left. I look like I should have something inside me, but I'm really just brittle and empty and clinging, waiting to fall off and rot." I sigh. "I sound crazy."

"You sound like you're finally being honest. What about the other times?"

"What?"

"You said sometimes."

"Oh. Sometimes -- well, it's like drowning, I guess. Being stuck underwater, and not knowing which way is up, and flailing around because that's all I can do -- try to get to the surface even though I don't know where it is." I flash a wry smile at him. "I keep kicking the one person who might be able to rescue me, too."

"You should cut that out," he says lightly, and I take it in the spirit I know it's meant. I let my lips curve wider into a different smile, a more self-deprecating one. "What about right now?"

"Right now? Right now I love you, like I always have but more, and even if you keep insisting you love me now, I'm sure I'm going to screw it all up."

"Why?"

I shove down the flash of annoyance at all his questions, the sudden urge to ask if he's been listening at all. "Because you're not the most patient man on earth," I tell him bluntly. "Because I feel good right now, okay? I want to be able to say that I'll be back to normal from now on, but that -- it wouldn't be true. I don't know when I'm going to wake up in a mood, or when I'm going to take everything out on you because you're the one who's here, or when I'm going to want to jump off the balcony." I purse my lips ruefully. "I will want to, though, I know I will. And I know I'm going to say terrible things to you, things you won't deserve, things I won't be able to take back. I know I'm going to make you hate me."

"Hey." He drums his fingers against my back, light staccato beat on my spine. "Forget that last part right now. Ain't gonna happen."

I wish I could forget it. But it's there, in my mind, a traitorous thought that whispers to me repeatedly. "How can you be so sure?"

"Because the rest of what you said is probably true, and it's okay. You'll be a bitch sometimes and I'll call you on it. And I'll be a stubborn ass sometimes and you'll probably want to kill me. And we'll get past it, every time."

"Kind of dysfunctional."

"Yeah, so?" His mouth pulls in a careless smile. "Your cicada metaphor is crap, by the way."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You know what happens with them? They break their shells, sure, but then they go somewhere safe until the new one hardens. And then they get on with life."

"Is that the idea?" I ask curiously, finally feeling like I might be able to make sense of something about all this. "Mexico is somewhere safe?"

"With me is somewhere safe," he says, in a tone that makes my breath catch and my skin tingle. It's blunt and it brooks no argument; it sounds like he could never believe it to be otherwise. It's convincing like little else has been since the first time he said he'd take care of me. "Mexico's just the current scenery."

I inhale deeply and then exhale, and then again. I watch Logan evenly and it's like suddenly witnessing a memory, like being back on a train and gazing up at him as he defined the parameters of my sense of security and made so many months of isolation and fear melt away. It's not so easy this time; I learned back then that safety is fleeting and even Logan couldn't save me from everything.

But I also learned that he would die trying, if that's what it took.

And I smile at him slowly, easily. "How about we get cleaned up, then, and go see some of the sights?"

He just winks at me quickly and presses a lingering kiss to my temple before getting up. I stay where I am for several minutes, even after I hear the shower start to run, and I make myself two promises.

First, I will try harder; I will make the most of everything Logan has to give and I'll work to be the girl that both of us prefer.

And second...I'll stop worrying about drifting away. The world may seem tiny and easy to lose in the shadow of my frequent despair, but I'm pretty sure Logan and his love may be big enough, bright enough, to light my way. I don't need to be anchored down.

I just need to get better at opening my eyes and looking around. I tell myself that that's what I'll do, and I feel weightless and confident as I get up and go to slip into the shower with Logan. I wrap my arms around his waist and press my cheek against his back, and after he turns to get his arms around me, I hold him even tighter. "I've always wanted to go to Guatemala," I murmur, closing my eyes and leaning against him.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." I smile a little and can't remember the last time I felt this much hope about the future. "Maybe we could go. By the scenic route?"

And Logan chuckles, easing me under the shower's hot spray. "The scenic route, okay. And after Guatemala?"

I look up at him, and my smile widens to a grin. "There's a whole world out there, right? I'd kinda like to see it -- with you."

And he kisses me, long and deep and gentle in a way that's a little devastating. "Sounds like a good plan to me."

**end**