Chapter 41 Hard Things
Hard Things
Josha
“Hey, Josha. Have you seen your boyfriend? He’s late for his shift at the ticket booth.”
“What?” I pop up from my crouch behind the bass speaker and wave at Hals. “Try it now.” The speaker crackles to life—still with an underlying buzz, but at least we’re getting sound. “Gem hasn’t shown up yet?”
Ellis sidles up behind the stage like he could somehow be helpful. “Nope. Shilo’s on the warpath.”
Shit. The implications settle in my gut like stones tossed into still water. I fish my phone from my pocket and punch Gem’s contact—now renamed “Boyfriend”—and listen as it goes straight to voicemail.
It’s a mistake, I tell myself. It doesn’t mean anything. He forgot to charge his phone again.
But I know better.
This time, it’s guilt, not fury, that accompanies the wave of worry. He’s been struggling since we left Mendo, slowly losing ground behind his brave facade, while I’ve been increasingly preoccupied.
Working sixteen-hour days for four months straight was fine when I was hiding from the past—not so much after that past has caught me and offered up everything I ever wanted.
I should have known that no amount of late-night lovemaking or snatched moments of frenzied intimacy could support his recovery in the face of a lifetime of family triggers, but I convinced myself that we were okay. That he was okay.
Because I have my own habits, built of self-preservation and stitched into the fabric of Big Top, and I didn’t want to let my surrogate family down. So I let Gem down instead, and now we both might pay the price.
The last time stamp on his location is from over an hour ago.
I can’t do this again. This can’t be our life.
And yet, I know I’ll do it as many times as it takes, because he’s my life, and I’ll never give up on him again.
I head off toward the ticket wagon. Maybe he fell asleep after bringing back the laundry, and I’ll find him curled up in the loft, and we’ll laugh at how worried I was while I kiss him awake.
Before reality has a chance to pop that little delusion, I run into Shilo, hurrying over the trampled grass, with her wife trailing behind.
“Have you heard from him?” she asks, and her concern scrapes against the carefully concealed resentment that’s been building over the last few weeks.
Somewhere between finding Gem in Bakersfield and now, my loyalties have shifted. Or I’ve rediscovered where they’ve been all along. I owe so much to Shilo and Hals—first for giving me a safe space to grow into myself, and later for saving me from the fallout of Gem’s disappearance.
But I don’t owe them my happiness. I don’t owe them their son. He’s mine now, in all the ways that matter, and our life together can be so much bigger than this mold that shaped us both.
If I can find him.
When I shake my head, Shilo blows out an exasperated sigh. “I knew this was a bad idea. I knew he wasn’t ready.”
The implied accusation is too much. How many times have we absolved ourselves when maybe all he needed was a little faith? Excused our own complicity with the distractions of duty?
“You barely gave him a chance,” I tell her. “He let himself trust you, because you told him you’d try harder. That you’d be better. And then you went right back to treating him like he wasn’t good enough.”
She blanches, and I know I’ve crossed a line.
It’s not fair to blame her—I can’t expect Shilo to sacrifice all the other people who depend on her for the shaky proposition of her son’s survival when he spent years cultivating himself as a lost cause.
But this was supposed to be his chance at redemption, and my own guilt is too fresh and tangled not to spread around.
“I needed your help, Shilo. I can’t carry all of this”—I sweep my arm in a gesture that encompasses the tent and circle of trailers—“and him too.”
“Josha,” she says gently. “You’re not supposed to carry him. That’s not what he wants. He’s trying to stand on his own.”
“Then why didn’t you let him? Why did you have to shove him back into the corner? If I lose him again, I will never forgive you.”
“If you lose him again, I will never forgive myself.”
“Enough.” Cheyenne steps out of the shadows to nudge her wife’s arm.
Before I can turn my fury on her, she holds up a placating palm.
“This isn’t helping find him. That’s what you both want, isn’t it?
Put aside your guilt and your blame and use your heads.
He hasn’t been gone that long.” Turning to me, she asks: “You must have some idea where he went.”
“He went to the laundromat, but he should have been back an hour ago, even if he took the time to fold all the damn socks.”
The corner of her mouth twitches and, against my will, some of the tension riding me loosens its claws.
“Why don’t you start there,” she suggests. “Maybe someone saw where he went or who he left with.”
Who he left with?
I break into a run, heading for the bike. Please let the keys still be in the seat. I’m halfway across the lot when my phone vibrates in my pocket, and I stumble to a stop, my heart soaring into my throat.
“Quill?” My voice is a cracked sob of relief.
His voice is bruise and burn and a thousand tender secrets, waiting to be shared.
“Hey, Rocket. I could really use some help.”
He’s waiting for me in the parking lot outside one of the two bars in downtown Cloverdale, hunched under a flickering halogen light. The truck is nowhere to be seen. He doesn’t even twitch when I park the bike and throw my leg over the seat, and I hesitate, studying his silhouette.
His hair is growing out. In another week or two, it will be long enough to weave my fingers through when I tug his mouth to mine—or drag him down my dick.
One of his gray Henleys hugs his chest, its frayed cuffs brushing tattooed knuckles where they disappear into the pockets of his jeans. My jeans.
I still haven’t told him he’s beautiful.
I should have done it the day we met.
He lifts his chin at my approach, the light from the lamp above cutting sharp across his face. The shadows of his lashes streak his cheeks like inky tears. When we’re barely a foot apart, I stop, fists clenching at my sides to keep from grabbing him.
“You came.” His eyes are haunted but clear, and no taint of alcohol wafts from his breath.
Would I even care?
“I’ll always come for you. I’ve given up hating myself for it.”
His throat bobs, a fraction of razor-wire tension easing from his shoulders.
“Here.” He tugs my wrist toward him and drops something into my palm, then snatches his hand back as I curl my fingers around the telltale shape of the small plastic bag. “I didn’t do any of it.”
A shuddering breath punches free of my lungs as my heart clenches painfully.
“That’s good, Gem.” I catch the side of his face before he can turn away. “That’s good. It means you were strong enough to stop yourself.”
“I didn’t drink either,” he whispers, turning his lips into my wrist. “I didn’t even go inside. I’ve been standing here for the last twenty minutes, fighting with myself.”
“Sounds like you won.”
His head jerks up, eyes flashing in the halogen glow.
“Did I? I still bought the blow. I still ditched out on you and the show, and I turned off my phone, and—”
“You called me.” Squeezing the back of his neck, I tug him against my chest. “You called me, and you didn’t run.”
“I’m so scared,” he whispers. “You have no idea how easy it was. Like I blinked, and I was here with a pocket full of mistakes.”
“Be as scared as you want, baby. I’ll be right here, and we can be afraid together.” Tears leak from the corners of my eyes into his hair.
“I don’t want this to be our life,” he says, and the echo of my earlier prayer thrums against my ribcage.
But his arms come around my waist, and his fingers clutch at my sides like he’ll never let go.
“I know I have to be able to handle the hard parts and not just the honeymoon phase, but…why can’t it all be sex and surfing and circus omelets?
Why does it have to be bigger than you and me? ”
“Because the hard parts make us stronger.” Please let it be true.
“And no one gets to skip the work. We didn’t promise each other easy, Quill.
No one can. We promised to stay, and to keep trying.
We promised to love each other, and here we are, keeping those promises.
This isn’t our third-act breakup. You might be scared, but you reached out for help when you needed it, and that makes you so fucking brave.
I’ll give you whatever you need, whatever that looks like.
I know I can’t be everything, but please give me another chance to be enough. ”
“You are everything, Rocket. I’m the one who’s not enough.”
“Don’t say that. You’re funny and earnest and clever, and you have so many talents you’re just beginning to explore.
You make me believe in magic and remind me to let it in.
You taught me that it’s okay to want things for myself, and that I don’t need to limit my dreams to other people’s expectations.
Every day I get to wake up next to you is a miracle, and you’re so, so fucking beautiful. You take my breath away.”
“You’re the only one who thinks that,” he says, hiding his face in my chest.
“I’m not. And even if I was, it doesn’t matter. You’re the one who needs to believe it.”
“How can I?” Relinquishing his death grip on my shirt, he pushes back to meet my eyes. “I let my monsters drown me when I left you on the side of the road in Sonoma, Rocket. You’ve been doing CPR ever since you brought me home.”
“I don’t care. All I want is a life with you, and I’ll never, never stop doing what it takes to have it. If that means keeping you alive until you can breathe on your own, I’ll gladly be your life support.”
“And I’m so, so grateful—you have no idea how much—but we both know that’s not sustainable. It’s not what I want for us. I want to be your partner, not some burden weighing you down.”
“You’re not—”
“Listen to me, Rocket. I can’t keep doing this to you. Every time I ask for your forgiveness, it gets harder to stand back up, and I’m so tired of crawling.”
“What are you saying? You want to take a break when we’ve barely begun?”
“Want? Fuck no. I never want you out of my sight for more than five minutes. But I think…I think I made a mistake coming on tour.”
No, no. Don’t make me let you go so soon after I found you.
“Maybe I could convince Hals to hire another tech,” I offer, scrubbing a hand down my face and scrambling for a way to make it work.
“It’s late to find someone new. But not impossible if I stay on part time until they’re trained.
We could stay in motels instead of on the lot, and you can go to meetings and—”
“Stop.” His hand comes up to cover my mouth, stemming the desperate flow of words. “Listen to yourself. That’s crazy talk, and you know it. You can’t leave the show in its final year, and I…I’m not gonna ask you to.”
“Then what? What do we do? I’m not leaving you behind.”
“Will you take me back to rehab? You can’t quit the show, but maybe you could take one day off.
I’m pretty sure my parents will agree if it’s to stash me somewhere safe.
Especially if it’s voluntary this time, and I promise to do the work.
When the tour is over, you’ll come get me, and we can start the next chapter together free and strong. ”
It’s Oscar who comes through this time, with a connection to the admissions director at a facility called Cliffside in Big Sur.
After closeting themselves in the Airstream with Gem for over an hour—an encounter from which all three emerge swollen-eyed but lighter—Shilo and Hals give me two days off.
We drive the whole way down the coast with the windows open to the California summer and talk only about after—our future in Colorado, and what our dream apartment will look like, and whether or not Zombie would enjoy a sibling or torment it into an early grave.
When we run out of plans, he picks the music, and I sing along until he falls asleep with my hand on the back of his neck and a smile on his lips.
We spend the night in an Airbnb overlooking the Pacific, plundering each other’s bodies until we’re both drenched and boneless, and then lie awake until the sun comes up, unwilling to sacrifice these last few moments to the solitude of sleep.
In the morning, I take him to Cliffside. He’s silent in the passenger seat, face turned to the blue horizon and fingers working at the loose threads in his jeans.
“Are you scared?”
He gives me a wry look. “Yes. But that’s not what I’m thinking about.”
“Then tell me what’s got you so quiet.”
“I’m wishing I’d done a better job appreciating the good things. I took so much for granted, growing up the way I did. I know I need to do this, but I can’t help thinking about how when I get out, it will all be over, and I never got to experience everything it could have been.”
“You’re talking about Big Top.”
“Yeah. I just wonder…I think I could have been good at it, if I’d gotten out of my own way and let myself try.”
“I think you can be good at whatever you put your passion to,” I tell him, reaching out to catch his restless fingers and thread them with mine. “And I think we’re young, and it’s never too late to dream.”