17. Ephemeral
Epilogue
“Hey!” I’m so freaking nervous that it makes me sound giddy. My smile is total shit-eating grin territory, but for once, I don’t care. I’m just so glad Thorn is back in Tucson.
He had to leave for a few days to take care of a few business issues—setting people up so he could take more time off than he planned. And then he contacted his family and told them he was coming. He spent that first night on the bus with me, and it was the hardest thing in the world to let him go, but at the same time, it was bittersweet knowing he’d be seeing his family, which is exactly what he needed to do.
He texted me multiple times a day during the two weeks he was gone, though never during my classes, which made me feel seen and respected. My time is important to me, and I’m dedicated to this even if they are just evening classes and very preliminary before I can get in full-time next semester. He understands that.
I curled my hair and wore a plaid dress with green alien cat heads. I’ve only worn it once. It’s got lace on the bottom and little black ties in a corset style up the side. One of Peach Lips’ fans sent it to me. She made it herself, and I’ve always been scared to wear it because I didn’t want to wreck it. I don’t own much for shoes that aren’t a walk on the wild side, but I do have one sensible pair of black flats, which I went with tonight.
“Mary Beth is watching Peach Lips. I know you warned me that the trailer is basically a construction site.”
Yesterday, Thorn was excited about this when he texted me that he’d be home, and by home, he meant the seventies tin can camper trailer that he found online in Mesa and had towed here . It was already pre-gutted, so he bought it as a shell.
I asked about his family the entire week he was gone, but all I ever got was that things were fine.
I hate that word.
And I imagine Thorn hates it too.
The more the week went on, the more my anxiety ramped up, but Thorn was funny in the texts. He used GIFs. He was lighthearted in a way that he hadn’t been in person. I understand it’s not easy. How many days did I feel like I was just walking through a dreamscape, interacting with people because I had to, and faking it when, on the inside, I was still a wrecked mess?
He’s in jeans, a T-shirt, and slides . He looks more casual than I’ve ever seen him, but something about his face is wrong. He cracks a smile, which for him is a whole lot of facial expression, but I can sense his turmoil.
I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear nervously. “We don’t have to—”
His fingers fly to the bridge of his nose, and he starts doing the comfort breathing thing. The in through the nose twice and out through the mouth, long and steady.
Despair flickers plainly across his face. Rejection. Pain.
I know what it’s like to feel like that on the inside. So flawed and broken. I also know how hard it is to crawl out of that hole and find a healthy way to live with grief, or at least as healthy as possible. When I met Peach Lips, I felt that hole start to close in. It was like building a sandcastle and digging deep, down into wet sand. It’s packed, so it stays, but all the stuff you dug out is all over the sides. Slowly, with every passing day, that hole dried out, and the sand started collapsing back in.
“Thorn?” His hand is at his side, but I step forward and grasp it. I thread my fingers through his, which are cold and unresponsive, and make it clear that I’m not letting go.
I walked over here. It’s a wonder that he only lives two streets away from me now. His trailer truly is gutted, but at the same time, it’s not empty. There is wood and sawhorses all over his little rental yard site. There are also tools in here. An air compressor, extension cords, battery-operated drills, saws, impacts, nail guns, and a collection of hammers, wrenches, and screwdrivers. I notice he’s made a few wooden benches—identical cones that will sit across from each other with a table in between. He’s assembled some cabinets and started to tack them up to the fresh plywood inside. A brand new RV-sized oven and fridge sit in boxes off to the side.
I step in and close the door behind me. Way at the far end, I can see a platform bed with a new mattress and a black sleeping bag with a pillow. The most vital thing—a new AC unit—is humming away in the back. With the Arizona heat, it would otherwise be unbearable in here.
“Hey.” I squeeze his hand, which forces him to look at me. I can see now that his fines over text were anything but. “Do you want to talk about it?” What a stupid question to ask the strong, silent, introverted type. “You probably don’t, but if you do, I’m here. I want to listen.” I want to give him comfort. I want to hurt with him and try to figure out a way to laugh and smile again. I want him to know it’s okay to be exactly who he is.
My god, I am so falling.
He pinches the bridge of his nose with the hand I’m not holding. “I don’t know what I thought. That I could just come back into their lives, and they’d welcome me back? Make room for me?”
Anger and sadness choke me for half a minute before I lead him over to one of those wooden benches. I make him sit. He doesn’t have his fridge working yet, but I do notice a plug-in cooler a few feet away. I pop it open and get out a bottle of water. There are other things in there. Vegetables, cheese, and meat, with ice surrounding all of it. The bottle of water is so cold that it instantly starts sweating and dripping condensation.
Thorn takes it and downs most of it. I sit down across from him and try not to look at him like I’m prying deep down inside him. I want him to talk to me because he wants to, not because I’m X-ray-visioning the crap out of him.
“My youngest brother is getting married. They’ve been engaged for months, but no one told me.”
Ouch .
I set my hand on his knee. “No excuses. That’s so shitty, and I’m so sorry. Maybe he just didn’t know what to say.”
“Yeah.” He drains the other half of the bottle and sets it aside. “Probably. I’m like a stranger now. I left when they were both so young, and over the years, they’ve only seen me a few times. My mom had no idea what to say. I don’t think it was supposed to come out the way it did. We were having a family brunch in this fancy restaurant I chose, which was awkward as all fuck already because I could tell they didn’t like it. I should have picked some family spots or asked them where they liked to go. Anyway, after the wedding confession, I got even more nervous and offered to pay for everything, which made everyone go all silent and weird. I don’t even know why I said it. It was the wrong thing to say. I just…panicked.”
“It’s probably pretty hard for them to view you as the same person you were before. You’re older now. You were doing this mystery job for years, and now you own this massive company and have all this money. You’re basically untouchable. They won’t be able to realize that you’re still shy and awkward because the truth is, you’re not the person you were when you left. You’ve grown so much.”
“I did tell them that I’m at a loss, just like they are. And the rest of the visit was marginally better. It’s just so strained.”
“I know you don’t expect things to be what they were or have it happen all at once,” I say gently.
“No. I’m just a stranger. We don’t even have anyone in our family to cause huge disturbances or be that outgoing, wild character. No crazy granny with wild dresses and hats to relieve the tension. No badass aunt or eccentric uncle. It’s just me, the one no one knows how to deal with. The one they wish would probably just stay gone.”
I shake my head, surging forward onto my knees in front of him and taking his hands. “That’s not true!”
He sighs shakily. “You’re probably right. Intrusive thoughts aren’t facts. Everyone was nothing but nice, but that’s the problem. Their niceness just feels so…strained and tense. Unnatural. I’ve been gone for well over fifteen years. No one is going to be the way they were when I left, just like I’m not. It just feels like when they say they’re open to me coming back, and they want to get to know me again, they’re just being nice .”
“Nice sucks. Mean is even worse, but nice is sometimes harder to bear when it comes from the people you love.”
Thorn inhales sharply, and his eyes widen. “Oh my god. You’re on the floor on your bare knees. Please, get up.”
His hands circle my waist, and he lifts me onto his lap. I arrange my knees to the side. “I never met anyone I meshed with other than my neighbor, Mary Beth. All my life. Of all the people I know. I sometimes wondered if I was broken. It’s really hurtful to have to feel like that. It’ll come. If you give it time, I know it will. They’re your family. They love you.”
“Yes.” At least there’s no hint of doubt.
“I didn’t meet anyone I thought I could mesh with until you .” I grasp his massive shoulders. “Maybe that’s the scariest part of all. I never wanted to be one of those people who had to keep running, scared. I really want to subscribe to the it’s better to love theory. I still have a lot of doubts, but when have I not doubted? Every time I made a video of Peach Lips, I second-guessed myself. Every time I posted. Later, every show and just about every interaction. Was this the right path for us? For her? Was she happy? There was every indication that she was—most days, she still got bus zoomies at two in the morning and liked to relentlessly mess with my blinds. Peach catnip was still her favorite by far. She was always herself, no matter what. Beautiful and magical. I was so happy with all the ways we could help.”
“And then I ruined it all. I’m your villain origin story.”
I bite down on a laugh because he’s freaking serious .
“No.” I smooth the pad of my thumb over his bottom lip. “I didn’t feel like I’d truly made the right decision until my first day of college. I’m not giving up what I’m doing. I’m still going to make videos and interact with all Peach Lips’ fans. The haters can hate, but there are far more lovers out there. I have no doubt that we’ll rebuild. This is the right place and the right time. I truly do believe that.”
“For you and Peach Lips.”
“Yes. But also for us,” I say.
“I never saw myself falling in love or having my own family.”
“I never did either.” I grew up in an unconventional family, and for me, I never had the same dream others had.
But with Thorn? I can see it. I can picture him being a wonderful father. More than wonderful. The best.
“I want you to know that in all the things I did, I was far more of a guard. I can’t tell you much of anything, but the situations we were in, what we were fighting…it was just. All those men were firmly in the category of men who were making the world a dangerous and horrible place. But I never had to kill anyone. The worst I ever had to do was shoot a man in the foot, and even though he was a horrible human being, I’m still tortured about it. I saw things, yes, and maybe the fact that I was there seeing it was wrong enough. I’m guilty by association. When you sign up to be a soldier, you have to realize there are going to be situations, always, where that’s true. I’ve spent years working through that with therapists, but I wanted to tell you.”
All those times that I doubted him and asked him about his body counts like an arsehole. Yes, it matters. But did I have any right to ask something like that?
“We’ve both had some trauma. A significant amount, I’d say. But I believe in you, and you believe in me. We respect each other. Even if you can’t be here all the time, and we have to do some of this on the phone, we can make it. I want you, Thorn. Exactly as you are and for who you are. Past, present, future.”
He groans, leaning forward and kissing me. Deeply. He tips my chin up after and looks right into my eyes. “I missed you so badly while I was away. You were all I could think about. I know you don’t see me the way others do—cold, distant, and uncaring. It really helped these past few weeks. I’m starting to see myself differently. I feel slightly defeated now, but I know it’ll only get better. You’re right. It doesn’t all happen at once. And I’m not giving up.” He pauses and then breathes out a whole gust of air that flutters my hair. “There’s one more thing I have to tell you.” He shifts me, lifts up his shirt, and then drags his jeans down until I see the tip of the scarring—red, gnarled, twisted flesh. “This is why I fell that day. Pissgate. My leg gave out. I love fieldwork, but it hurts sometimes. I’ve worked so hard on rehabbing it after… Anyway, this is why I was discharged. Why I finally came home. Because I wasn’t of any use any longer. Not to my team, not to my country, and not to my family. At least, that’s what I thought.
“So I worked doubly as hard, more than double even, to prove I was worth something. Not to them but to myself. I didn’t want to give up fieldwork. I hated the office, and after years of rehab, it wasn’t so painful. Just every now and then. I could mostly walk on it and do the things I wanted to do. I might pay for it at the end of the day, but at least I could feel like I was part of something again. All the work I did, it’s all I ever wanted. I now know how narrow-minded that must seem.”
“You’re summarizing years’ worth of thoughts, anguish, and emotions. It’s not trivial or narrow-minded. I’m sorry I ever called your focus narrow.”
“It was, though. Far narrower than it should have been. I want this second chance with my family. I want it with you. They and us. Together. I do have friends that were in service that are home now. Old teammates. I think I’d like to look them up.”
I stroke his lips with my thumb. “That would be amazing.”
“I was terrified of being thrust outside my comfort zone. I thought I was dealing, but I wasn’t. To think Pissgate was what really started all this.”
“I’ll never forget the golden puddle.”
He breaks into a grin, and finally, those doubts and storm clouds get chased away. “Thank you for being here and hearing me out. Thank you for supporting me through this. I don’t even have words for how much you mean to me. I had them all planned out, everything I wanted to say. How I wanted to tell you that I want a future, I want to fall in love, I want to be a family. How the world was never enough for me because I didn’t have you, but now I know if I had the entire universe and you weren’t in it, it wouldn’t be right.”
“I’m so excited to fall in love with you too. Deeper and deeper.” For a man who once seemed like he’d run from even the basest of emotions or stomp them out like they were flames and they’d spread and consume him, he embraces it with such eagerness now.
“Deeper and deeper,” he agrees. He kisses me passionately and then takes a moment to admire my dress. “It’s lovely. You’re lovely. The most gorgeous woman, inside and out. And I’m the luckiest man.”
“Oh goodness. Stop that. I’ve been half mad with lust, so there’s no need to butter my biscuit.”
He laughs, long and deep, because he knows I’m just kidding. I’m blushing, but I know this man doesn’t do flattery. There’s nothing he doesn’t do that’s not utterly and refreshingly honest.
“What if I tell you that I bought Peach Lips a new kind of catnip? We might have to call her Watermelon Summer Moon Lips if she finds a new favorite.”
“Watermelon Summer Moon Lips? I love that name.”
“We should start our own catnip farm one day and grow Peach Lips as much catnip as she could possibly want.”
“Ooh! A side hustle. I’ll need something to blow off the stress of getting through the next over half a decade of school.”
His brow wrinkles in a frown. I can tell he’s holding in his laughter so hard that it’s actually marring his perfect face. He finally says it. “I can think of something that is a great stress reducer.”
“You’re such a man. The best ever. We’re very blessed to have you. I’m going to fall so hard and fast and deep and everlasting for our perfectly imperfect tin can camper and bus life. For cats and catnip, for the shows I might still get to do, and for all the fans out there making a difference. For security and a family of my own, for all those wild charities, for adventure and all the good that’s out there waiting for us, and for all our hopes that are going to become a reality.”
Thorn grins again, his eyes in full sparkle mode. It’s pretty much a mirror of my heart. “Soul telepathy,” he whispers in awe. “It’s finally happened for real because that’s pretty much exactly what I was going to say.”