[PRE-NOTES] Special thanks to Tibicen for his help with editing, storyboarding, and for daring me to improve. [/PRE-NOTES] ”It’s been a while, kid,” the driver said, watching me in the rearview mirror as I climbed into the back seat. We fit our big bags in his small trunk, but Trish's suitcase got left out, and it had to take up the passenger seat of the small car. ”You remember me?” ”Course I remember you. Least skinnie skinnie I ever met. You were tight with that ptero chick, weren't ya? Can't say I remember our Herbie friend, though.” He twisted the mirror with his yellow-scaled hand to get a better look at Trish. I don't know if I should be offended or flattered. I feel like a mix of both. ”It’s Trish, carnie,” she said. ”Hey, no offense intended. I’m Monarch; it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he replied with a practiced tone. Trish only responded with begrudging silence as he floored the pedal and expertly worked the shifter to send us launching onto the street. His driving hadn't changed since high school. He still careened around corners and blew through stop signs, but the driving seemed to make sense this time. I began to expect the moves he'd make before he made them. He very clearly knew what he was doing and had a sort of calmness to his face as he drove. The city was pitch dark; the new LED street lights washed a gray light over us as we passed beneath each post on the main road. Familiar scenes passed us by as I watched, but they had a sense of stillness to them in the night. It was as if Volcaldera Bluffs had been frozen in time and was now on display for us, just with several cosmetic differences and occasional construction in new places. It was one in the morning, so naturally, we were the only car on the road. Monarch took advantage of this and drove in almost the center of the wider roads. It was an eerie scene, but the warmth in the car was in stark contrast to the penetrating humid cold of the outdoors. He broke the silence again: ”Where you been, kid? It's been a while.” ”Army,” I replied. ”No shit? What MOS?” ”Eleven Bravo.” ”Well, ain’t that somethin’,” Monarch remarked. ”That’d explain how big you got. They never could get me that big.” Pause. What did he say? No— Not the part where he called me big. ”Did you serve?” I asked. ”Yeah, a long time ago. Eleven Bravo myself, 14th Infantry. What about you, uhh, Trish?” ”Please just drive,” Trish said, staring out the window. Monarch’s face sunk a little as he turned his attention from the rearview mirror back to the street. ”She’s sixty-eight whiskey,” I said. Trish may not be very interested in his service, but I am. I didn’t have any idea he was ex-military. ”Damn,” he said quietly. ”Ain’t that the hardest job on planet Earth…” ”Yeah,” I said. ”That’s for sure. Did you ever deploy?” ”Twice, both to Iraq. Got out in ‘09. You?” ”Once to the same. Didn’t stay the whole tour, though. ‘S a long story...” He took an extra-tight right turn and slammed the brake, lurching the car to a halt outside the entrance to the Bronto Inn. We got out, and he followed with striking agility, moving quickly to the trunk to help unload our bags. He was quite a tall dino, standing slightly taller than me. ”You should tell me that story,” he said, reaching into his vest pocket and pulling out a card. ”Let’s grab a drink sometime, my treat. You can tell me how that shithole of a country is doing after all these years of ‘peacekeeping.” I took the card from him: A business card with his name, number, and glaringly bright yellow face emblazoned on the left edge with his signature toothy grin. I slipped it into my breast pocket. ”Sure, yeah, sounds good,” I said, mostly to placate the lonely dino. I probably wouldn’t call him, but at least I had his number if I needed a cab. He was, in fact, very speedy. Wait— that reminds me… ”What do we owe ya?” I asked him as I reached for my wallet. ”Nothin’, it’s on the house! Call it a veteran’s discount!” He gave me a toothy grin and dropped back into his car, and I gave a very confused wave, returning to the curb to organize our bags. ”Hey, kids! One more thing!” He called. I turned around to see him peering out of the passenger window at me. ”Welcome home!” … ”Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” — Winston S. Churchill … ”I didn’t know you got so grouchy after bedtime,” I teased down at Trish, who stood next to me, impatiently waiting for the hotel desk attendant to appear in the large, dead-silent hotel lobby. ”He’s weird,” she responded shortly. ”How is he weird?” ”He’s creepy; he acts like he knows you. He called Lucy a ‘ptero chick.” ”Well, it’s not like he ever knew her name.” ”But he doesn’t need to! It’s weird that he even remembers you two.” I pauseed for a moment, then gave her a smug look. ”You’re jealous that I’m friends with your cab driver.” She broke my gaze and looked away, letting out a short, grumpy sigh before ‘incidentally’ flicking my tricep with the tip of one of her sharpened horns. ”Ouch, damn…” I let out a light chuckle while feeling my arm to check for blood. Praise Raptor Jesus, my shirt and arm were both intact. ”You better be careful, or I’ll put some rubber nubs on those things,” I threatened as I grabbed hold of her offending horn to playfully shake her head around. ”Don't-!” she shouted, breaking my grip immediately. ”Don’t grab my horns…” She looked at me bashfully, and I realized she was flushed pink in the face. Wait— is she… Are horns… Are they like tails…? If horns are like tails, then when she tries goring people… Wait, when she flicked me with the tip of her horn, was that like…? ”Don’t think too hard, little ape; your head might explode,” she said teasingly, grabbing my waist and pulling herself close to me. She looked directly up at me with a wide, mischievous smile, her face still pink. Oh, shit, I didn’t need to mutter that. I felt my face begin to heat up when our scandalous embrace was interrupted by a new voice in the room. ”Good morning! Did you two have a reservation?” I cleared my throat and separated myself from Trish, approaching the dino behind the counter. ”Y-yeah, under Van Der Kolk? Two-bed?” ”Oh, yeah, about that… That’s an error with some booking sites, we only have single Bronto-King bedrooms, but they won’t update their registries.” My heart sank through the floor. I hate sleeping on my bed roll; I had to do it in two hotels before this. We’ll see about this ‘Bronto-King’ bed. With any luck, it’s actually two smaller beds pushed together. I finished up with checking us in; we gave her our IDs and signed all the agreements— yes, I promise I don’t smoke. After a short elevator ride to the second floor, we found our room and entered through the loud mechanism of the heavy door latch. ”Woah, this bed is huge!” Trish exclaimed, abandoning her baggage in the small hallway and diving onto the bed, landing on her back. Don’t look at the jiggle. It was a pretty enormous bed- It must’ve been 9 feet long and even wider than it was long. I felt like I was shrunken down among all the enormous furniture in the room. Truly a hotel built for sauropods, I thought. ”Quite big enough for the both of us,” I said, splaying myself onto one-half of the bed’s width. There was enough real estate on this bed for two others to join, and we still wouldn’t encounter them in our sleep. Regardless, the trigga had claimed her territory. ”Nooooooo,” I moaned as she slowly pushed me toward the edge of the bed with her legs. ”I’m stronger than you, skinnie!” She said, giggling, as I slumped sadly onto the unforgiving carpeted floor. ”Get that bed roll out. You can have an extra pillow— here.” Suddenly the lights in the room were blocked out as a pillow bigger than Trish came soaring overhead and landed heavily on top of me. Adequate payment, I thought. The comically large pillow made me feel better about my wildly unfair sleeping arrangement. We were both delusional with fatigue, dreading the reality of how late at night it was— or how early in the morning it was, now; the clocks read 1:39AM. My sleeping arrangements wound up consisting solely of a bed roll, a sheet, and the comically large pillow Trish graced me with as a comforter. It covered almost all of me unless I stretched my legs out. Not before long, we deliriously brushed our teeth under the blindingly bright lights above the hotel sinks and promptly returned to our quarters. Hers was like a kingdom of bed, with so much square footage that she might get lost in it with the lights out. Mine were more reminiscent of a crudely fashioned raft floating on the open sea. I will never let her tell me that trikes are oppressed in any fashion after this. I got comfortable in my little raft, sighed a big, comfortable sigh, and felt exhaustion begin to take hold. I was no picky sleeper, not after the Army. Soon, I slipped into a rare dreamless sleep. … ”Everything you can imagine is real.” — Pablo Picasso … My mind sputtered to consciousness at the sound of the shower turning on in the bathroom. The winter morning sunlight lazily penetrated through the blinds and into our hotel room, illuminating the ceiling and the room with soft gray light. Trish was awake. I started at the ceiling and stretched, then relaxed and appreciated my moments of solitude while she showered and didn't yet know I was awake. Today was the day I had waited a long time for. It'd been years. I can't believe it, I thought. Today is the day I meet Lucy. I was excited like never before but simultaneously terrified out of my mind. The excitement and fear built up side by side as the reality grew ever closer that I would actually see her again, not just dream of it. At least, I hoped I would see her again. We had no way of contacting each other since I shipped out. The armed forces nowadays are cruel. Zero contact with family or friends until after discharge. No phones, no mail, no nothing. Just four years of isolation and whatever friends you can manage while you’re in. Trish had checked pretty thoroughly, and she still had no social media presence. All that was left was hope and our promise. We had arranged where we would meet before I shipped out. A park bench, not far from the Bronto Inn I'm laying in now. There was no way she'd continue checking it day after day, not after this long. I knew I'd probably have to wait there several times for her to find me. If she still lived here at all, that is. The thought terrified me, even more so because I knew it was a real possibility. What would I do if Lucy wasn't there? What would I do if she was gone? I rolled over in my ramshackle sleeping raft and faced the frame of Trish's bed. How could I go on? What would I even do, then? The fear became paralyzing. I didn't want to move, get up, or continue with this day. I wanted to stay floating in the happy little world with the warm thought that Lucy might still love me. The idea that I may learn for sure that she doesn’t— that scared me much worse than the idea of waiting just a little longer. I heard the shower stop. My time was limited now; Trish would soon be out of the bathroom. I willed myself to push my thin blanket off of me, revealing myself to the cold air of the room, which promptly began its assault. I quickly dressed in yesterday’s clothes in a feeble attempt to battle the cold, organizing the fresh clothes I would change into after my shower. Only two fresh pairs of underwear remained; my supply for the journey was running low. I grabbed my small bag of toiletries and sat on the edge of the Bronto King bed, staring at the floor. I never thought the happiest day of my life would also be the scariest. I thought about what I would say to Lucy. I missed you. Definitely. I got blown up. Maybe not. How much could I tell her about Crossroads? How soon would I tell her about Trish? What if she moved on, or she wasn’t there? How long would I wait for what would never come? The pit in my stomach grew deeper. I hadn’t eaten, and I wasn’t planning on it yet. The door opened, and Trish stepped out in a towel, the knot tied loosely over her chest. ”Aww, you're awake. I wanted to tease you…” I didn't respond to her provocative banter, and she took notice. ”You feeling okay, skinnie?” ”I want to throw up.” ”Fuck,” she chuckled. ”Nevermind then, I won't come anywhere near you. Don't worry too much, Anon. Nervousness means you still care. I'd be worried if you weren't nervous. I'm clawing at my scale here, too.” ”You’re afraid of seeing your family?” I asked quizzically. ”Why?” ”Because I'm fucked up.” She walked behind me to the other side of the bed. I didn't watch her. ”Hardly even a triceratops anymore…” Wh… ”What?” ”My crown is gone, Anon. That's all we've got. Stegosaurs have plates, pteros have wings, raptors have claws and ugly teeth, and we've got crowns. Frills. Headdresses. And now I don't. I'm like… Some messed up hybrid of a trike and a human. Sorry…” She apologized for the mention of my species in a negative light— a side of her that only I got to see. I heard her rummaging through her suitcase for clothes to wear. ”Left behind in the sands of Iraq. Like the rest of me should’ve been.” ”Trish-” I began to interject, still facing the bathroom while she dressed behind me. ”I know, Anon, I know. It’s hard to think that now, is all. There’s a reason my family never visited me in Otter Reed. I haven’t talked to them yet, but they for sure heard about me. I wonder if they’d rather have a daughter who died in combat than one who returned home broken by it.” She entered my field of vision wearing jeans and an olive green tee shirt and sat on the edge of the bed close to me. I caught the scent of her shampoo. She spoke up: ”Trikes don’t break, we live or die. But I’m…” she hesitated. ”I’m somewhere in the middle.” I examined her face, but there was very little to be seen. She looked vacant. There were no tears or dramatics because this wasn’t a new revelation to her. This was an idea she had come to accept as reality. ”Trish…” I got her attention. She turned to look at me, and I put my hand over her back. ”You’re alive to me, and I’m glad you are.” I pulled her into an embrace, her face landing awkwardly in my chest, and I held her there as she lay mostly limp, accepting it. ”I’ll never leave you, no matter what.” She loosely wrapped her arms around my lower back to return my gesture. I heard her muffled voice speak up into my chest. ”Promise?” ”Promise.” I heard her draw in a breath, then let out a heavy sigh. Her breath warmed a spot in my shirt. She turned her head to the side to speak more clearly. ”Does this mean you forgive me for doxxing you?” I felt a grin come over my face. ”Don’t push it.” She erupted into laughter, and I followed. ”Fuck you, skinnie,” she said, followed by even more laughter from the both of us as we held each other. Soon we settled, but we remained in our embrace, satisfied by the joyful resolution to the moment. Her muffled voice spoke up again: ”Go shower. You stink.” ”You smell like roses,” I countered. ”Mmmh, stop. Go,” she ordered, pushing away from me. ”Oh, alright,” I relented. ”Big day today, after all.” ”You can say that again.” ”I won’t.” ”Not funny.” … ”Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.” — C.S. Lewis … Every step I took against the pebbled concrete sidewalk felt forced. I watched it beneath me as I walked towards the meeting point, dreading sitting down on the bench in the piercing cold. My flannel jacket helped, but my legs and feet were still only one layer. The humid air took no prisoners. It was cloudy overhead, so it was a miracle that it wasn’t raining. The park’s trees were barren and thin; the whole scene was cast over with gray light filtered through the clouds. I found a bench that looked well-suited enough and sat down on the cold metal slats that made up the seat. I looked at the ground and sighed heavily, watching my breath freeze as I tried to manage my nerves. Day one, I thought. None of the guys in my squad ever believed I had a ptero girlfriend. I didn’t want to pull out the few photos I kept from Samantha’s photo book, but I told stories about her often. Hot, goth, ptero gee eff. I was pretty proud of it, being a human. I wondered if my friends were looking down on me then. We’ll see who doesn’t have a ptero girlfriend now, won’t we, I thought at them, who were surely watching from the great beyond. Oh, how I miss them. I wonder if any of the guys I went to basic with are still around. Maybe it’d be worth trawling social media for them one of these days. Really, though, I hate social media. Always have. And they’d surely only have questions about Crossroads. I never responded to Captain Foster’s letter. He made the call to send Squad 2 to the Crossroads, and it was his medic that saved our lives after they picked us up. It was a debt that would remain unpaid, among the list of many. Why’d it have to be me, I wondered. The world needed people like who my battle buddies were. I’ve always been just a parasite, consuming content and contributing nothing. Why should I have survived? I remembered Foster’s words: Don’t waste the life he gave you to live. I wished it was only Farcy who gave his life for Trish and I, but it wasn’t. Children were now without fathers, wives were turned to widows, and for what? For me to sit on a park bench and mope. I looked up at the frozen scene around me and began to take in the piercing silence of reality, broken up only by the fountain in the center of the park. The fountain pressed on despite the cold, creating a light mist that coated the concrete surrounding it with thin droplets of ice. The well-maintained frozen grass laid flat aside the concrete walking paths, with some informal paths trampled in the dirt by the people who take shortcuts between their sub-optimal layouts. The park was empty, surrounded by small boutique shops and cafes that were all but closed down for the winter. The interiors of the few shops that remained glowed with incandescent light through their large storefront windows. Only a few customers could be seen— the remainder of the locals. It was Volcaldera Bluffs’ hibernation season. Tourists came in the spring and summer, so only the residents visited the shops, usually because of their relation to the owners or employees instead of typical patronage. The wind began to pick up, and my flannel jacket began to show its weaknesses. It served me well, but this cold started to become extreme. I guess I’ll try with thicker clothes tomorrow, I thought. I looked around and saw a small cafe with the lights on, a beacon of warmth in the distance. Some coffee would do me well. I sat down in the wicker chairs of the small coffee shop with my brew in hand. I never used to drink coffee before the Army, but it was one of the few comforts we had on base and deployment, and I learned to take advantage of it quickly. I brought the cup to my lips and hesitated, taking in the scent of the dark black mixture. This blend was smooth and earthy in scent— A far cry from the powdered dirt water we were rationed, but it still brought the memories flooding back. Comforting ones, this time. I lowered the cup to the sturdy wooden table; it was far too hot to drink yet. “Excuse me, sir?” A feminine voice took my attention. I turned around, wondering what the barista might need from me. Had my card been declined? For one dollar? “What’s u-” I laid eyes on the woman, and the breath was sucked out of my body. I froze. It was not a barista; standing next to me was a dino woman wearing a pink puffer jacket and light blue jeans. She had pale blue skin, white down wings, and amber eyes. I began to stand up, but before I had even risen all the way or gotten out a word, Lucy jumped into my arms, wrapping her arms and wings around me in unison and letting out a squeal of excitement. I wrapped my arms around her and locked her into the embrace, laughing with joy as we squeezed each other. “Oh my God, Lucy, I can’t believe you’re here…” “You’re back! I can’t believe it; you’re really back! You remembered!” Lucy squealed over my shoulder. I held her for a moment, taking in the scent of her gardenia perfume that pierced the strong air of coffee beans. I didn’t want to let this moment go to waste; I savored every second; then, after what felt like minutes, we finally loosened our hold and let our arms slide open, backing up so that we could see each other’s faces. “Of course, I remembered. I thought about you every day.” I watched her eyes flicker up, down, left, and right as she examined my face up close. The blush applied to her cheeks glistened as she smiled and sighed with relief. “I can’t believe you’re really you. You’re here, you’re back, and I found you,” she said in bewilderment with a magical grin. I laughed and hugged her again, my chest filled with love. “Me neither. I missed you so much, sweet tooth…” She giggled at the use of her old nickname, and we released each other. “Grab a chair! We have a lot to talk about,” I said, gesturing to the other chair of my small table and securing my own, dropping down into it with a sigh of relief. “So tell me everything! How was the Army? How was your public relations job?” Her voice had a new sweetness to it. Scarily a little like how Naomi used to sound, I thought. “Well, it didn’t last long. I was still getting trained when we got deployed to Iraq.” Her eyes widened. “You went to war?” “Yeah, Lucy,” I said, a little disheartened. I didn’t want to talk about it, but now the floodgates had been opened. I braced myself for the inevitable line of questioning that would follow. Lucy took on a contemplative look, carefully choosing her next question. “Did you see combat?” I was surprised by her unexpected sensitivity. The punk rocker had been housebroken, it seemed. “Yeah.” “Is that why you’re home early? You took on a 3-year contract, right? It’s only been two.” She spoke with surprising calculation, trying to piece together as much of the puzzle as she could without asking me overt questions about what I had seen or what had happened to me. “Yeah. We had an op go bad,” I said. “I took an IED; it shattered both my legs; I spent the last year recovering in Otter Reed, the Army hospital in Virginia. I’m just glad—” I stopped myself. I didn’t want to drop the Trish bomb yet. I had to feel Lucy out a bit first— She wasn’t the same dino I left here two years prior. She noticed that I was leaving something out, but she took a moment before she spoke again: “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” I smiled. “Thanks, Lucy. Maybe later. So anyways…” I needed to lighten the mood a little. ”Just two years, and you give up the whole dress code, huh?” My jab elicited a small smile at the change of topic. ”Yeah,” she said. ”A lot has changed since you left.” ”Well…?” I opened. ”Tell me about it! Where have you gone while I was away?” Her face brightened, and she looked up at me. ”Well… I’ve done a lot of changing since high school. Promise you won’t laugh…” ”I will promise no such thing.” ”Ugh, fine,” she began to relax, and I saw hints of the ptero girl I used to know reveal themselves. ”I let my parents take me to church.” I couldn’t help but let out a quick chuckle. ”Really? You?” She kicked my leg under the table, and I laughed, hiding the explosive pain her blow had caused. ”Lucy, I gotta know what you wore. Did you wear that prom dress?” She let out a loud, squawking laugh at the mention of her dress. ”Shut up, you dweeb; I didn’t wear the prom dress! I had an old sweater I dusted off and— I looked like a huge dork, but I didn’t want to upset my parents.” ”Pause. You didn’t?” ”Oh, yeah, I gotta explain that, don’t I? Well, uhm… It took me a bit, but I realized that my parents only ever loved me, despite what I put them through. Naser too. Dad has a… funny way of showing it, but he loves me.” She relaxed and looked contemplatively at the table with a smile. ”It’s been… really nice, living at home.” My gaze at her softened, and I felt my chest get warmer as I was filled with joy. She did it. ”I’m proud of you, Lucy.” Her smile wavered a little. ”Thanks, Anon.” ”So, the church— Where did they touch you?” I kidded in an attempt to cut the tension. She didn’t appreciate my joke, rewarding it with a brief pause and no further acknowledgment. ”They changed my life. I made a lot of friends really quickly, and they truly cared about me, even though I wasn’t a believer. It was like high school was flipped on its head. It’s been great…” She paused, looking away from me, and I took the opportunity to change the subject. “Have you had any contact with the band?” She looked back at me. “Trish and Reed? No… Trish stopped calling not long after you shipped out, and Reed… just kind of disappeared. I haven’t heard anything from either of them. “Did you ever try and reach out?” She looked a little sad. “No… Those bridges are burned, I’m afraid.” “What if they weren’t?” I posed. She looked at me, puzzled. “What?” “I have something to tell you, and you might not believe me…” Her eyes widened. “But Trish is back, too.” “...What?” “We served together— she came back with me. She wants to be your friend again, Lucy.” Her shocked face stood still for a moment. “You’re serious? Trish is back too?” “Yeah! She misses you. We made up already, too. She’s crazy different now.” “Anon, you remember what she did? With the stunt in high school, and the whole non-binary thing…?” I reached out to offer her my hand. “She’s changed now, Lucy. She really has. She’s sorry for everything she did. She wants her best friend back.” She took my hand with an uneasy look, then her face softened a little. “We could bring the band back…” I grinned as the relief washed over me, and I watched as she continued: “We could be together again…” She began to smile. “You and I can be together again, too,” I said. “I’ll be with you the whole way. You’ll make it like you always wanted to as a kid, and I’ll be right there with you.” She suddenly took her hand back, and a look of shock came over her face. “Anon…” “I love you, Lucy. I won’t leave you this time.” The dino backed up into her chair. “Anon— I can’t…” Before my eyes, the dream began to fall apart. A familiar pit opened up in my stomach. “I’m engaged…” A ptero man entered the scene and approached our table. Lucy looked at him, then back at me. She began to shrink, and the punk, headstrong, sarcastic ptero woman I used to know began to retreat before my eyes. ”Fang is gone, Anon. I’m sorry. I’m happy now…” The man wrapped his arm around Lucy’s shoulder, and she retreated into his embrace, facing away from me. The man didn’t look at me. ”Why don’t you wait outside for me, honey?” He said softly to her. She nodded and looked at me again. ”Lucy, at least give Trish another chance,” she recoiled a bit at the mention of Trish's name, then shook her head. ”She just wants her best friend back…” She winced, took a breath to collect herself, then sighed. ”Goodbye, Anon.” ”Please…” I never loved anyone like I loved Lucy. The hope that I'd see her again got me through the Army, it got me through the recovery, and it brought me across the world back to Volcaldera Bluffs. She was the love of my life, and she walked away. ”We’re not gonna have any problems, are we?” The pteranodon man said in a cheap intimidation play. ”Leave me alone, man,” I responded dismissively, turning back to my empty table and lukewarm coffee. He hesitated briefly, then accepted my response and left. … ”I couldn't remarry. I found my happily ever after.” — Abigail Farcy … The world around me began to blur. The more I pondered taking control of my body, the less capable I was. I sat in the cafe chair, staring at the floor. My eyes didn't move. No part of me moved. The sound of the baristas cleaning and the quiet, generic music from the radio was the only input I received from the outside world. I wondered if I should get up and leave, but then the thought returned: Two minutes ago, the love of my life walked away. The woman I was supposed to marry, live, and die with. You stupid fuck, the voice in my head said. This is what you get. You had it all, and you left it behind. Back to square zero. That reality weighed heavily on my chest. I was surprised it didn't take more effort than it did to breathe. That same reality made the following thought return: There is nothing left to do. I had failed Trish. Oddly, the pain of losing Lucy didn’t sting as much as I thought it would. Perhaps I had gotten used to not having her and it didn’t hurt as much, but one thing I wanted above all else was for Trish and Lucy to be happy again, and I messed it up. I felt the dagger in my chest begin to twist and my eyes began to sting. I didn’t want to cry there. There was nowhere else to go, so back to the hotel I went. I prayed that Trish would still be visiting her family by now. The winds had grown heavy while I was inside, and I noticed a few white specks begin to follow the wind. It began to snow. The cold white flecks peppered my face as I walked through them, and I thought about where I would go next. I pondered leaving Volcaldera for good; starting over again somewhere else. Trish would be fine, right? She has her family; she’d be able to go on without me. Utah is nice… Starting over again, Anon? I heard what my dad would say. Sure, maybe I am starting over again. What's another four years? Exhausting, that's what. How many times can a man live, die, and start over? This can’t be normal, can it? Maybe I’m not meant to start over again… No. I couldn’t do that to Trish. I came to the hotel and endured the walk of shame past the front desk to the elevator. 2 The elevator doors sluggishly closed fully, to my relief. I didn’t want anyone joining me on this somber journey. Soon they opened, and I walked quietly to our room. I hesitated, then silently pressed my ear to the door. I held my breath and tried to hold as still as possible, listening for any noise that might be inside. … Nothing. Just in case, I slid the key card in, removed it, and very gently opened the door to minimize the noise from the latch. If Trish was here, I didn't want to make myself known. I rounded the door and immediately saw a lump in the bed under the comforter. I closed the door softly with both hands and silently approached the main room. As I came nearer, the back of Trish’s purple head revealed itself on her pillow, facing toward the window on the opposite end of the room. Fuck. She's home early. I didn't want to talk. I quietly lowered myself onto my little bed raft, faced the wall away from Trish's bed, and lay there in my anguish. The same few thoughts revolved around in my mind. It wasn't supposed to go this way. I wasn't supposed to leave her. I wasn't supposed to join the Army. But then Trish… She would've been alone in Iraq. To run from you, Anon. My vision blurred, and I felt tears run down my face. It wasn't supposed to go that way, either. Trish had been horrible, but… I must've been able to do something back then so that maybe she would've graduated and not had to enlist. I racked my mind for what I could've done differently but came up empty-handed. Maybe if I had been there for her, or if we didn't run from prom or something. Look at you. Still a sperg. A new voice emerged in my mind. Still running; gonna just start over again. I realized that the voice was my own. You haven't changed. … ”It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.” — E.M. Forster … ”Anon?” My sobbing stopped; she was awake. ”Are you okay?” My sobs returned with renewed intensity because I knew the answer. Trish knew too, and I heard her throw the blankets off of herself. ”Anon, what happened?” She said, concern in her voice. She stepped over me and knelt by my head, wearing nothing but her black lace bra and matching underwear. I was so overwhelmed with grief that I didn't even have room for a ‘hot.’ She rubbed the side of my head with her hand. ”Hey, talk to me… What happened?” You gave me a second chance. ”I’m so sorry, Trish,” I wailed. ”I’m sorry…” ”Hey, no, look at me…” She said, beginning to panic at the state I was in. ”It’s okay, tell me what happened. Breathe…” ”She’s not her anymore. It’s over…” She stared at me, her mouth hanging open, processing what I meant. ”It’s over…” ”It’s… over?” She began to take on an air of seriousness to her questioning. ”She has a new man, and a church, and a job, and… it’s over. She has a new life and she doesn’t wanna talk to us,” I said, catching my breath. ”I couldn’t get your best friend back…” “She has a new boyfriend?” “Yeah…” “That bitch!” She stood up and turned around, suddenly engulfed by fury. Her fists were clenched. “She couldn’t just fucking wait; she had to go find some other cock to ride.” She began pacing away from me. “Trish, it’s not like-” “It doesn’t matter, Anon! She made you a promise. She was supposed to keep it.” I hurriedly stood up, and my fear of losing the deposit on the hotel room took center stage in my mind. “Trish, I don’t blame her! I got with her, then left!” “She’s a cheating whore either way. She should’ve waited for you or broken it off when you left!” Her voice began to waver, and I caught a glimpse of her eyebrow twitching. “Nobody could be expected to wait that long!” She turned back around and pointed her finger at me. “I would’ve!” Her voice rang in the air. What did she say? I was stunned into silence, her outburst catching me completely off guard. Shakily, she spoke up again. “I would’ve waited for you, Anon.” She sniffled, tears running down her face. “You deserved to be happy with her…” “Trish, what’s gotten into you?” “You really can’t tell?” She asked. I suddenly felt gripped by fear. I had missed something vital. “I love you, you stupid ape,” she said, barely intelligible between her sobs. “I love you more than anything, but you loved Lucy…” She crossed her arms under her bust. She continued in a whisper: “You’re my whole world, Anon. You brought me back from Iraq; then you brought me back from the hospital. I wouldn’t have made it anywhere without you. Now it all went to shit because Lucy couldn’t just keep her legs shut.” She let her arms fall to her side in defeat. I had to say something: “It wouldn’t have gone to shit if I hadn’t left.” “I left too, though…” “Yeah, we both did.” I approached her and sat down on the foot of the bed before her. “We messed up. But, if one of us didn’t leave…” I hesitated. “The other wouldn’t have come back.” She relaxed and let her shoulders droop. “Yeah. We may not have Lucy, but I guess we’ll have each other; for a little while, at least.” Defeated, she stepped silently and dropped down on the bed to the left of me, laying flat on her back. The hotel bed creaked in protest to her weight. “What do you mean, ‘for a little while?” I asked, turning to look at her from where I sat. She spoke to the ceiling with a sobering calmness: “Well, I know you won’t stick around. This is your new Rock Bottom, now. This is where our paths diverge, it’s time to move on— rebuild our lives on our own, and that’s okay. As long as you’re happier that way.” She punctuated her thought with a sad tone that she tried unsuccessfully to conceal. I examined the blank expression on her purple face and caught movement on her left brow. “No, Trish. I guess you don’t know me as well as you think,” I said, letting myself fall back onto the bed next to her. “I fucked up, leaving prom early in high school. I fucked up leaving Volcaldera to join the Army, and I almost fucked up by leaving Otter Reed without talking to Abigail. I’m not making that mistake again.” I turned my head to look at her, and my eyes met hers— her head fully turned to look at me. She looked in shock, like the weight of the world was upon her. I suddenly realized that I held her heart in my hands— that whatever I would come to say meant the world to her. “I’m tired of running.” “Why don’t you, though? There’s nothing left for you here, and there’s nothing left for me either…” I curled up on the bed, facing Trish, who lay next to me. “What do you mean there’s nothing for you?” She looked back up at the ceiling and raised her hand to cover her eyes exasperatedly. “It’s… fuck, Anon, it’s what I thought.” My eyebrows furrowed with confusion. “Your family?” “Yeah…” “What happened?” She sighed, letting her hand fall from her face onto the bed. “Riley got the door; he’s a sweet kid now. I missed him the most. He remembered me, he was happy to see me, and we hugged and… man, his voice is deeper now… Then he saw my crown, and the others saw it too. My mom was there, and she asked me when I’ll be back to normal. Like I’m gonna regrow it or something.” Trigga moment. She continued: “When I told them that this was it, I was fully recovered, my mom just— got angry and walked back inside. Like it was my fault.” Her voice began to break a little, and she struggled more and more to keep recalling what had happened. “The others didn’t come out to see me. It was like they didn’t recognize me— like I was a stranger to them. Riley came outside, though.” “How old is Riley now?” I interjected. She had told me some stories about her family, but very few. I only knew that she had a lot of siblings, and Riley was the oldest. He was left in charge of the household after Trish shipped out. “Fifteen,” she said. “My mom, my sisters, and Trevor stayed inside and shut the door on me. They didn’t even want to talk to me. Not Riley, though,” she said, her voice breaking again. “He sat outside with me and cried.” She broke down into sobs, and I put my hand over her head behind her forehorns and stroked her curly hair. “He cried,” she croaked. “I’ve never seen my little brother cry— Not since he was a kid.” She calmed down and sniffled before resuming her story. I hoped my gesture helped. “We sat on the stairs outside, and he asked me what happened. I just told him I got shot, and that I was in a coma… I wanted to stay and talk with him, but mom called for him. The look on his face… I’ll never forget it. I could see it in his eyes: If I had asked him, he would’ve run away from home for me, but I didn’t. I barely got to tell him I loved him. Now it’s over for both of us, I guess. I don’t know where I’m gonna go next.” I almost couldn’t believe what she was telling me. “Your family rejected you because you were injured in combat?” “So it would fucking seem, I guess.” “Damn,” I said, turning my attention to the spackled 12-foot ceiling and laying on my back next to her. “Aren’t we just a pair of fuck-ups…” My joke hit its mark, and I heard her burst into laughter next to me. I followed, and we shared a small moment of joy amidst the world of suffering we had found ourselves in. Soon, our laughing wore off, and the sweetness turned back to bitterness as the silence crept in. “Trish, I’m not gonna leave you. I know I can’t replace your family, but for what it’s worth, you’re a whole dino to me. Any family should see it as an honor, frankly, to have you in it. It’s ridiculous that they’d reject you over a physical injury.” “Yeah… thanks, Anon.” “Also… ever since Lucy dumped me, I realized that not having her back with me isn’t really what stung. Part of me kind of expected it— you know how enlisted guys talk about Jodys all the time— so I was a little prepared for it. What fucked me up was that I couldn’t get your best friend back.” She turned her head to look at me, and I turned mine to meet her gaze. “You deserve the world, Trish. The least I could do was get your best friend back, and I couldn’t even do that… I’m sorry.” She shook her head and sighed. “Anon, I haven’t seen Fang for years, Lucy for even more… The biggest reason I wanted her back was for you.” “What? Why?” “Sh-sh, don’t interrupt,” she said. “You deserve the girl of your dreams. You’ve come a long way, and I was wrong about you from the beginning. It only makes sense that you’d get the girl, and with Lucy— she wouldn’t get in the way of you and me. You’re my best friend, Anon. Not Lucy. I don’t need her. I only need you.” “Well, you’ve got me. I don’t feel like I need Lucy either, really. I mean, yeah, it hurts a lot, but I can move on, you know? I think I can, anyways.” She clicked her tongue, “mmm, I don’t know, Anon, you’re pretty retarded…” “Literally kill yourself.” She laughed again and curled up on the bed facing me. Suddenly she took on a serious yet vulnerable expression. “I know I can’t be Lucy, but… Will you let me stick around, at least?” I couldn’t help but laugh. “What are you talking about? You’re you, Trish, why would I want you to be anyone else? Any guy would be lucky to have you.” I raised my eyebrows at her to get my message across: “Seriously.” Trish moved a little closer to me; the terrified expression remained on her face. “You mean that? Even though I’m all messed up? I’m gonna be ugly forever…” Holy shit. She’s serious. I curled up and faced her, laying my right hand over her good cheek. “Trish, for a lot of people, beauty is only skin— or scale deep, but for you… Your beauty comes from within. Whenever I look into your eyes or hear you talk, I know you’re all there.” I stroked her cheek with my thumb. “You’re more of a woman than anyone I’ve met, even Lucy, so yes. Any guy would be lucky to have you.” “Then, do you think…” She broke eye contact to look down at my chin; then her eyes flicked back up to make contact again. “Do you think I could be yours?” The air was suddenly sucked out of my lungs, and I was stunned into silence. I quickly became acutely aware of my raging heartbeat. “M- Me?” Spaghetti: Expended. Trish put her left hand softly over mine on her cheek, completely ignoring my enormous blunder. “I know I can’t be Lucy, but… I can be me…?” She spoke meekly. Contrary to her usual self, she seemed feeble, and frankly, it terrified me, but I had already made up my mind. “Yeah, Trish. I’d… like that a lot.”