Page 123 of Catcher's Lock

I’m down to the socks, his and mine all mixed together into one big sock selection we don’t even try to keep apart.Allour clothes are hopelessly entwined at this point, stacks of jeans and T-shirts and hoodies stuffed into the single large duffel we keep in the back of the truck. Aside from my pants, which are too short for him, everything fits us both. I’ve discovered that walking around with a pair of his old jeans hanging low on my hips and bunched around bare feet is a surefire way to get bent over the nearest surface—when we have time and no one else is around. Which means it’s happened exactly twice, but I’m keeping it in my arsenal for when I get him back from Big Top. I cling to that promise as I stuff the last pair of socks in the duffel and zip it closed.

Maybe-Darren is waiting in the parking lot. I toss the bag—clean sheets—in the back seat of the truck and slam the door. The sun is sinking behind the yellow brick apartment building across the street, and back at the lot, Josha will be starting up the preshow playlist, and my mom will be looking for me to open up the ticket booth.

Get in and start the engine. Drive away. Go back to your boyfriend.Maybe tonight the show will go smoothly, and no one else will need him.

My reflection in the window doesn’t look like anyone’s boyfriend, and the argument happening in my head doesn’t have a winner. My body moves through static along the tracks of habit and craving, and the roar of falling rock consumes everything except the sound of my boots on pavement. The air smells like gasoline and bar fights, and the Edison lights of the tent are so very far away…

He doesn’thaveto know. But he will.

And underneath, a small voice, selfish and starving:And when he figures it out, he’ll drop everything and come.

For me.

41

Hard Things

Josha

Age 24 (Now)

“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 ofworry. 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. Thathewas 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, becausehe’smy 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.