Two Punks In Love

Troubled Mind

Kat

The jam session is mellow and brief and the gnoshing upstairs afterward is more a polite formality than anything else. Leed is the first to bail. He does approach Trace before he goes though. As they clap it out and speak in their cool rock star way, I realize I've never seen Leed so absent of...

Well, so absent. His eyes have all the cool reserve of a housecat in a completely domestic scene. The cat is perfectly calm—and its surroundings seem perfectly normal—populated by people it relies upon— but the cat does not give a damn about perfect calm or the seeming normality. The cat's brain is wired for war. One false move by its people, and the cat will go fucking feral, bringing all its weapons to bear in its fight to defend.

What is he defending against? Trace's unexplained episode of violence? Is he worried Trace could freak out at any moment, lash out at Ashlynn or Mac or the kids?

Or it that cool reserve hiding something more? Is there more than wariness building in Leed? Even as I question, I know there is. There is the hurt of betrayal brewing in Leed. Because Ashlynn lied to him about something. And that lie has something to do with Trace. I heard the way Leed changed the lyrics of that Dylan song. The meaning was clear. Her light shining down on Trace. Ashlynn's light. But Leed doesn't know how or when he can release Trace. From his anger, he means.

They've lied to us this whole time. They did sleep together.

That fact they did bothers me less than I ever really expected. They were twenty years old, they were both gorgeous people, they were living together, they were married, and over time, they obviously developed a deep and abiding connection. Honestly, I've always thought it nearly unbelievable that they didn't sleep together. 

The fact that they lied about it, though. It bothers me more. It's been nearly eight years they've been keeping up this lie. The lie feels like more than a lie. It feels like an extension of what they did. It's like...they've been having an affair behind our backs this whole time.

But I get it. I honestly can't even blame their "affair." A lie can get away from you. It's hard to hurt someone you love. It's hard to let go of someone else you once loved. You find yourself in the grey.

Or...in the blue. Drowning in your lie, trying to stay afloat.

What the hell are we doing? Trace and I are supposed to get married in a matter of days. I'm pregnant with his babies. And he's lying to me about loving my sister, and I'm lying to him about loving Colin.

Oh.

Oh.

Even as I think the thought, a shock runs through me.

Do I?

Still love Colin?

Well, yeah.

Probably about as much as I always did, but not like I love Trace.

Not with heart and mind and body and soul.

Not in that terrifying way of giving up yourself and becoming something else. Becoming a part of something else.

That's what I've become. A part of Trace. In the last seven years, I've merged all the way into him.

And he's given himself as much of me as he can, but he's held a part of himself back, too. A part that belongs to my sister. A part that loves her.

And that's  what hurts the most. We're getting married. I'm having his children. And he will never belong to me, they way I wanted to belong to him. Fully. Completely.