Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. The fictional band Degenerate Matter, their albums Vagabondage, Ultrarelativistic, WIMPs and MACHOs, Frozen Stars, and all the lyrics contained therein copyright to the author of this story (username: MistyMountainHop, maker of Those '70s Comics).

CHAPTER 49
CONSERVATION OF ENERGY

March 18, 1995

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Hyde and Ro's House
…

Hyde and Jackie got an early start on the day: a breakfast of French toast in the kitchen, a stealthy escape through the back door of his house, and a quick get-away in his Camaro. Tabloid journalists surrounded the front of his property at the legal distance. Half a dozen security guards were on patrol, but greed was a powerful motivator. To earn their payout, those journalists would risk arrest or an ass-kicking.

They didn't get what they were after. The back of Hyde's property was well-hidden from spying eyes, and Jackie kept her head down as the Camaro sped from the garage. A few blurry pictures of Hyde driving his car solo wouldn't sell.

Jackie sat up when he gave her the okay. "How did they know?" she said. "Does everyone in Minneapolis have a paparazzo's phone number?"

"The message board," he said. "Tabloids stalk Degenerate Matter's website." He'd e-mailed the administrator last night. Told her to delete any post talking about recent O. MacNeil sightings, but she was too late. "Fans blabbed about what happened at The Mainroom."

The paparazzi didn't chase his car, but during the first hour of the drive, he checked the rearview mirror obsessively. Jackie did her best to calm him, putting forth theories about how others might deal with his situation. Her imitation of Forman as a celebrity had him laughing hard enough to ease up on the gas pedal for safety's sake.

He finally put tabloids and fame out of his head when they reached Lake Superior. "We're close to straddling Minnesota and Wisconsin right about now," he said.

"Have you ever swum in Lake Superior?" she said.

"If I ever want to freeze my 'nads off, I'll consider it." He shivered, imagining the cold infiltrating his body. "Swimming in thirty-degree water? No, thanks."

To warm himself up, he thought of wood-burning fires, a sun-soaked beach, a mug of Mrs. Forman's hot cocoa. Lake Superior eventually shrank from view, and they arrived at the Forsythia Nature Conservancy. It was a huge park with hiking trails, a nature center, a pond for canoeing, and a lot more than could be experienced in a day.

He and Jackie went inside the Nature Center building first, which was full of parents, kids, and exhibit banners. They paid the entry fee at the admission counter, and Jackie studied the park map they were given. "Could we start with the spring flower garden?" she said.

"Don't have to ask," he said. "It's your choice"

"But I don't want you to be bored. Remember when Donna and Eric went to that arboretum? They both hated it but pretended like they loved it."

"Of course they hated it, man. They were teenagers."

"Oh, God, are you saying we've become fuddy-duddies? That traipsing through daffodils is as much excitement as we can handle?"

He covered his mouth with his fist, muffling a burst of chuckles. "Why are you burning us?"

"I'm not doing it on purpose. I just don't understand you."

"Me?" He took the map from her and mentally marked their path. "What's not to understand?"

"Maybe it's myself I don't understand," she said, and a toddler dropped a stuffed toy bunny by her feet. Jackie picked it up and handed it back with a kind, "Here you go." The little boy smiled shyly before running back to the admission line and his mom.

"I think you don't completely understand yourself," he said, drawing an annoyed look from her, "but what are you getting at?"

She led the way out of the Nature Center without answering. A breeze swept through the surrounding trees, agitating their branches, making the air frigid. The sky was a clear blue, and he hoped it stayed that way into the evening. Otherwise, his plans for tonight would be shot.

The Forsythia pond was close to the Nature Center, and they passed by it. A dad and his two sons were already canoeing on the water. A few people were in line to join them, and Jackie's attention seemed to glide across the pond. "The water's so smooth," she said.

"Ripples are moving out from the canoe."

Her gaze stayed on the pond. "Is it easy for you to be with me?"

The question sent ripples through his skin, but he answered truthfully. "Yup."

"Even when I have my 'moments'?"

"I've got mine, too. We're getting through 'em together fine."

Their path curved from the pond. She kept her view forward, as if his face were the last place she wanted to look. "It's so easy to be with you," she said. "That's what I don't understand. With everyone else, even Betsy, I'm not my full self. But with you—" she finally graced him with her eyes—"I'm me."

Locks of hair peeked out from her burgundy winter hat. She curled one around her gloved finger and sniffed it. "Still smells like dye." Her hair unraveled and fell from her grip. "Normally, my body feels like an ill-fitting costume, hiding my mangled soul. When I leave you, it will again, but for now I feel right. Like I'm how I'm supposed to be." She grasped his gloved hand and stopped them from walking. "Am I deluding myself?"

"If you're feelin' right, then you're feelin' right." It was a simple response, less than she probably needed to hear, and it didn't represent all his thoughts. He never felt fully like himself either, except with Forman. He had to hide who he truly was out of necessity and obligation. Out of respect for other people's limits. "But, man, I want you to take that feeling home with you," he said. "Anyone worth a damn—worth letting into your inner circle—would be happy you're bein' real with them."

She let go of his hand, and they started walking the path again. "Donna seems to."

"There ya go."

"Brooke might, too."

"She would."

"Except—" she shivered, as if shaking cold water off her body—"except for what happened with Michael. She thinks we just slept together that night. She doesn't know what he did to me. I couldn't do that to her or Betsy."

The path forked in two directions. One led to the spring flower garden, the other to a hilly hiking trail. Hyde knew what direction to go, but he checked the map to buy himself time. He had to filter through a hundred bad responses, but he settled on saying, "Triage," and pointed down the left-hand path.

"Triage," she repeated.

"You made Kelso's relationship with his kid the priority."

She nodded, pressing her lips together. "I feel horrible saying it, but having his brains beaten in changed him for the better … eventually, after he joined A.A. If I'd added rape to his list of crimes, Brooke never would've let him see Betsy again. I told Donna not to tell her. And I'm assuming you still haven't."

The breeze seemed to grow icy at her statement. He glanced at the shuddering treetops then scrubbed his hand over his face. "Shit … shit."

"What?" she said. "What's wrong?"

"Brooke should've known what Kelso did. She should've known in '79, but I..." had made that impossible by putting Kelso into a coma. Hyde could've told her later, before they'd gotten together, but that might've led to a revelation about his own crime. Then Brooke wouldn't have have let him support her and Betsy through the fallout. First, do no harm. That was what he'd tried to do. Fixing his unforgivable choices with lousy ones, but he couldn't go back and change them. He pressed his gloved palms into his eyes. "Shit."

Gentle fingers landed on his arm. "Steven, we don't have to go there."

His wool gloves were wet when he lowered them from his eyes. He had so much he needed to explain, owed her the goddamn truth.

"Stay with me," she said and tugged on his scarf. "You're who you are now, and I'm who I am, and that's all that matters today."

Heat seared his chest. He expected that kind of talk from Ro. Had been saved by it, but hearing embrace-the-moment rhetoric from Jackie reconfirmed his intentions. Keeping the truth a secret was aiding her transformation. Telling her what he'd done to Kelso would only do harm.

"I'm with you," he said, and he'd do his best to stay.

Jackie skipped along the garden trail, causing locks of her hair to fly out behind her. The cable-knit beanie she wore didn't conceal it all. Brunette strands fluttered in her peripheral vision, spinning giddy thoughts through her mind. She was becoming more herself; and, whoever that was, she didn't hate her. If she could hold onto that feeling, maybe it would guide her to a better future.

She brushed her gloved hand over a golden forsythia shrub. Her view of the garden was perfect. Blue scilla and yellow-trumpeted daffodils lined the trail, but Steven had his hair up in his Milwaukee Brewers cap. His russet waves would've gone well with the colors on display and warmed his ears. She got in front of him and skipped backward. "Do you remember," she said, "when I used to pester you to cut your hair short?"

"Compared to what I got now, you had it good."

"Your hair was so shaggy—and almost blond. What happened to it?"

"Guess Edna's genes took over," he said with a shrug. "Angie's got some red in her hair, too, so maybe it's a combo from both sides of the family. This a question you've been dyin' to ask me?"

She covered her mouth to hide her grin, and her gloved fingers smelled fragrant, like a flower she'd never smelled before. It had to be the forsythia. She turned around and walked properly next to Steven. "Sniff," she said, bringing her hand toward his face.

"I'll do it without a dirty joke only 'cause it's you." He inhaled through his nose; his exhaled breath tickled a sliver of her wrist, a part not covered by her coat sleeve. "Not bad. Kind of like wisteria."

"You know what wisteria smells like?"

"During one of the band's tours in Italy, me and Ro went on another kind of tour. Saw a bunch of old houses, and one had wisteria climbing up the walls."

Ro's name hurled the giddy euphoria from Jackie's system. She behaved like an adult from then on, eschewing any youthful silliness. Steven didn't seem to notice her change in attitude, though. They returned to the Nature Center, where they went to a special exhibit on rabbits and hares. At the end, the animal care specialists brought out bunnies and leverets, and children were invited to pet them.

Steven tried to interact with Jackie throughout the show. But every time he did, her chest tightened. Her brain remained present, but her heart chugged along, shredding emotions in its rusty machinery.

By lunch, her appetite was non-existent. The Nature Center's cafeteria had a good selection of food, but she stuck to salad. She also stuck to non-personal conversation topics. They discussed politics, like Bob Dole's stance on gun control and how long Mississippi took to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment. Steven was as impassioned as ever about the government, but her feelings had all but vanished.

She tried to snap herself out of her funk. This would be her last day alone with him in a long time. She couldn't afford to waste a second of it, but she hardly spoke at all when they canoed on the pond. Her back was to him, and he seemed happy enough paddling away, being in nature. She should have been, too. It was an opportunity to connect deeper with herself and with him.

"Hey, check it out," he said near the west end of the pond. "A beaver."

A water-slicked beaver was swimming in the shallows. It had a stick in its mouth, and it headed toward a mound of dirt and twigs.

"I've only seen beavers in cartoons," Jackie said, and he chuckled. "And you're laughing why?"

"Sorry. This park is makin' my mind go to naughty places."

"Oh, God." She splashed water at him with her paddle.

"That's more like it."

"More like what."

"You," he said. "Don't know what happened in the garden, why you shut down. But if and when you want to talk about it, I'll listen."

Her breath caught as emotion flooded back into her. She'd assumed ignorance on his part, but he'd simply been giving her space. "Later," she said and willed the stinging in her eyes to stop. "Can I ask you about one of your songs?"

"Go for it."

"'Point of No Return'. Is it a metaphor for alcohol abuse? That fan at The Mainroom thought it was."

"Not intentionally." He steered the canoe away from the shallows. "But I don't want to screw up people's interpretations of my lyrics, so I try to keep their meaning to myself."

"Will you ever tell me what it means?"

"If you tell me what the lyrics mean to you, sure."

She gripped her paddle until her knuckles went white. Letting him in that far would do her no good, not when he couldn't stay there.

"You can't hold the meaning hostage," she said and paddled faster. "You'd have to go first. For once, you'd have to go fucking first."

When he didn't respond, she focused on paddling, on the splish of the blade cutting through water. But his silence threatened to drown her in madness.

She brought the paddle inside the canoe and turned around on the bow seat. He kept his paddle in the water but didn't move it. His expression was unreadable, at least to her, and fear prickled the back of her neck. She could handle his anger, but indifference to her demand would be unforgivable.

"You don't know what I'm talking about," she said. "That's fine. It was a mistake anyway. Almost sixteen years ago, a teenager's relationship." Her soul felt worse than mangled as she spoke; it was evaporating. "I warned you I'm a screwed-up mess."

"No more than me," he said as their canoe drifted in the pond. "What we've got now, it's not what we had before."

"I know."

"We're not who we were, man."

She squeezed the shaft of her paddle. "I'm the one who's always telling you that."

"Jackie, what I'm sayin' is, I'll go first. When the time's right, I'll tell you." He gripped the bill of his cap. It was shading his eyes, but he turned the cap around. Some of his hair came loose and framed his face. "Haven't told anyone, but I'll tell you."

"Anyone but Ro. She must—" She stopped talking at the shake of his head. "Not even Ro knows?"

"She has her own interpretation for all of my lyrics. Lets her sing 'em from her place, not mine."

That made sense, but a strange kind of dissatisfaction took hold of her. "Don't tell me the meaning out of guilt. Or because Ro won't hear it. Or because you want 'someone' to know. Tell me because it's me you want to tell."

"Will do," he said, too casually for her mood. She turned back around and stuck her paddle into the water.

They joined an hour-long birding tour after they finished canoeing. They shared a pair of binoculars, and Jackie had an easy time spotting waxwings, sparrows, and wrens. Steven, however, claimed to see nothing but branches. His frustration was amusing, even when he insisted they go to the front of the tour group. He wanted to get a jump on the birds, he said, to catch them a second after the tour guide did.

His strategy didn't help, except when a blue jay flew across the path. But he missed the yellow warbler, the common yellowthroat, and the red-winged blackbird. She teased him afterward, during their drive to the Edgewater Bar and Grill, but her comments about his observational skills weren't meant to sting.

"Are we going back to Minneapolis after this?" she said inside the restaurant.

They'd both ordered soft tacos, only his were filled with an herb-marinated skirt steak, and she'd chosen the spicy chicken. She needed a more substantial meal than salad. Having a full stomach would help her stay grounded and stabilize her mood.

He swallowed a bite of his taco. "Not unless you're sick of hangin' out with me."

"The opposite. I don't want to go home, Steven. When'll we ever spend time like this together again?"

"Like I told you last night, we'll make it happen."

"Even though I've been a pain in the ass today?"

"You haven't," he said, and her breath shortened at the presence in his eyes. "I might suck at observing birds, but you I get." His thumb swept over her wrist when her gaze faltered. "I get you, Jackie, okay? Our time apart doesn't mean our history together got chucked into outer space. I hold myself accountable for what I did."

He sipped his water before continuing. "And I don't want you to go either, but I've got business in Milwaukee the next few days. You'd be bored out of your skull."

"Won't Ro get suspicious of our friendship?" The skin of her wrist sparked where he'd touched it. She imagined scribbling over the area with a red marker. "I'd be jealous if my fiancé spent time with an ex."

"She spends a hell of a lot more time with her ex than I do mine."

"That's not an answer."

"I don't give her a reason to be suspicious." A glob of sour cream fell from his taco. It hit his chin on the way to his plate, and he wiped the residue off with his napkin. "Got any guesses where we're goin' next?"

"None."

He gave no hints until they were done eating. They went outside to the restaurant's parking lot, and he patted the Camaro's trunk. "The key to our next destination is inside here."

"Is it a dead body?" she said. "Because I don't like those fake murder-mysteries that take place on a train or anywhere."

"This has nothin' to do with death," he said, with an edge of seriousness. "It's about new life and new civilizations."

She groaned. "Not a Star Trek convention!"

"That's right, man. I've turned into Forman."

He gestured at the car, indicating they should get into it, and ten minutes later they arrived at the Duluth campus of the University of Minnesota. He parked his Camaro at the Marshall W. Alworth Planetarium. A dozen or so other cars were parked, there, too.

"You brought a telescope?" Jackie said outside the Camaro. Steven had pulled a familiarly-shaped padded case, along with a tripod, from the trunk. "We're going stargazing?"

"Bought this after our night in Rochester Hills. I write enough songs about the stars you'd think I'd have a freakin' telescope, but Ro hates astronomy."

"But she writes space imagery, too."

"When she's pissed." He passed the tripod to her. It wasn't too heavy, and he nodded toward the roof of the planetarium. He told her how the university held public stargazing events every weekend, that Ro's dad had given him brochures about them. "Ro ripped up the first, but I saved the second, just in case I got this chance with you. Figured you'd like it."

"I do. I mean, I'm sure I will." She peered up at the sky, at the waning gibbous moon. Its light would compete with the stars', but the lack of clouds eased her worries. It meant stars would be visible.

A thousand thank-yous twinkled in her mind as she and Steven entered the planetarium. They were directed where to go by an usher, and they took seats under the planetarium dome. An astronomy professor welcomed them to the university's Starwatch event. He also gave a twenty-minute presentation about a star's life cycle, accompanied by dazzling graphics projected onto the dome above.

"That's as close we'll get to seeing a supernova or a nebula," Jackie whispered after the presentation. She and Steven were climbing stairs to the planetarium's observation deck, with the professor and the other attendees.

"In space, yeah," Steven said. "But some people are walking supernovas, and others are nebulae."

"You just can't stop writing lyrics, can you?"

"Those aren't lyrics."

"They sound lyrical to me," she said, but they'd reached the roof. A cold wind gusted at them, and she leaned her head on his shoulder for a moment. "I'm only teasing."

"I got that," he said. "But maybe I'll get some inspiration for actual lyrics tonight."

The observation deck was outfitted with a large, university-grade telescope at the center. Two smaller telescopes were placed near the roof's edge. Some of the attendees had their own, and Steven set up his. It must have cost him at least five-hundred dollars.

"You went all-out," she said.

"You know what they say, man: the bigger the telescope, the bigger the di—" He cut himself off. "Dirty mind's acting up again. I'm like a five-year-old."

"So am I. The professor has the biggest 'telescope' of all," and as if Jackie's words were a cue, the professor began talking about the telescope's optics.

Steven whispered in Jackie's ear: "Are you imagining the weirdo things I'm imagining?"

"Sadly, yes."

She reached for his hand, and their gloved fingers laced together. Whenever the professor said something that shouldn't have been hilarious, they squeezed each other's palms. It kept them from laughing.

Soon, attendees lined up to use the large telescope, and the professor explained what galaxies and stars they could expect to see. Steven, though, carried his telescope to an unpopulated part of the observation deck. He gave Jackie the first view, and she spotted the Lynx constellation. She stepped back so he could look through the telescope himself, and they followed the professor's guidance to find the constellations Cancer, Canis Minor, and Puppis, among others.

"Unfortunately, we can't see Antares this time of year," Jackie said. "It's too far south."

"What about your star?" Steven said. "Spica?"

Delight shot around her heart like a comet, but he'd always had an impressive memory. Remembering that detail couldn't have any true significance. "We're about a three months early."

"What about mine? Arctic or somethin'?"

"Arcturus..." She stared at his back as he searched the sky with the telescope. Her gaze drifted upward, but the stars were too bright. She shut her eyes, and the stars burned inside her, whispering secrets about herself she didn't want to hear. "Easiest way to find Spica is to find Arcturus first," she said quietly.

"So we're three months early for that one, too?" he said.

"Mm-hmm." Her teeth threatened to chatter, so she clamped her mouth shut. A deep freeze had taken hold of her body, despite that the wind was calmer. She'd associated Steven with Arcturus since before they ever dated. The star was in the Herdsman constellation, a man smoking a pipe. She'd imagined the pipe full of weed, not tobacco, and in high school, she used to draw the Herdsman in her notebooks. She drew Virgo, too, which contained Spica, and she'd connected her star to Steven's with a path of hearts.

He gestured at her while peering through the telescope. "Think I found Vela, man. Want to take a look?"

"No. I'm done."

He faced her. "You don't want to check out the prof's giant telescope?"

"If you want to, I'll wait."

"I've got my own, thanks." He was smirking, being cute, and her stomach clenched. She shouldn't have eaten a full dinner. Bile was rising in her throat.

"Let's just go, okay?"

"Yeah, sure."

He packed up his telescope and tripod, and they left the rest of the stargazers on the roof. They found his Camaro in the parking area, and he put the telescope and tripod into the trunk. They had a long drive ahead of them, but the sickness growing inside her vomited up an embarrassing, messy truth: "I'll never do anything great with my life."

He slammed the trunk closed and leaned his butt against it. "You already have."

She waved at him dismissively. "Please. Pam Macy has a talk show. Donna's an incredible rock journalist. Even Jimmy Headgear has a great career. He became a stand-up comic, ended up on The Tonight Show, and now has his own sitcom on NBC."

"Fuck him."

"No, thank you."

"That's not what I mean. Who gives a shit about him? He's an asshole."

Jackie sat on the lawn lining the parking area. Rocks and pebbles were strewn in the grass, but she didn't care. If she could've gotten into a bathroom, she would've written her sickness on her arms, but that wasn't possible without causing suspicion.

"This is why I've been moody today," she said. "Whenever you mention Ro, I can't help but think..." Her throat thickened painfully. She swallowed a few times, but her voice shrank anyway. "This will sound awful, but I always thought I'd be something special. Part of an elite crowd of celebrities who 'regular folk' couldn't befriend. Because regular people can't understand what it's like to be special."

She hugged her bent legs close to her chest and buried her face in her knees.. "I'm mediocre. Maybe less than mediocre."

"Your values suck," he said, and warmth enveloped her side. He'd sat nest to her on the grass. "I don't buy into all this elitism bull. Never have."

"Easy for you to say. You are one of those people. You're a rock star, for God's sake."

"That label doesn't apply to me."

"Whatever." She laid her cheek on her knee and peeked at him with one eye. "You're someone others are naturally drawn to. It's not like you have to do anything. It's just who you are, who you've become. People wait hours in the middle of the night just to shake your hand after a concert."

"Not me. Ro. Lee, Sherry, and Nate. But not me."

"You, too. I was there with you at The Mainroom. You say a few words to your fans, and it makes their life. Yet they're still hungry for more of you, starving for you."

"Like flies swarming a turd."

She sat up properly and pointed to the stars. Her finger traced the Big Dipper, and she found Polaris. "That's you," she said. "A star so bright others pale in comparison. Your light shines on us, and we gaze at you to take in as much as we can."

"I'm no star, Jackie. I'm just me. Flawed and fucked up as anyone else."

A smile twisted her lips. She was only half sure of what she was feeling, and she was trying to figure it out, saying whatever came to mind, hoping the truth would untangle itself from the garbage.

"What?" he said but blew a breath out his nose. "Screw it." He picked up a rock from the lawn. It was speckled with dirt. "This is what I am. Any light people see, they're puttin' it there themselves." When she didn't answer, he dropped the rock and gestured to the moon. "That's a chunk of cratered rock, too. It only glows 'cause of the sun. Without the sun, it'd be dark."

"You're not the moon." She snatched a jagged stone by her feet. "And despite your love of rocks, you're not one of these either. You never were, and your protestations to the contrary won't change what's real." Her thumb ran over a sharp edge of the stone. "We're opposites, Steven. When I was young, I believed—truly believed—I was important."

She gripped the stone in her fist. Maybe if she squeezed it hard enough, she'd bleed. "My mom would tell me of my importance all the time. But God, or whatever the hell made us, has constantly tried to teach me I'm not significant … and I get it now. I get it."

She continued squeezing the stone. Steven said nothing, but he was listening. His eyes were on her, alert and compassionate, and they drew more of her sickness out.

"I just am," she said. "This life, my life is irrelevant. I've squandered certain benefits I was given—I mean, look at me!" She pinched her stomach through her coat. "I don't understand why I exist! What purpose do I serve? I haven't made the world better, but is that even a worthwhile accomplishment? I don't know. And if I never existed, how would anything be different?

"It wouldn't be. I don't matter ... and yet I'm here. Like this rock." She opened her fingers. They hurt from clutching the stone so tightly.

"You ever think," he said and plucked the stone from her palm, "that while you're gazin' at the stars, aching to be one of them, that the stars might be gazing down at you? Aching to be you?"

She wrapped her arms around her legs again, rested her chin on her knees. "Why would they?"

"If I make a list, you'll find a way to refute everything I say."

"You're starting to know me well."

"Just by havin' empathy—especially after all the crap people have loaded on you—you're already greater than every damn, narcissistic celebrity-nobody out there."

"Empathy! Who needs empathy?"

"You do. For yourself."

"Hah." She glanced back at the planetarium. Its double doors had whooshed open, and Starwatch attendees were leaving through them. "The only empathy I've given myself so far has been through you. Even my therapist has said that. You carve out pieces of your soul to help others, put them into lyrics."

He scratched his cheek, his jawline. "I write those lyrics for me. Others getting benefit from 'em is cool, but that has little to do with my intentions." His heat left her side, but he hadn't. He was kneeling in front of her now, on the concrete of the parking area. "You don't have to affect a lot of people to be significant, Jackie. You're significant to me. You fucking matter to me, and if you didn't exist, I'd be..."

"Better off," she said.

"Dead." He stood up and slapped his jeans to get the dirt off his hands. "Not a metaphor. If I didn't have you in my skull, if I didn't have you here—" he pounded the center of his chest—"the slow suicide I was committing would've gone a lot faster. You kept me alive," he said, voice hoarse, and he pulled a stick of gum from his pocket. "You still are."

"Me?" She cupped her forehead as the University of Minnesota spun around her. He might as well have given her a manual to the universe, one that contradicted all the known rules.

"Not fair to tell you that." He popped the gum into his mouth. "'Specially when I've barely got a handle on what it means, but it's the truth."

She reached toward him, needed his help to stand. He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. "How?" she said and clutched his coat. "Me? How—?" she repeated as her dizziness intensified.

"By being you. Guess we're both blind to ourselves." He held her in his arms with an intimacy she wasn't used to. More than friendly but not romantic. Not lustful. Simply intimate. "You don't see your light, but I do. And I'm gonna trust what you said about mine is the real deal, even if it's not the whole deal."

Her eyes closed, and she allowed herself to relax against him. Tires crunched on the pavement as her dizziness abated. Cars were pulling out of the parking area. People were going home, as she'd have to tomorrow. But in Steven's arms, she felt safer than she did in her house—and finally, remarkably, significant.