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, the song "Point of No Return," "Cosmic Rays," and all the lyrics contained therein copyright to the author of this story (username: MistyMountainHop, maker of Those '70s Comics).

Author's Note: Trigger warning for the first section of this chapter, but it contains a vital part of the story.

CHAPTER 57
POINT OF NO RETURN

April 6, 1995

Paradise, Nevada

Edna's House
 …

Jackie scooted backward on the travertine floor to give Steven room. He stepped off the spiral staircase and sat in front of her, but no part of his body touched hers. That was probably best, and she clasped her hands tightly on her lap, bracing herself for whatever he might reveal about "Point of No Return".

"Not exactly sure how to get into this." He pushed his long, wavy hair from his face. "Haven't spoken any of this shit out loud."

"Just start with the first lyric," she said.

He arched an eyebrow. "Might ruin the song for you."

The adrenaline hornets in her stomach grew butterfly wings. He had a face she longed to kiss. Even in his vulnerability and fear, he managed to be protective of her, but he was also stalling. "Learning the truth won't change what the song means for me."

"Could change what it means to me." He rolled his shoulders, angled his head to one side as if stretching his neck. "But it's better to start with the first part of the chorus. We'll be hopping through the song, pretty much."

"Whatever you need to do." She offered an encouraging smile, even as her breaths grew short. His lyrics were full of an empathy she still desperately needed, and "Point of No Return" was a particularly important song to her.

"All right. Here goes." He cleared his throat and sang softly, "Entered my room with booze and trust..."

Her fingertips dug into the back of her hands. She hadn't expected him to sing, and the peach walls and cherrywood furniture of Edna's living room faded into nothingness.

"You remember what I told you about my first time havin' sex?" he said.

She did. He'd told her over sixteen years ago, in his room at the Formans'. Puberty hit him during the summer between seventh and eighth grade. His voice had broken, and he'd grown sideburns. Not thick ones like his uncle Chet but visible enough.

"You convinced a senior from Sacred Heart you were in eleventh grade," she said, "until you two were actually having sex. Then she said—what was it?—something like, 'Too much stopping and starting. You're screwing like an eighth-grade virgin.'"

He rubbed his jaw and glanced away. "Man, you do remember."

"I also remember that you told her you were in eighth grade." She laughed, but the sound came out strangled. The lyrics of "Point of No Return" couldn't be about that moment in his life. He'd already shared it with her. "What does this have to do with the song?"

"That wasn't my first time being fucked."

"Wait, you lied?"

"Nope, no. Back when I told you about it, I thought she was the first. The stopping and starting on top of her—" he inhaled a noisy breath through his nose—"damn it. There's no good way to talk about this, Jackie."

"It doesn't have to be good. It just has to happen."

He dragged in another breath through his nose. His eyes fell shut, and when he next spoke, his voice was barely audible. "Edna."

"Edna?" Her mind encapsulated the name in amber. "'Entered my room with booze and trust...'" Montilla Rum, Absolut Vodka, Korbel Brandy. Those were the liquor bottles Jackie had emptied earlier, along with Bombay Sapphire Gin and … "Four Roses Bourbon," she said and recited lyrics from the songs first verse: "'Body out of my control, taken over by friction and your Four Roses.'"

His mom … Jackie didn't want to say what had happened, didn't want to think about it, but Steven's eyes were open, and so were hers.

"I was twelve." His gaze dropped to his fingers, and they slid under the leg cuff of his jeans. "I was sleeping, but she sat on the edge of my bed and woke me up. I was pissed. She was supposed to be out with one of my 'uncles,' but she'd brought a can of Coke and a bottle of Four Roses to my room with two shot glasses. Said I was old enough to have my first drink."

His hand twisted beneath the leg of his jeans. Jackie's heart beat so hard it physically hurt, but she wouldn't leave him.

"Figured the Coke was for me," he continued, "but she mixed it with the booze and gave me my first shot. She drank hers straight. Mine didn't taste half bad, but it burned the back of my throat. Got used to that by the third shot. Was wasted by the sixth.

"Thought I was bein' tough by drinking. Thought Edna was trying to freakin' bond, but..." He pulled his right hand from his jeans and pressed his thumb into the palm of his left hand. He did this for over a minute.

"She got on top of you," Jackie said for him.

He shook his head slowly. "Held me down. Had no idea what was happening until … second half of the chorus."

She ran through the lyrics mentally: "Swallowed me whole with both pairs of lips. Sucked out my joy; turned it into shit."

"'Both pair of lips,'" she repeated out loud, and the image it conjured put her on that bed with him. "'Arms and legs can't move under the weight of you.'"

"Worst part of that night, man … it wasn't even her fuckin' me. It was—" His jaw clenched, and his temple pulsed. His eyes were seething with an emotion Dale Fischer had bestowed on her over a decade ago.

"Coming," she said. "The worst part was coming."

He looked at her helplessly, but the truth was in his face.

"Because she was your mom," she said. "She was your mom, and you'd never choose her to do that with. To feel that because of her."

Her pulse beat a frantic rhythm through her blood. The more she spoke, the more she was revealing about herself. But the line of demarcation between her own experience and his was clear, and she wouldn't cross it.

"Nothing's wrong with you because your body responded. It was a biological response." She was repeating what her therapist had told her. "It's just like your song says, your body was overcome by friction. You didn't come because you liked what she was doing to you."

"Fucking hated it." He scrubbed his hand over his face until his cheeks and forehead were red. "Puked all over my sheets when she left my room. Heard myself groaning 'til I passed out. Woke up late the next morning, smelling my own vomit. Rolled away from it and crashed to the floor. Whole damn body was throbbing with a hangover. Could barely think, had no clue if what happened after the shots had actually happened, or if I'd been dreaming.

"Edna said zip at breakfast about the night before, not even the booze. She acted like she hadn't blown me … goddamn raped me, and it was easier to believe she hadn't. So I did." He shifted his position on the floor, and his boots scraped against the travertine tile. "She got to me again when I was sleepin'. More than once. It became a recurring nightmare, and that's all I believed it was, a screwed-up dream."

His index finger tapped his forehead. "Brain blocked out a lot, but she stopped when I got to high school, pretty sure. Somethin' shifted in her. Maybe seein' me everyday where she worked did it. Don't really care. Alls I know is when I started ninth grade, I felt the difference here—" he punched his stomach less than gently—"despite the nightmares. Kept havin' those, and she kept hittin' me, said a bunch of messed-up shit. But it was easier to be in denial about the worst of it once it was over."

Jackie's whole being felt dense and insubstantial at the same time. She was trembling, but she hadn't gone numb. "You used to groan in your sleep," she said, aching to touch him. To offer some kind of physical comfort, but after such a confession, he likely didn't want to be touched. "You gave me a safe place those two weeks at the Formans'," safe and chaste, "after my parents made me an orphan. I had no idea how unsafe you were in your sleep."

He crossed his arms in front of himself and patted his biceps "Havin' you here let me sleep. Moving in with the Formans did, too, but not always. Smokin' pot, the same. Half the time it was Insomnia City. That was an improvement. Sleepin' at home freshman and sophomore year, all nightmares or not happening. I'd cut class and find somewhere to catch a few decent Zs."

Music played faintly in her head. Then words accompanied it, Steven's words as sung by Ro: "Insomnia, my old loyal friend, the one who won't leave my side. It watches with me in my mis'ry, on guard against the end of day." The song was "Cosmic Rays," off Degenerate Matter's second album.

"A-sleep, a-sleep, don't come to me. Just want to be alone tonight. In my bed, in my bed where the sheets are never clean, I can't lie down with both eyes closed." That was the first part of the main verse. The second part went, "A-sleep, a-sleep, you're my nightmare. Need to escape the bad mem'ry. In my head, in my head where the dreams are never clean, I can't live with the lies I've told." They were repeated throughout the song, with the bridge as the main difference except …

The last time the verses were sung, the meaning changed. "Asleep! Asleep—don't come to me! Just want to be alone tonight. In my bed, in my bed where the sheets are never clean, I can't lie down with both eyes closed!" He wasn't writing about sleep being his tormentor but his mother. "Asleep! Asleep, you're my nightmare! Need to escape the bad mem'ry! In my head, in my head where the dreams are finally clean, I can live with the lies I've told."

"'Cosmic Rays,'" she whispered, awed by what he'd been able to capture in his lyrics. By what he'd lived with so long without a soul knowing, despite it being on a rock album owned by millions of people. "How—when did you realize it wasn't all just a dream?"

"When Edna showed up in '82, lookin' for dough," he said. "The third day—the twenty-grand day—she'd boozed up hard. I was still working at the record store. Tried to get her out of my office. Had to physically usher her to the door, and that's when she grabbed my crotch." He shifted positions on the floor again, as if to shake the memory from his body. "She said it'd be worth payin' her twenty thousand. 'Cause it was either that, or she'd tell everyone I used to fuck her."

Nausea soured Jackie's stomach, and she covered her mouth. "That's disgusting," she said behind her fingers. "She's disgusting."

"No argument, but her admitting what she'd done returned some of my sanity. I told Leo to call the cops, and she spouted crap I remembered from my dreams." He massaged the area between his shoulder and neck. His voice was steadier than before, stronger. "Over the next few days, my memories came back, like a switch had been turned on. Not all the details, but I got enough to trust what happened. Helped me understand myself better."

"And what happened to Edna?"

"She wouldn't quit harassin' me, so I got a restraining order against her."

"Thank God. " Jackie flinched. "Not because she harassed you, but—"

"I get what you mean." He stood up and stretched like he'd woken from a nap. He offered his hand to her. She took it, and he helped her to her feet. "She never went through with her threats, either. In fact, I never heard from her again. And before you ask, filing criminal charges against her wasn't a road I wanted to go down."

"I understand." She tried to communicate the breadth that understanding through her tone. "I truly do."

He nodded, his belief in her words obvious. He also didn't ask her to explain further, but his skin paled, and his features went slack. "Hell..." He leaned against the center pole of the spiral staircase, like he had trouble remaining upright.

"What?" she said and gripped his arm. "What's wrong?"

"Can't believe I shared all that." He laughed quietly, and color returned to his cheeks. "Didn't think I ever would."

Her wobbly legs supported her, but she had no strength left to fight her sorrow. "Thank you," she said, pressing her wrist to her eyes. Her skin became wet, but she wouldn't lose herself in tears. He still needed her. "Thank you for trusting me."

He pushed himself from the spiral staircase. "Back atcha."

She gave him a once-over, from his Doc Marten boots to the top of his head. She inspected the living room visually, too, from the scuffed bureau nearby to the chenille sofa close to the fireplace. "You shouldn't have come here," she said. "You should've thrown a party celebrating her death rather than clean out her garbage."

"Had to do this," he said.

"Why?" She hugged herself to keep from shivering, to respect his space by not hugging him. "When my dad died, life as I knew it ended. That's why it left me staring into the nothing. Your mom's death doesn't change your life except for the better."

"It's catalyzed a fuckin' cascade of loss." He moved past her and stopped at the card table. She followed, and he pointed at the table's green felt. "Everything I do is a gamble, only I'm not bargaining with chips but with people. Life as I know it is gonna end soon." He flattened his hand on the felt. "Coming here confirmed it, let me see where the chips would fall."

"No," she said, and gooseflesh rose on her arms. She pulled his hand from the table and clutched it at the center of her chest. He couldn't give into his addiction, self-destruct. "If the tabloids are too much for you, go somewhere you won't be recognized. Or let me find you a good therapist. Or keep talking to me, but you can't start drinking again."

"Drinking?" His fingers slid into the gaps between hers, and they held her hand tightly. "It's not about drinking. Man. … Jackie, ever since I lost you, I knew whatever else was important to me would go to shit, too. Had a winning streak the last few years, but it's over. Edna's death is my snake eyes."

"You didn't lose me." She stared unflinchingly into his eyes. "You left me."

His fingers became limp in her hand. She should've bitten off her tongue and swallowed it. He was under so much stress, and she'd just poured more into his leaky boat. Thousands of apologies tangled in her throat, but his got out first: "I'm sorry I didn't stay."

Hyde kept apologizing to Jackie in his skull for leaving her in Chicago with Kelso. For stranding her in Point Place. For surrendering to the rage he'd carried most of his life instead of choosing his love for her. But none of it came out his mouth.

"That's it. We're getting out of this tomb," Jackie said. Whatever anger she felt about their previous relationship, it had seemingly gone dormant. "I'm assuming your rental truck has four-wheel drive?"

It did. It was a '93 Chevy Silverado, and she demanded his keys. A quick stop back at their hotel let her gather road maps of Nevada, a pair of Maglite flashlights, her wool coat, and the notebook he'd given her for Christmas.

"My emergency plan to pull you from hell," she said outside their hotel rooms. Her smile was both mischievous and knowing, and it dissipated the pressure in his chest. She hadn't run off on him, hadn't pushed him away. She was forging a path through his underworld to get him out.

From the Tropicana, they drove to what had to be Vegas's largest telescope shop. She dropped two-thousand dollars, cash, on a nine-and-a-quarter inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope.

He gaped at the wad of dough she'd taken from her purse, but back in the truck she said, "Credit cards give away identities. My name's been associated with yours too much in the press. That baseball cap you're wearing won't protect you from a disreputable cashier who wants extra spending money."

"Man, it's not safe to keep that kind of dough on ya," he said. "Especially here. You could've been mugged by some down-on-his luck gambler."

"When? I've been with you the whole time except for four minutes, and I left the money in Edna's house when I got rid of the empty bottles."

She had a point—and plenty of forethought. She let him rifle through her notebook as she drove them to their next destination, a deli half-a-mile away. Written on the front pages were locations in Nevada and directions to supplement the maps. He flipped to the back, and a grin ghosted over his heart. She'd put down lyrics for the demo he'd given her. Just two lines, but they were a start.

Stargazer, ever think the stars
 Are gazing down at you?

He didn't mention the lyrics, in case he wasn't meant to see them. But he recalled saying similar words to her in Duluth, outside the Marshall W. Alworth Planetarium.

At the deli, his gaze lingered on the drink aisle. It had a decent selection of beer.

"Steven," Jackie said, and the crackling of a plastic scratched at his ear drums. Someone the next aisle over had to be handling a bag of chips. It was too loud, and his impulse was to ditch the place. He pulled the bill of his Yankees hat low, just above his eyes. His fists clenched at his sides, but Jackie's warm fingers slid over his left knuckles.

"Thoughts don't have to become actions," she said. "Make a different choice."

His fists unclenched, and he grasped her hand. Holding it reminded him of who he'd become, who he still ached to be, and he turned his back on the beer. In the end, they bought two six-packs of bottled water and two sandwiches apiece.

"What do you need me to do?" he said when their drive to the Nevada desert began in earnest.

"Read the map and the driving directions I wrote down. Navigate."

He had little to navigate. Most of the drive to Alkali consisted of staying on the highway, but three minutes in, she said, "This is going to be a long drive. Tell me what you need from me: to stay quiet? To talk about what happened—or about anything but that?"

His throat threatened to close up, but he forced himself to remain open. "I need you to feel okay bein' around me."

"What you shared doesn't change who you are to me." She glanced at him before returning her attention to the road. "You're Steven, not what Edna did to you."

"But it's got to mean something to you." The six-packs of water were stacked between his seat and Jackie's. He tore a bottle free to soothe his tightening throat. "Must've had some kind of effect."

"Of course it does, but I don't want my own feelings to overwhelm yours. So I'm doing my best to rein them in. It's safer that way all around, considering I'm the one driving." She peered up at the rearview mirror to check the traffic or, maybe, his reflection. "But since you're wondering, all the stages of grief are colliding through me at once."

"I know how that goes." He swallowed a sip of water. It wasn't carbonated, but his stomach reacted as if it were full of fizzy bubbles. Jackie's words were affecting him on a visceral level, but he had no resources to deal with the feelings. His mind was at max capacity. "Speaking of goes," he said, "where are we goin' exactly?"

"Alkali. You saw what I wrote down."

"Need somethin' more specific."

"If the guidebook I read on Nevada is worth the money I spent on it, we're going to a place that should reconnect you back to the present. To the universe."

Three hours later, they were deep in the Nevada desert, at an altitude of five-thousand feet. Jackie parked the truck near the Alkali Hot Springs, a site both enshrouded by darkness and domed with more stars than Hyde had ever seen.

Jackie took the lead outside, wearing her wool coat. The bright streak of their galaxy shone overhead, and she didn't cling to him like she had in Michigan. He stayed close to her though, carrying her newly bought telescope in its box.

Walking on the hard-packed desert sand wasn't difficult, but they didn't stray far from the truck. They were in a secluded part of Alkali. The frequently visited hot springs—and anyone who could help them out of trouble—were a quarter-mile away.

He shone both flashlights while Jackie set up the telescope, but he'd stared into the nothing with his naked eyes. They needed to stare into everything on their own.

"Telescope later," he said and removed his denim jacket. The air had definite a chill, but he rolled up the jacket and passed it to her.

"Steven, it's getting colder by the second—"

The temperature would drop to thirty degrees, according to the weather report, but being cold was worth it. "You can use it as a pillow."

"For what?"

"To see the full sky, man. Freakin' look at where we are." A tingle agitated his whole body, full of sensation, not numbness. Jackie had taken him to center of the cosmos. "Check it out with me."

She shoved his jacket at him. "Put it back on. I can get sand in my hair. It's fine."

"Or you could use me," he said, and she gripped the telescope tripod. He had one of the flashlights trained on her, shining it below her neck. When she didn't reply, he said, "Or we could forget it."

"No, I'd love to." She sucked in a breath. "I mean, I'd be comfortable, but—but what about you?"

"Wouldn't have offered otherwise." He passed her his flashlight and put his jacket back on. His skin burned at the recovered warmth. "Yeah, it's gettin' chilly."

She tutted and pointed both flashlights at the ground. A spiderweb of cracks covered the dessert floor. "If you hear scuttling or rattling, get up and run."

"Alls I hear is the wind."

"Let's hope it stays that way." She gestured with the flashlights. "After you."

He lay down on the sand. It was hard and cold, and he laced his fingers behind his head for cushioning. The weight of Jackie's head settled onto his chest. The click of the flashlights followed, and the only light now came from space, from the waning crescent moon and thousands of stars.

"This … this is crazy," she said. "It's like Earth's disappeared and we're floating through the universe."

"You've never seen the sky like this?"

"Never."

"Me, neither. Kind of overwhelming."

"Kind of?" She laughed, and her head bounced a little on his chest. "I spent two-thousand dollars for nothing."

"I'll reimburse ya."

"Don't you dare. I'll get use of that telescope someday."

Neither of them spoke after that. The Earth turned, and the position of the stars shifted subtly. Hyde tried to absorb the sight—the awe of it—into his being, but his core was frozen and dying. His thoughts turned to Ro, her embrace of life. His place in her cosmos should have heated him up, but her light wasn't enough for him to live by. His own … it had to be his own.

Jackie raised her arm. It was a shadow against the sky, and it traced over constellations. "Cassiopeia's right above us," she said, "and Andromeda's below her. Can you see them?"

He could, but he didn't want to talk. He managed an, "Mm," and she continued to point out constellations.

"Orion's under the moon. Lepus is below him—oh, and Canis Major is next to Lepus! Except his head's cut off by the Earth. There must be..." She began counting softly under her breath. "There must be over thirty constellations visible. Can you find Perseus? It's pretty big. Looks like..."

She went on, and he listened, but he was collapsing under his own gravity. Growing smaller, more dense.

"I never thought I'd see our galaxy this way," she said. "I can feel it … my place in it. Like you say in 'Point of No Return,' I can feel my place in everything." The shadow of her hand grabbed at a star, and she laughed. "I'm not high. I swear I'm not, but when I was a kid, stargazing with my dad, it filled me with this barely-contained excitement Like my life was full of possibilities."

Her weight left his chest, and her silhouette blocked hundreds of stars from view. "What are you seeing?" she said. "I won't leave you behind, Steven. What do you see when you look out there?"

"No fucking control." The words were a growl, but her silhouette didn't flinch. His whole damn life had been about a lack of control. Bud splitting on him. Edna abusing him. Falling in love with a girl he never believed he could keep. Letting the girl he loved more than his own life get raped. Losing control of himself … "You shouldn't be here, man. You should've told me to fuck off when I called you."

Her hand landed on his chest. "I almost did, but I couldn't. Not after everything you've done for me."

"It's not enough." He removed one of his hands from beneath his head. His arm was heavy and stiff from being in one position so long, and he shook it out before touching the back of her ungloved fingers. "But I can't give you more. This is all I got."

"I don't need more." The shadow of her head moved toward the sky. "Those stars were something else once. Nothing really dies; it just gets transformed." She hooked her fingers over his, and her voice wavered. "I'm grateful for what we have, Steven. I'm grateful you came back into my life." She pressed their entwined hands into his chest. "You still don't understand how generous you are, do you?"

"Do you get how goddamn brave you are?" Silence answered him. "You drove three hours into the desert, in a state you've never been to, with me as your navigator. If that's not bravery, man..."

She disentangled their hands from each other. "That's not what you mean."

"It's part of it." He propped himself up on his elbows and tried to make out Jackie's face, but the night obscured her features. "Listen, you've got permission to ask me anything about what I told you today. You've got to process it as much as me. It's heavy crap—and that permission extends beyond tonight. A week or a month down the line, you got a question, ask me."

"The 'stopping and starting' with that girl from Sacred Heart," she said, as if the question had been on her mind all along. "You never did that with me. Why with her?"

He cleared his throat to dissuade it from tightening. "Had flashbacks. Nothin' concrete. More like a feeling of Edna all over me. It was subtle, but it messed with my head. Had to keep stopping to make sure I wasn't with her."

"That's exactly what it was like with Ralph—Scotty," she said, somewhat breathlessly. "The memories contained in my skin, my nerve-endings, put someone else into my head. It was never good ... although not being in love with Ralph didn't help."

"Yeah..." He tried and failed to find her eyes. Stars outlined the shape of her body, and he focused on those. "Why'd you get hitched to him anyway?"

"A failed attempt to rebuild my life into something worthwhile." Her silhouette moved, and different stars defined her physical boundaries until she disappeared from view. Her hair tickled his cheek. She'd lain down beside him on the sand, and he lay back again, too.

The shadow of her hand traced over the constellation Cepheus, the knocked-over house. "That was my marriage," she said. "I hope yours will be better."

"Won't get hitched unless I've got a real shot at making it work. Sick of feelin' powerless." A chill set into his shoulders. The admission had escaped his subconscious. He hoped Jackie chalked it up to a general feeling and not Ro-specific. His relationship with Ro was a war zone, a place Jackie didn't belong.

"I'm sick of it, too." She inched closer to him, enough that their arms touched. "God, why do we always feel like this? Like we can't do anything to stop from being hurt?"

"'Cause we've already been hurt, and we're afraid of that shit happening again. Of losin' what we love—who we love."

A choked whimper shot into the night. He remembered that sound. Jackie was trying not to cry.

"It's—it's all about choices," she said. "Risking the worst for a chance at something better. I mean, look at our galaxy, Steven. Our lives have as many possibilities as the Milky Way has stars. We just have to choose differently, choose better. To believe we deserve it, and..."

Her voice was trembling. "There's a theory that a black hole lies at the center of our galaxy, holding it together. That's us. Our darkness keeps us from wanting to hurt others. From making people feel as helpless as we've felt."

He stared at the bright streak of the Milky Way. Its light was finally absorbing into him. The more Jackie spoke, the warmer he felt … but it wasn't just warmth. It was heat.

"All you can do is love people the best you can," she said, and her sobs became obvious. "It doesn't mean sacrificing yourself in the process—and, God, I can't stop crying!" A thunk echoed in the air, like she'd slapped the ground. "But it's okay. Being vulnerable is okay. It's a kind of strength. My therapist tells me that all the time. You showed me that today … and I'm babbling and blubbering like a baby."

Despite her claim, she sounded nothing like a baby. His gaze fixed on Procyon, one of the brightest stars in the sky. Heat pierced the center of his forehead. It blazed down his neck and into his chest, and he began to shake. His insides were burning like Procyon, emitting their own heat and light.

"Holy hell," he mumbled. One after another, possibilities opened up to him, escape routes, roads to better places. He couldn't track them all, but they spread over his consciousness like the Milky Way above, like the light brightening at his core.

Jackie's silhouette appeared in front of him again. "I can drive us back. Just give me a minute to pull myself together—"

"Not ready to go." He patted his chest audibly. "If you're comfortable enough with the idea..."

"I won't make this about me. You're still staring into the nothing. I haven't gotten you out."

"You got me out."

She huffed out a breath. "Steven, don't protect me. I couldn't do it. You trusted me, and I couldn't do it."

He sat up, and blood rushed from his skull. He closed his eyes until the lightheadedness passed. "Turn on one of the flashlights," he said. "Aim it at my face."

She did as he said. He squinted at the brightness, and she aimed the flashlight a little lower. "You look … why do you look happy?"

"'Cause you got me out." He gestured to his face for emphasis, as a signal he wasn't bullshitting her. She shut off the flashlight, and her arms glided around his back hesitantly. "Hey," he said, "you don't have to hug—"

She snuggled deeply into him. Her head tucked itself beneath his chin, and he held onto her tightly. He was still shaking, and she must've been shaking, too, because her back vibrated beneath his fingers.

"You're so damn strong," she said into his neck. "You've gotten through so much. You'll get through this."

He pressed his lips to the top of her head. For the first time in his life, he wasn't divided but whole. He had no expectation the feeling would last, but a profound change had occurred within him tonight.

He'd reignited.