"Okay, seriously, what the fuck were you two doing up there? Were you banging?" Claire asked as they met in front of the Telezoft building.

Both of them laughed. "Actually no, we weren't. We were looking at clouds and having a deep, emotional conversation," Trent replied.

"You were? Jeez, fuck, I fucked that up, I must have. I'm sorry," she said, clenching her fists.

"It's fine," Bea said. "We want to help you. Were you going somewhere specific or would you like us to guide you somewhere?"

"Fucking guide me somewhere, I'm losing it," she replied.

"This way," Bea replied, immediately setting off back towards home. Trent and Claire followed and, due to Claire's walking speed, they set a pretty brisk pace.

"What's wrong?" Trent asked.

"Everything," she growled. "Fucking. Everything. And nothing."

"Did it all just become too much on a day that doesn't necessarily seem any worse than any other, but upon further reflection is actually unusual in how many small, seemingly inconsequential things have gone wrong?" Bea asked.

Claire was silent for a few seconds. "Yes!" she snapped suddenly. "Holy shit!"

"I've been there, don't worry, I can help," Bea replied.

"Thank you. I need it. I. Need. It."

"Don't worry, we'll get there."


"So where are we actually going?" Claire asked.

They'd walked back to the house quickly enough, then piled into Bea's car and jetted out of town after Trent had updated Ann and grabbed some weed.

"A relaxing place," Bea replied. "Don't worry, we're almost there."

They hadn't said much so far, Claire fuming quietly in the backseat, playing some game on her phone to try and chill herself out.

A few moments later, Bea parked in the exact same spot that he and Bea had arrived at some months ago when Bea was having her very bad day.

"Okay...so what is this place?" Claire asked, looking around as she parked.

"My spot," Bea replied, killing the engine. "Come on."

She popped the trunk as they all got out. Bea grabbed the baseball bat that was still there and held it up to Claire. "Take it."

"Uh...okay, why?" she replied, accepting it.

"Pick a tree, start wailing on it. Scream a little. Or a lot."

Claire frowned, looking down at the bat, then at Trent and Bea. "...are you fucking with me?"

"No, I'm totally serious," Bea replied. "I've done this."

"Yeah, she really did. I was here," Trent agreed.

She studied the bat for a few seconds more, then looked around the clearing, then nodded slowly. "Yeah, okay. I wanna try it."

"Go nuts," Bea replied.

The two of them sat on the very table he'd sat on when Bea had driven him out here, and where she'd sat and he'd held her while she had cried. They watched as Claire marched up to a tree, stared at it for a few moments, then took an experimental swing into it. She seemed uncertainly, then did it again, and again, and then seemed more certain.

Before long, she was shouting, cursing angrily, bashing away at the tree.

"So this is what it was like, huh?" Bea murmured.

"More or less. You were angrier, although she's close," Trent replied.

"I was wicked pissed that day."

"Yeah you were. That was an intense day."

"Shit!" Claire screamed with a resounding crack of the bat. They both watched as she stopped and simply stood there, facing away from them, shoulders rising and falling as she panted. Abruptly, she turned around and walked back over to them.

Bea hopped to her feet, and accepted the bat when she handed it to her. "Thanks," she said.

"Yep," Bea replied, moving to her car.

Trent stood and opened his arms. Claire immediately hugged him, and he hugged her back. "I don't want to date you," she murmured, "but I still want to feel loved, and I don't know if it's way overstepping my bounds to say so, but I do feel like you love me in a certain way."

"I...don't know how to respond to that," he admitted.

"You've been inside of her and you care about her enough that if she asked you to, you'd drop what you were doing and go see her. You love her as a friend. And if that's too uncomfortable you," Bea said as she walked back to rejoin them, "your friendship is a loving one."

"That sounds closer to it," Trent said. He sighed. "Sorry, I don't want to make it seem like I don't like you or anything, it's just...that word...it carries intense connotations for me."

"It's okay. Right now I'm more interested in this hugging," Claire replied. She yawned suddenly. "God, I'm tired now."

"You feel like talking?" Bea asked.

"I do, but...would I be a total bitch if I asked you to drive me back to your place? I want to talk, but like, laying down, indoors, beneath a blanket…"

"We're the ones offering the help, you're the one who wants it," Bea replied. "You want to go back to our place, we'll go back to our place."

"Yeah, come on," Trent said, readjusting and slipping an arm around her waist. She still clung to him as they headed back to Bea's car.

"It did help, though," Claire said. "You were right on that."

"Glad to hear it," Bea replied.

Trent and Claire ended up in the backseat, her laying against him, while Bea began driving them back into town.

"So...did something happen? I mean, something specific that we should be concerned about? Not that I'm not concerned about you, but I mean, like, there's levels to concern, if that makes sense?" Trent asked.

"It makes sense," she said, "and no, nothing happened. I'm not raging because someone, like, sexually assaulted me or I got mugged or something. The short answer is: it became too much to take. There's more, but that's the big of it, and I just...can't right now."

"I am deeply, intimately familiar with this feeling," Bea replied.

"We'll take care of you Claire. I think I know what you need."

She laughed. "If you think what I need is a deep dicking, then...for once, you would be right."

"Ha ha, wow. I actually wasn't gonna ask, but I'll totally fuck you."

"And we'll get you some food, and weed, and a comfortably place to be," Bea said.

"Yeah, actually…" He pulled out his phone and began texting Ann.

Would you get the couch pulled out and made up with all the extra pillows and that comforter? We ran into Claire, she really really needs comfort.

The response was quick and short: On it.

He thanked her and settled in for the ride back home.


Twenty minutes later, Trent found himself laying under a heavy comforter with Claire clinging to him, and Mae, Bea, and Ann all sitting around them. Bea and Ann were in the recliners, and Mae was sitting on what space was left on the foldout.

"This is amazing," Claire said as Mae finished lighting up their weed pipe and passed it to her. She took a few puffs on it and gave it to Trent, who took just one, then gave it back to Mae. He wanted to be clear for this. "Why are you all so nice?"

Ann laughed. "We've been through the mud and the shit and the misery, Claire. All four of us. We've been put through the wringer, hell and back, all that shit. We were shattered and put together and shattered again. We've all found each other, and we all love each other, and we learned that we're stronger together, and that the thing that really matters in this world is each other, and helping each other. That's why."

"That's amazing, Ann," Claire murmured.

"It's the truth."

"Hell yes," Bea agreed as she navigated the online menu of Taco Buck on her laptop.

"I really appreciate this. A lot. I'd be a broken mess right now without you."

"Here," Bea said, passing the laptop to Mae, who passed it to Trent and Claire. "Before you begin, put in your order."

"Oh...hey, it's been forever since I've had Taco Buck. I think. Shit, I can't even remember. But it's good. I guess last time was the night I came over here after first hooking up with Trent. God, when was that? Two months ago?"

"That was less than a month ago," Bea replied, accepting the laptop back after they'd put in their orders. "God, Mae, really? Fifteen tacos?"

"It's four twenty," Mae replied. "The day after my birthday, and it was heavy last night, and I'm getting baked. So yes, fifteen tacos."

"Whoa, what happened last night? That was your birthday," Claire said.

"Some douchebag wouldn't take no for an answer and tried to hit me."

Claire sat up. "Are you fucking serious?!"

"Yeah, don't worry, I socked him good with some brass knuckles, but...that was also an overreaction, and as much of an asshole as he was, I feel bad about it, and I'm getting off my anxiety meds now, because we think they're fucking up my emotions. But I'm okay. And this is about you. So tell us what's up."

"Are you sure? I feel bad, just crashing all your days…" Claire murmured as she settled back down.

"Don't feel bad. You need help right now, and we're here for you," Mae said.

"We're here for you, Claire," Trent agreed, running a hand up and down her arm.

"Okay...thanks. Again. I'm already getting stoned." She laughed softly. "Anyway, um. I'm so fucking stressed out. My rent got raised. So now I have to cut back even more on anything that isn't bills. Food. Gas. Medicine. Entertainment. Also known as fucking living my goddamned life. And I was already so sick of it. But it's more than that. I don't know...ever since hooking up with Trent, it's like, things I didn't give a shit about before or tolerated have become intolerable. My shitty jobs, my shitty car, my shitty apartment, my shitty life…"

"You were depressed before," Bea said. "And it had kind of forced you into a dormant state. It had beaten you down, and you'd kind of numbed yourself as a survival tactic. I...did the same thing. I think we all do it, to varying degrees."

"I was thinking something similar, but...Trent showed me what happy is again," Claire murmured.

"Oops," he said.

She giggled suddenly. "No, it was good, a good thing. But it had some unintended side effects. I was kind of hoping that it would just be simple. I'd get laid, I'd get some attention, some friendship, I'd be happier. But instead it's more like...I've been living in a room that's dark, and I knew the room was bad, but I didn't know how bad. And you came in and replaced the lightbulb, so now I can actually see how fucking bad it is. It's messy and there's mold on the walls and the window's broken and it's cold outside and there's ants everywhere...it's intolerable now, because now I know. And I'm already at the point where I don't even know how I've been tolerating this shit."

"You've been tolerating it because you haven't really had a choice," Bea said. "I know exactly how you feel, because I look back on my two year stretch at the Pickaxe and I have no fucking clue how I was banging out eighty hour weeks. But I know it was because I had to, I had no real choice beyond just walking the fuck away from my dad and also having no money."

"Yeah...only now it's, like-I still don't have a choice! It's not like I suddenly have money or some new job lined up. I just hate this. I hate everything. I've been going for fourteen fucking years now. I started with waiting tables in fucking high school, and babysitting. Then I worked in the kitchen at the Clik Clak for awhile. And then I was a secretary at the clinic. Then I was a cashier at the Food Donkey. I worked at the Park Store for awhile. Just job after job, trying to find something more tolerable or at least that paid more, but they're all about equally intolerable, just in different ways, and none of them pay much more than the rest. And I'm just...so tired. I can't even cry right now. I'm too fucking tired to cry. I'm tired in every way I can be. I'm tired physically, emotionally, mentally...my goddamned soul is tired. Exhausted."

She hugged Trent more tightly suddenly, burying her face against his chest. He hugged her back, unsure of what else to do.

He wanted to help her, just like he had before, but it was obvious that the degree of help she needed was now a lot more severe than sex or a relaxed night together eating pizza and getting a little stoned.

"I know you guys are all trying to think of something to help me," Claire murmured after a bit, "and I deeply appreciate that, but I don't want to think or talk about this anymore."

"What do you want?" Trent asked.

"A lot. Too much."

"Tell us," Mae said.

"I want to eat and chill for a bit, and then I want to be a completely selfish bitch and ask to be alone on this floor with Trent for an hour or so, then I want him to give me a full-body massage, and then I want him to go down on me, and then I want him to have sex with me. After that, I want to take a very long, very hot shower with Trent, and then I want to take a nap. Like I said: selfish," Claire murmured.

"I'm down to make that happen," Bea said. "I've been meaning to visit my dad anyway, so I could fuck off for a few hours."

"Same, I was thinking about spending some time with my mom. It could be today," Ann agreed.

"And I can definitely fuck off to the basement for, like, all of today and just play video games," Mae said.

"This would make me feel bad…" Claire murmured uncertainly. "And it all hinges on Trent."

"I would be willing to do this," Trent replied.

"Seriously?"

"Yes. Seriously."

"Why? We're not dating, we're basically never going to date. I get that you like having sex with me, but you can fuck any of these three for much less work, at least I think."

"I'm willing to because I like you, you are my friend, and I want you to feel better...and yes, because I want to fuck you," he replied. "But mostly the other reasons."

"I feel like I'm taking advantage of people who are too kind," Claire murmured uncomfortably.

"I am not too kind," Mae said. "I can make fun of you if you want."

Claire laughed. "Maybe later."

"Claire…" Bea said, leaning forward in her chair. "As someone who's been in your position, uniquely in your position, actually, given Trent's involvement, can I just say: be a little selfish. It's not taking advantage. You're asking for help, we're willing to accommodate. All of us. Just take the help, and let it be a win, because you really need it today."

Claire slowly sat up, releasing Trent, and looked around at them all. Finally, she nodded a few times. "Okay...yeah, okay. I'll accept it. I do feel like I need it. Like...need it, or I'm going to just lose my fucking mind."

"Good! Taco Buck will be here soon. Why don't we watch something? Something you want to see," Bea suggested.

"Hmm...shit, I'm not even sure what I want to see-wait. You know what? I want to see Twister. I remember that movie kicking ass in a really fun kind of way and it's been long enough that I don't remember a lot of the specifics...although I guess, do you have it?"

"It's super easy to rent stuff digitally from Amazon now," Trent replied as Mae passed him back the laptop. He fired it up and tracked down the movie. "Yeah! We can rent it for four bucks."

"Would you be cool with that?"

"Yes, I'd be completely cool with spending four bucks and an hour and a half with you," Trent replied. "Get comfortable."

"Here, don't get up," Bea said, standing and reaching for the laptop. "I'll get it set up."

"Thanks," he replied, passing it to her, then he got settled with Claire beneath the comforter.