This chapter is a look deep into Lucy's thoughts.

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Some nights they still went out in the truck to lay under the stars in the canyon, but most nights if they were both home they laid out in the hammock and talked, got high sometimes. They talked about a future, about where they would go once she finished school. It seemed still so far away and she was still on him about his GED, but they were seriously talking about leaving one day.

As they laid there, he held her hand in his and contemplated life as he knew it. He'd put down the meth again, surprisingly easy for him this time, but he knew if he ever picked up again it would be all over. That was a drug he liked a lot and for a long time he didn't miss it, but eventually, he would and even he knew that.

Still, he did want to be a better man for her and he tried. At night under the stars with her, it felt like they could do it. The world didn't understand a relationship like theirs, but the world didn't have to, they understood each other. They always had.

/

At night in the hammock some nights they smoked together, he was fine if it was just pot and Lucy liked to tease him about corrupting her. Deep down he knew it was true too, but she wasn't angry about it, she was happy, they were happy. Laughing with her as the sun went down most nights gave him perspective for a time, meth was just a way to make money now.

"Want a shotgun?"

Lucy laughed, "Sure, hit me."

"Come'ere," He sat up a little and turned her around so that she was straddled across his lap facing him as he held the joint between his teeth, and settled her close to him. The hammock rocked slowly as she looked down at him, and he ran his hands over her hips, "Mmmm that's better," He pulled her down and kissed her quickly, running his teeth over her lower lip. Lucy put her forehead to his and looked into his eyes as his hands ran up and down her hips.

Lucy had seen a shotgun done before but never had it done to her and she watched as he took a long pull and held the smoke in. She expected that he was just going to blow the smoke in her face to let her inhale it but he didn't. He exhaled then got incredibly close to her, "Ready," and waited for her to nod her head that she was ready. His face and more importantly, his lips were right next to hers and he looked into her eyes, unblinking, blue on green and took another hit.

"Open your mouth." He said, and his voice was deep and full of hot fire now.
She waited expecting him to now blow it at her but he didn't. He just opened his mouth and let the smoke seep out from his mouth into hers slowly. It was possibly the most erotic thing she had ever been involved in. Then he kissed her, nice and slow, pushing her lips apart and invading her mouth with his tongue. He tossed the roach into the dirt below them and pulled her down on top of him.

/

"No one but a woman in love ever sees
the maximum of men's greatness."

Anis Nin

/

The change happened insidiously and later Lucy would think; how did she not see it coming? She wasn't stupid and she knew what she was getting into with him, you cant make a leopard change its spots; she knew that. But he had been good for so long, they had been happy, still were, mostly. She didn't want Mac to be anyone but himself, that was who she loved, but he was different, edgy like when they were teenagers. Just like he was before they lived together, before she was there all the time.

But it happened so slowly, over time and she hadn't seen it coming or read the signs.

He didn't come home sometimes and she didn't want to think of where he might be, cooking in the caves if she was lucky, if not, well she hoped he wasn't cheating. And if he was, what would she do about it? She had accepted it early in their relationship and so did he think it was OK now? And was it OK? It had been before, because he always treated her like, what did Walter always say? The queen of his life and she was.

Or was he using too much again, the way he did when she went home for the winter, that was always a possibility? As she swung in the hammock alone in their backyard and looked up at the sky she contemplated, she wondered if she would leave him. She was always his priority, when he was around, and they needed each other. She knew the answer before she even asked herself that, she would not leave him. She had read a book once and knew there was a name for women like her, co-dependent, enabler. People went to meetings for that, and she wondered if maybe she wasn't doing either of them any favors by doing nothing.

And what exactly was she upset about? Because maybe sometimes she suspected he fucked other women? He had done that their entire relationship. It was too late to get mad now.

She had accepted that from the jump as long as she was always his priority and to Mac's credit, that was always so and she never doubted his feelings for her.

Lucy had thought when she moved in with him that it would stop and for a while, it seemed like it did. She was there full time with him, fucking him every day if he wanted and it had stopped, she was sure it had stopped, at least for a while.

But then she heard things around town and at the bar, and he acted so strangely sometimes. Still, he was like her addiction, if a person could become addicted to another, surely he was the needle in her arm, and she needed that fix just as badly as he did.

That sensuality that to her emitted from him like a drug was the reason she had never had another lover but Mac. She never even thought about it; from that first time in his truck listening to Bruce she had been his and only his. But he had not been only hers, maybe his heart belonged to her alone, that was what he always said. But she knew all along she was the only faithful partner in this relationship. It was a deal she had been eager to strike when she was sixteen and not so worldly.

Lucy was grown now, older and she hoped wiser, and she wanted more. There was no one to talk about it with, she couldn't tell her mother. Sheila would be on the next plane with her holy water and an exorcist to get her away from Mac if she knew. She and Carolina were tight, but it was an uncomfortable topic for most people and she didn't want people knowing about something they could never understand.

He was her blood first, in such a small family that was an unbreakable bond. Loving him was the only thing she knew how to do, for better or worse just like a marriage.

/

Mac had been good for three years, a personal record in his mind. He had stayed off the hard drugs as much as he could and he went home to her every night. They lived together from the time she was twenty and now she was twenty-three; it had been mostly good times. They fought just like other couples, loud, especially when he was using which was more and more lately. There was no point in hiding it, she knew and it was easier to not have to hide his drugs in the truck.

Lucy could deal with it, she knew how to keep out of his way. But if he was snorting meth he always wanted to fuck her when he came home. She'd be asleep and suddenly he'd be crawling on top of her all hands and lips, and she rarely resisted him. She loved him.

A life without him never crossed her mind, and it never crossed his either.

This was what she had wanted for as long as she could remember, him, with all his issues. This was what she had signed up for and he was her soulmate, she had known it all her life. Sometimes she didn't like him very much though. Things were good for a while, a long while, but then she noticed old familiar behavior.

It didn't matter, she would never leave him, no matter what and he knew it.

/