"Are we sure about this?" Trent murmured as he studied the flyer.

"One hundred percent," Bea replied. "Are you not?"

"I'm...this feels like a vacation, is all."

"Trent...love of my life, just trust me. You need this. I need this. Mae needs this. The fact that we managed to successfully drag her away from her gamer dungeon actually worries me. She's been marathoning for three fucking days straight. Like fifteen hours a day. And this is directly going to help us out," Bea replied firmly.

"She's right," Ann said.

"Okay, okay," Trent replied. "Do we got all of them?"

"Yep!" Mae called. "This is so cool! Fucking road trip!"

Trent laughed and then passed the flyer back as the gas pump let out its thump, indicating it was done. He returned it and winced slightly at the price. Almost sixty bucks to fill up his Jeep. Oh well.

"Okay, everyone get in, if we're sure we've got them all."

"We've got them. Three hundred flyers for the book signing. Three hundred for the concert. Three hundred for Gasmask," Bea replied.

"Still can't believe that's gonna be a thing," Trent said as they all got in.

"I know! It's so cool!" Mae yelled.

After speaking with Lucy about it, she had in turn mentioned the situation to Lori, who had posited the idea of premiering her movie somewhere and giving them the proceeds from the tickets. Everyone thought that was a killer idea and they'd rushed to get it set up, ultimately renting out the old two-screen movie theater that was still technically owned by a retired couple who kept it up in their spare time and rented it out on the extremely limited occasions people wanted it.

It had been a very busy few days as they'd gotten everything ready. He'd written four short stories and, as of last night, a novella. They were all definitely rush jobs and he was burning out hard, but they were selling.

As of last night, they had managed to breach the forty thousand dollar line.

Definitely a slow down, but when they'd checked the GoFundMe and the website they were selling his works and now Bea's EP through, they saw that they'd made another grand while they were sleeping. It seemed that the vast, invisible forces and currents that flowed through the internet were finally beginning to catch after they'd cast wide their nets with Tabby's, Jackie's, and a few other people's help.

"Okay, what's the itinerary we decided on?" Trent asked.

"Okay, okay, first is Hunwick. Then Briddle. Then Brush Valley. And finally Stantontown. Then we circle back here," Ann replied.

"We're sure about excluding Mulvey?" Trent asked.

"Yes," all three of them replied immediately.

"Wow, jeez, okay."

"It's a really bad town. Like, really dangerous," Ann replied.

"Yeah. It's a real horror show over there," Mae agreed.

"Well, okay then. No Mulvey. Altogether, I think we can get through the first three places today, and get a hotel in Brush Valley. Then wake up tomorrow morning and hit Stantontown and then come back home," Trent said.

"I dunno, Jackie gave us a lot of places to hit…" Bea murmured.

"We can do it if we go hard," Trent replied.

Mae snorted. "You said hard."

He sighed softly and started up the Jeep, then pulled out into the street and began driving for the highway. "It's gonna be a long trip," he muttered.

"Oh don't fucking bullshit like you aren't gonna love going on a roadtrip with your three girlfriends who can take turns giving you road head," Bea replied.

"Well, Mae can't," Trent said.

"Why!?" Mae demanded.

"I don't think you can safely manage it with how short you are, babe."

"Aw fuck you!" she snapped, then paused, then smiled. "Actually...I can do that. I can fuck you. In the back. While Bea or Ann drives."

"I mean...yeah that's true," Trent replied.

"Drive, boyfriend!" Mae declared.

"Onward," Trent agreed, and fired up a song.

"Oh fuck what is this!?" Mae demanded.

"It's called Killing Me Inside by DJ Toxic and it's fucking fire," Trent replied.

"Holy shit yes it is! Turn it up!" Mae screamed, and Trent turned it up.

"Okay, okay, I've got one," Trent said.

"Shoot," Bea replied.

"Anyone know the name John Carmack?"

"No," Ann said.

"Same," Bea replied.

"Um...it rings a bell," Mae said after a moment. "I know he's got something to do with video games, but...beyond that, no."

"He's one of the men most directly responsible for Doom. Arguably he was the most necessary person on the very tiny team that made the game."

"Did he write the story?" Bea asked.

Trent laughed. "Ah...no. Actually he was kind of against having a story in games. He said 'Story in games is like story in porn: it should be there but it's not that big a deal'. He later changed that opinion in favor of story, I think. But anyway, he made the engine. Not just made the engine, he literally invented, by himself, entire new ways of thinking and video game designing. There was this book someone wrote about the founding of id Software, uh...what was it called...Masters of Doom! That's what it was. I gotta get a copy and you all should read it, it's actually really compelling. Anyway, I'm getting off topic."

He cleared his throat and then checked the signage. They were close Hunwick now. "Okay, so. Carmack was kind of a savant who was happy to be locked in a room all day every day with a computer, some Diet Coke, and a pizza. Like, he fucking loved pizza."

"I mean who doesn't?" Mae replied.

"Right. So once they got successful and got settled in Texas in 1995, Carmack would order out for a medium pepperoni pizza from a local Domino's. Like almost every single day. And he quickly became so regular that they always had the same person deliver it to him. This continued for fifteen years. And not only that, but they actually continued to charge him 1995 prices even up to 2010."

"...what the fuck, seriously?" Bea asked.

"All right, I love you sweetheart, but that sounds like bullshit," Ann said.

"I'm serious!" Trent replied.

"I know, I believe that you believe you're telling the truth, I just think you read something that someone was bullshitting about it," she said.

"No! I'm serious! Check fucking Wikipedia!"

"Such a super serious source," Bea muttered.

"Okay, I know it's not perfect, but is there some reason everyone shits on Wikipedia? Like they have people who more or less dedicate their fucking lives to ensuring everything on there is accurate. Like I get that people can throw up the most random bullshit on there, because it's open-source, but that stuff gets fixed almost immediately," Trent said.

"...okay, yeah, you have a point," Bea admitted. "I guess I just got used to hearing people rip on it."

"Hold on…" Ann muttered as she got her phone out. "I'm gonna check it." A few moments passed. She let out a low whistle. "Well, son of a bitch, you're right. It's right there. Sorry I doubted you. It just kind of sounds like BS, but I guess not. Okay, cool trivia."

"Thank you," Trent replied. "Hey, there's the exit."

"How do we wanna do this?" Mae muttered, staring at the map of the city they'd drawn up. "There's like seven spots."

"Four of them are all along Main Street," Trent replied. "I figured maybe we could split up? You and Ann go on foot, hit all those four, me and Bea drive around to the other three and meet you at the fourth one?"

"Sounds good to me," Mae said.

"Yeah, I'm down. Been forever since I've been to Hunwick. It's kinda nice, like a bigger Possum Springs, but not too big, like Briddle," Ann agreed.

"Perfect. Bea?" he asked.

"Yeah, that works for me," she replied, but he felt just the tiniest hint of tension in her voice.

He reconsidered it all very briefly, but ultimately gave up and decided to stick to the plan. He didn't even want to take the first step down the road of avoiding Bea or avoiding being alone with her because things might be a little awkward. The past few days had been basically normal. Or, well, as normal as they could, given the circumstances.

Trent parked when he found a spot close to their first stop, wished Mae and Ann good luck, then resumed driving. As they began making for their first destination, the silence that remained inside the Jeep quickly became uncomfortable.

Trent decided to approach the problem like he did all others lately: head on.

"Okay, what's wrong?" he asked.

Bea jumped and turned to look at him. "Uh…" She hesitated. "I guess I shouldn't try to bullshit you that nothing's wrong. Um. I still feel bad about our fight, only that's not it. I was pretty much moving on, and then yesterday I was having a little break with Ann, and we were talking about it, because, you know, she's older and has more experience with this stuff, and…"

"And what?" he pressed.

"Don't be mad at her, okay?"

"I'm not going to be mad at Ann," Trent replied.

"Okay...I had to kind of pry it out of her, but...she told me you were worried I might leave you over the fight."

He sighed. "It was just a paranoid-"

"I know," she said. "I know, we covered it. But it's been on my mind ever since. I just keep thinking about it. It's made me question some things. Like...there's so many relationship problems I hear about and read about and I've been finding myself thinking 'I'm so glad I never need to deal with this', but now I'm questioning that, at least a little. And, all right, I will admit that some of this is I just feel bad for putting the idea in your head that I'm going to leave you. The idea that I made you experience that fear is just...I feel really bad."

"Bea-"

"I know," she said. "I know. It was a paranoid, passing thought. I know. And I'm not blaming you for having it, and I'm not saying that I think you blame me. What really got me thinking was: why would you have that paranoid thought? I'll admit to thinking that our relationship was so strong that you would never feel that fear, never wonder in a moment of emotional turmoil: will she leave me? And I was going to write it off as, nobody's perfect, everyone has crazy thoughts, especially in emotionally intense situations, it's just what people do. Everyone does it."

"...but?" he asked cautiously.

She sighed. "But. I always chase threads. Always. I can't stop myself, even as much as I want to. And so I kept asking: why? Why would he think that? And then I just made the connection: abandonment issues." She looked at him as she said. He said nothing. "Oh. Shit. I was right."

"I didn't say a thing," Trent replied.

"You didn't have to. I...I'm beginning to wonder if maybe Mae's abilities are bleeding over, just a little, into the rest of us. Like radiation? I don't know, I could just tell. That you thought about the same thing." She hesitated. "Oh God, babe, I'm sorry."

"I don't want to go down this road," Trent replied.

"I think maybe we have to."

"I literally was just thinking about this during the fight, this exact thing, and I absolutely refuse to use my own trauma as emotional manipulation. I'm not going to tell you, or Mae, or Ann, or anyone that if we get into a fight or you yell at me or slam doors then you're intentionally activating my past trauma because that would fucked up."

"I don't think it's that simple, Trent." He began say something, but no words were forthcoming and instead he just let out an inarticulate grumble. He saw their first destination, a coffee shop, and pulled into the parking lot.

"We need to talk about this," Bea persisted.

"I don't know what to say," he admitted after a moment.

"I know. That's part of the reason we need to talk about it. But this isn't fair, Trent. It isn't fair to you. Okay? You've dealt with so fucking much since you moved here, and I'm not even talking about the cult shit and getting shot. I mean from us. Yes, you agreed to date each of us, and have us live with you, you agreed to take on that emotional and personal responsibility. But that doesn't mean we can just dump everything on you and say 'you asked for this'. And yes, I know that you've had problems, and you've reached out, and we've helped you. It's just...it still feels kind of imbalanced to me. But, even putting that aside...we're supposed to watch out for each other. I mean, if you were allergic to onions, would you say 'oh hey don't worry, just keep putting onions in any meal you want, I won't try to make you stop feeding me onions because that's emotional manipulation'?"

"...okay, that's a good point," he muttered. Then he sighed. "Let's, uh, put these flyers up on the board. I feel weird just sitting out here."

"Fine," Bea said.

She did actually have a valid point, though. Maybe it wasn't either/or. Or, more significantly, maybe it didn't have to be. Or, even better, it shouldn't be. He sure wouldn't put ultimatums like that on anyone else, especially Mae, Bea, or Ann. They headed inside, had a quick exchange with the woman behind the counter to which she happily gave them consent to post their flyers, then they posted them and headed back outside. Trent felt kind of bad for not buying something as a way of thanks, but he didn't really like coffee and also they were trying to save money.

"Okay," he said as they began driving to their next destination, "you have a point."

"I do," she agreed. "I absolutely am right and have a point."

"I knew you'd meet me halfway."

She snorted. "Shut up, smartass. I think this is coming from a place of...okay, this is going to sound bad, but I don't mean it as an accusation, but a place of you not taking mental illness or mental trauma seriously. And again, I'm not accusing you of it, it's something we all do, especially in relation to ourselves. You'll trip over your own two feet to help us deal with our own mental trauma, but you basically tell yourself to man up and get the fuck over it the moment you have a problem."

"I...can't help it," he muttered. "It's just been hammered into me from the beginning. It's part of my DNA."

"I know, and honestly, I get it. I mean...well, it's become clear to me that I'll never truly understand it at the level you do, simply for the fact that I'm a woman and I was raised a woman, but I do understand. So I'm going to say that it isn't unreasonable to ask that we others in the household take your own personal mental trauma into consideration."

He sighed heavily. "I hate this," he muttered. "I hate that we have to take these things into consideration now. I hate that I now have to ask 'how would I deal with it if I had a panic attack in any fucking given situation', and now I'm asking you to consider my own trauma in all conversations going forward because I know what that looks like, Bea. It looks like walking on eggshells. It looks exactly like me, considering every single fucking sentence that I spoke to or around my father, wondering if it was going to set him the fuck off, and I fucking refuse to have you three live like that around me."

"That's not what's happening here, Trent," Bea said, her voice adamant and resolute. "Look, there's the next one. Park, and then turn off the engine and don't get out. This is getting too serious and I'm not leaving the car until we're done."

He sighed but did as she asked.

"Okay, Trent. What you're describing-that's not how it's going to end up. That isn't what it's going to look like. At all. And do you know how I know? Because I went through the same thing. With Mae. I was an utter fucking shithead to her after she came back, and I knew that calling her stupid and questioning her intelligence bothered her. But I did it anyway, because I was angry and petty. Now? Now I have to check myself sometimes, because I know that jokes about her intelligence bug her. And what does that look like? It doesn't look like walking on eggshells around Mae every hour of every day, okay? It just looks like how our interactions always look, only now with a little more consideration. I mean, ninety nine percent of the shit we talk about won't even be related to this? How often do you think we'll be tempted to scream at you?" she asked.

Trent was pursing his lips, gripping the steering wheel, staring at a dead bug splattered on the windshield and not really seeing it.

"You...again have a good point," he admitted. Another moment of silence passed as he turned that over and around in his head. "Okay, yeah. I admit defeat."

Bea sighed softly. "I'm not trying to defeat you, Trent, I'm trying to build a bridge with you, meet in the middle."

"I know, I'm sorry," he said, looking over at her now, "poor wording. I hear you and you have a valid point, is what I'm saying. It's just really hard to ask for things, or to admit that I need help. Even now, after everything that's happened...sorry about that."

"Fuck's sake, Trent," Bea whispered and suddenly undid her seatbelt, leaned over, and hugged him tightly. "It's not your fault. Goddamnit." They held each other for a moment before Bea seemed to reach for control and then leaned back. She took a deep breath and let it out. "Let me just say the last thing on my mind. I think we should be aiming towards a zero screaming household anyway, Trent. I think that we can all live with each other, and have disputes without screaming or slamming doors. I mean, I think it's not impossible.

"More to the point, I think we can learn how to argue safely. We have disputes, we can get into arguments, we can get angry with each other without freaking the fuck out. That is possible. I'm not saying I'll never get pissed at you, I'm not saying I'll never need to walk out of the room and just get my shit together for five minutes, I'm not saying we're all going to be perfect and never argue, but I think we can be mature about it when we have disputes. It'll take time, we'll have to figure out how to do it, continue learning each other, figuring out each other's strengths and weaknesses and blind spots, but we've come so far already. We can keep going. And if we fuck up, we can forgive each other and move on...does that sound good?"

"That sounds great to me," Trent replied. "And I hear you, and I think you're right...do you feel better?"

"Yes," she murmured. "Do you?"

"I do, actually."

"Good." She took his hand. "I really do love you. Like...so much." She laughed suddenly. "I never really got all those stories of people doing the dumbest shit for love, girls putting up with the stupidest shit for their boyfriends, but...I get it now. I mean, not to say that I'm putting up with dumb shit from you, but...I would. And I'm only telling you because I trust you. But I can tell that it would take a lot, like a lot to make me walk away from you. I love you like those epic love poems."

"I feel the same way about you," he said.

"You must have so much love in you, because you feel the same way about Mae and Ann, too. I can see it in how you treat them. And I know they're just like me. They're absolutely stupid over you. You could make us do the dumbest shit and we'd do it."

"That's a lot of power," he murmured.

"And a lot of responsibility," Bea replied.

"Yep. Apparently I'm good at managing relationships, though, so yay for me."

"Yay for all of us," Bea said. "Now, shall we?"

"We shall."

They got out and went to post their next set of flyers.