I am seven years old and the world outside is dark and midnight is cold around me and there are fireflies in the air and I think maybe they’re really fairies and maybe if I close my eyes I can fly with them and be weightless and beautiful and away from the screaming inside. Inside there is fire and burning and screams that never end and are never replaced with smiles and giggles. I hear growls and pleas that go far far far far far all the way down to the core. It always starts with Him waking up. Not from sleep, though. He never sleeps. He always wakes up and his eyes are mirrors and his voice is the cold sharp edge of a razor blade. She is always crouching or hiding somewhere. She is constantly on the edge and she can’t see the bottom so she’s so afraid of what’s down there. Sometimes He comes up behind her and taunts her and she creeps a little closer to it until little pieces of earth and blackness break off into the abyss and she shouts out hurried pleas. He laughs and it isn’t good and happy and warm it’s like his eyes and his hard strong hands that only leave bruises on parts that people can’t see. Sometimes I’m at the edge with her running back and forth between them striving urging them to stop to please stop don’t you love me? But sometimes I give up because their eyes are focused solely on each other and themselves, reflected in the other’s eyes. So now I’m chasing stars and moonflakes and fireflies. The air is light and calming outside in the hills of upstate New York. I hear breaking glass and the sound of burning from inside. I run as fast as I can but it’s too late and something’s got me and it’s big and black and scary and I wanna go home to somewhere that isn’t really home but feels like people say home should really feel like. I’m running out of air. It’s covering me and I can’t see or breathe or think about anything but the hurt the hurt the fucking hurt. And the moonlight ignores my cries.

I’m awake and confused and my eyes are bleary. I breathe hard and try to remember where I am. I’m sick of the fucking dreams. I hear guitar riffs and heavy beats and screams that shake me to my very depths. Then I remember everything and look over to the driver’s seat and see him sitting there thrashing his head and screaming along. But even now in this wild primal state he is so beautiful and gentle and I could stare at him like this forever and I’d be pretty fucking content. He sees me with his peripheral vision and turns and gives me a smile. He twists a knob and the volume goes down.

“Did I wake you?” He asks and it seems like he actually cares and he’s not just saying something to avoid a potential awkward silence not that we would have one anyway I don’t think.

“No,” I say neglecting to tell him about the dream but I think he knows about it anyway. I look out the window but the moon and stars must be in bed too cause there’s a blanket of clouds over them. There are no skyscrapers and lights and sounds and anger to block the night sky here, at least. I think of the junkie wasteland we left two days ago and smile that I’m out of there. I get a pang of guilt that goes all the way down for what I left behind. Cold dead emptiness on a silver platter in a dark room with a tag on the toe. There is nothing left in it. I think of what may become of the body and I want to cry so I look over at Trent and the feeling slowly evaporates into his sweaty hair and olive skin.

He makes music, he told me. And after he told me when we stopped at a gas station yesterday to buy a pack of Marlboro Red’s with some of the money we brought with us, I realized I had known from the moment I saw him. He makes music with every movement every blink every word every glance. He makes music that is sorrowful and joyful and that spirals out from him like he’s a rock falling into a pond and the pond is the universe. It circles out from him and infects me and it’s the only infection I have ever been so fucking thankful to have. He had asked me what I do and I told him I do nothing. He had said I bet you can do anything and I had blushed like a twelve year old girl.

I reach for the pack of cigarettes on the dash but Trent turns the music all the way down and puts a hand out to stop me. I give him a questioning look and he just smiles back in turn as if to ask do you trust me? I give him a nod. He opens the console and pulls out a clear plastic bag. It’s a treasure chest and inside I see the precious green gold dry and ready. He gets out some rolling papers too and closes the console back.

He rolls the joint in silence and I watch him. He is articulate and careful and gentle and I think this must be what it’s like to watch some imaginary god create some magical new amazing world where everything is okay.

“So where are we?” I ask while waiting for him to finish. I look out the window but still I can’t see.

“Somewhere in Illinois. Still don’t know where the fuck we’re going,” He chuckles and holds the completed world up with an accomplished smile twisting on his full seductive lips. He hands the joint to me.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say and smile at him before lighting it and inhaling and I feel it go in and I hold it there in me and see the darkness outside get a little less dark. I hand it to him. It’s his turn. I exhale the smoke slowly and watch as it does exotic primal smoke dances in the air. It twists and twirls and floats so effortlessly. I smile.

After a while the joint is gone and there is just me and him and the smoke. I look at him and he looks at me and his hand is on the back of my neck and my lips are on his and inside I’m shaky and wonderful and there are supernovas and galaxies and stars all around us and we are completing each other. The kiss ends and we are breathless. Suddenly he is climbing over the console and he is straddling me and his dick is hard against my thigh and mine is hard against his and we are kissing again.

“Are you - ?” He starts to ask if I’m ready. I interrupt him with my tongue. He giggles and I giggle and we are tangled up and running out of space. There is still smoke encircling us and Trent turns the music back up and there is nothing but us in this car.

Yes, I tell him in my mind. I’m ready to heal.