"Can you pee for me?" Miles whined into my sleepy ear.

"What the hell?" I knew what he meant though.

"I don't want to get up." I sighed and closed my eyes the morning light that had crudely shifted into his flat hurt my eyes. We were huddled under a couple heavy wool blankets on his fold away couch bed. The past week had been a swirl of drinking, eating entirely too much, and staying inactive. Although we were in the same room, going through the same emotions, I really couldn't put my finger on if we were really supporting each other. Drunk two nights ago I had told him about everything that had happened between Taylor and I. Miles hadn't answered, he'd simply sat there, swigging from his gin and tonic, refilling the glass, sitting. Staring at me. It was then, even in my haziness, that I realized how jealous he was. We didn't speak the rest of the night, but we'd slept together, clinging to each other like two spoons neatly tucked in a drawer. I knew he was going through this harder than I was, he'd married her for chrissakes, she'd left him for someone else. Somehow I knew that Taylor would never do that to any girl, ever.

Miles swore and dragged himself off of the bed and nearly tripped over an empty tequila bottle, I heard it roll. The hard ring of the phone in my ear startled me, my pulse racing at thecacophonous noise. I heard the drone of Miles pissing in the bathroom, and knew he wasn't going to pick it up, so I lifted the shiny black receiver.

"Hullo?" My voice sounded as if it was rubbing against sandpaper, rough and thick.

"Lane?" It was Rachel, my publisher.

"Yeah, it's me. What's up?"

"Just calling to remind you- phone interview in two hours with Rolling Stone. I gave them the number like you asked." I rubbed my eyes, the headache produced was hard and rhythmic.

"Okay, thanks for calling. I'll be ready. When does the book come out?"

"Two weeks."

"'Kay, thanks. Call me after the interview and let me know what's going on." I could hear her pause, almost with an afterthought.

"Hey Lane, you okay? You don't sound too well. Got the flu or something?"

"No. I promise I'll be fine for the call, honestly, I will."

"They wanted to make it a longer, feature article. But you'd have to meet with the journalist for two days, and I didn't think you'd want that, so I canceled." I paused, and sat up, the headache waned off a little bit.

"Well, should I do it?"

"Do you want me to be nice or honest?"

"Honest."

"I think you should meet them at the airport and bring him back home with you. They were pretty confident that it could be a cover story, but it's your call." I rubbed my temples, the headache faded.

"Okay. What do I have to do?"

"Nothing, just pick this guy up at 3:30."

"Alright what's his name?"

"Arthur Tanner." I scribbled his name on a pad by the phone. "Okay, over and out. Hey wait."

"Yeah?"

"How'd you know I would take this guy?"

"I know you." She hung up.

Miles came back in, unshaven and looking much more alive. He smiled a lop-sided grin, his coal hair was messy, but his lime green eyes were sparkling at me. "Mornin' miss."

"Morning you." He leaned over as I gave him a hug. Out of nowhere I felt a strong pull to him, it felt alien, but magnetic. His movements slowed, he realized I was watching him. His eyes caught mine as he laid back on his side of the bed. "What?" In an instant it was gone.

"Nothing, I was just thinking."

"Who was on the phone?"

"Rachel, I need to go pick up an interviewer later on."

"How long is he gonna stay?"

"Rest of the day I think, and I'll probably see him for a bunch of tomorrow."

"I'll miss you." His eyes were serious, as I realized how much I was going to miss him he moved closer.

"Miles I'm sorry but I need.." My words faded off as I pressed my lips to his. He accepted them, not intensely, but softly. I broke the kiss and held him, as he held me. We stayed close, not wanting to let go of the part of life that we'd held onto for so long.

"Yeah, I know." He whispered slowly in my ear. After a moment I let go.

"I gotta go." I cleared my throat and breathed deeply in the clove ridden air of his flat. I walked across the room and opened a window. It was crisp and cold out, but it felt cleansing to my tear dried face. I turned around and smiled, my mouth feeling strange in that stretching. "Life goes on my man." He looked at me curiously. I popped in 'Laughter and Lust' from Joe Jackson in his stereo and turned the little dial up. "I'm taking a shower."

Taylor softly swore under his breath, the piano he was working with was ancient, untuned and completely uncooperative. It felt like years since he'd last worked with an acoustic instrument. Ike pushed him off the stool and started playing a high step tango, which sounded ridiculous on the jumbled notes, out of step. Ike smiled at him. "C'mon, enough of that depressing stuff, let's just get out of here. Why don't you come over for dinner?" Taylor winced at his brother'sdemeanor, he knew he should be feeling just as upbeat, it wasn't every day that the announcement of the first child of the next Hanson generation occurred. Everything was just like bright blocks fitting into the coloured spaces perfectly. They'd just found the perfect recording studio, an old warehouse out in the country, not too far away from Tulsa but enough to be out of the craziness of the city. Ike was going to be a father, and Zac had just found his first apartment in town.

"Hey, I can't refuse that, I want to congratulate the new mom to be." Taylor smiled, pushing Lane out of his head. 'We could've made announcements like that.' he thought.

"Awesome, hey should we keep this thing?" Ike gestured to the piano.

"Naw." It reminded him of her.

"Aw, screw you we should keep it, get it fixed up.." Ike paused, looking at the dusty wood and ivory, then looked up to Taylor, his eyes were dancing with excitement. "Let's roll."

"Arthur, I really don't know about that. I may be a depressing sort of girl, but life isn't for saying how bad you feel. People interpret what they want out of my work."

"So you're saying that not everything you've written is biographical?"

"Well, it's definitely about me, but not everything."

"Okay." I could feel him thinking, this guy was young. He'd been hurling questions at me from the second he'd found me in the huge airport.

"Well where am I supposed to take you?" He was quirky, I liked him, but I also knew he'd have to start asking some original questions soon. He looked startled at my question.

"Anywhere you want, just so I can talk to you." I smiled.

"Cool, okay I got an idea." I veered off the main road and onto a semi familiar one. As we drove out into the country Arthur didn't ask any questions of where we were going. After about a half hour of driving, and passing empty fields I pulled over. "We're here." His reply was short, unafraid. I decided I liked him more for not complaining. I grabbed a couple blankets from Miles' trunk and set out for the middle of the field. Out of the corner of my eye I saw him preparing his tape recorder.

"Love is a very tricky emotion. Most people go through various partners before finding 'the one', others go through only a couple, then there's me. I rehash him and pick at the wound, I relive pieces of the relationship, parts of the contact constantly. It's fucking insane. My shrink calls it a form of depression, and it's normal. Ever listen to 'Quadrophenia'? The boy who knows he's mad, but his shrink doesn't think so? I've got parts of him in me. But I'm not going to end up drowning myself to death. And I'm not going to starve myself to death, I'm not that scarred, but I'm going to continue. And that's tough enough." Taylor's eyes widened as he read the introduction to the article in the bright glow of the supermarket lights. 'She never opened up to me.' he thought. 'But maybe she did, too much, and I didn't even see it.' His eyes averted from the article to the various pictures of her, she looked as if she was in a painting, a DaVinci. He smile was a characteristic of the painter's work. The background an extravagant, wet tropical scene. His eyes reverted back to the article.

"The men in my life, I think you'd have to get a head check to hang out with me. My closest friends have never dated me, it's hard to become intimate with someone I'm close to. I could be breathing a boy in and totally falling in love with him, but if he starts to become serious on me I bolt. Fear of intimacy is not a lonely condition, it's a painful one. My closest male friends- I'm really in love with all of them, but never sensually. Mentally, I'm married to each of them, physically.." Bronte pauses, swallowing, her eyes slightly clouded over. "Physically I'm a fucking teddy bear to them." I asked her what that meant. She smiles sardonically. "I give good hugs man." Is that a bad thing? I ask, seeing what she means, but not comprehending it. "No, it's not.. for them it's cool, and for me it's great. But when I'm sitting in the club, with a martini in hand, and they're hitting on various women, and I'm dateless because I care more about if they've hit it off, then it's not good. I'm not comfortable with doing a hunt on my own anymore. I dunno, maybe it's because I liked it too much, becoming so close to someone, and it scared me. Maybe I hated it, because I was so used to being alone. I don't know. The relationship I was in a month ago was sickeningly good, I wasn't used to not fighting with.. " She pauses again, swallows, clearing her tea warmed throat. "I wasn't used to being with such a caring boy, I was used to caging myself. Taylor didn't do anything wrong, I was the one. Communication, I thought was clear enough when done tacitly. It wasn't for him, and I couldn't pick up on that." I take a risk, 'Taylor? You've never mentioned any names in your writing, much less in interviews.' She looks me in the eye, coldly. "Taylor." 'That's it?' I ask. "Yeah, that's it."

Taylor wet his lips, learning more about what had gone on between them in the past five minutes than he had in all the hours he'd spent with her.

"Learning to deal.. to fucking DEAL. That's what my writing is about, that's what the book is about, underneath all the leaves and grubs. I went into the woods with a weak heart, it was small and petty. It was scared to, no.. I was scared that my life had hit a brick wall. Nothing was doing it for me. Not history, not art, not shoes, not writing, nothing.." Bronte pauses, then looks me in the eye. "Do you know how that feels? To not be able to deal with yourself? To doubt if there's a women under your perfumed flesh?" She doesn't wait for an answer. "I went into the woods to get some evidence that I was there, that there was more to the path that I was on. I wasn't going for a picnic. I was going to have the ants crawl on me, to feel them. To feel something." She stops suddenly, then smiles to herself. "I did. I did. I did. I had some chats with some trees, and with the bay. I got to listening to the water, and letting go of chains that had been binding me, and blinding me for so long. That's what the book is about. I learned it was okay to step back once and a while and realize why the past is called the past. It was a healing process to my mentality. With what I learned from the woods, I can use now. To find out why I'm so frightened of a serious relationship, and to deal with that. I'm a much different person than I was a month ago. I'm DEALING." She snickers at herself. "For the first time."

Taylor wet his dry lips, his mouth felt of parchment. He wanted to believe this so much. The pit of his stomach turned into butterflies. "Hey, watcha reading?" Ike's sudden cheerful tone startled him. Before he could close the magazine, Ike had seen it. "Well?"

"Things are changed." Taylor looked at his older brother, fearful, but eyes sparkling, much like the first time he saw her jeweled irises.

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