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Dear Goodbye
Part 1: Stay Frosty

Justin remembers the sand most of all. Miles and miles of it, the lightest tan, coarse and grainy, extending in all directions to meet the fluorescent blue of the sky at the horizon in an endless line that waved in the heat of the desert sun. He remembers the dirt roads between villages and the only slightly better roads between cities; he remembers that first sip of water, sweet and cold, the best damn thing he ever tasted even after only ten minutes under the sun. He remembers riding in the back of the jeep, pressed hip-to-knee with his company and wondering if today was the day they'd all get fucked to hell by a roadside bomb.

But mostly, Justin remembers the sand. The sand, and Nick.

*



JC hands him a joint and says, "Man, you need to learn how to relax."

"I'm relaxed," Justin says, leaning back into the too-soft cushions lining the porch swing and inhaling deeply. He doesn't feel a thing, he's so relaxed.

JC just shakes his head, says, "When are you gonna talk about it?" But when Justin looks over, JC is glassy-eyed and staring out over the porch railing into the dark street, unfocused and soft with his mouth hanging open just a little, which always makes JC look a tiny bit stupid. He's not a stupid guy, but he looks it sometimes, for sure.

The wood of the porch is warm and dry beneath his bare feet, planks bleached to a dull grey by the Texas sun, railing warped and rough beneath his arms when he leans against it. JC makes a soft sound like a sigh but not, reaches out with his foot to touch the back of Justin's calf, but Justin jerks away and doesn't turn around, and he doesn't answer, either.

They both already know the answer, anyway. Never. Never is when he's going to talk about it. There's nothing to talk about anymore.

*

Before Nick, there was Kirkpatrick.

"Fresh meat," Kirkpatrick said when he saw Justin, BDUs wrinkled and sweaty from the transport, everything covered in a fine dusting of sand. It felt like he was breathing sand most times, but especially on first arrival, before he got used to the constant grit of it between his teeth, rubbed deep into his pores until he felt like he was sweating it. But just off the transport, it was like this: dry and hot and everything bleached out by the sun, and Kirkpatrick standing there looking them over, all the new guys, saying, "Fresh meat."

"Welcome to the suck, kids," Kirkpatrick said, smiling at them through gritty eyelashes. "Grab a rack, stay a while. We're gonna be here for the next hundred years, so you better get used to it."

Justin thought Kirkpatrick was a jackass right then and there, but the thing about Kirkpatrick was, he said what he meant and he didn't pull his punches. Justin thought, this asshole is fucking unpatriotic, this asshole doesn't give a shit about country and homeland, this asshole is what's wrong with America today and the only thing he cares about his own damn stupid ass. But that was the first day and Justin learned quick. His momma always said he was a fast learner and good at reading people, and Kirkpatrick was maybe harder than most, but the next week or month or year, it was hard to tell because it felt like the endless tour from fucking hell, or maybe they were in hell the whole time and just didn't realize—but later, when a car bomb took out half the market in Karbalah, Kirkpatrick was right there, pulling civs out of the rubble and saying, "Come on, kid, welcome to the suck. Let's be goddamn heroes." Well. That's when Justin realized that Kirkpatrick was Kirkpatrick, and he only meant half of what he said, and never in the way Justin thought to begin with.

Kirkpatrick was on his way out, and that was part of it, Justin thought, because Kirkpatrick never thought he'd make it out alive and now it looked like he would. On night watch duty a month before his tour was up, Kirkpatrick pulled out a flask and shook it in Justin's face. "Vodka, kid. You even old enough to drink?" When Justin said no, Kirkpatrick just shrugged and held the flask to Justin's lips anyway, "because it's a fucking celebration, and we're gonna do it right. Besides, all ages are legal in the suck, so say we all."

"What are we celebrating?" Justin didn't feel like celebrating. He'd been stationed there for almost two months now and the only action he'd seen was clean up duty. People blown apart by bombs and scattered across the country in town after town like a trail of bread crumbs, but no action. Welcome to the suck, and what was the point of being a fucking soldier—not even just a soldier but a fucking marine, for fuck's sake—
if he didn't get any action but he could get blown sky high if he so much as stepped foot outside camp? They said this war wasn't going to be like the first one. This wasn't just some sort of defensive strategery but an actual invasion and ground troops were going to be the striking force of choice. No more Air Force hacks dropping death from above. It was all about action on the ground and the marines were the fucking elite, the very best and still no action. No engagement, no sniper, just roadside bombs and mine fields and three-day-old body parts of the poor fucks who set them off. Yeah, welcome to the suck.

"I'm about to be relieved, soldier. What the fuck do you think I'm celebrating? I'm getting the fuck out, and I'm alive."

"You're fucking old, of course they're letting you out." Justin grinned and took a swallow from the flask. "Ugh, this is disgusting, did you make it yourself?"

"In the bathtub," Kirkpatrick said. "The one no one uses 'cause it's so clogged with pubes."

The sky was purely black overhead, stars like pinpricks of light shining through and being on watch was totally useless, but Justin took his job seriously. He didn't want the camp to get blown away because he got fucking drunk on the job. At least this way he might even get a little action, an unauthorized vehicle or something he could at least fire off warning shots at. He leaned back against the watch tower railing and dug the tip of his M16 into the soft wood beneath him. Kirkpatrick just shrugged and took another drink, watching Justin the whole time. Kirkpatrick had freaky eyes, too dark for pupils especially at night, and Justin just said, "What the fuck are you looking at?"

Kirkpatrick tilted his head to the side and said, "I'm looking at you, fuckhead." He leaned in and reached up to cup Justin's jaw, held it in rough, hard fingers when Justin tried to jerk away. His thumb brushed across Justin's bottom lip, and Justin thought, Oh. "I thought so," Kirkpatrick said, and slid his mouth against Justin's, pushed his tongue into Justin's mouth and smiled against Justin's lips. He tasted like vodka and sand, dry and grainy like an old photograph. Justin pulled away, licking the sand from his lips.

Richardson was even older than Kirkpatrick, but he was a lifer, one of the guys that volunteered to drive civs back and forth, one of the guys that actually enjoyed raid missions and cleaned his M16 five times a day just because he liked the way it felt in his hands.

"Because he's fucking crazy," Kirkpatrick said, staring from the cards in his hand to the flop and back, frowning. Two jacks and an eight, so Justin would be folding, but Kirkpatrick didn't like to fold ever, which made him a real asshole to play with because he never had anything, but Justin valued his money too much to go all in every hand.

"You're fucking crazy," Richardson said. "I just love my fucking country, you godless SOB. Are you going to call, or what? You know you're going to call, so just fucking do it already and stop being so dramatic."

"See?" Kirkpatrick said, smirking a little at Justin. "He's fucking crazy. And I'm not gonna call, I'm gonna raise. How ya like them apples, fuckhead?"

Later, he met Kirkpatrick in the back of one of the repair jeeps and there was no talking now, just Justin pushed down across one of the benches, the metal edges digging into his left hip and his fingers hooked into the seat grating to keep his balance. Kirkpatrick pushing inside him in fast, hard strokes with his hand on the back of Justin's neck holding him to the seat, strangely soft and gentle, and the sand on their bodies between them, caught in their sweat and rolling against Justin like a thousand pinpricks on his skin all at once.

The only thing Justin resented was mail call—getting his packages from home with a big yellow sticker barely keeping them closed. INSPECTED, the sticker said, and Justin hated the idea of some army flunky going through his shit and reading his letters from his mom before he even got to see him, like his mom had any state secrets she was about to share over a fucking letter to Iraq, for fuck's sake.

"Get used to it, kid," Kirkpatrick said, stealing one of Justin's cookies that had gone stale and hard in transit but still tasted good because Justin knew that his mom made them in her yellow kitchen that used to be his grandma's with the windows open and the breeze pulling her curtains through. Tennessee would be warm now, but not hot; just on the cusp of fall with the leaves turning deep orange and clogging up the yard.

"Oooh, cookies, did your girlfriend send you these?" McLean reached over and Justin kicked at him, snarled, "Fuck off," and shoved the box beneath his rack. His letter didn't say anything useful. She missed him, she loved him, everyone in Millington was doing fine, her tomatoes were huge that year, the Lakers made the playoffs.

Kirkpatrick just ate his cookie and said, "Get used to it. You wanna fight for your country, you gotta be willing to make some fucking sacrifices, kid."

Training exercises were the worst. Outside in the sun for hours at a time in their BDUs and gas masks, digging sand trenches and refilling them, moving towers of sandbags from one side of the camp to the other because "you gotta stay in shape, fuckheads! Hurry the fuck up and the last one in's gonna be on latrine duty!" Justin only had latrine duty once, and it was the worst experience of his life, shoveling shit out of holes in the ground to burn in cans. He did it with his gas mask on, and even that couldn't stop the stench. Kirkpatrick found him puking into an empty can and said, "Next time, you'll fucking know better." Kirkpatrick was right; Justin knew better now. He hurried up.

A month later, escorting a group of civs back to their cushy little Green Zone from some sort of infrastructure assessment, the jeep ahead of them blew, just flew clean in the air and flipped onto the hood, spraying metal and canvass and flesh across the blackened dirt of the road like a hot rainfall. Kirkpatrick said, "I guess no one does get outta here alive," and Justin said, "Shut the fuck up," and got out the med kit.

Justin was fine but he was one of the only ones. Kirkpatrick lost an eye and got delayed with surgeries before he could go back to the States. "Permanent retirement, I'm gonna be collecting disability until I fucking die, man," he said, but his smile was more like a grimace. "Can you believe they gave me a purple heart for this fucking shit? Not even in battle, and they gave me a fucking purple heart."

"Isn't every day a battle in the suck?" Justin said. He tapped his finger once against Kirkpatrick's wrist, above the tubes and needles stuck into him where the skin was thin and wrinkled and brown. It felt rough and Justin thought he could maybe feel the sand there, too, tiny grains so deep inside they'd never leave.

Kirkpatrick just smiled a little, a real one this time, and said, "Fucking right. Good-bye to the fucking suck."

Justin didn't say that he liked Kirkpatrick this way, with a dark patch covering one eye and the fear wiped clean from him, and he didn't say good-bye. They'd see each other again, outside the suck; in the real world, they'd see each other again.

*

Some days are fine. Some days, Justin goes for hours without thinking about it or remembering what it was like. He doesn't think of the white heat of the sun or the way everything tasted like dry dust in his mouth. He doesn't think about the heft of his gun in his hands or the days spent in the humvee, having to piss in bottles because they couldn't stop, wondering when they'd get a new supply shipment in because they'd already traded half their MREs for batteries to power their night vision goggles.

Some days are fine, and he doesn't think about it. But that's only some days, because most days, he can't stop. He finds himself searching for a payphone to call JC and let him know he'll be late because he forgets about his cell; he reaches for his M16 and for a brief moment slides into a sheer state of panic when it's not there because you never put down your gun, you never let go even when you're sleeping—but then he remembers, and he can breath again. He doesn't need it here, even if he wants it.

Officially, he's fine. Officially, according to his military-issue psychiatrist, he's mostly all better and he's probably not going to end up beating his girlfriend to death like that guy Justin heard about last month, a former army reservist who woke up from a nightmare and just beat her to death right there on the bedroom carpet. Justin still has all his limbs, both eyes, ears in decent working order. He's perfectly fine, they say. His official diagnosis: perfectly fine.

"If you're so fine," JC says, drawing patterns on the kitchen table with his fingers, "then why don't you ever talk about him?"

The table is a faded yellow, paint chipping away in some places, rubbed raw to the wood in others. Justin remembers when JC bought the table. It was before Justin left for Iraq; it was before Justin graduated high school. JC was so excited to get a place of his own and he dragged Justin all over town to yard sales and re-sale shops and Goodwills until he found the perfect table. Justin remembers it being brighter; a yellow so bright it hurt his eyes to look at it. He doesn't answer JC's question. He just doesn't want to talk about it, that's all. It's not like he's hiding. He's said enough, he thinks, when he first showed up at JC's door. What more could he possibly say.

JC sighs. "What do you want for dinner?" JC gives up really easily. It's one of the things Justin likes best about him. "Or maybe we should go out? I know Lance wanted to try out Mother's. I guess they have some new fake steak thing over there."

"We could eat real meat for a change," Justin says. "Just because Lance is a vegetarian doesn't mean you have to be, too. You can be different people, you know."

"Thanks Justin, I'll remember that next time I feel like going all carnivore again. Because it has nothing to do with the cruelty and abuse animals suffer at the hands of factory farmers who—"

"—cut off chicken beaks and keep pigs in cages so small they can't even stand, blah blah the environment, yeah, I know. You've only told me a million times. I'm just saying, you were never like this before he came along. You were normal, you ate barbeque like the rest of us. And I'm a marine, I need some fucking meat sometimes."

"You're not a marine anymore," JC says quietly. Justin stares down at the table, the yellow table with its cracked and faded surface, the table JC was so excited about five years ago when they were both still kids, practically, and there was no war and Justin had never even heard of the suck.

He doesn't say anything, but he knows JC's wrong. He'll always be a marine. He doesn't know how to stop.

They meet Lance at the restaurant that Justin hates because it's one of those typical Austin places with a vegetarian-only menu and everyone is a hippie or at least high, which Justin isn't against morally or anything, but he likes his waiters to at least be semi-coherent. Lance is wearing a sleeveless tank top the color of the winter sky in Iraq which was almost indistinguishable from summer, just windier—faded white-blue and patches worn through to clear in places. His aviator sunglasses hang from his shirt collar, pulling it down just enough to expose the dip in his chest and Justin has to fight not to roll his eyes. Lance is so fucking gay.

Justin looks away while they kiss, because watching JC make out with some guy isn't really his idea of a good time. The front porch outside the restaurant is crowded with the typical hippie types: thin girls with long, tangled hair and thinner boys with long, dirty hair and beards, all trying to look like Jesus. One of them even has a t-shirt on that says, "Jesus hates war" and Justin thinks, no, you fucking idiot, Jesus causes war, and war isn't the problem. War is the only thing that's ever made Justin feel alive and free and meaningful in his whole fucking life. It's not about the war.

They get seated pretty quickly despite the crowd milling outside waiting for tables. Lance says, "So how's the job hunt going?" and Justin shrugs, staring at his menu full of shit he really doesn't want to eat anyway, but it's better than looking at Lance or worse, looking at JC staring at Lance with that dazed expression JC gets when he likes someone.

"It's, you know. It is what it is. I might go to school, actually. Use my GI money and all that. I haven't really thought about it too much. I'm not even officially discharged yet, so. Pending and all. I got time." Justin doesn't say: maybe I'll go back. There's a long list of things Justin never says that fills the space between him and JC, but that's the biggest one. He never says: I thought I was in love with you once but I know now that was just a kid thing and you're maybe not even the person I wanted you to be; and he never says: maybe I'll go back. There are some things it's better not to say because they know them anyway, even JC, who likes to pretend he doesn't.

"Justin." JC frowns at him, fingers rubbing along the edge of the plastic menu cover. "You have to start making some decisions. I know it's hard but—"

"Can we not talk about this right now?" Justin leans back in the booth and crosses his arms over his chest. "I'm not a child, okay? And I'm for fucking sure not your child. I'm twenty-three, JC. Four months ago, I shot a man in the head from fifty yards and watched his skull split like a fucking watermelon in the road. I think I can make a fucking decision for myself. I know, why don't we talk about how you two haven't even fucked yet."

JC stares back at him all big, sad eyes. All wounded. Justin bites his lip to keep from saying more and to keep from apologizing because he shouldn't have to keep saying—he shouldn't have to keep reminding his best friend that he's not the same kid JC knew back in the day. He shouldn't have to keep reminding JC where he was and how fucking badly he wants to be back there. Justin never thought he'd miss that hell hole, and it's not the place, really, and it's for fucking certain not the sand or the heat or Whiskey Tango barking nonsense orders over the comm. It's—it's him, who he was in the place before all the shit went down. If he could get back to before then he would, but then he remembers Nick and the desert and he knows he can't. Even if he goes back, he can't really go back or at least, it won't be the same, that's for fucking sure.

"I think I'm gonna get the grilled tofu platter," Lance says. JC looks at him and smiles.

*

It's like this: you have to be at least a little crazy in the first place to even want to be a marine, much less make it through training, and you have to be even crazier to come out of the whole thing even slightly intact. That was the first thing Justin learned in the suck: rule number one, they were all fucking insane.

"Stay frosty," Richardson said, stopping by their humvee to check the comms. "Bossman isn't expecting any action tonight, but this fucking wagon train we got going on here isn't exactly subtle, either. We're oscar mike at oh five hundred, so get some sleep while you can."

Richardson waved vaguely in the direction of the tents and continued on down the line to the next squad, Fatone shaking his head, saying, "Fucking LT is totally losing it. Did you see that twitch in his left hand? He's fucking paranoid as shit. Probably sees hajis around every corner."

Justin didn't think Richardson was paranoid, just cautious. Careful, or something. They'd all seen what happened at the market in Kabulah and no one really wanted to experience another surprise car bomb. It was different on a mission, though. Different being on the road in squads because even though the entire battalion was along for the ride, the whole thing was isolated as fuck. With Kirkpatrick officially gone, probably back home in some cushy VA hospital getting a bionic eye or something, McLean took over as team leader and everything felt a little off. Everything felt new all over again, sitting in the humvee day after day going twenty miles an hour down a dirt road Justin could only barely tell from the sand spread out on either side.

It was new and different, but Richardson was a good guy, a good LT. He didn't take a lot of chances, which Justin sort of appreciated because he saw enough action in Kabulah and he liked Fatone and McLean. He didn't really want to see them littered with shrapnel and bleeding out, or search through the sand looking for missing body parts to take home to their mothers if they hit a roadside bomb. Justin liked careful. McLean just wanted to shoot something.

"A fucking dog, whatever. What's the point of knowing how to use this fucking thing if I never use it?"

Justin just looked at him and shrugged. After all, they were all at least a little crazy.

The Bossman hated reservists, but that didn't stop the General from assigning them to S Company.

"They're here for the extended tour, boys, so get used to it," Bossman said, "but that don't mean you gotta be nice and make friends. They're still reservists." He spat in the sand next to his podium and Justin thought, what a fucking waste of hydration.

"Maybe they'll have supplies. Batteries and, fuck, I need a new gas mask, I'm pretty sure I fucked up the hose on mine last drill." Fatone was always fucking up his equipment, but he was the best gunner in S Company and Justin wasn't going to complain. They weren't going to get gassed, anyway. A year in and they still hadn't found any WMDs; they weren't going to get gassed with Saddam hiding in a hole somewhere. If the Republican Guard had chemical weapons, they sure as fuck would've used them by now.

"Maybe they'll have real tanks," McLean said. Justin didn't care what they had, as long as they knew what they were doing and didn't fuck the mission. Tanks would be nice, though.

The reservist squads showed up just after mid-day, down a vehicle that got run to ground ten miles north, which was how Nick ended up in their humvee, all wide-eyed and looking like he was going to hurl at any moment, and they hadn't even hit the city yet. "Hey Bambi," McLean said, smirking a little when he looked back at Justin and Nick in the back seat, "stop looking like we're gonna shoot you in your sleep. We're all nice guys, aren't we, fellas? Timberlake's so nice he'll suck your dick for free, ain't that right?"

"Well, not yours," Justin said. "It's gotta be big enough for me to know it's there, dickhead."

"Language, Timberlake! You're gonna scare Bambi."

Nick wasn't anything like Kirkpatrick. Nick was tall and blond and lovely in a weirdly pure way that no one Justin had ever known could really accomplish. Bambi was sort of the perfect name for him because that was what Nick was like—scared and alone and trying to make himself grow up all at once. Older than Justin but it didn't ever seem like that because Nick didn't have anyone out here and he didn't have Justin's convictions, either. Nick didn't give a shit about God and nation and democracy. Justin wasn't sure Nick even knew what the fuck they were trying to accomplish in the first place, and he sure as shit didn't care about downing any hajis. Mission was everything and Nick didn't have one except for don't die. It wasn't much of a way to live.

The sky was slowly getting lighter, shifting from deep black to a sheer blue grey when Nick sat down beside him at his watch post. "You should sleep while you can, Bambi," Justin said, not looking at him. This was Justin's favorite time, when the land turned the lightest shade of pink and it all looked so safe and warm and calm out there, before the sun came out with its blinding white haze to torture them.

"Can't sleep," Nick said, leaning back on his elbows and tipping his head up to stare at the sky. The sand couldn't touch him, it seemed, and he always looked fresh and clean, no grit and dust in heavy layers across exposed strips of skin like the rest of them, just smooth flesh, the thinness of his wrists winter-pale and soft-looking. Justin knew better than to look too long.

"Fair enough," Justin said, and flipped his goggles down to sight. They hadn't seen anyone for days. At this rate, McLean wasn't ever going to get to shoot anything. Not even a dog.

*

Every Monday, Justin has to drive up to Fort Hood to check in with his commander and his shrink. There'll be a hearing eventually to decide what the fuck to do with him but until then it's mandated visits with the shrink and the commander. He takes JC's ancient Ford F150 that can barely sustain sixty on the highway and shakes when Justin finally gets it up there. There's no radio or air conditioning so it's just Justin and the high pitched rumble-whine of the engine drowning out all the other road noise; the big Texas sky, and the sun-bleached grey asphalt stretched out in front of him like an arrow to the horizon.

His shrink wants to know if he's having nightmares, if he thinks about what happened a lot, what his plans are for the future. Justin doesn't know how to answer any of these questions without calling the guy a stupid asshole, so he doesn't say much at all. Justin thinks everyone is better off that way. They don't really want to know and he doesn't want to tell them anything, so really, this is better.

JC thinks Justin is being euphemistic or something when Justin talks about his doctor. "It's a shrink, Justin, you know you can say it. I'm not gonna judge you, man. I think it's good you're trying to heal." JC would think that, because JC doesn't know a damn thing and anyway, it's not like he has a choice. The doctor Justin sees isn't a shrink. Maybe he has the certificate on his wall that says he is, but he's a marine and that comes first, always. He takes Justin at face value and that's the way Justin likes it. A real shrink, he thinks, would ask more questions, would want to know the whens and whys and explore his feelings on the whole thing. Justin doesn't want to have to say that he doesn't have feelings. That would be preferable to the truth.

Because the truth is, the only thing Justin feels now is angry. There's no sad or happy or scared shitless, even, there's just angry. Kirkpatrick used to say that anger is clean; anger is fuel for burning and it's better than sex. He called it unleashing and he'd say, "Kid, you just gotta let it go. Let it out, you know? Fucking unleash on those mother fuckers and you'll get the best night's sleep you ever had in the suck." Justin only got in one gun fight when Kirkpatrick was still there, and it wasn't anything major, just a couple of insurgents trying to fuck them up before they got themselves wasted. It was the first time Justin ever watched someone die like that; the first time he took aim and fired and watched the bullets punch right through the guy's chest and throat. It was just like target practice except he threw up after and Kirkpatrick said, "You gotta get mad, right? This isn't just some fucking job. This is the suck. You gotta think about why you're here, and it ain't because you love your fucking country."

Justin doesn't have any trouble getting mad now, and it's hard sometimes for him to remember how real people are supposed to act. It's like a game they all agree to play as a society and he used to know these things and how they work. He used to be captain of the basketball team and on the homecoming court and elected to the student senate. He used to get along easily and charmingly and everyone liked him and said he'd been raised right and he was going to make something of himself someday. "It's like you got reprogrammed out there," JC says sometimes, usually when they're smoking up and his mouth is looser than normal. "You went to the desert and came back a robot, man. It's warped as hell."

Justin knows JC looks at him sometimes and wonders where his best friend went. Justin doesn't want to tell him that he didn't go out and get lost somewhere along the way; he's not fucking Dorothy wandering around Oz waiting to be saved and no amount of wishing or talking is going to change him back. This is who he is now, and Justin's not sure JC will ever be able to accept that. Maybe he shouldn't. Justin's not sure how that's supposed to work. It's like he lost the thread of their conversation in the middle and now he's not sure he wants to find his way back anyway.

He wonders about Kirkpatrick sometimes as he's driving back from Fort Hood. It's a two hour drive with nothing to do but think, and Justin wonders if Kirkpatrick ever got his eye fixed or if he still has a patch; where he is and what he's doing and if he still looks like he did last time Justin saw him, wiped clean of fear and somehow whole, like he was an unfinished blur of a person before and now he was done, finally.

Justin wonders if that's what he looks like now, to other people, but he doesn't think so. He still feels raw inside, raw and undone and he's definitely not finished, not by a long shot. He's not even close. If he could go back, if they would just let him go back, he thinks he could maybe get there.

*

The LT liked to say that war was just a game of hurry up and wait. Get into position, move move move, and then sit around for days at a time while you ran out of MREs and waited for the intelligence to pan out so you could shoot some hajis and make the world safe for democracy and all that.

Justin was on road block duty with Nick, sort of the epitome of hurry up and wait because it only took them five hours to get to this position and now they had to hold it for no discernable reason that Justin could see. "It's a fucking dirt road like every other dirt road in this fucking place."

"Maybe Bossman thinks there's a bunker or something down the line?" Nick shrugged, not taking his eye away from his scope. "You know what the LT says. Orders are orders and we don't get paid to think. Sometimes, God—do you ever wonder why you're here?"

Justin dug the tip of his M16 into the ground, traced a pattern of intertwining triangles in the tightly packed dirt of the road, eyes on the tense lines of Nick's back, the ridged muscles in his arms propping up his gun, the way his hands seemed to melt into the metal in the darkness. He tipped his head back and looked up at the sky, the only part of this entire damn country that ever seemed to make any sense. The only part that never changed and Justin knew it'd be the same wherever he was. If he got sent to Afghanistan after this, if they decided to invade Iran or if he went home, back to Tennessee or Texas or wherever else his mom decided to move to next—the sky would be the same at night. Like Fival the mouse, Justin thought, and smiled a little to himself.

"No," Justin said finally. "I know why I'm here. I'm not always down with Bossman's orders or ideas and I think he's cracked in the head most of the time, but I know why I'm here."

"You got family? Girlfriend, kids, whatever?"

"Fuck no. But my mom, man. She always said, you know, that you gotta stand up and be exceptional. If you can't be the best at something, there's no fucking point in it. That's why I joined the Corps, and I'm here because this is where they want me to be." Kirkpatrick would disagree. Kirkpatrick would say this was a fucking job even if it's not just some fucking job, and that's the furthest anyone should think about it, but Kirkpatrick wasn't there and Justin could think what he wanted, especially if it was the fucking truth.

Nick turned around to look at him for a moment, mouth curled in a sneer that twisted its shape into thin, ugly lines. "Dude, that's fucking bullshit and you know it. We all got a reason for being here, and it ain't because someone said, 'You're going to Iraq, be fucking exceptional.' Me, I got sisters and a brother and my folks are totally fucking useless. Drunks, can't hold down a job to save their own asses, much less support the kids. Reserves meant extra cash on top of my salary, which was already shit to begin with because it's not like I could afford to go to fucking college and this fucking country—you can't do anything without a degree. Hell, you can't hardly work at McDonald's without a fucking master's. And that's why I'm here and it's not some bullshit idiom slogan shit, either."

"Thanks for the life story," Justin said. He didn't want to know all that shit about Nick. He didn't want to know about his siblings and his useless drunk parents and his stupid sob story. After Kirkpatrick, Justin didn't like to know shit about anyone except for this right here, what happened right here, right now. He didn't need to know whys because now when Nick got zapped by a stray haji bullet or tossed by a landmine, all Justin was going to think about were his fucking kid siblings and his parents and how Nick tried to do right by them even though they were useless and drunks.

Justin hadn't had a letter or a package from home in months and he almost liked it better that way. It was better, he thought, not knowing. Not thinking about anything outside of here and now—Iraq, the desert, this stretch of dirt they'd been charged to protect. Everything else just got in the way.

*

Justin's mom says, "Baby, I wish you'd come home. Just for a little while. I want to see you." Justin loves his mom, but she never fucking listens, it seems like. She never hears the shit she doesn't want to hear, like some sort of bizarre selective amnesia that makes her think Justin can just take off in the middle of a military investigation and they're not going to care. "You're a citizen, honey. You have rights. You're allowed to visit your mother even if she lives in another state." This is what she tells him every time Justin talks to her. Justin doesn't bother to argue anymore.

"I know, momma," is what he says, fitting his bare feet against the porch railing and tipping his chair back just a bit. JC's porch is tiny, not even really a porch so much as a patio with a fence, but Justin likes it out here when it's hot and dry at night, just looking out into the courtyard at the mangled old tree in the center, branches low and crawling along the grass, bleached-out and brittle from the sun. Justin can see the woman in the apartment opposite making dinner at her stove in a pair of boxer shorts and a sports bra. Her hair is pulled back tight from her face and she looks like she's smiling.

"We miss you," his mom says, sniffing a little. "It's been so long."

"You could come out here and see me," Justin says, but he really doesn't mean it. He loves his mom, loves his family, but he doesn't think he can be around them right now and there's a reason he didn't want to go back to his mom's house in Millington. There's a reason he chose Texas and JC, because as annoying as JC is sometimes, this is the only place Justin feels like he can breathe at all. It's the sky, he thinks—the wide-open sky and it never rains and he can drive a thousand miles and everything will still look the same as where he started. He doesn't think his mom would like the person he's become and she's not JC. Justin can't make her accept it and he doesn't want her to understand. She shouldn't have to.

His shrink at Fort Hood asks about his mom all the time, like he's some fucking Freudian cliché or something, like his relationship with his mom will somehow explain how he came to be so cracked after a what was, after all, just a little friendly fire. "Tell me about your mother," he says, looking at Justin over wire-framed glasses, legs crossed tightly over each other with a custom-bound notepad resting on one knee. The shrink is an elegant fucking man, Justin thinks, and sinks down further in his chair, legs splayed out in front of him.

"What do you want me to say?" Justin just looks at him. "She's my mom, she gave birth to me, I love her. It's not a crime to love your mom now, is it." It's not a question, so Justin doesn't bother posing it as one. The shrink takes some notes, pen scratching across the thick paper. Justin doesn't wonder what it says. He knows what it says. It says he's hostile and belligerent and not committed to therapy and he'll never get better and he can never go back. Justin thinks it would say that regardless of anything he did. He is not in control of this situation by a long fucking shot, and he knows it.

The shrink just looks at him from behind his wire-rimmed glasses and purses his lips a little like he tasted something sour in just the same way Justin's gran used to when she drank unsweetened tea. The shrink doesn't seem concerned.

"Have you ever read Catch-22?" Justin says, leaning forward in his chair, elbows in knees, staring intently at the carpet. Industrial carpet because this is still a military institution, after all, no matter how cozy and nice the shrink tries to make it seem. "Because, see, the thing about the catch-22 is like this. If you want to be grounded, the quickest way is to get diagnosed as crazy, right? But then if you want to get grounded, that's a sign that you're probably the sanest motherfucker out there. And if you don't wanna get grounded, you're probably completely nuts. So no one ever gets grounded—catch 22."

"What does that make you, then?"

Justin sits back, rubs his hand over his face like he would erase it if he could, just be a blank slate again, fresh and new. "Fuck if I know," he says. "I'm not the one with the degree."

He thinks about what the shrink says to him sometimes, even though he acts like an asshole and a smartass and like he doesn't give a damn. He can't help it if the words sink in sometimes, though, and that night he finds himself turning off the highway too soon, driving past the lame public golf course on Red River where he used to come every chance he had over summer break to shoot a few holes just after sunrise when no one else would be there. His mom's old house, the one he lived in before his grandma got sick and his mom had to move back to Millington to take care of her—it's just around the corner from the golf course on a hidden half-street lined in old trees and vegetable gardens instead of lawns. Justin drives past it and there are cars out front and two guys sitting on the front porch smoking, with a grey cat perched on the banister eating something out of a can in delicate bites.

He gets out of the truck and walks up with the two guys staring at him, probably wondering if he's an undercover cop and thinking they should've hid the pot when they saw his truck. "Sorry," Justin says, shoving his hands deep inside his pockets. "I know this is weird and all, but. This used to be my house. I mean, my mom's house. I grew up here."

They offer him a smoke and invite him in because there's some sort of party going on, but not the kind Justin is really used to. There's a guy playing a guitar (badly, Justin thinks) in the back yard surrounded by kids with their anonymous solo cups and cigarettes. Fucking hippies, Justin thinks, but he takes the joint that someone offers him and tries not to think too much about what he's doing and why he's here. It's an old house and his mom hasn't lived here in years, not since Justin graduated from TAMS and she was pretty much moved out by the middle of his last year anyway because his grandma was so sick. But the kitchen is the same, yellow and he can still see the stencils she did along the bottom—leaves and apples and other kitcheny things Justin thought were lame at the time but seem nice, now, like something a real home would have. The built-in booth is still there and when Justin sits at it and slides his palms over the chipped formica surface, he can remember the cold chill of a glass between his hands and the sweetly sharp bite of that first sip of sweet tea settling in his stomach.

He looks for the height markings his mom used to keep, even when he got too old and he was taller than her and it all seemed silly and childish, but he can't find them where he thought they were and now he's not so sure he's even looking in the right place.

He tells JC about it later, when he comes home and JC is on the porch with Lance. They were kissing when Justin pulled the car into the drive, long lazy kisses and Justin could see the way Lance's hands framed JC's jaw so gently, like JC was delicate or something, but by the time Justin makes it to the porch, they're sitting three inches apart and JC's fingers are covering his mouth a little like he's surprised.

JC says, "What did you think you'd find?" and Justin shrugs a little. Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it after all. Maybe he doesn't want to talk about it with Lance there.

"Something. I don't know. It's just weird that there's like, a bunch of college kids living there now having parties on Monday nights and shit. I wasn't expecting that."

"Sometimes you can't go back," Lance says quietly, like he's talking to himself, and Justin says, "What? What the fuck did you just say?"

"Sometimes you can't go back," Lance says, louder this time, and he doesn't look away, either.

"Fuck you," Justin says, suddenly angry. Lance doesn't know him and he doesn't know what Justin can and can't do and so fuck him, because Lance doesn't get to voice a fucking opinion in this. Fuck him. "No one asked you," Justin says, and JC makes a small, unhappy noise.

Lance looks right at him and says, "No one asked you to be an asshole, either, but you seem to have that down just fine."

Lance leaves after that, but watching him go doesn't really make Justin feel better or less angry or less anything. "I wish you'd get along," JC says, looking sad. "I know it's hard and things and you're not, you know, really yourself or whatever, but I wish you'd try. I really like him, you know."

The thing is, Justin is himself and he does know. And that's part of the problem, he thinks. Maybe Lance is right and sometimes you can't go back, but it's not like he can go forward, either, and instead he's just stuck; and he misses his mom and his grandma and he misses Nick. He misses the way shit used to be because he knows it'll never be the same again, and somehow, moving forward feels like the sort of betrayal he's not ready for.

*

Justin read this once, or maybe he saw it on a VH1 documentary about the anti-war movement during Vietnam or something, but however he learned it, he definitely knew that back in the day, when there were guys blowing shit up in the jungle instead of the desert, they all had serious heroin addictions. The government used to give them heroin to keep draftees calm or whatever, and then they'd go back to the States once their tour was done and they'd be screwed because you couldn't just walk into a gas station or something and score some heroin. Well, not if you didn't live in LA, anyway.

"That's a bunch of bullshit," McLean said, tapping out a quick rhythm with his fingers against the dashboard. Justin was driving, night vision goggles down so he could see what was road and what was a sand trap that'd get them stuck. "There's no way old Uncle Sam was handing out heroin like fucking candy or something. Heroin does not make you calm, okay? Don't believe everything VH1 tells you, Timberlake."

"Does anyone got any stims left?" Nick said, and Justin could feel his eyes on the back of his neck, hot hot, like he was proving a point. McLean just said, "Oh fuck you, Bambi, don't try to get smart on me all of a sudden," and started singing something horrible, Christina Aguilera or something. He stuck his head out the side window and sang loudly, loud enough for Fatone riding top side to hear. "You fucker," Fatone said, and joined in. Justin turned around to look at Nick. Nick was still staring. The comm buzzed and McLean pulled himself back inside the humvee to answer it.

"Hitman two, this is assassin actual."

"Assassin actual, interrogative: can you please shut the fuck up? Repeat, can you please shut the fuck up?"

McLean stuck his hand out the window to give the line of humvees the finger and rolled his eyes. "Hitman two, interrogative: why you gotta be such a hater?"

"Assassin actual, I'm pretty sure Bossman banned 'Genie in A Bottle' last month for being offensive to hajis, so suck on that, fucknuts. Uh, Hitman two, over."

Later, when they stopped for the night a few klicks north of their target destination to rest and refuel, Justin claimed the back seat of the humvee and slept with his gun on the floor and his feet itching inside boots he hadn't taken off in a week or more. He dreamed about high school, about TAMS and the party the night before JC graduated, before he left for Austin and better things. They were at someone's apartment, a couple girls JC knew from when he was at TAMS who'd stuck around at UNT to finish out college, and in the dream they had a fire escape and JC pulled Justin out the back door onto the metal scaffolding, laughing and drunk and happy, even though he was leaving, Justin remembered how fucking happy JC was. At the real party, JC had hugged him and mumbled drunkenly in his ear about following his rainbow. He'd smelled like tequila and limes in a not-so pleasant way—the sickly-sweet smell of alcohol seeping through skin.

In the dream, though, JC smelled sharp and clean and the metal grating of the fire escape was cool against Justin's feet in stark contrast to the dry heat of the night air. JC said, "You know I'll always love you and we'll always be friends," and kissed Justin so so softly. Justin woke up with his fingers against the butt of his gun, opened his eyes and saw Nick in the front seat, sleeping with his face pressed against headrest, mouth open and hand fisted against his cheek, breath puffing wetly against his knuckles.

Nick reminded him of JC a little, sometimes, in moments of silence. There was a certain quality of calmness to him, like he knew the whats and whens and whys of things and there was no use worrying about the uncontrollable rest of it. He would sit with Justin sometimes, just sitting and not talking and not flapping his mouth like McLean just to hear his own goddamn voice every five minutes, and not poking and prodding and trying to get Justin to laugh like Fatone was always doing because Fatone thought everyone should be fucking happy all the time. Nick just let Justin be, which wasn't like JC at all, but it felt alike, just the same, and that was the important thing.

Nick's eyes fluttered and blinked open, two narrow slits of blue in the silver-pale frame of his face. He looked at Justin, still sleep-young and dreamy, said, "Are we there yet?"

"Go back to sleep, Bambi," Justin said, and shut his eyes. Five klicks north of Basrah, and they hadn't had any consecutive hours of sleep in more days than Justin could count. For Basrah, they would need it.

*

Back in the day, back in Denton when Justin was still pretty much a high schooler and JC was the cool resident advisor who could vote and buy smokes even if he couldn't drink yet, Justin maybe had a tiny little nothing crush on JC and he thought for about two seconds that he might be in love. It was just that he'd known JC forever and the excitement of being sixteen and away at school for the first time, and how cool was it that JC was the RA for his floor? It was cool, and JC never treated him like a kid even though he'd known Justin when he was really a kid, before the first time Justin's mom moved them back to Millington. So Justin maybe had a little crush, but he sort of had a little crush on every even-slightly attractive guy he knew, because he was sixteen and he could do whatever he wanted without his mom there to make sure he didn't fuck up. He made out with a guy once at a party—one of those super lame dorm room parties they thought were so cool because they weren't allowed to have booze and it was a whole big deal just getting someone to buy for them in the first place. They played spin the bottle and Justin made out with Ryan to the soundtrack of Britney and Jessica shrieking and giggling, saying, "Oh my gawd," like it was some kind of freak show.

The only other guy Justin kissed before Nick was Kirkpatrick. It wasn't like he was a virgin or whatever, but it never meant anything and he hated to be all Julia Roberts about the kissing thing, but Justin had rules. Kissing was just too much, most times; kissing felt like it should maybe be more important than that, or something. He'd kissed girls, and somehow that never meant anything. He'd had girlfriends in high school but he never fucked any of them because he was a good Christian and he was saving himself and all that. Sometimes, though, he would touch them with his fingers. He liked the way they spread their thighs and the rushed, trembling sound of their breathing. He liked how in control he felt with them. No one knew he was gay, before.

JC just looks at him when Justin explains. "Oh, honey. We all knew. But, you know—Denton. No one was gonna say anything. You can't be gay in Denton."

"You were plenty gay in Denton," Justin says, rubbing his fingers against the rough seams of his new jeans and watching the stage impatiently, wondering when the band is planning on starting. "You like, were practically vomiting rainbows, you were so gay."

"That's different," JC says, holding his chilled vodka-and-something glass against the side of his neck and closing his eyes a little at the sensation. It's hot, it's really fucking hot, because Texas is really fucking hot and no one seems to understand the benefit of indoor venues anymore. Justin looks away, looks up at the small stage with its lonely set of instruments: guitar, bass, drums, mic. Justin doesn't want to be here, very suddenly; doesn't want to be here with JC telling him how of course everyone knew he was gay, doesn't want to see some stupid band from Podunk, Florida, just because JC heard from Lance who heard from some other dumb fucker that they were good and JC would like them. JC likes everything, though. JC's only a hardass when it comes to himself and Justin. Justin's not sure how he feels about that except that he knows he doesn't want to be here. He knows that.

"I had girlfriends," Justin says. "I got to third with Britney, I bet she didn't think I was gay."

"Oh well," JC says, rolling his eyes, "if you got to third with Britney..."

"Fuck you," Justin says, and finishes his drink. He feels itchy, suddenly, like there's something he's supposed to be doing or something that he forgot. Sometimes he does these every day things—goes to the grocery, sees a movie, goes to a show—and it's like he can't recognize the life he's living right now. Like nothing else is real until he's driving north on 35 to Fort Hood, until he's standing in Sergeant Major's office giving his progress report and feels that sense of calm settle over him that's like nothing else in this world. The knowledge of his purpose and his personhood that comes from the simple act of putting on a uniform and standing at attention, like he actually fucking knows his place in the world and everything comes into sharp focus, the here and now permanently etched in his brain. Justin could describe the Sergeant Major's desk in exacting detail, down to the color of the eyes of the woman in the framed picture next to the Swingline brand stapler. He could recite every word the Sergeant Major has spoken to him since he got back from Iraq via Virginia almost five months ago, although it's not much and it's mostly the same thing every week: case pending, results forthcoming, shit backed up all to hell like everything else, he should have answers soon.

Justin can remember all that, but he can't remember which band they're seeing tonight or what he had for dinner yesterday, or if he even bothered to eat at all. It's like he's just floating through right now. Like this part of his life is all a dream that he can only wake up from once a week. It makes him wish he didn't have to go to sleep.

Justin hates being lost. Back in Denton, just after he'd gotten his license, there was this time once when JC was letting him drive on their way home from school for Thanksgiving or Christmas or something—definitely a winter holiday, though, because they had frost warnings and Justin remembers his mom telling him she had to hang up the phone now because she needed to put plastic bags over her plants—but that one time, they got so incredibly lost they couldn't even find their way back to the highway. There were woods all around and the road got narrower and narrower and JC said, "Come on, J. It's an adventure! This is cool," and started humming the song from Deliverance and giggling. Justin just felt panicked and nauseous and he wanted to go home, but when he looked over at JC, JC was smiling up at the trees like he couldn't be happier. JC never needed to know where he was or what he was doing. JC just wanted to have the experience of getting there. Justin thought that was a bunch of hippie bullshit propaganda for lazy fucks who couldn't be bothered with jobs. He still thinks that, but he makes an exception for JC. JC's not lazy, he just doesn't care how lost he gets.

Justin doesn't have the crush anymore. He can't even imagine what something like that feels like, now. Lance comes back with new drinks for them and JC gives him a wide, goofy smile and leans against Lance's side until Lance slides his arm around JC's waist. Justin looks away, sipping quickly at his drink and thinking about Nick, about the first time he kissed Nick and how he wasn't sure if Nick was going to kiss him back or punch him in the face. Lance doesn't look like he's ever hit anyone his whole life. Justin isn't sure if that's a good thing or not, but it doesn't make him like Lance more, or at all.

"I think I'm gonna go," Justin mutters, but the stage lights come up and the band walks out and JC's not paying attention to him anyway, because Lance is there and Lance makes JC happy, which makes Justin feel cut loose and more aimless than anything else. Justin tosses his empty plastic cup to the ground and turns to go, but then a voice comes over the speakers and it says, "Welcome to the suck, kids." Justin stays.

*

McLean liked to say, "We're marines, we'll fuck anything," but he didn't really mean it. McLean wasn't a complete fuck, but they were all a little homophobic and a lot incorrect and it wasn't anything to use words like 'faggot' in every other sentence. Back home, Justin would never say shit like that because it was self-hating, for starters, but in the suck anything went and words were just words without that sort of awful power they used to have before. They had their own language, anyway, and faggot was just another part of it. Faggot, haji, fuckface, wetback. None of it meant a damn thing because it was a society and a culture that they created and they controlled. So McLean would look back at Nick, hunched in the back seat of the humvee like he was trying to make himself as small as possible, and say, "Aw, Bambi, don't be so fucking shy. We're marines, we'll fuck anything." Then McLean would slide his M16 between his legs and thrust around wildly while Fatone yelled down from topside, "I know you love your gun, fuckface, but if it goes off while you're romancing it, I'm the one who's gonna lose his nuts!"

Later, when Bossman finally called a halt for the night, Justin was trying to see his MRE in the pitch-black darkness just to get the fucking thing open when Nick sat down beside him on the gate of the humvee. He didn't say anything, just sat there looking out into the vast nothingness of the desert, long legs comfortably stretched out in front of him, boot heels digging into the hard-packed dirt of the road and Justin could've told him what was out there: sand, sand, and more sand that never seemed to stick to Nick but Justin felt like it was coated across the insides of his eyelids until it was all he could see, sometimes. Justin got his MRE open and ate without tasting, just shoved the food down in the space of a few minutes and set the package aside. Nick said, "McLean's on watch and Fatone's asleep in the front." Justin wasn't stupid. He'd been here before and he knew what Nick meant. 'We're safe,' was what Nick meant. Justin looked at him, at his bare head bowed just a little, eyes front and how Nick just seemed to soak up the light until the only thing Justin could make out in the darkness was the curve of Nick's jaw and the dark slash across his face where his mouth was.

Justin said, "Why the fuck should I care?" and Nick shrugged and looked at him.

"I guess you shouldn't," Nick said, and Justin leaned in and kissed him once, hard, sliding his teeth along Nick's bottom lip before pulling away. Nick looked at him with angry eyes and for a second, Justin wondered if he'd read it all wrong; but then Nick licked his bottom lip and his eyes softened a little in the darkness, and Justin knew he was right. He sat back and picked up his discarded MRE, touching the thin slice of exposed skin at Nick's wrist and saying, "You want my pudding? I hate tapioca."

Nick was the first thing he'd tried in the desert that didn't taste like sand.

*

Kirkpatrick says, "What the fuck are you doing here, kid?" and JC says, "Justin, you know this guy?" Lance doesn't say anything, just looks bored and sips at his fruity-looking mixed drink. Justin stares at his feet and isn't sure what to say. Kirkpatrick looks different even than he did before, the last time Justin saw him a year and a half ago—or was it more? Maybe more, because time was always so sticky in the desert and it seems like too much shit went down for it to only be a year and no seasons to count by, just the sun, relentless sun and sand and white searing heat that made it hard for him to even open his eyes without his goggles on, but he couldn't wear his goggles all the time, could he, because of the batteries, no batteries, never enough and—and Kirkpatrick looks different still. Black patch over one eye, thin but somehow soft, too. There's a pale flash of skin exposed at his waist when he raises his beer to his lips and Justin wants to touch it, pinch it to see if it feels as soft as it looks. He clenches his hands together in a tight fist behind his back instead. Touching doesn't feel safe somehow.

Kirkpatrick isn't phased by Justin's silence, but then, Kirkpatrick was never phased by much of anything, Justin remembers. "How the fuck did you manage to escape that hell hole, you sneaky fucker?" he says. "What'd you do, shoot the wrong haji?"

JC has the look of a startled deer being hunted, like he's not quite sure how he ended up in this situation and he's scared as fuck to find himself knee-deep regardless. "It was friendly fire," JC says. "A reservist." JC says the word like it's in a foreign tongue, like he's trying it out to see how it feels in his mouth. Like the puzzle finally snapped together in his brain. He looks at Justin. "Justin doesn't talk about it."

Justin digs his fingernails into his palm and it's hot, everything so hot, the night air thick and wet around him until Justin feels like he's drowning only that might be better than JC and Kirkpatrick in the same place at the same time. Justin remembers an episode of Seinfeld—well, he can't remember what happened exactly because it was the sort of show that nothing ever happened on, but he remembers George standing in Jerry's living room, smacking his fat palms together and saying, "Worlds colliding!" That's how Justin feels, he thinks. Worlds colliding, breaking into pieces getting washed down the drain. JC saying the word 'reservist' with a thick layer of meaning—worlds colliding.

"Got yourself a reservist, huh, kid? Good for you, at least you got some action. Fuckers are completely useless. I remember once, this was back in Afghanistan, okay, not even the black hole waste of—"

And then Justin punches him, which shuts Kirkpatrick up pretty quick. Justin's hand throbs and there's this buzzing in his head like a thousand bees nesting in his brain or something, but he sees the completely unsurprised look on Kirkpatrick's face and lets the bouncers escort him out of the venue. Kirkpatrick always did talk way too fucking much for his own good.

*

Links: Part 2: All the King's Men | Part 3: Semper Fidelis | artwork by semijocund | Fanmix: A Fine Dusting of Sand | Index: Dear Goodbye