Chapter Three

Dinner with Geneva’s lashlings was worse than what Ben had prepared himself for. The food, though somewhat dry for his taste, wasn’t the worst part of the meal. The worst part of the meal was that he was reminded that, wherever he went, he experienced the same chasm of loneliness that it seemed others had found a way to cross.

Living with Gus and Martha wasn’t always painful—Martha was his sister and Gus had told Ben on several occasions that he felt lashed just as much to Ben as he was to Martha. But going to dinner with lashed couples, watching the way they interacted with each other under the full and safe assumption that the strength of the relationship could not fade no matter the actions of either side…something about that unsettled Ben and always made him feel inadequate.

Living in Medias, he had grown accustomed to not remembering the beginnings of things. The same darkness that clouded his past—When did he first come to live with Martha and Gus or was it they who came to live with him? Why was Tess not his sister when he felt so much closer to her than to Martha? Was he really related to anyone? Who and where are their parents?—clouded everyone around him as well, so he could get no answers from anyone if he ever asked why he didn’t have a lash.

Everyone at the dinner party was lashed, most of them, like Gus and Martha, had been together for years, but the two couples throwing the party hadn’t been lashed for very long. But neither of those time spans meant anything. The lashlings couldn’t remember a time before they were lashed any more than Gus and Martha could. Time was not an object, which was both the answer and the question of why Ben could never be lashed.

After the party, Ben told his family he was going to go catfish fishing on the edge of the hills and wandered his separate way, knowing that he wasn’t fooling either of them. He did walk to the edge of the hills and sit by the catfish pond, but instead of fishing, he lay back and watched the darkening clouds pass overhead, covering and uncovering the stars as they opened bleary eyes to the night.

“Ben?”

He blinked, sighed, smiled. “Yeah.”

“Fancy seeing you here,” Tess said quietly, coming to stand over him and let her curly hair hang around her face and frame her against the sky.

Ben patted the ground next to him, and she took the cue to lie down at his side. “What brings you all the way out here?”

“The loosening,” he said. “You?”

“The same. It got to the point where I couldn’t remember a time where I wasn’t cleaning house, even though I knew there had to have been one.”

“There was one. I remember it,” Ben assured her. “That time when I saw you in the market and you told me that you didn’t have anything to do and that you’d just left the house because you could.”

“Oh right. I remember that. Thanks.” He heard her hair rub against the grass and felt her breath against his ear when she spoke again. “What was wrong with you?”

“Dinner party,” he said. “Couldn’t remember a time when I didn’t eat poorly seasoned food for dinner every night.”

She laughed lightly and turned her face back to the sky. “You’re lying.”

“Yeah.”

“I was in a shop today where some musicians were playing what they called ‘cloud music,’” Tess said.

Ben laughed once loudly. “What did it sound like?”

She pointed to three wisps that caught the gray-blue of twilight. “It’s hard to describe, but it really sounded like them.”

Ben took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I want to leave Medias, Tess.”

She let her hand fall into her lap. They sat in silence for a few minutes before she rolled onto her knees and brushed the dead leaves off of her back. Ben closed his eyes and bit his lip as he listened to her walk off.
He couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t wish that she wouldn’t have been able to walk away.