Just a Tiny Lantern

We’re only half an hour from town, but it feels like we’ve disappeared. Trees close in like we’re in a bubble, and the dry air smells like pine and dust. They banned travelling in the woods that morning because the ground was so dry, a campfire or hiking was no longer an option. We stayed close to our tent with little to do but talk and swim in the lake.  The kids are zipped into the tent next to us, fast asleep. Our laughter bounces against nylon walls as we settle into Ben’s tent. He doesn’t usually camp. His setup is hilariously inadequate—a sad little bedroll, single pillow and a blue blinding flashlight, all items, including the tent, were carefully collected and borrowed from family members so that he could be part of our family’s summer camping ritual. I’ve brought my things—an avalanche of pillows, fleeces, folding chairs and my camping poncho. Ben laughs the minute I start pulling them through the small, zippered door of his tent.

I grabbed my ridiculous little lantern from the car, and Ben immediately started teasing me.

"Babe. It's not even dark."

"I like to be comfortable," I said, holding it up dramatically

"Why do you need all this?" Derek says not questioning, but in a statement.

I laugh, but only a little. Derek is right, and also not. He doesn't say it to be mean — it's just how he is. But I take it to mean I’m too much, extra.

The hood of his sweatshirt is up like a shield, his knees drawn up to his chest in one of the camping chairs I’d just dragged in. He always looks like he's about to fall asleep. But for now, he's awake and watching everything, saying less than he thinks, and weighing everything anyone says against the part of himself he doesn't let us see.


Ben’s already smiling at Derek, still excited and still trying.

We pass around the mushroom-filled chocolate bar. I take the biggest piece. They let me. They’re both used to giving me what I want.

Pam kissed me at the soccer game earlier.


She bought our drinks after we lost, both of us screaming at the ref like it mattered. We were already half-drunk when she leaned in close, her hand on my inner thigh, and kissed me in front of everyone at the bar.

I told her she was too drunk, that it was time to go home. I called Ben to come pick us up.

In the car, she touched us both and asked us to come inside.


“We can’t,” Ben said. “We have to wait for Derek.”


The first time should be all three of us.

Ben is frustrated—he likes Pam. I like her, too, maybe. I’m worried about everyone’s feelings, but also that I could lose a good friend whom I love. Derek has been resistant. No matter how many angles we explain the possibility of the four of us—how she tries, and how his silence intimidates—he doesn’t believe she wants him.

I want Derek there for everything. Ben desperately wants Derek’s respect and not to find himself on the outside of our strong, yet likely frustrating, 10-year marriage. Derek is the same; he does not want to feel left out. So here we are, just the three of us—no one else. I wanted it to be just us—bonding, love, time alone to talk and be together.
It feels exhilarating because I’m happy. I never thought this would be a possibility for me to live.

So, we tell Ben stories of life before him—Derek and me, our adventures. He listens like he’s memorizing it. We talk about Aly, Derek’s girlfriend. I’m just starting to bond with her, and she understands Derek in a way few do. She gets what it’s like to love Derek. To be confused by his silence. To wonder if you’re doing everything wrong.

It’s a mushroom conversation—wandering, looping, disjointed. Serious and then suddenly hilarious. The mushrooms make our senses combine—we feel everything stronger: sadness, touch, laughter, all more intense.

Somewhere in the middle, I put on music—my choice. I play the first playlist Ben ever made me, back when he drove me to a ketamine treatment for my PTSD. At that appointment, they thought he was my husband; neither of us corrected them. Ben, sweet and overly thorough, made a playlist he thought would match the high I’d feel from the ketamine.


“Some of these were way too intense,” he laughs now, half-horror, half-proud.

Ben’s playlist wraps around us, soft and familiar. I’ve listened to it many times since it was made. Derek re-settles into the camp chair inside the tent after his third pee break. He LOVES to pee outside.

“This reminds me of our old trips,” he says.

I smile at the memory. “All our kids were conceived camping.”

Derek immediately corrects me: “They were conceived on the ferry to Newfoundland. You were pregnant on the camping trip.”

I looked at Ben again and tilted my head.

“So, still camping,” Ben said, smiling.

“Doesn’t matter,” Derek insisted. “It wasn’t in a tent.”

“See? This is what it’s like to be married to him. Technically correct is the only kind of correct.”

Derek gave a small smile at that, proud of himself.

“He makes his own rules,” I said, teasing. “And he expects everyone to follow them.”

Ben laughed. “That tracks.”

It was such a Derek thing to do. I was trying to share a memory, something warm and funny and ours. But to him, the literal timeline mattered more. He wasn’t wrong. He just missed the point. I was talking about the feeling of that trip, how close we were, how happy.

And so I returned to babbling about how hard it is for me to express my emotions and needs, when Derek‘s literal mannerisms shut me down.

“I don’t even know how to describe it to other people,” I say. “Like, when I try to explain what it’s like… they just don’t get it. But Aly gets it.”

Derek shrugs. “Aly’s nice.”

Ben cracks up. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?”

I start laughing. “No, I need Aly. Like, in our family. We need her. I want her here.”

“She gets you,” Ben says, with a look like he’s not surprised.

“She understands what it’s like to live with Derek. That is something I am not sure how to put into words for other people. Even to you,” I say to Ben.

It becomes a theme of the night. Every hour or so, I say, “I need Aly,” like it’s a punchline. I don’t want to lose her.

Ben calls my phone from his, over and over, so I can call Aly, but I keep forgetting. Eventually, I can’t explain why I have so many missed calls from Ben and no memory of finding my phone.

Ben always asks me how my day has been. Always. I don’t always answer. It’s hard to explain to him what it’s like being Derek’s wife. Derek is… Derek. He makes his own system of logic and expects you to learn it. He doesn’t always see how people feel—even if you use all the right words. That’s hard for me. I’ve never been good at expressing how I feel. I still freeze up, unsure if I’m right to feel anything at all.

But Ben tries. That’s his superpower—sustained effort. My therapist says he’s good for us. He brings emotional intelligence to places where we were running on fumes. He’s younger than us, which is funny, or maybe a little embarrassing. But he’s exactly who he is. And he wants to understand not just me but us.

Ben holds my hand. Derek kisses my hair. It’s quiet except for the distant echo of crickets and the occasional rustle of a sleeping bag from the next tent over.

Ben kneels in front of me. His eyes are serious.

“Hey,” he says. “I love you. You deserve to be loved. I want to be there for you.”

And it undoes me.

Because that’s the opposite of the voice in my head.

My head says: You’re not good enough. You’re too much. You’ll never be safe.

Ben says: You already are.

He states it as if it’s true, and Derek doesn’t correct him. He simply stays. He’s here.

He’s always been here. No matter how much my mental illness and dissociation worsened, it’s always been him and me against the world, and now we have Ben.

For a few minutes, I’m still. Really still.

The mushrooms are setting in.

I slip into my camping poncho, desperately searching for my lantern now that the sky has fallen dark.

Derek’s laughing at me in the poncho. “You disappear in that thing. Also, I think you’re wearing it inside out.”

Ben just smiles and says, “You’re cute,”

-and that’s enough to make me feel self-conscious.

I’m skinny. My mother was obsessed with weight — hers, mine, everyone’s. Her father, too. I learned early that love came with conditions: be thin, be sweet, be small. So, I eat when I shouldn’t, or don’t when I should. Sometimes I hide it. I don’t want them to see me binge. I don’t want them to worry that I haven’t eaten enough. I don’t want them to worry, period.

When I’m cold, it’s a reminder of all of that. It’s a reminder that I am broken —

Eventually, they appreciate the poncho too. Eventually, they’re the ones who are cold.

We laugh so hard our sides hurt.

We start talking about Savvy.

I bring her up with a teasing smile.


"Can we just agree that Savvy was too crazy for this family? Like, she freaked out, right? Fully freaked out."


We joke because it’s easier to say the frustration that way.


Ben snorts, already laughing. But Derek goes silent. His joking attitude stops — it’s clear he doesn’t want to talk about Savvy.


"We were all kind of dating her," Ben adds quietly. "She was with Derek, but she did everything with all three of us, and then she just cut us out, especially you and me."


There’s a pause, a beat too long. I press on, still trying to make it funny.


"She just couldn’t handle us. That’s what it was. Can we all just say it? She was too crazy for this family."


Derek stays silent. The tension hangs in the air.


Then he leans forward a little and talks about a man I dated once.


"He disregarded boundaries. He didn’t care about my rules or Ben’s place in our lives. And you wouldn’t let him go."


I flinch. The comparison feels sharp and misplaced.


"This isn’t about him. I’m just saying — Savvy was the one who flipped out and blocked everyone."


Derek starts to get up.


"Don’t," I say quietly, pulling on his arm. "Please don’t leave."


He pauses halfway to standing.


"Every time I try to talk about how I feel, you leave," I say, my voice cracking. "It feels like rejection. It always feels like rejection."


Ben presses his chest closer against my back, grounding me. He lets out a quiet laugh.


"Derek, man. No," he says softly. "Look what you’re doing to her."


He nudges me gently. "Caroline is right. Savvy blocked all of us. It hurt. Just let her say it."


Derek doesn’t respond but sits back down, jaw tense.


But he stays.


Ben kisses the back of my neck. I lean into him, grateful.


"She was too crazy for our family," I whisper again.


Ben nods. "Way too crazy."


They both kiss me. They’re touching my arms, my face. It’s not sexual — it’s affectionate. Together, their different ways make me feel loved, seen, and protected.


The tent is quiet for a while.


Outside, the crickets are overwhelmingly loud and brilliant. Every time I focus on them, I calm. Ben’s hands are soft and warm, leaving a resonating heat on my skin.

Eventually, I find it under a pile of jackets. I grab my tiny lantern dramatically and stumble out toward the porta-potties, the only thing glowing in the pitch dark.


The campground is mostly empty—just a few tents scattered around—and the woods feel vast and eerily quiet, like the whole place is holding its breath. Most people left after the ban on entering the woods was placed.

I remember earlier that day—a kid in a tie-dye shirt and a crooked helmet biking past me, blurting, “Did you see the porcupines?! There’s a whole family of them near the outhouse!”


At the time, I laughed it off. Now, alone in the dim halo of my lantern, the memory makes me shiver.

I pee as fast as I can shooting a text to our group thread:


Porta-potties are disgusting. Also, why aren’t we talking about the porcupines? Also, why hasn’t anyone had sex with me in days??

Ben texts back immediately: Where are you?


Pam: Wait, what porcupines??

Rushing back I could hear Derek and Ben’s laughter.


I flop inside, and Derek looks up. “We’ve all tried to have sex with you. You’ve been unavailable.”


Ben’s still chuckling, but the mood shifts slightly with Derek’s blunt words. It’s true. I realize I’ve said no to all of them—not out loud, not consciously—just backed away, closed off, tensed my body. And they have listened.

These are new thoughts, new feelings—realizations my partners are helping me explore: that it’s okay to say no, even when it’s hard to admit, even when it feels like failure.

I was taught that sex is part of being good — being wanted, being loved, being a wife. I’ve spent years saying yes without asking if I really wanted to. Lately, I’m learning what no feels like—but it leaves everyone, including me, uncertain.

I drop into the poncho again and laugh with them, but inside, something’s shaking. Saying no feels like failure. But lately… I’ve said it.

The tent falls quiet for a while. Derek lies down, turned away. Ben stays close, still lightly touching every part of me. I let out a sigh as his fingers move to the inside of my toned thighs.

Randomly, or maybe not, Ben leans over and says, “That could be a good weekend to make a plan with Pam.”

“No,” I say quickly. “Our anniversary is off-limits.”

Ben’s face shifts, quiet with hurt. He doesn’t say anything, but the disappointment is there. And Derek’s already withdrawn.

I try to explain. “I told you exactly what I wanted, Derek. Months ago. The party, the theme, the hotel—”

“You also told me you’d go without me if I didn’t plan it,” he interrupts. “If you want to spend our anniversary with someone else, go.”

His words hit heavier than I expected. I was trying so hard not to be disappointed—trying to make something special before it fell apart—and all I got back was “we’ll see.”

“I didn’t say it to hurt you,” I whisper. “I just needed you to know it mattered.”

Derek shifts beside me. “I love you,” he mumbles, and then… snores.

I laugh through my tears and pull the poncho tighter. “He does this all the time. I can’t sleep — because when I close my eyes, I see our dead daughter — and he just… snores. Instantly. Like he’s fine.”

Ben kisses the back of my neck. “I’m sorry, babe. I know.”

We’re quiet again. Ben keeps holding me.

“You can let me see it,” he says. “The PTSD. The dissociation. The hard parts. You don’t have to protect me from it.”

“I’m not trying to protect you,” I say. “I just don’t need to be fixed.”

“I don’t want to fix you. I want to be here.”

He presses his forehead against mine. I want to let him hold some of the pain, but it’s too much. I don’t want to be fixed. I don’t want to be pitied.

“I know what you want,” I say quietly, feeling the weight of him against my back. “But right now, I just need not to feel anything. I need my meds.”

Ben doesn’t hesitate. He gets out of the tent to find what I need, always understanding.

When he returns, Derek’s still snoring. Ben helps me lie down, tucks the blanket and my poncho around me, and I melt into the calm that follows the meds, into the stillness that comes when someone meets your needs without question.

I cry a little more, quietly now.

“I always say yes,” I say into the dark. “Always. That’s how I was taught—to be wanted, to be safe.”

“You don’t have to anymore,” Ben whispers. “We’re here anyway.”

I’m between them.


Just — warm.


Just — safe.

I fall asleep.

The sing-song of Ben's alarm jolts me awake. It's still dark, but the night has thinned into that pale pre-dawn. I help him quietly fold blankets, stuff sleeping bags, and collapse chairs—moving through the sleepy choreography of breaking camp. We carry his gear to the car, our footsteps soft on the damp grass.

The horizon is lit in a bright, impossible red, bleeding upward as we stand by his driver's side door. He kisses me once, then again, and says he'll miss me.

At some point in the night, Derek had moved back into the big tent with the kids, our youngest waking up with a stomach-ache.

After Ben drives away, I follow the narrow trail back to our site. The tent is warm from Derek's body when I slip inside.

He wrapped his arms around me and asked if I was okay. I nodded, inhaling his scent.

The night had been layered—pain, laughter, longing—but in the morning light, I felt a little lighter. Lucky, even.

Derek brought me coffee in my sleeping bag a few hours later. I swam in the lake to cool off, thinking about the life I’ve built and the strange, beautiful ways love can take shape.