Progress, as Bridget moves onward and upward, purging herself of the best and the worst memories to make room for new ones that don't involve monsters and mistakes.
She said I tried to mind my own business
But that sad look on your face was a challenge to my faith
Made me wanna chase the dark out of your room
So she smiled and said hello; little did she know
He would take over her soul and never never never let go
He was fine before he met her
Eyes like faded jeans, soft and blue and he had seen
Everything, and he had been everywhere
Til he turned his gaze away, longed to see it every day
Heard a voice inside him say you'll never never never be the same
I'm pulling out my CDs this week, a sort of ritual performed each new year to remind me that my own personal soundtrack never stops playing, it just advances and recedes like a lyrical tide to give me strength and soothe my wounds, to lift me up and drag me out. Listening to music I haven't heard for a long time helps me categorize these memories, because I don't have to suppress it all anymore.
My brain is a virtual HMV store, arranged by artist, alphabetically. Feeling music, because there is so much I don't hear and that's a travesty.
This morning I pulled out Volcano, my favorite Edie Brickell album, and one that has seen it's fair share of memories made.
Jacob passed it back to me over coffee once upon a time, here in this city several months after he moved here, which would have been around the time I left Cole very temporarily and with no regret and was promptly returned to him, soundly rejected by Jacob who was married by this time and struggling just to keep his own head on straight.
That would be the new years eve that Cole lost me in a snooker game. He lost me to Jacob and Jacob took him up on his offer simply to teach him a lesson, but he wound up learning one instead. We were set up and we took it and ran with it anyway, our mistake. All the way to Jacob's house, shortly before midnight. We went inside and he turned off the porch lights. My eyebrows went up, because up until that moment I hadn't considered the gravity of the situation. We had all been drinking, a night long planned, complete with all-night babysitting by Cole's mom.
I'll teach that asshole to treat you this way.
What are you talking about?
You're staying here with me tonight, princess.
Right. You took me home. I'm yours for the night. Make him pay, Jake. Make him pay by having me.
Stop it. Just be quiet.
I'll do whatever you want me too.
There's a word for this, Bridget.
Extraordinary?
Pathetic. I'm not going to touch you. You're not the prize. The prize for me is teaching him a lesson.
It's because you're married isn't it? Jacob, who is ever going to know? This is sanctioned, it's permissible.
Not by me, it isn't.
So you don't want me?
Oh, I want you. Bridget, I have wanted you forever but it isn't going to be this way.
So why am I here? Fuck, I need to be far away from both of you.
I told you, you came home with me and you're spending the night and I'm going to show Cole a thing or two about treating you the way he does. I'm sick of it. Come in out of the hall and we'll get some tea.
I don't want any, thank you.
He put on the stereo. Our eyes met just as the announcer started counting down the final 10 seconds to 2005.
Auld Lang Syne came on. True to form, my eyes welled up, standing there in the middle of Jacob's tiny living room, staring up at him.
Bridget don't cry over this song. It's a song about times that have long passed. We're in the here and now.
Maybe that's not why I'm crying.
Happy New Year, beautiful.
It won't be for me, but Happy New Year, Jacob.
Have hope, princess.
I'm running low on that particular commodity right at this moment.
He put his arms around me and kissed my forehead (lord) and held me until the song was over. Then he smiled and asked me if I wanted the bed or the couch. I just kind of looked at him, surprised.
What is it?
We've done this before, Jacob. We can just share the bed.
Right and that wasn't a good idea before, either, Bridget. Just pick one.
Could I have the bed? It's warmer in there.
Sure, princess. Let me get some blankets first and I'll be out of your hair.
We're going to sleep right now?
You're half shot and I'm headed that way. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll take you out for breakfast before I bring you home.
All business. I'm standing in his living room, his for the night and he's worried about whether or not I'm eating, goddammit. I just nodded. It's Lochlan all over again.
He walked me to the bedroom door, kissed the tip of my nose and told me if I needed anything, just to holler. I closed the door and took off my dress, hanging it in his closet and got in bed with my camisole and undies. For some reason I didn't want to sleep that naked so I got out one of his organic undershirts and put that on too. It was huge on me but so soft. I slid between the sheets of his bed and it smelled like him. Out in the living room, I heard him put a CD on the stereo. The one I had with me when we left that had been a belated Christmas present from Jacob. A copy of Edie Brickell's Volcano that he knew I wanted. The music was familiar and I was asleep in moments.
I woke up at 3 am, not knowing where I was, terrified.
Jacob was sitting in the chair in the corner watching me sleep, an expression on his face I could hardly describe, it was a mixture of anguish and longing. He wasn't moving, he was just sitting with his elbows on his knees, still dressed in jeans and a plain white button down shirt with another of those soft tshirts underneath, bare feet, hair messed up as if he had been tossing and turning instead of ever sleeping. I sat up.
Jacob. What's wrong?
You make me so crazy, Bridget. Being near you, touching you, talking to you. It drives me crazy and I don't know what to do about it.
He was so distraught, I flew out of the bed and put my arms around him. He held on to me so gently and then he pulled away with a confused look.
Why are you wearing my shirt?
I was cold, I'm still cold. Will you lie down with me?
Oh, God, Bridge, I can't do this. You're wearing pink underwear. Oh my God.
I'm only asking you to be here. Not to do anything but be here.
Sometimes that's the hardest part.
His voice was thick with desperation, but he didn't talk anymore. We climbed back into his bed and settled in with our arms around each other, my nose to his chest, his breathing on the top of my head, blankets up over our heads.
Jake?
Yeah, princess?
Are you really going to sleep fully-clothed?
He took off his shirt and jeans and left everything else on, tshirt and boxers, and settled back down against me. And he sat up again and rubbed his eyes.
Princess, this is a bad idea.
Sleep, Jacob, just sleep with me. Please.
He lay back down and pulled me even closer. We were breathing the same space now and he held me so tightly against him. More than once that night we lost our way and began kissing each other and at one point he had me flat on my back, both hands hooked under the hips of my underwear about to pull them off and he stopped. At one point he had the tshirt I had on yanked up over my breasts and he licked one of my nipples and then he stopped. At one point he pulled my hair back and kissed my throat and pressed his body against mine but then he stopped.
I woke up around 5:30 am, completely tangled in his arms and legs, his face turned into my shoulder, arms locked around me, his hands clasping me to him almost exactly the same way we had woken up the last time we slept together, in the hammock.
I'm beginning to love sleeping with him at this point. Even if very little happens. Even if it all feels so unfamiliar and is heavily laden with guilt and grief for a life I was deliberately throwing away.
He opened his eyes when I shook him awake and smiled at me bitterly. He said quietly that he knew now that I wasn't so much a prize won but a screw turned and that Cole had succeeded in hurting him worse than anything I could ever do or say to Jacob, he had dangled a forbidden need in front of Jacob and it was about to be yanked away again.
Oh God, there's that look again. The one that speaks volumes, that says Jacob will die if he doesn't get his way, and he pushed me down onto my back again and pushed up my tshirt and kissed my belly and then right down my thighs and I wanted to scream. I thought for sure he was going to give up and just take everything I was offering him right there. Instead he stood up abruptly, pulled his jeans back on, shrugged into the infamous moss green blazer and ran his fingers through his hair in an attempt to look less distraught.
Which failed.
I got up and put my party dress back on and tried to fix the smudges of black underneath my eyes. I gave up and just scrubbed my face raw instead. I dreaded going home.
My God, you look so pretty.
Is that pretty cute or pretty pathetic, Jake?
There were eleven missed calls from Cole on my cell phone when I turned it on. Jacob had turned it off sometime after I went to sleep the first time. I didn't question him, I just followed him outside and got into the truck beside him and we found a diner far outside of town and took a booth and drank coffee in silence, both of us pushing hashbrowns around on our plates half-heartedly, not sure how to keep going forward but knowing we had somehow crossed an imaginary line with each other and we couldn't continue down this road.
The guilt that was crushing him was absent in me, I was still angry with Cole and in shock that Jacob once again held me all night long.
Don't forget your CD, princess.
Thanks.
We didn't say any more words to each other during the meal. I ate nothing. Then Jacob let out a long shaky sigh and suggested he drive me home.
I don't want to go home.
Well, I don't want to be around you right now, princess.
Oh my god. Fine, get mean. That helps, Jacob.
You're killing me.
You're married, how can I have this effect on you anymore?
Yeah well, I can get unmarried. You seem to be having trouble with that.
Jacob, don't be like this.
Be like what, Bridget? I just had a heartbreaking night in which I almost exploded because I wanted you so damn bad, a night where I thought I was going to go half-crazy every time you moved in your sleep. What sort of romantic dream will you make this night into inside your head so that you can live with what you do to me? It's terrible. All of it. Cole wins. I fail, and you're so fucked up you don't even know the difference between right and wrong anymore. I'm disgusted with all of us but the little voice inside my head is screaming for you and right now I just want it to stop, and I want you to go away.
Fuck you, Jacob.
Oh, fuck you too, princess. Now shut up and eat something so we can leave. Christ, you're too thin.
If you think being mean will make me stop loving you then you're mistaken, preacher boy.
If I thought you would ever love me enough to do something about it, then I'd try anything at this point. This isn't mean, princess, it's frustration talking.
It's mean. You're making me cry in a fucking truckstop in the middle of nowhere because you held me in your arms all night and you want me and I want you but I don't want to leave Cole.
Bridget, you can't have both of us. And I don't understand why you stay with him. He's bad for you.
Maybe you're bad for me.
Maybe I'm the only thing that's good for you but you can't see that and I don't know why you can't see it after all this time.
Then maybe you should just take me home.
Fine, put on your coat.
He stood up, threw some bills on the table, and took my hand, walking too quickly for me, I had to rush to keep up. He drove me right to my front door and I went inside alone and Jacob roared off. I walked up the steps and reached out to open the door when it flew open from the inside, Cole meeting me on the threshold with a smug, angry face, but a look that also screamed relief because I came back. He told me the kids would be brought home after his mom took them out for lunch and then he asked me how my night went.
And he didn't believe me when I told him.
I didn't fuck him, if that's what you were worried about.
Oh, no worries, I was well aware that I would pay for my Judas kiss either way. Even with lies of omission.
And I paid for it, in spades.
Jacob called later on, exchanging some terse words with Cole. Cole wouldn't even let him talk to me.
And Jacob never forgave himself for whatever way he imagined that Cole made me pay for that night. But he remains protected because whatever he came up with most likely wasn't half as bad as what actually took place but I would never put him in the place of having to feel any worse, he's paid his price just like I have.
But somehow, something Jacob gave me in that one night in which we struggled with ourselves and with each other made me find the hope and the strength he had wished for me. And I hear it now when I listen to songs I heard then.
Nothing hurts right now. Even pulling memories out of the dark and bonking myself over the head with my own foolishness, for the first time it doesn't ache. Listening to songs and thinking about difficult moments and somehow I'm not bleeding.
