I'd say your worst side's your best sideThere's a huge campaign to get me to call off the dogs where it comes to Caleb, you know, since he moved here to be closer to us and to provide whatever the hell it is that he thinks we might need from him, and couldn't I try to just get along for the sake of our family? This is the guilt levelled on me by Cole's parents. Which is lovely but I'm finding here as life goes on that the role of Satan has been filled with someone new.
I never hurt anyone
I never listen at all
Lochlan.
A hundred million years ago, when I was fourteen years old and he broke up with me (wow, I just realized how incredibly LOVELY it is that I have this twenty-three year long history of rejection from this man and yet he STILL gets whatever he wants.) he promised that he would look out for me. That he would never not be annoyed by me but he loved me still. Just not enough.
Not. Enough.
Bridget likes a challenge, apparently. Or Loch does. I don't know and furthermore this is one of those things I know I'll regret writing about but again it's here inside my head and it won't leave because it's not getting better and maybe if I just empty it all out and shake the crumbs onto the floor then I can wash the jar and store it away empty and things will be okay.
Then again, maybe I won't.
There's a desperate and pressure-cooker mentality to Lochlan these days that makes me want to rip him into little pieces and scatter them in the river because he clued in sometime around after I married Ben and then Ben and I have had some agonizing growing pains and there's a lot to deal with here. Lochlan saw an opening and threw his hat in the ring. Which was too little too late and yet he still thinks he's going to pull a Jake and wear me down. Even though that isn't what Jake did. Maybe it is to an extent but it really isn't, so no. And sure, writing it out once again puts Ben in his place because the weekend was fiercely beautiful and vaguely painful at the same time.
Lochlan told me last night that Ben should have been a fling, not a commitment and that Ben got greedy and jumped for the brass ring when he wasn't supposed to. I fired back that I've had a commitment to Ben forever, that if we didn't go our separate ways after all the awful things we've done to ruin each other then we're not going to now. And for the love of God don't you come back yet again with the same song for the same dance. Fuck you.
And he brings up the damn photo again.
Which was none of anyone's business to begin with and I'm so pissed right now. They resort to going through my phone because the times I am in control of my own life they don't like it. Lochlan saw a picture of me that Ben took on the weekend and in front of me on the table are two glasses, almost empty. Wine glasses. Two of them. Which means the alcoholic isn't on the wagon and they're all mad because I didn't run from Ben, I didn't rat him out and I didn't say a single word about it. I don't plan to say any more about it here.
And wow, she's doing really good again in so many ways, exactly how much like Cole is Ben going to be? They stroke my hair and whisper that I just need to tell them exactly what's going on and they can protect me from repeating history.
I didn't ask them to. And I find it fascinating that the minute I take over my own control again and exert a tiny bit of independence they all lose their minds.
And it looks like Lochlan wrote that letter but he didn't. Caleb did and it found it's way to my inbox because his email is set up to do that, with help, so that I would have records if he tried to contact any of my friends behind my back. And I'd like to know exactly what Caleb did for Ben that helped further Ben's race to my heart and I'd like to know what Loch thinks he's going to achieve by tearing Ben down almost continuously, as always, in my eyes and I'd really like to know why if I did everything right on the weekend, by not saying a word while Ben sat in front of me and drank wine, not berating him, not helping him get any, not making it my problem and instead focusing on getting what I wanted out of my weekend with him, then why do I feel so helpless when it comes to him? Clinging to the times when he's here and fearing for him when he isn't?
But not lost, oddly enough. And that is what makes Lochlan so crazy.
He can't fix a damned thing and oh, boy, does he ever hate that helpless feeling. Tell me about it. So instead he tries other methods. No more yelling, just his glassy-eyed affirmations that I no longer indulge in because life didn't turn out that way. We're reduced to whispers at four in the morning because we can't just fucking drop it already. Just take what I can give you and let the rest go. Jesus Christ, I need to get off this endless loop.
Enough already. You got Ben's supposed role, take it now and play it to the fullest.
Bridget, it was always supposed to be me, and instead I let you go.
There's no room for you here, anymore, Lochlan, why won't you just go?
Is that what you want? Because you keep saying it, Bridget and yet here we are. So you tell me, is that what you really want?
No.
I'm a coward.