He's gone again. Thank God.
No, not Ben. Ben is still here. I mean Caleb.
He thought it fine to fly in and ruin all the fun of the toxic twins, casting his customary cold grey edge to everything that was formerly warm and/or safe. He thought I seemed to be descending back towards the low end of the metronome and I was. The ticking stopped. I rested with no beat and I think it's more like a mild undercurrent of white-knuckle hysteria and he thinks it meant it was time for a lesson from Satan, reminders of how the behavior of tiny blonde wisps of panic should play out.
Or else.
Ben and I would have been perfectly fine not to have hell recreated in the night but when do I ever get a say? I will never be given a chance to refund iniquity and vice as they pay dividends that allow us to live like kings and princesses and paupers in gold-lined paper houses. The light is artificial, the warmth contrived.
What Satan doesn't know is there's an army forming to the south of my future love paradise and it's as heavily-subsidized as his reprobation against Bridget. Because people who actually love me without conditions are running out of patience for his extravagant display of obsession for me. Once again I'll just put my head down and they can all fight it out above me. Eventually someone with a cooler head (Lochlan) will step in and ensure that the children and I are returned to the collective focus but not before everyone has re-staked their constantly shifting property lines in what seems to be a fairly fluid neighborhood.
Who am I kidding? I'm sure he knows. I'm sure he feels the pressure. Maybe time is running out and that's why he felt he had to interrupt our reunion with the ugly reminders of the way things are. Maybe he did indeed want to spend a day with the children and Bridget is just a lovely x-rated side benefit who struggles just enough to be fun but still flinches enough to make things difficult.
I won't change and I doubt he will either. All signs point to the army being both a blessing and a whole new kind of curse. A kind of curse where you go from eyes wide shut to eyes wide open and you jump and hope for the best.
Ben won't let me fall. If there is one thing he has always done, it's hang on, no matter what. This story isn't over yet. Not by a long shot. Paper houses don't hold up and eventually all luck has to change.
