Told me you loved me, that I'd never die aloneHe bent his head down low, pushing against my hair, his arms sliding around my back, easily across the satin slip. He pushed me down onto the bed, kissing my throat, tracing his fingers down my face.
Hand over your heart let's go home.
Everyone noticed, everyone had seen the signs,
I've always been known to cross lines.
I never ever cried when I was feeling down,
I've always been scared of the sound.
Jesus don't love me, no one ever carried my load,
I'm too young to feel this old.
Here's to you, here's to me, oh to us,
Nobody knows
Nobody sees
Nobody but me
I love you.
I braced myself for him and then I was tearing at the sheets, turned over and hammered into, kissed all over, crushed beneath him. Returned to my back so he could smile down at me, slower now, harder now, until I'm clawing at air, his hand over my mouth so I can't scream, his head pressed against my mine. Then his hands are down, full weight and he pulls my hips into his so hard I can't breathe. Razorburn brings sweet stinging agony to my skin, sweat challenges our strength as efforts are wasted when our limbs slide freely over one another.
I am lifted, pulled away and then brought back to my delight and everything else goes away until the only focus is Ben. I am suddenly touched by how happy that makes me. How incredibly sure I am that after all of these efforts to test my loyalties they still remain with this man, and I am sitting above him now, knees up and wrapped around his back and his arms are around me and this is how we always end up and he kisses me because I am on his level at last. Cementing that loyalty. He looks at the clock, sighs and gets up, passing me my dress, apologizing for tearing my slip. It was vintage. Pale rose. He adores it on me and I am made to sleep in it often. I believe I can mend it still. He steps over to me and grabs my head in both hands, pulling me up to him for a kiss. One of these days I fear my head's going to come right off when he does that but I love it anyway. I am returned to earth gently. Beauty and the beast. So much heart in one room we're going to blow the walls out.
I love you, Bridget.
I love you, Ben.
We should have kept going. It took another two hours for everyone to show up for the family meeting Ben called, after hardly speaking to anyone for the past two weeks.
I should really learn that when a man stands in front of me with his back to me, blocking access that something very serious is about to take place and I am being shielded from harm.
Ben took this stance. Last night when he first came home and took me upstairs he looked at me with his eyes red and wired and exhausted, and he said simply,
Enough.
He turned around, facing his friends, taking a drink from a bottle of water. Almost to the letter I could have sworn it was something else because the action is the same but it was water. He put the bottle down on the table and he scooped his arm behind his back, me within his reach and gently pushed me further so I couldn't see their faces, so they couldn't see me.
I just pressed my forehead against his back and his arm came back again, pressing me against him, squeezing me in his own shorthand. It will be okay. And then he started to talk and I was shoved to the floor abruptly as Lochlan picked that moment to go for broke. All of the sudden everyone is shouting and PJ went for Lochlan and nailed him to the floor, keeping him there and Ben turned around and pulled me up off the floor and I tried to ask them what in the hell is wrong with all of you and I couldn't and I don't want to see them fight and Ben is trying to talk to me but Lochlan is still yelling, screaming for me and PJ is sitting on him so he's going nowhere.
Ben took my hand and he kissed it and he tucked it into his and led me upstairs to sleep. He was finished. Something I wished for. I don't know how it's going to work with this house or the new company or with the devil for that matter but all he had to do was say those words that burn Lochlan's ears and heart so badly and I can't help it.
She's mine.
This is what I have said all along as I've been passed from one to the next. No timeshares. Don't do this. Please. I can't do this. And then, fine. I'll embrace it. This is life now if this is the choice you have made. This is what grownups do. They take their bad ideas and they run with them and then later on they learn the cost. And then they have to figure out how to pay. I am bankrupt. I have no more emotional currency for this. It is over.
We're leaving now to drive downtown for breakfast with the devil, to do this all over again, so forgive me if I'm a little stressed this morning. I need to keep making sure it's water Ben is drinking because if he changes then he doesn't get to make any rules and Jesus Christ, no one wants me making them.
He holds my hand. So tightly I want to cry with relief but I'm waiting. Maybe later when we are safe again.