I ran in and slammed the door as I went, almost losing ground and winding up on my ass. The door swung, picking up speed until it smashed into place and the latch clicked automatically. You would click too, at that speed. I turned around and felt along the wall for the light switch, obscured in the dark, under spiderwebs and months without touch.
I didn't even have to turn back around to realize he was there. He spoke first.
What in the hell are we doing back in this room, princess?
And I did not know what to say so I smiled and then I covered my mouth. I watched as he carefully made his I don't approve but gosh, you're adorable when you're bad face and then my smile fell off my face. Too dark anyway. He is faded around the edges but still himself. The accent as thick as ever to the point where I still need to count a beat to make sure he said what I think he said, based on the thickness of his words and the ridiculous amount of words just to say something like wow or how bout that.
His smile followed mine into the dark. We are so serious sometimes it would make you cry.
It's summer, princess, don't you have a beach to visit?
You never liked the beach.
I liked the ones I found you on.
That wasn't me, just an ideal.
That was you. You need to get back to that.
It's a busy time. Batman is taking over the guys.
I know and I don't understand. Caleb has really stepped back.
Batman does that to people.
What about the rest?
They're waiting and watching.
And what about you, princess?
I smile again, just enough. It's not a question, it's a statement. What about me? I will take the affection of anyone who gives it freely. I will throw it in the face of the next one to question it and I will die on my feet, jumping up and down wanting to be everything to everyone, in place of oxygen and light and blood. Make me more powerful than Satan and God put together. Die for me, always. Live to breathe me as air, and whatever you do, don't question the inside of my head because it hasn't been mapped yet.
Or even deciphered, for that matter.
And boy, am I ever drunk right now and I opt to sit on the charcoaled floor, drawing cute cartoons in the dust and Jacob sits down too, even though he'll probably ruin his khakis and his white shirt. He had eight plain white dress shirts and all of them were so threadbare I couldn't even pass them along to the boys, I wound up throwing them out. I kept the blue shirts. I slept wearing it for the better part of three months until it stopped smelling of sandalwood and patchouli and started to smell like roses and lilacs and then I knew I should have sealed it into a ziploc bag but now I know for number three, don't I?
Caleb is here tonight.
I know.
He does not approve of all this.
I know.
He's being freakishly hands-off.
It won't keep, Bridget.
I know.
My hands are fluttering and he frowns again.
You should go inside. Go find Ben or Duncan. Lochlan even. Stay close to them. I don't trust Batman or Caleb right now.
It's nothing I can't handle.
He shakes his head and starts to get up but then he turns to me, while still on his knees. He gathers my hands together in his and kisses the tips of my fingers and when his face breaks into a smile I see the lines around his pale blue eyes and the depth that is a gift, like the deep blue sea and for the first time he starts to say something and can't finish and he's getting up and it's over.
It sounded like I'm sorry.
Only I couldn't hear him all that well.
Before I could ask him what he said I was led back through the door into the hallway, back toward the patio lights, back toward hot coffee and maybe an early, discreet excusal from the boys until the dark singular hours when evil comes calling and I go out to head it off, saving the rest, sacrificing the present and the future for some sort of fractured, manufactured truth of a past that never should have happened in the first place.
But first, another drink, for the kitchen is empty and their hands will be rough. Like their words and their hearts, after all. Jake isn't going to go very far away until Caleb does. I gotcha. Figured it out, probably the slowest, since I'm the smallest, after all. Which is why they shouldn't let me have more than three glasses of wine.
But I know why they do. The words flow freely, and the veneration too. Everybody loves a princess, unsteady on her feet. There will be no saving grace tonight, I do believe I spent everything I had.
