I'll just catalog all of this in ten-minute increments until the end of time. Okay, I won't but still. That's what this feels like lately.

Looking for ways just to rationalize madness
What was I so mad about
All of the things that I've always avoided
Constantly keep coming out

So please teach me to breathe
Remind me how, I can't remember
Please read me the theme
You've lost the plot, the story's dismembered

Now I'd kinda like to go for a walk
Talk with myself and work it out
'Cause if I'd only just remembered to breathe
I'd understand what you see

So please teach me to breathe
Remind me how, I can't remember
Please read me the theme
You've lost the plot, the story's dismembered

You know how I feel about putting you in front of a firing squad, peanut. He actually does not like the group meetings, brainstorming sessions or anything involving a public dismantling of his favorite little line-walker/-drawer/-crosser. Nope, he would prefer to keep me squirreled away in the camper, never to see the light of day, forced to subsist on pilfered vitamin D supplements and lavish descriptions of the weather I can only view through the tiny rusted-stuck window. Hungry. Always so hungry and miserable and so stubborn besides.

It would have been nice if you would have shown your pretty face nonetheless. To back me up, Locket.

How do you know I don't side with them? He scolds but he is smiling, almost.

You just reminded me. I am drawing on a sketchbook cradled in my lap, eraser balanced on one knee, tortillon clenched between my teeth. He looks up and frowns when he sees this. If it gets wet it doesn't work and only makes a mess but I have run out of hands and I don't want to put it down on the sand.

If I am so afraid and awful and continue to drop the ball, as it were, according to your written thoughts, then how come wherever I go, you follow soon after, and you sit within a few feet of me and remain there until I move? You tell me what that's all about and I'll remind you to think of the reasons why I do or don't do something before you eviscerate me with your words in front of the world. Oh, and for the record, you've skipped a very important upcoming date that lies before the anniversary of Jake.

I didn't skip it, I don't have to work through it. It is a happy one.

Is it?

Of course it is. I look up with an irritated expression and the tortillon falls to the sand anyway. He walks over and fetches it for me, holding it out. I don't take it, I just sit there squinting up at him.

Is it...happy...for you?

Of course it is, Bridget. I wouldn't have it any other way.

No one takes it seriously.

I do. Do you?

Yes, Loch.

Burning building?

Don't do that.

You use it to illustrate your point all the time.

That's different! I'm dramatic and impulsive and broken.

And I'm not?

Well, you're- and I stopped. Yes, you're dramatic and impulsive and broken.

Two peas in a pod.

Actually a B and an L.

That's not what I said-

I know. But I like it better.

Oh. I get it. Ben says "two bees in a pod", doesn't he?

Yeah.

I knew that. You'd save him, wouldn't you?

Only if he couldn't save himself already, Lochlan. That's where you come in. I'd need some help there.