I spent almost two-and-a-half weeks angry at Benjamin. I woke up, flip-flopped and got scared. Maybe it's a dream. Maybe he's dead like the others. You don't know what my mind does to me sometimes. It's a horror show rollercoaster ride. It's a bad dream. It's a whimsical, uncontrollable beast. It scares most everyone and that's why I have a team. Not just some friends but two dozen knights on high alert.
Because I'm unpredictable and run on flames and sugar.
Again, we know who to blame for starting all of this and we know who to blame for ending it. But when the chips have fallen there is still the burning question left.
What do we do with her now?
I woke up afraid and I made sure that it's fully and clearly understood that I miss Ben. A whole lot.
He called the night before I actually admitted this out loud and told me three things, you see.
The first thing was that he loves me, so very very much and he wants to be better. He wants to be a well man so he can be a good husband and a good friend and a good stepfather too.
The second thing is that he wants me to do exactly what he set in place for me the morning he proposed that we marry Lochlan. Because Lochlan is permanent, carved in stone and so should the need arise for me to be handed off to someone else well, let's just make it formal because alone=bad, Caleb=bad and anyone else would be a total fucking trainwreck.
(I could give you concrete examples of this but instead just remember Joel.)
The third thing is that he will be home at Halloween.
(That's right boys and girls, this is a sixteen week residential program where instead of just getting off whatever destruction train he was on, he's going to learn to rewire his brain to cope with stress and fear in other ways. The part he always walked out on before.
Oh, send me. I could use that. Except that I don't listen.)
Halloween? I asked three times (because I don't listen, you see) and by the second time instead of repeating why it would be so long he began repeating that I was okay now, safe from him. Far from him and his alter ego, who is full of rage and doesn't give a fuck.
He spoke of the letter. The one I never got to read. He said the only nagging fear he has is that if I revert to Lochlan completely for four months straight will it strengthen the bond so much that we'll have nothing left for Ben when he comes back? It was a similar message to the one left for Lochlan on his voicemail because once again Loch refused to be the bearer of bad news and told Ben he would have to tell me himself how long the program would be.
So he did.
He asked for some sort of promise that I would be open to taking him back if he can do this. Not when but if. I asked him, didn't he have any faith in himself and he whispered no, that he left all his faith in me and that he hoped I would use it and do the right thing when the time came.
This is what Lochlan took issue with, I believe.
Ben asked me to thank Batman, who covered the cost of his treatment up front. He told me not to spend too much time with Caleb and then he said he would try to call back on Tuesday and wish Henry a Happy Birthday.
He said when he comes home he's getting a regular day job again and he's going to do things differently. He said he misses both of us. I reminded him gently that Lochlan isn't cooperating at present with our Three Musketeer Manifesto and Ben said he knows and if he was in Loch's place he wouldn't either but he also knows that everything will work out because we're special and a little crazy and a lot wounded and he can't wait to be home but he won't be home until things work properly inside his head.
He said at the end of the day I deserve a man who has his shit together and he would like to be the first to present that concept to me.
And in spite of myself I laughed. I laughed until I cried.
