It's called Defamation and I don't care.

But look at my hopes, look at my dreams
the currency we've spent
I love you
You pay my rent

Last night was a furious round of hate sex followed by restless sleep and I was up at five standing on the stupid thinking-patio (as Ben called it because he's right too) feeling the rain saturate through my skin until it mixed with my blood, diluting my life almost colorless. Lochlan came up behind me and I jumped fifty feet when his arms came around my ribs. I took out my (wet, broken) headphones but he was already three sentences in. Wants a mulligan on our fight, didn't mean to add to my stress. Is going to work on how to deal with the inevitable Devil. Is going to work on sharing. Is going to work on never threatening me with his absence.

This isn't even a Ben-coerced crow feast. No, this has Batman written all over it. Batman is so close I can taste him but far enough that you can't see him with the naked eye.

Ben is too busy for this. I forget what Ben looks like except for the expression on his face last week on the plane when I threw up in his shirt pocket and he was alternately charmed by my ingenuity and horrified by my sudden air sickness. He didn't quite know whether he should try and save the shirt or call it a loss and be grateful for the t-shirt underneath (we went for loss).

I nod and tell Loch that's a shame because he was right and this isn't working at all.

He reminds me that I already pointed out we got ourselves into this mess and we can't change it.

The weight hits my shoulders squarely, hammering me clear through the earth and I pop out in the water on the other side, immediately beginning to sink.

I don't even bother showing him the messages on my (wet, broken) phone from Caleb. A game of twenty questions spanning several days, back and forth, ranging from deep to sublime. What's your secret favorite color that you never tell people? and Is the reason you're like this because you hate me that much? 

And we took our sweet time answering (Lilac. No) before he lobbed a grenade out of the blue.

What would you do if you found out on Henry's 18th birthday that he wasn't mine? 

I'll show them. Probably later but I'm sure it will be dismissed as a game, that we have proof otherwise. We had our own testing done. Henry has genetic markers that match Caleb's to a tee, and sometimes the same attitude. That could be from the time they spend together. There's so much of it.

 But Henry looks nothing like Caleb. If I lined up everyone I've slept with over my lifetime I would still pin Henry to Jacob without hesitation and if Caleb isn't playing a game then Jake would have flown for nothing. Caleb would have kept me here for nothing. Loch would be tormented for nothing. Caleb would have won the worst game of payback for his brother's death that I could ever imagine.

And I wouldn't put it past him. Not even for one second.  Especially since I found out he is single-handedly responsible for Duncan not being able to stay on the wagon and is now focusing on Sam, who apparently is next on Caleb's To Ruin list.

Because he can. I guess Lochlan and I weren't enough. He isn't about to let anyone get close to me without paying a price. I don't know why I put up with this, Oh, right. I didn't get a choice.