I put my hands up over my ears and Sam pulled them off. He's in my face. I'm still in the trouble part of this.
Why were you even there? He's beside himself. He doesn't understand this part of me. How could he? I don't.
I stare back evenly but my brain wanders back to the bear. I thought it was small. I thought I was safe. It told me I was safe and yet when Caleb came out to make sure I was safe to walk the fifty feet from the bottom of his steps to the kitchen door I was a foot from it and it was big.
Maybe he magnified it.
I didn't magnify it, Neamhchiontach. It was real. I think you minimized it somehow to withstand the shock. He strokes my head and Sam stands back. They're all rattled. I almost feel like I've achieved some higher level of understanding, sifting through the mundane, the inconsequential to discover life has this whole profound stage where everything is magnified. Everything feels bigger and the little things dissolve entirely. These big things are life and death, love and hate, risk and safety. Survival. Awareness. Faith, or maybe not. Maybe letting go of everything I believe in and seeing what comes to me next.
Sam calls it something else entirely. He says I have broken with reality, that it's shock. Nothing more. That I will come around. I'll feel better. I'll be myself again instead of whoever this is. He says I was vulnerable to it, that between Ben's abdication and Lochlan's efforts to also stand back and see what happens, I'm doing that thing where I coast.
Coast.
I feel raw. I feel like I'm about to shatter. I feel like I might throw up.
John says You saw a fucking bear, Bridget. Up close and personal. Make your peace with this and get some rest.
PJ said I'm going to pour you a drink. You'll be fine. You need sleep.
But there's no peace and I'm not tired suddenly and I don't want any more alcohol. Sam takes over again. God bless him, he tries. Jacob left him a riddle with no answer in me.
If Jake came back, I'll be fine. If he doesn't, nothing's every going to change.
You love too hard, Bridget. You leave yourself unprotected.
You can't love someone if you're locked down like that. If you aren't willing to take the risk. Let's face it, I'm the bravest person you'll ever meet.
If brave means foolish, then yes, Princess. You're brave as hell.
(Hell isn't brave. I was there Sunday night. Hell is paved in pewter silk, five o'clock shadow and a hunger that never diminishes. Hell is a monster and damn, does he ever feel good, but brave? No.)
But I nod because I'm above all this and I can't seem to come down. I'm still worried about exploding into a firework of broken glass. I'm worried Sam might be standing too close when I do.