(Here's the thing. And I have all kinds of time because I'm hiding out from Batman who's been looking for me for two days but he also can't just walk in like he owns the place because he doesn't. I do. Remind me, I need to get the key from Caleb. That's going to be a fight. Apparently I need better boundaries. Right and longer eyelashes too but a girl can only work with what she was born with, right? And I was born with a brain so flawed that it was easy to exploit me into what I am now. I'll take full responsibility for it though. Instead of actually making changes I just take circuitous routes back around to where I started.)
You should have gone with Matt.
I know but I'm too busy to be flitting around Europe right now as the kept wife. It's Christmas, for fucks sakes, Bridget. Sorry, Gina. Sam calls out to the cleaning lady who is frowning at me because Sam swore. I point to him and she smiles and disappears again.
Matt's coming home this weekend for a break, a visit, a fight. Something big, anyway. Sam isn't doing well. He's retreated. He goes to the church and he comes home and disappears downstairs to his apartment. He hasn't joined us for any meals. Hasn't asked how anyone is doing. Didn't add his opinions to the whole PJ saga that turned out to be completely harmless (but cloaked in that famous frat-boy humor that pervades throughout the point) and he hasn't exactly been truthful about his answers when asked how he's doing. I'm glad he threw himself into his work. I'm glad he's keeping busy. And I'm absolutely devastated by his absence. I followed him down to church again in my pajamas but no one bats an eye about that anymore, they just give us even more space than usual.
Bridget, I don't think things are good with him. It would be like if Ben just kept going out on the road and didn't notice if you were lonely. Didn't notice when you were sad. Had this perfect life mapped out otherwise. Hit all the right notes with romantic gestures and all the right answers about the present and the future but completely missed the part where all you feel is lonely. Shouldn't he be able to tell? If you give someone your heart, shouldn't they be able to understand the language it's written in? I thought if I had him that I wouldn't feel like this any more. This isn't a hole God can fill, I don't mean I'm not fulfilled as a person but when it comes to love I shouldn't feel like this. You know?
I can't answer him because my brain got stuck on the part where he said 'If you give someone your heart, shouldn't they be able to understand the language it's written in?' It's when I realized things really aren't any better or different between Sam and Matt, and it's when I realized that I've ruined Sam too and I fell a little harder in love with him (oops) and I nodded to him as tears rolled down my face and he said he didn't want to make me sad for him, that I'm sad enough, and he said to come on, that we'd go play hooky for a day and maybe then we'd both feel better, but first I need to go home and change. And come back and he should be finished and we'll head out.
I wiped my face with my sleeves and he laughed a little bit shakily and said it felt good to be able to talk to me one on one without the army waging war over my head and I realized he wasn't avoiding me, he just didn't want to add to the mess that is my life and I told him that's a mistake because he has a way of sorting everyone out and fixing things that we let fester so long, or maybe he can just come and talk to us and he'll feel that much less lonely. I lie, in other words, because that doesn't work.
At least we're good for each other. He smiles and wipes his own tears away quickly.
Oh, I highly doubt that. You must not be current on the family memos. I ruin everybody.
Naw, Bridget. You're just looking for someone who speaks the language of your heart.
You don't think they do?
I think some of them have enough words to get by, if you know what I mean.
I don't know if I do, but it gives me lots to think about on my way home.
