We're just home from the hospital this morning. Let me choose my words carefully here. Lochlan knew I was relatively intact and safely locked in our wing and so he went right past Ben and over to the boathouse. Word has it Caleb came out to see him and took a tumble down the steps, ironically raising his arms to protect his head and scraping his face quite badly with his watch, which he then gave to Lochlan, because he no longer wants it, it is cursed or dangerous or something and so it will be pawned off cheaply. Loch said Caleb told him to sell it for a hundred bucks. I think we can do better than that but he won't see any of it.
I got off easy, my leg is just one big long scab this morning and it didn't even actually bleed ever. Caleb required fourteen stitches and the attention of a plastic surgeon. He also had a host of body contusions from his fall that were not in need of medical attention but they put him on an EKG and kept him for observation for a few hours after the fact. He will be resting for a few days and is never allowed to see me again because I shouldn't be around people so clumsy.
That won't hold but I appreciate the sentiment.
I don't appreciate Ben's banishment though. He's gone. Done. Lochlan said it's over. That whatever goddamned games Ben is playing with me have ended now. The absences. The drinking. The sharing. The psychological warfare. The oneupmanship. All of it. Finished. Take off the ring. You've now had three marriages end now, call it official, this is done, kiss him goodbye, he's over, no, stop crying, Jesus CHRIST, Bridget, kind of order that I don't even want to think about right now.
I could have said no before we left the house. It isn't all Ben's fault.
(They will tell you it is because of the damage, because I'm not responsible and that ruined people don't have to be accountable for anything. I don't think that's quite right.)
You'll change your mind later. You love him too.
I love him, Bridget, but I love you more and I can't do this anymore.
I made him go.
That doesn't matter.
It's me you can't trust.
I understand that.
You chose poorly, I think.
You let me worry about that.
It was a real bad fall, was it?
The worst. I felt so helpless.
