Hi. Playing the piano shakily this morning, pounding out Foolish Games and singing. Jewel's one singer I never had any problems duplicating and she's not failing me now.
Duncan's been in the doorway with his coffee cup for the better part of thirty minutes. I don't know if he's keeping watch or can't see Lochlan in the big chair by the south window. The living room wraps around. It's impossible to decorate so I settled on different conversation groupings. There's a large fireplace in the way.
Everett is in the kitchen just sitting there, waiting.
Can I ignore him for another complete day? Ben says I shouldn't. By rights this is Ben's problem, not mine. By rights I don't have to do anything I don't want to do. By rights I should be dressed in white, arms wrapped around myself, running into padded walls, bouncing off only to land on the freshly mopped floor, struggling to get up before doing it all over again. They will watch me from the small window in the door, glass sandwiching a panel of wire, so that I can't get out. As if there were anything to climb so that I could reach the window, for unless I take ten steps back, I can't even see out of it.
This is my heart, bleeding before you-They never turn the lights off and here, I thank them for that, because the dark is full of monsters and ghosts. And taxes. And bad news and chores and bullshit therapists, a long line of which waits to be the genius. Waits to be the saviour. Waits to be the one who puts the puzzle back together but I've eaten all the pieces just to make sure that never happens.
I was so smart.