Fame (What you like is in the limo).

I had a photo shoot this morning, the one I was supposed to do yesterday and flaked out on, and then after lunch I took Ruth and Henry to buy shoes, because we walk a lot and they wore out the ones we bought at the beginning of the school year, or so I thought until we got there.

Everything I asked for was too small and that was the problem. The clerk suggested bigger sizes. Ruth's feet are the same size as mine now! And Henry's feet are bigger than mine now. Which means that not only is it nurture over nature, but I am completely doomed.

Totally and utterly doomed for all eternity, left to fester on German metalcore album covers, looking ten feet tall instead of five in the pouring rain in my tattoos-that-aren't-mine because they covered mine up and drew new ones over that, and a dress made of dead roses. Which is totally me, don't you think?

Don't worry, I'm really hoping the list of Ben's friends in bands who are too cheap to pay for a real model gracious enough to ask me to model for their album artwork is dwindling now. Doesn't anyone ever retire anymore?

Darker curls.

I could slide down, my shirt soaked to my skin, back pressed against the rough weathered grey boards that separate safety from danger. But Danger is my middle name. If I sit down they can't see me, only if I sit down my legs will be dangling free over the cliff, nothing between my striped tights and the white water below, crashing against the rocks at the bottom of the hill that holds my house tightly hugged against the tree line further up, past the yard that exists only due to a sympathetic gravity and time.

Time.

Ha, I laugh to myself and smile in the rain, drops hitting my teeth and splashing against my skin. Time is a prank that pulls us along, getting our hopes up, making us crazy, no happy medium between rushing and waiting.

I hear my name. They're calling me. They know exactly where I am and they're rushing to get here, sure that I would be bright enough to respond and to follow their instructions because I always follow instructions.

Except for when I don't and sometimes there are too many words, too much time and only these two tiny hands and I can't hold all of it and sometimes I let it fall, spilling over my shoes, onto the floor, burying my little heart like an avalanche no one saw coming and then I wait. I trigger rescue and I wait. My absence is the key, if I'm not clinging to the front of your shirt or tucking myself under one of your arms, if you're not warm and I'm talking your ear off and checking your pockets and playing with your hair and setting your watch to a different time zone then something is very wrong indeed.

I settle for a crouch, hunched over, sitting on my heels, shoes sinking into the mud, knees under my chin, clutching the copper box against my heart as if maybe it could be healed or I could take back my promises to let him go from his purgatory in my mind. Another mistake. So many mistakes. Run me through the rest intact. That's all I want. That's all I ask.

The gate flies wide open and bangs against the fence. The wind picks up. I'm so afraid that maybe God's just going to slide his invisible hand down my back and give me one simple push and I will either catch up with Jacob after all or cement my place beside the unintentional, unwelcome protector.

Cole. I wrote about him yesterday. Or has everyone forgotten him already?

For warning (safe/not safe).

Slip to the void
To the dark
To the fall
Crawl to the life you should have known
You should never come this way
To test the hands of fate
You don't belong here

Peel back the skin
Close your eyes
Hell is born
To the abyss, but be warned
You fear what you've become
My God what have you done?
You don't belong here

But it's all in the way
You touch and you obey
Denial

His hand came up against my cheek, hesitant, tracing it to my collarbone, pressing me into his chest. Undaunted, he lifted me up and stepped to the wall, my protest left ignored as he fought with his belt, one hand unable to deal with it sufficiently. He lowered me to the floor and I tried to get away from him. A smile plays against the corners of his mouth. For my efforts I am thrown to the bed and his belt hits the floor almost at the same moment. I turn over, trying to crawl away but he grabs my thigh, pulling me back down under him, fingers forcing their way inside, the blissful agony making me cry out involuntarily because I never expect him to be like this and then he is and I remember. He pulls my hip, twisting me onto my back, the searing pain of his other hand rendering me to a silence that sends you somewhere above yourself to observe from a distance.

He stopped, an abrupt switch of gears once again. I was pulled down until I was pinned to him as he forced himself into me, tearing my legs apart, pain no longer necessitating closed eyes as they opened again, watery, unfocused. His hand clawed at the top of my head, pulling it up against his shoulder, bumping against my forehead over and over, his shoulders flexing in the dim light, a monster dredged through muscle and determination. His fingers were tangled in my hair, his bicep biting off my air, his hips a machine at full capacity grinding a steady onslaught against me as I shuddered, fighting to meet his strokes, pulling myself up at the hips to match him.

He tucked his head down against mine, pushing tight. Teeth cutting my ear, breath in my hair, want melting my brain. I don't fucking want it like this. I don't get anything like this. He is selfish and I push him away and he responds by turning me over and railing me from behind and I'm fighting but he has my wrists pinned in one hand, the other forcing my hips up against him. Making it hurt on purpose, the way I like it. Ramping me up until I am angry. I fight back, getting up, pushing against him and he is overjoyed, dangerous now, letting go. We are left on our knees, face to face. Out of breath and patience and time and energy too.

He moves in close to me and grabs my hair again, pulling me down and this time he is slow, agonizingly delicate in his touch and I cry out in frustration instead of surprise, taking his head in both hands, pushing him down hard. So hard. Away from me and to me. I am begging, thrashing against him but he won't bend. He's like stone. A carving. A monster. A living mausoleum holding everything in my heart and offering me exactly what I want, which is nothing and everything all at once. Then he gives in just an inch. True to form I take a mile.

Reality breaks over the horizon and the night is over. I am bruised and burning all over, grateful, conflicted, unchanged. Fragile and filthy dirty.

I don't change. I don't. I won't.

I can't.

Thanatophobia.

Tuesdays aren't supposed to be bad. They're so BENIGN and usual and pedestrian and blue. They fade to purple with the sun and then tomorrow is Wednesday, the halfway point to the weekend and thank God they aren't Mondays, after all. So when they play out all rickety-bumpy and vaguely unsettled and quick to anger and forgive you almost have to wonder if you perhaps stumbled into a Thursday or maybe it was Monday after all.

Maybe Lochlan spending the day listening to me, closing in, helping out and being sweet rubbed Benjamin the wrong way because any attempt to comfort me brings no trust on Ben's part. All hypocrite, the only one who is flawed is Bridget and Lochlan by default because when he's not your right-hand man, he's your sworn enemy and on a dark night you would kill him as soon as greet him from afar to confirm his identity.

So when Ben walked into the room with our helmets and told me to go get ready for a ride, he was fully expecting the outrage he received. You could have set your watch by it. I would have set mine but when given direct orders...

I obey.

I went and pulled on my lined jeans, a shirt, sweater, boots and then came back down for my jacket and gloves. Lochlan blocked my path.

It's dark and raining. Not a night for stupid stunts, princess. Go back upstairs.

Last night ride I had in the rain was with you and he said nothing. Please move, Loch.

Sorry princess.

So you both want me to trust you but no one trusts me and you don't trust each other.

They both nodded.

This is getting really lame, guys. I whispered it and waited. They both held their ground.

I looked at Ben and then at Lochlan and then I weighed my options and the fallout. And then I came back upstairs, took off my gear and sat down on the bed to wait. I'm still waiting. I'm pretty sure Ben is still standing in the front hall seething and wondering where in the hell my loyalties lie?

It's not my loyalties he has to worry about.

I held the letter up into the wind and lit the corner with the lighter I stole from Ben last year when he still smoked and I tried to get to catch but the wind kept putting the lighter out and my thumb was going numb and burning too and the wind kept changing and really it just wasn't happening and I finally thrust the whole thing against Lochlan's chest. He caught all of it in a jumble, leaving smudges of black soot against his green t-shirt, a questioning look on his face.

What do you want me to do with it?

Make it burn because I can't!

He laughed.

You should just use it for toilet paper and then send it back to him.

Classy.

Nothing but the finest, babe.

I shot him a look and marched back up the path. I have bigger fish to fry than dealing with my emotions about Caleb's latest summons-on-white. We need groceries. Badly. I literally cooked the last meal in the house last evening, and it's getting late.

Hurry.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
He is passing me things to put in the cart and I am taking forever, fidgeting, fussing and dropping things and telling him to slow down.

What's the matter?

My ring keeps falling off.

You know, that's probably an omen.

Don't even say that, Lochlan.

Well, it is.

No it isn't.

Sure it is. Your whole being is trying to unmarry you to the point of your ring forcing itself off.

No, the band is too big and my fingers are cold.

And you're losing weight again.

Good. I gained a lot last fall when we settled in.

Bridge-

Can we drop it? There, go get me some haddock, okay?

Want me to keep your ring for you until we get home?

So you can lose it and say the cosmos reclaimed it? I don't think so.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
I wrap my hoodie around myself, chilly but not cold, exactly. It's going to be ten degrees this afternoon and we have abandoned coats again in favor of sweaters or at the most, a light jacket.

What would it be?

Right now? A hot cup of butter rum coffee instead of this regular stuff and a dark chocolate bar filled with blackberry preserves.

Sweet tooth in overdrive?

PMS.

Oh, right.

You?

A chickenburger from the Chickenburger. Definitely. Fries from Queensland.

Oh, man, that would be so good right now. And a milkshake.

Yeah. Have to have all three.

Great. Now I'm starving.

Just think! Your ring will fit again.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

August walks into the front hall and sees the blackened mess of paper on the tray.

What's this?

Nothing. Just exorcising demons again.

It work?

No comment. Want to stay for lunch?

Sure, what are we having?

Nothing worth mentioning, sadly. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?

Lochlan bursts out laughing from two rooms away and I frown.

Pervert! Shut up! Just answer the question, August.

Tell me what's for lunch and that's what I feel like having.

You're the last gentleman I know, aren't you?

Probably.

Yesterday (Lefts only).

Just a little over twenty-four hours of total silence and sheer panic and I am back safe and sound to spend the next several days within the confines of a circle of protection that bends but won't break. Flexible. Like a Bridget with a wail of dismay when she learned she had to fly down and sign a whole sheaf of papers that transferred future controls to her from Caleb because he conveniently leaves things out that are important in order to leverage them later, only Ben put his finger on my lips and reminded me of that new word we're trying out.

Trust.

And so despite the protests of everyone who lives in this house and beyond, I talked to my lawyer, I asked the others to do what I was doing and just trust Ben already and then I climbed into the big black car with both of them, where Caleb proceeded to do just about every thing he could think of to undermine Benjamin and unnerve me and I COMPLETELY IGNORED him for the entire trip, short of those incredibly uncomfortable moments when he would ask me a company-related question in front of important people and I would answer with confidence and then resume the weird jittery shaky-fear on the inside.

I brushed off the advances of yet another round of horrific entitled millionaires who regularly buy people for a living who seemed rather put off when they couldn't buy us, but we were relaxed and cohesive with our responses to it all and left intact, though not unscathed.

I'm always one hundred percent sure I will pay for betraying Caleb and I've yet to be proven wrong but like everything else I'll add it to the growing pile of single shoes, since I never cease to wait for the other ones to drop.

In other news, I think the boys have made up. Boys being Benjamin and Lochlan, who have been bickering back and forth, mostly because Lochlan was afraid and didn't want me to go and also because Benjamin suspects he is engaging in a form of subtle...er, proselytization with me. The camper sat in the driveway for weeks. WEEKS. Until Ben finally asked what Lochlan intended to do with it.

Lochlan said Go camping.

(DUH.)

Ben didn't punch then. Strangely enough. Instead he told Lochlan maybe he should go live in his Dream Camper because he takes up a lot of room in the house. (Lochlan does, actually. He spreads out everywhere. He parents everyone. His moods sometimes rule EVERYTHING.)

Maybe my analogies should be about waiting for the other fists to fly.

Then we left for California. I had no idea punches can be postponed but they can. They actually get more powerful the longer you leave them tightly coiled. Because the Barbie's Dream Camper comment begat one about Frankenbenjamin and BOOM!

Ben doesn't like that particular nickname and Lochlan really wanted to get under his skin.

I dropped my carpet bag on the floor where I stood and went upstairs. Fuck it. I'm not dealing with it. I'm not choosing sides because they keep telling me I don't have to. I'm tired, I missed my kids and Ben and Lochlan are never going to get along for more than ten days at a stretch so whatever. Work it out and I'll see you both at dinner.

They did and I did. Magical.

Til the next time, that is. Probably later today. Ben is talking about having the camper painted pink and Lochlan asked if Ben needed his bolts tightened.

Help me if you can
It's just that this, this is not the way I'm wired
So could you please,

Help me understand why
You've given in to all these
Reckless dark desires

You're lying to yourself again
Suicidal imbecile
Think about it, put it on the faultline
What'll it take to get it through to you precious
Over this. Why do you wanna throw it away like this
Such a mess. I don't want to watch you.

Disconnect and self destruct one bullet at a time
What's your rush now, everyone will have his day to die

Medicated, drama queen, picture perfect, numb belligerence
Narcissistic, drama queen, craving fame and all its decadence

Withdrawal

Hi.

Posting will be light/nonexistent for the weekend, due to the fact that I am currently downtown, waiting for the car to take us to the plane to fly to beautiful California for the night and then tomorrow we will get back on the plane and fly home.

I will call it a micro-mini vacation, even though everyone else calls it 'business'.

(This trip will only feature Caleb, Ben and myself. Sadly the logical one is staying behind. To hang out in Lochlan's Dream Camper, as Ben not-so-lovingly called the camper van this morning on the way out the door. Talk about going to bed angry. I guess they can make up tomorrow.)

Sometimes I really think Caleb is the devil, because it's almost like he manages to pick the Most Vulnerable Times to spring things like this on us. I shouldn't be surprised, but I am.

Oh, the places you'll go.

That is all.

(PJ thinks it would be prudent of me to point out that I have spent time in person with more than one of these men. PJ, please tell me why I had to include that information and I'll make you some supper.)

Snort.

Poison deliveries.

Caleb sent over a get-well basket since he doesn't dare set foot in this house when I'm sick (so he doesn't get sick, apparently it makes Hell run very unsmoothly and frankly because I'm a very cranky person when I don't feel well) and I have pretty much worked my way through it. Pretty flowers. Cookies that Christian and Dalt pretty much divided and ate before I could unwrap my tea, complaining loudly that they could put down their fucking cookies and help me get the tea out of the package but the crunching pretty much overpowered my pointless whispers and then I started coughing and Dalton tells me hey Bridget why don't you make some tea?

I resisted the urge to wrestle him into the kitchen sink. fill him with hot water and place him on the piping hot burner but not by much.

Included was a handwritten note on Caleb's very neutral white paper (the color of SURRENDER, I might add) that he hopes I am feeling better quickly and we'll talk soon, probably on Saturday when he has his next round of sanctioned fatherhood. Also, enjoy the tea, since he is thrilled that everyone has given up sour mash and hops and distilled things in favor of steeped tea leaves.

As if he can talk.

Well he can't because I'm still presently suspicious and not speaking to him and every now and then something comes to me and I forget an answer to a question and so I dash off an email to the lawyers and my lawyers call his lawyers and his lawyers call him and usually within the hour I have the answers and half the time I TOTALLY remember what it was anyway and wow, if only I could get paid so much to do so little.

Oh, wait a minute.

But I don't CARE about that right now. I'm sick and I care about the fact that every time I swallow I want to punch a brick wall just to make something besides my throat hurt and my eyes are burning, my head is pounding but really, why aren't we travelling more and how in the HELL did we amass so much stuff after I swear I didn't pack all this stuff when we moved here and suddenly all my fucking shirts have tiny HOLES in them again and how is that happening and what the FUCK will make everyone happy for dinner even though I won't get home until 5:30 and that's only if I remember how to get home from the high school! which! is too close to the mountains! I have the water side of the highway down pat (but not at all) and maybe we'll just skip it and my fucking HAIR is driving me nuts because it's at the in-between stage just below my shoulders but never long enough now and my forehead is so hot I am burning from the inside and I wish Ben could stay home but he really can't anymore and I can look after myself but I miss him terribly and really who's bright fucking idea was it to make him the genius now when I think I liked him simpler and then this tea, this pretentious Tazo whatever stuff in Vanilla Rooibos (which I call ROOB-EE-OSE every single time) is far too sweet but decent quality and is this day over with so I can just go to sleep?

Keep the cookies, the sweet tea, the fever and the crankies. Just let me close my eyes.