Five by five.

Ben showed his face long enough today to seek out the huge bag of Cadbury mini-eggs I bought while grocery shopping. He ripped the top off, opened one side and poured the whole thing into his face.

That was thirty-six ounces of chocolate, for the record. Which is two and half pounds. I wonder if he'll want dinner tonight.

Oh, wait. Of course he will. This is Ben we're taking about here. If there isn't food on the table for him, he'll just eat the table itself.

***

I finally got to see Interstellar last night. Maybe it was a little Contact-y. Maybe a little 2001-y too. A tiny bit of Gravity-y too. And then a whole lot of scientific crap about space, time and 'Gargantua' (which is a ridiculous name for a black hole anyway) and I fought hard to absorb the pseudo-science and then gave up completely. I was like arghhhhhhh gravity! Time bending! Relativity means the time is local to where you are in space and moves at different speeds! And ahhhhghghhh this is where we cry! Right? Right? Okay, yup, now I'm crying. 

So it wasn't life changing except in a sense to remind me that I'm too curious to accept scripted explanations for complicated forces of nature and also hype kills movies dead for me. It was okay. I wouldn't watch it again but wouldn't you know now I own it on iTunes. I wish they would take trades. I'd rather have Contact. I think my copy is VHS.

***

Sam and Matt aren't getting along presently. Matt has moved up to Batman's house and is providing space because he thinks that will win Sam over. I've been instructed to stay out of it or I would point out that Sam isn't going to be won over by leaving. Sam is too much like me. Leave me? I'll write you off. When I'm done being sad I'd be so angry. I never got a chance to be angry at Jacob. Granted, Matt isn't done-done, he's just being stubborn.

Sam is being more stubborn but I'll side with him always because he's one of our own.

***
I went up to Batman's to drop off some papers for Jasper, as per Caleb's request, because Batman is away but Jasper was in his home office doing some odd bits of work and New Jake ambushed me on the way in. He loves company. The more the merrier. He is freakishly social and intense and I'm always surprised at how perfect the storm of tension is between us.

Hey, Beautiful. 

Hey, yourself. Where is Jasper?

Under a rock, probably. Naw, he's in Batman's office. 

I laugh and New Jake stands there grinning at me. (So cute. Don't touch him. He's perfect. Don't ruin him.)

Hey, Bridget?

Yes?

I was wondering if you would stop calling me New-Jake and just call me Jake. I'm not really new anymore. 

I hear what sounds like glass shattering but it's on the inside so he doesn't react at all.

I'll think about it. 

No, you won't. 

I smile so I don't cry. I can't. Not yet. I'm so sorry.

Maybe someday then. And don't be sorry. 

Someday. He kisses my cheek and he's gone again and I'm left to face Jasper. There's no tension there except for pure hate for each other. Jasper has had a thing for Batman for years and resents the very air that I breathe.

I don't actually care.

***

This morning marked my first stab for the season at gardening which consisted of me getting a start on weeding the lawn. Caleb came out twice and told me to stop, that he'll call someone but I insist. If I'm not going to run anymore and we're going to ingest chocolate by the pound, then I need a physical outlet and sex isn't enough, contrary to popular belief. Why? Because I get held up or held down and am restrained so I don't get to move at all. With anyone.

That's not a complaint.

Not even in the least.

(I swear.)

(Snort.)

We bury the sunlight.

Breaking Benjamin superfans will appreciate this. We're all alike. That's right. I got up at five this morning to preorder an album because I was so excited. It didn't come out until seven.

Har.

East coast bands. Right.

I got up again at seven and it wasn't for sale in Canada.

NO.

After freaking out and digging around I found a different link that said it was. Be patient. They'll fix it. I got it in spite of the technical issues. The album comes in June but the first single is here now and everyone's going to hear Failure on repeat because WOW.

The last thirty-five seconds go from cookie monster growling (that's what I call it now, stop laughing) to power ballad and are like someone stroking my brain and saying Shhhhhhhhhhhh. I don't know why that is but I love it.

This is your Chase on drunk (with random comments by Dalton).

Bridgie, yu're like...Hufflepuff or something. 

Wrong fandom, Dude. She's probably Factionless.

Screw you both. I'm the last Word Bender. 

Did they even bend words? 

I 'm sure they had to bend more than just air. That would be such a waste if they didn't. 

Wind at least. Windmelons. Water? Elemelons.

Well, didn't you see the movie?

I slept through it. 

Did you sleep through Harry Potter?

Some of them, yes.

You're a stain on popular culture, Bridget. You know this, don't you?

Oh, probably.

Waiting for requitement.

I'm fine in the fire
I feed on the friction
I'm right where I should be
Don't try and fix me

Back into the fire, pinned between his hands, face to face so that this time I couldn't pin my ignorance on a scrap of a miserable hearing skill. Face up staring into hell. Hell looks a little like a cross between Richard Armitage and Clive Owen. Hell is a god-dammed handsome motherfucker and hell now seems to want to tell me he loves me every chance he gets.

If only he could control my mind the way he controls everything else, Christmas would come in March, heralded in on a matte-flat equinox just like spring, muted by the chill of the nights, decorated with snowdrops and crocuses and soot.

Instead of responding in kind, I warn him.

You shouldn't. 

Don't tell me what I can do. He lobs it back gently, threateningly.

I'm pointing out the obvious. That's all. I bite my lip to stop it from trembling and he puts his head down against mine. Somehow in the past ten days he's figured out what he missed in the first three decades. How I am driven by affection, swayed and bribed, fuelled by it. He pulls me up into his arms and says he wouldn't be able to help himself even if he could. That maybe if he just leaves it there it will become accepted. Even by Loch.

And I laugh because I don't have time to check myself. No, it won't. It never has so it never will. 

Never say never, Princess. 

I wait until he is in close against me and I repeat myself in case we both missed it. Never, Diabhal. Not in thirty years so not in a million, either.

B is for butter and better and bye.

Breakfast with Joel this morning. I made butternauts and they explored the Grand Croissant Mesa, a desert of the flakiest, greasiest pastry landscape they've ever seen. I think they prefer the cold surface of the porcelain plate-moon, for in the desert they just melted and withered from despair. You know what they say, you can take a butternaut from the moon, but you can't take the moon from the butternaut. 

Well, they say that in MY mind. Haters.

Twice the servers tried to take my plate. I hate to be a snob but if you hover, you're getting a smaller tip. I get that on Fridays you just want to turn your tables over as fast as possible but when I'm being psychoanalyzed I want to take my time. Get it all. Miss nothing. Jesus, what if this only paints a partial picture, after all and in butter, no less?

Can't have that. Hey look, I'm going to order more food that I don't plan to eat, just to get you off my back.

Oven-browned pretentious fingerling potatoes. Organic, locally sourced. Hand-cut. Fried in extra virgins (which is even more virgins than ever before).

Not vegan though, because butter. Mmmmmmmmm.

(Butter is better than Joel, if we're keeping score.)

He said this first breakfast would be strange and probably difficult, reminiscent of some of our earlier meals together, after flight. Or maybe I should say after the front hall. He is right. He's always right about everything except for the things he is wrong about. I have no desire to correct or elaborate today. I'm busy making butternauts because they keep disappearing into the ground. This Mesa is clearly a trap made of emotional quicksand, just like this breakfast date. Who knew?

Cold and charm.

Caleb swept in early yesterday. A little work. Some food. Some easy meetings and decisions without emotion. Some more work in the form of planning. Some followup. A lot of cuddles in between. It's got to be some sort of tremendously sad and thoroughly ironic day when one suddenly finds themselves welcoming a metric ton of sexual harassment on the job.

A failed venture. One of my emotional trigger pulls that he warned me not to get involved in but trusted my emphatic pleas and wrote the cheque anyway (figuratively speaking).

A really delicious-looking lunch that I hardly touched in spite of his efforts to bite his own tongue for once, instead of mine, sitting quietly while I ordered for myself. It was a first, almost.

A mischievous round of hooky played when we opted to stop working and go for a walk on the beach because it didn't rain after all. He put his hand out for mine and I took it. He squeezed my fingers and I squeezed back.

He told me he loved me and I pretended I couldn't hear him. On the way back up to the house when his time was up I thanked him for being so sweet but he had already hardened back over.

Navy blue.

When the phone rings at six in the morning it's never good news, is it?

I thought my grandfather was going to live forever but he stuck around long enough to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day and then he slipped away when no one was looking. He's to be reunited with my beautiful grandmother and they can be in heaven together now where nothing ever hurts and it never snows or rains. There's never a bad crop, a rough sea or a long day.

It's a bit of a surprise when you expect people to be immortal and you find out they're not. It's not a nice surprise but it makes more sense, I suppose and while I was prepared for this, I was never fully prepared and therefore a little dismayed to discover I wasn't prepared at all.

He gets credit for giving me:

All the Irish I have.
My obsession with the sea.
The two decades of vegetarianism.
A love of bonfires and exploring the woods.
The fascination with creepy glass eyes on taxidermied critters.
Plaid flannel as a comfort object.
Confidence in building things myself.
This debilitating wanderlust, which turns out to be the best inherited, genetic gift and not a flaw in the least.

Cards for humanity.

It's a cold foggy morning and the first thing I did when I woke up was to pull on pajama pants and Cole's big grey sweater. It's a habit. Comfort objects. You know, routine.

Don't wear that. Loch's voice comes out of nowhere. I didn't even think he was awake and yet honestly? We both wake up when the other even so much as changes from REM sleep to stage one. 

Why not? I ask. It's emotionless. I don't know. I'm tired but curious, always. 

You don't need to be wrapped in him today. Come see me. 

I debate. I'm warm. It's already on. He's breaking promises, asking me to do things he said he'd never ask me to do again.

(Bridget, we're going to skip dinner tonight. Okay? Just tonight. We'll have a big breakfast tomorrow.)

(Cole will keep you safe.)

(It's always going to be just you and me, against the world.)

But he's trying hard, and this isn't the hill I want to die on, arguing over a big worn-out scratchy hand knit sweater with a hole in one elbow and singed cuffs and paint streaks on the back of the hem.

I pull it back off slowly, up over my head and when I put my arms back down, letting the sweater drop to the floor, he tells me I can wear his hoodie from yesterday. 

It smells like rain and sugar and pine needles and dryer sheets and adventure and hope. Like Lochlan. 

I zip it all the way up to my neck and stick my hands in the pockets. I pull out a playing card (three of hearts, always the magician) and his reading glasses. Both go on the nightstand. He throws his arms around my legs and drags me back into bed with him, whipping the covers down over us, smiling in the dark as he shoves my pyjama pants all the way down to my knees and then off. 

Sleep, Peanut. 

How long?

Just until the fog lifts. Then we work. (He's half asleep now, words come out via muscle memory.)

What if we didn't work today? 

Then we can sleep till the sun hits the bed. Deal?

Deal. 

When I woke up next (when Lochlan stopped dreaming), sunshine had flooded the room and the three of hearts was in my hand.

Assholes and angels.

"A cold-water surf trip to a remote and frozen Canadian frontier."

That's the description of Nova Scotia in this month's feature article in SURFER magazine (the large photo is a slide show). I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry. I guess when you grow up on a tiny peninsula surround by the harsh Atlantic you forget that the rest of the world has hardly any idea what that's like and will probably never see it with their own eyes.

And for that you have my deepest sympathies.

Actually, I'm kidding. If you never see it, that's fine. There is a lot of this world I'm never going to see either and I've made my peace with that but if you are as proud of where you come from as I am, then please write and tell me about it. I love to hear other people's depictions of their own home bases too.

***
Standing on the floor of the ocean. That's where it all makes sense. It all seems easier. It all turns out to be smaller, somehow. Less catastrophic. There is this big beautiful tumbling entity in shades of blue, green, black and white and it shapes solid rock, tosses huge vessels, drowns secrets and steals souls. Her highs and lows are noted, recorded and observed. She demands respect and commands attention. She steals and she gives back the most amazing treasures and she will continue to do all this relentlessly until the end of time. Long before me, long after me.

And I love her so.

I'm fine. Thank you for your concern. The pressure of how long is appropriate to grieve sometimes gets to me, when usually I can deflect it with a few well-placed invitations to fuck off. Sometimes I can't find the strength to do that and then I feel awful twice over. Once for missing them. Him, both. And once for putting everyone else through that. Especially Ben, who has dealt with far worse grief but had professional handling over months and months of his voluntary stay to get sober and actually learned something.

Unlike me. Tie me down and tell me you're going to teach me how to feel properly and I will buck and strain against it right to the bitter end, arching my back and flopping back down in frustration. I will hold out and pretend everything is fine right up until the moment that I fall apart.

Dismay is expressed all around. They wish I wouldn't cry. They tell me to get mad. I told them I don't want to be an asshole when I'm hurting but they figure it's probably safer than falling apart. I'm not so sure. There are of few of them who express sorrow through rage and it isn't any prettier from where I'm standing.

Trigger pulling.

Backwards
Into a wall of fire

It still works. I can crawl into bed and pull up a blanket made of memories and sadness and it's safe. It's warm. I pull it all the way up over my head and underneath it the music is loud and a familiar face is right there, stealing my fort. Taking my comfort. Leaving hardly enough room for me to stay warm, suffocating my sanity or what might be left of it now.

Matthew Good is singing so loudly I can't hear what Jake says to me until he reaches out and turns down the song.

Are you going to stay in here forever?

Until the weather is better, yes. It's called Hunkering Down. Don't they do this in Newfoundland?

They do indeed. But the weather is fine here.

Not inside my head it isn't.

We can fix this.

I don't think I'm fixable, Pooh.

What if you are? What would you do then, Piglet?

Oh, I would be so happy. I would never ever stop smiling.

Then that's what we should do.

I woke up because I couldn't breathe anymore and I threw off the covers to find total dark, complete quiet staring me back in the face, a waiting adversary and yet no match for my dreams. I get up, naked, gasping for air, borderline/hysterical, and I go and get a glass of cold water and bring it back to bed with me. When I get back into bed I smell sandalwood and it smells like Jake and I start sobbing because I miss him so bad and at the same time I feel so horribly ashamed for still feeling this way.