Death threats, broken glasses and an unsalvageable Valentino dress. Here's a birthday that will go down in history.

Looking out for love
In the night so still
Oh I'll build you a kingdom
In that house on the hill

I took my turn when it came, standing, holding a glass of champagne, flushed almost as red as my dress by then from two full glasses, as I watched the Devil sit and smile at me virtually all evening, except when he would turn his attention to the speeches made by each of us, as is birthday tradition.

I told him I was proud of him for slowing down, for knowing when to focus on his health and put his somewhat thoroughly redundant business efforts aside. I brought up his generosity with myself, both children, and with Loch. With Daniel. With Duncan. With all of us. I said I hoped he would find happiness and health and a long life ahead in which to do all the things he hasn't done yet. Someone called out for him to list something he hasn't done yet and he answered without skipping a beat.

Get married, he said as he stared at me and I wrapped it up and sat back down so hard I feared I bruised something.

Oh, but then Loch stood up, ignoring his champagne and his four-times-empty whiskey glass (not to mention the fact that it wasn't even his turn). PJ asked the servers to cut him off half an hour ago. Maybe we were too late. He clears his throat and addresses the birthday boy.

There once was a man from the East
at a fifty-first birthday feast
He tried taking my wife,
So I took his life
And that! Was the end! of the beast!

And then he flipped the fucking table like it was nothing.

And Valentino and I took a shower in champagne and broken glass.

But it's okay, no one cared about that. I think they forget precisely how acrobatic he is, as he went right over the sideways table and tackled Caleb off his chair.

And then it was over, because you have to be pretty fast to get a punch in with this crew sitting between the two of them. Mostly I sat there in disbelief and gratitude because we didn't bring the children. Ruth gets bored. Henry didn't want to go but wants cake later. Thank God they didn't see this. Would he have done it if they had been here?

Another restaurant off our list as we are asked to gather our things. Right away. Caleb leaves his card for a damages tally. I consider making a glass angel in all of the shattered flutes on the floor but we have to leave.

Outside the restaurant Caleb takes my hand and pulls me behind him and then drags me down the sidewalk toward Lochlan. PJ tries to hold him back, Christian is trying to extricate me. Too close. Schuyler steps between them. Christ almighty.

Caleb points over Schuyler's shoulder, right in Loch's face.

I try to be generous with you. I put up with no small amount of abuse and after everything I have done for you and to make it up to Bridget I think you should either learn to control yourself or I'll start excluding you from everything, including my home. You'll learn these lessons one way or another, Lochlan. Bridget will be coming home with me. You don't even deserve her. What in the fuck have you done in the past decade anyway? What do you do to make her life better, you fucking useless piece of-

You keep talking and I'll never speak to you again, I say to Caleb as I wrench my hand out of his and fight my way out of Christian's grasp too and shove my way past Schuyler, crashing against Lochlan in my ruined dress. The look on his face is frightening. Everything he fears most is playing out and I don't even think he has registered that I'm right there until I touch his face.

Let's go home.

Bridget, we aren't finished here. (Caleb keeps it going, just because he can.)

I DON'T FUCKING CARE, CALEB. You did this. You baited him. Who else do you want to marry?

Most people let it roll off. He's uncontrollable.

No, your brother was uncontrollable. Lochlan is just frustrated, he has a short fuse.

Ah, another fire metaphor.

See you tomorrow. We'll reschedule dessert.

I ignore the shocked and disappointed look on Caleb's face as it dawns on him that his night is over as Loch pulls me to the truck. He lifts me up into the passenger seat and then goes around and gets in. He's slamming the doors so hard I think the whole thing will break but then once we're in he just sits there and stares at the wheel.

And then he starts to laugh. He drags his hands down his cheeks and collects himself and then he winks at me. That was exhausting.

Why did you do it? On his birthday, of all nights. What purpose does it serve? And why did you ruin my dress?

The purpose was obvious. and fuck the dress. You don't fucking need that dress. You don't need anything from him. Had I not done it you probably would have gone home with him tonight.

You don't know th-

Yes I do. And I told you it's not going to happen anymore. But it's easier to fucking stick it to him if he thinks it's your decision not to go, don't you think? Probably hurts twice as much! Maybe five times more.

So that was a routine.

Yes. A means to an end.

You're not drunk at all, are you?

Actually no. Everytime I came back with a drink it was tea. Jesus, Peanut. You're missing all your cues. Getting rusty. Maybe we should go back out for a few months, find a show before you lose all of your skills.

Maybe we should. He might kill you otherwise.

Nah. He's an old man. And I have fire on my side. He'll burn before he can touch me.

Better hope you're not rusty then.

That, Bridgie, is why I practice every. single. day.

51 candles.

More of this, please (linked for those who read on mobile).

No time to write today. In the celebrated red Valentino dress and I can't actually breathe. Heading out to dinner en masse. Then home where I will change really fast to serve birthday cake to the Devil because I wouldn't dare do it in this.

Thou art dust.

Sam asks me what I'm giving up for Lent this year like he always asks even though Easter is a sort of minefield for Unitarian ministers and everyone else alike. Last time I checked I walked a rather casual lapsed-Baptist line through town but if you ask some people I'm a heathen, a Satanist, an outlier.

It makes me laugh because I'm nothing but I answer the same way I answer him every year.

I'll give up the Devil. 

And then he'll ignore that and get right to the point because Sam wants pancakes for dinner Tuesday night and all important events are merely gateways to food in the end, aren't they?

This week will be very busy school and work and foodwise and Caleb's birthday tomorrow and I fucking HATE pancakes with the heat of a thousand suns because my mother never made breakfast for dinner and so my pancake education came from diners and McDonalds alike, where the pancakes are so sweet they float though they look like they should be salty and greasy and taste better than they actually do.

We're having pancakes, no worries. And Wednesday morning you can give me the copper box so I can grind ashes into my forehead and masquerade as a mortal like the rest of you.

Tell me what's wrong, Bridget. 

I want to sleep. 

Are you going to tell me what's really wrong then?

I smile tightly. I'm okay. I just need PJ to hurry up and get his stuff off the counter so I can bake. 

Want me to move it?

No, he can damn well come and do it himself. I've asked twice already. 

I'll ask him again. It'll be gone in two minutes, okay?

Less than a minute later PJ clears the counters and then Sam wipes them down for me and I sit at the island and try and hyperventilate in silence. I fail and Sam drops the towel and comes to rub my back. Inhale deeper, Bridget. All the way down. What happened?

I just tried to think past the end of the daylight. That's all, I swear. 

Overwhelmed?

Yeah. 

Want me to get Loch?

Yeah. 

Loch comes in from outside, hands covered in grease, boots full of snow and slush, hair full of rain, flat curls pressed to his neck and he sees my face and grabs me in a hug.

Hey now. The future isn't scary, Peanut. It's fireworks later on. It's a trip around the wheel in the morning before breakfast. Orange juice and sausages and fried eggs. We'll get slushies when it gets too hot to move and then when it cools down we can have a walk on the beach. You can tell me about your progress in the book and then I'll tell you a story about when you read to me when I'm old and my eyes get bad but for today...for today it's only a worry about hunger pangs and sunburns and nothing else. Nothing at all. Sunshine. Stars to count. A funnel cake if you're up for it and maybe some singing later by the fire. What color flames would you like tonight?

Blue. I'd like blue. 

Blue flames, some marshmallows to roast. Nothing past the early part of the week. One minute after another. 

Slushies.

Slushies, baby. 

My book. 

I can't wait to hear about it. 

They're all dying, Lochlan. 

Not today they aren't. Everyone here will be here tomorrow too. I finally have the nerve to look at his expression and it's grim because I scare him. He's holding it together by a thread.

So I cut it.

Sunrise guys.

Duncan finally called me.

At 5:45 this morning because time zones. He doesn't plan ahead. I thread my phone down under the covers with me and talk quietly into Lochlan's neck while Ben's arm rests uncomfortably under both our heads.

Cozy. Not sorry.

Dunk. Are you okay?

I'm fine. I'm just getting old and if I'm going to do this I had to figure out a way to do it without being fucked up all day and straight all night. You know? 

I know. 

I just want to be efficient and good and not needing a bottle on the table out here but then when I tried to just put it away I couldn't. 

You can come home. I know someone here can hook you up with something local. With Ben. 

Naw, I'm good. They're supportive. They had warned me a couple of times already. I think they're relieved. 

But you don't have to do it there. 

Do what? I'm just learning some new things. Ben makes a lot more sense to me all of the sudden, you know? 

I turn my face and look at Ben's sleeping face. I don't know but I think I understand. 

We want to be good men, Bridget.

Good Humans. 

That's right, Good Humans. What comes easy for men like Lochlan isn't easy for guys like us. 

Loch took his knocks early in life, that's all. He never had it easy.

True. But you know they say we're all more resilient when we're young. 

That's bullshit. All it does is become responsible for how you finish growing, how you are molded into the person you become. Later on it's simply bad luck or bad planning or both. It doesn't shape you in development.

Your brain is complicated.

Just like the rest of me. 

I'll think on that for a while then. 

Not so long. Will you call tomorrow?

I'd like to. 

Okay, please don't do it at quarter to six in the morning.

Jesus Christ! I'm sorry. Why did you answer it then?

Because it was you.

Feels like Saturday.

Because in my head there’s a greyhound station
Where I send my thoughts to far off destinations
So they may have a chance of finding a place
where they’re far more suited than here

Duncan didn't want to talk to me at all since we found out he sought a sponsor. I called and called, I muscled in on Skype calls where Dalton stood firm, refusing to let me in the frame, fighting me out of the room, talking over me until Loch swooped in and lifted me right off the floor to carry me out.

I yelled at the screen I love you Poet and got simple silence in return.

For fucks sakes.

This will be my fault too. Even though many times I told him to leave the collective, to go and find his way and have a life and he said he did have one, here with his family and that he was fine. Fine, he said. Stop worrying, I'm good. Unless you're offering yourself, and I would blush furiously and change the subject because damn. What a waste.

But still, my fault somehow.

***

Ben, on the other hand, is all LIKE-MINDED INDIVIDUALS, planning to turn the house into some sort of straight-edge punk band with big black sharpie X's on the backs of our hands and Loch and I are like hell, no. Celts like their whiskey so fuck off kindly, ye.

The difference is we don't need it. It's nice here and there, but definitely not missed and hardly ever necessary. That's where the line is drawn, I am told, between people who can remain obediently on the proper side of the line and those who barge right through it on their way to self-annihilation.

***

Caleb and Henry are doing better today, just when I was about to hit my limit with panic, just as I was thinking we need to go back to the doctors and tell them the treatment isn't working, Jesus, fix this, Henry's in pain and Caleb is too strong to admit he's hurting plus what a delicate dance with his already strict and barely balanced pills. Both of them just wanted Ruth and I to stay away so we didn't get sick too but so far so good.

***

So far, so good. Loch said that to me once soon after I wasn't a child anymore but I didn't understand what he meant until words became everything to me and every time I hear it or see it now it makes me smile. A literal use. So far. So Good. You were worth it. So, so worth it.

Bah. You have to hear him say it or it makes no sense. Your fucking knees would cave in, I promise.

***

Batman calls me in a rush of concern, interrupting lunch, telling me to ask Caleb what in the hell the CP is. I guess he's reading through the papers again. He doesn't trust anyone, the poor soul. I shouldn't either but so far so..uh..good?

Capital planning? I venture. Cross platform? Cash percentage?

Go ask him.

No, he's resting. It can wait until Monday.

Bridget-

He's not working right now, he's sick. Let him be. It's a weird position to be in, protector, defender but I hold it lightly anyway, turning it over, letting it catch the light and then setting it gently down on the floorboards, leaving it behind as I press the button on the phone to end the call when the confusion as to how I can stand on both sides of this line so easily when I wouldn't cross the other ones under threat of death threatens to eat me whole.

Patchwork.

I'm so tired today I feel slow and drugged, I probably am drugged, it would be one way to keep me in the big bed upstairs and not out on the chilled bricks leading to the boathouse. Lochlan isn't mad, he just keeps his undercurrent of frustration with him at all times, a steady drone that hurts my ears if I pay too much attention to it.

(I don't know, Jesus. Sometimes I think I should just sell out and show you my fucking Outfit of the Day or talk about mindfulness or paint swatches or cooking for the week for a large family but no, I won't. That isn't what this is.)

I told him I loved him until my face hurt and my lips were blue from the effort and the cold and the drone finally quieted down to a dull hum.

He ran his fingers across my cheek and smiled today and suggested we stay in and watch television. I have heard rumors that season 4 of American Horror Story visits the circus and my heart did a double flip-flop of excitement but since it is unconfirmed I will happily continue on with Asylum (season 2). Love this show, it's all strangeness and horror and inexplicably and over-the-top ridiculousness.

Just like you, he says.

Yeah, just like me.

(For the record the outfit was old jeans and a new Lucky Brand Triumph motocycles tee. Not worthy of a blog post but I've seen those OOTD blog posts and some of them aren't putting any more effort into it than I did, just so you know.)

(PS: Duncan joined AA. Not sure what that means yet. I'll talk to him tonight. Apparently he's been nothing but a lit arsehole since he got off the plane. Which is not good for him because he is the sweetest, most laid-back man you will ever meet. Maybe we really do take turns falling apart.)

(PSS: Henry and Caleb have an amazingly bad case of strep. Which is so horrible. Both are on penicillin and aspirins and cold cloths and juice around the clock and I want to cry at this point, really I do. It's been a while since Henry was this sick and PJ is keeping care of the devil because I'm not allowed.)

The bond between the hopeful and the damned.

Heavy hung the canopy of blue
Shade my eyes and I can see you

I swim into consciousness slowly, molasses underwater, heavy lids and limbs. Lochlan is whispering over my head, his arms shaking to accentuate the words as he holds me tightly against him. I don't think I can breathe and I have no idea what he's talking about for a long time until I realize he is trying to make Ben understand that enabling my whims or Ben's proclivities will do nothing but harm us all. Ben is oblivious to the strain in Lochlan's voice and thinks the whole thing is amazing, amusing and wicked. I keep my eyes closed and listen and try to remember to tell Ben not to rip the bandages from Lochlan's never-healing fears constantly by permitting me open access to the Devil. It's not as if Ben requires Caleb, Ben just likes to watch. Lochlan is more than capable of taking up that mantle without any help whatsoever and so therein rests the argument. Why can't you just stay home? Loch's voice breaks and I wake up enough to die again.

My God. What have we become?

Finally Ben whispers an apology back and says he puts me first. Loch reminds him that you don't do that with a child, someone prone to poor decision making in the first place. He uses Ben himself as an example with substances and then he keeps going, recalling how often I would ask him for cotton candy for dinner on the midway and precisely how often he would acquiesce.

Which was never.

Not even once because Loch is of such incredible strength of character. Persistence and integrity are his middle names. Stubbornness his cross to bear. He wants so badly to change both past and present I think sometimes he firmly believes if he is loving enough and true enough that it will magically happen.

We don't know that sort of magic though. Our magic consists of cheap tricks and illusion, turned on the street with pockets picked inside out and cards marked to within an inch of our lives.

Ben leaves, because he is trying to put his head back together and still goes to near-constant meetings and the counselling too. And then he swims because he says it feels good. 

So if I am not first, that makes me second. The procurement of the prize is the prize and not the prize itself. It's the journey, not the destination. I am the destination. They are already here, still marveling at the route they've taken and not the view that lies before them. Ben will continue to give me whatever I want and Lochlan will insist that I get none of it.

I should tell him it's not important, that I don't love Caleb the same way, that I can be fine without Diabhal but then I know better and besides, I'm so tired and Loch is so warm so I repeat the only thing I have said for hours now. I'm sorry. I slur it in my sleep, eyes still closed and he looks down at me and holds me tighter, telling me it's not my fault, that I am suggestible, that Caleb is evil and Ben is weak. I get annoyed then and tell him I am weak and evil and the rest of them, wait, the rest of YOU are suggestible and he just stares at me wearily for a very long time and tells me I just need more sleep. That tomorrow we can go out for breakfast and have a walk down by the water and I will be okay.

I wish he wasn't so delusional but I nod anyway because what do you have if you don't have hope? I'm not going to be the one to drown his optimism. It's hanging by a thread as it is.

Lochlan.

The words fall apart first, letters dropping everywhere, some haphazardly listing against each other, some teetering on the brink of obsolescence and finally he presses his forehead against mine in silence. He didn't believe me when I told him I was unhurt, choosing instead to rip everything off me, lifting up my arms, turning me this way and that, sharing in my expression of hot angry tears because he doesn't understand this and he never ever will.

His relief though. I feel it washing over me, forcing the evil away. I watch it run in gritty grey rivulets across my skin, soaking into the ground. He conjures flames to burn the rest away, his heat autoclaving my soul, or the reasonable facsimile I still carry, fusing the pieces of my heart together just a little more securely.

I'm sorry, I venture when the last of the fire smothers itself, having nothing left to burn.

And he laughs. No, you're not. That's the hardest part. He pulls me in against his heart and my heart speeds up to match.

Pop and scratch (category 5).

I knew it wasn't what he said it was but I played along.

I don't protest all that much. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not actually strong or stubborn. Mostly I'm submissive, willing and easy to control. I was never under the impression that it was a bad thing to be that way. It made their lives easier, from Lochlan right down through the line to Ben. The only time it fails is when they think they are controlling my emotions too. Those aren't something that can be shaped with orders, plans and schemes. Those just strike like natural disasters, without warning, so unpredictable and devastating that they have categories for severity and damage. Just like tornadoes, hurricanes and earthquakes.

So there we go across the driveway just before midnight, ostensibly for a late snack and a chance to get some family business out of the way before the week actually begins. It's a short week with a school holiday and some much-needed time off for Lochlan and the past day and a half my arm isn't hurting much at all. I'm game for a jump on the week.

I'm loathe to say no to Caleb too, as that's all I've done lately and he's tried and failed to find a way to make things up to me from afar.

Oh, and Ben is a big old perverted enabler who all but disappeared the moment we walked in, saying he wanted to borrow some vinyl. Jazz masters and classical. Ben might eat the records but Caleb is a casual listener, not some collector of rare editions or anything like that. I hear strains of Glenn Miller coming from the tiny den and I smile because it sounds pretty and jazz is like some incredibly sophisticated other life to me sometimes.

Like Caleb is.

Only it's fleeting. I feel his arms close around me and I press into him. I will blink and be back home later. I feel his lips against my jaw and I fight to clear my mind. I shudder as he exhales into my shoulder and he promises not to bite me so I know this one will be allowed to slip past. I pause, and I know I'm evil too but it's black and warm washing over me, pulling me down, drowning me from the ground up, a rushing torrent of malevolence and corruption that doesn't scare me at all when it should and scares me to pieces when it shouldn't.

That makes it hard.

Hard is the theme of the evening though. He barely pauses to unbutton his shirt, choosing to engage in a mostly-dressed frantic strong-armed indulgence of me and I surrender to that. I surrender mostly to Cole's memory because I still miss him even as I hate him and I still love them both dearly even though these days my busted heart is full. I never meant to apologize for the part of my brain I don't try to control and I wouldn't change a thing save for Lochlan's torrid resentment of the entire arrangement.

But Lochlan doesn't control this world, because this is compartmentalized away from the rest of everything. In this world I'm not a child, I'm a equal and a whore and a submissive and a slave.

A slave with a master who pretends he is nothing of the kind, even as he orders me to the door. The big white door where he prefers me to stand, my back pressed against the chilled wood, arms raised above my head, up on my toes, eyes closed, nose up, shoulders back, mouth open to taste his fingertips as he traces my lips and tongue, eyelashes and earlobes.

When my toes leave the floor and the white lights begin to flash behind my eyelids I start to look for the way back because the path to get here is dark and confusing and difficult to follow back. I call out in the dark for Ben and he responds only his voice is thick and dangerous. I shift and call out for Loch instead but he never answers because he isn't there and then the roaring orders of the Devil begin, the frustration and rage replacing the soft encouragement from before. His time is almost up and he hates that. The record is finished and he hates that too, listening the bump of the needle at the end of the spiral groove.

One of these things was never like the others.

My house was so loud in the wee hours of the night that I've hardly slept. I didn't even try to stay up, because I was dropping off with alarming focus during Bad Movie Night as it was, thanks to Solomon Kane, the most incredibly interestingly-written movie I've ever seen make it that far. Like a low-rent Van Helsing, it was.

Caleb chuckled every time my chin dropped and Lochlan rolled his eyes and pulled me further away from the Devil and closer to himself. Ben was upstairs with Sam, playing guitar, doing a little field triage, a casual meeting for two because sometimes Ben feels really damn shaky and gets some extra help and then he returns to me until the next tough spot. 

When the Olympic gold-medal game third period was over the roar from the living room made me give up on sleep entirely and venture downstairs for the replays and medal presentations and now the only thing I've managed to do all damned morning is fold one load of t-shirts and spoil Fight Club for myself, something I've managed to avoid for the better part of the past fifteen years or so, because I read one of those '15 things you didn't know about Hollywood's Biggest Blockbusters' or some such nonsense.

We never finished watching that movie, Cole and I, because it was difficult and uncomfortable and so I saved the ending. I was going to save it forever because everyone always told us we should finish it but we didn't and it's too late but now I know and he never will. It's still fucking stupid but it's closure of a sort I wasn't even looking for. I'll take what I can get anyway, for an albatross is an albatross, after all.

This is how I win.

Caleb ordered me to appear before him to inspect whatever change he had heard rumblings of and I dutifully obeyed, though this time I'm pretty sure he knew that PJ was standing on the other side of the kitchen door with his hand on the lever. Some days are like that.

I stepped out into the heavy wet snowfall in unzipped Docs and a long black sweater with my leggings making my legs little splindly black toothpicks and figured Caleb would harp on my outfit first but no. He knew damn well I have red hair now because I bet a million dollars and change that Loch told him two days ago.

What have you done. It's not a question, therefore I provide no answer. Your hair was such a beautiful color. 

Like Jacob's. 

No, like Bridget's. What is this, some effort to align yourself with Pyro for all the world to see? A cheap parlor trick if I ever saw one. 

No, it was an effort to do something radical before the white takes over. I don't know if you've noticed but I'm getting old. 

You will never get old in my eyes. 

Always twelve, huh?

No, Princess. Always twenty-three and rolling around in money in Vegas, smiling and drinking champagne with me. Always turning every head in the room when you entered. Always concentrating, learning everything you could about mutual funds and capital gains in order to keep up. Always refusing to abandon my brother because you wanted to believe in him so badly. Where's the spitfire who does things her own way and stays stubborn? 

She died when Cole died and Jake flew. I roll my eyes. This is not news.

No, she was silenced, choked off by the past she isn't allowed to forget because her fairweather boyfriend is so inadequate at helping her move on with her life. 

What life? I have no life. 

Exactly what I mean.

But you have to admit, I make a stunning redhead. 

Yes, surprisingly enough I am completely taken aback at how incredible your eyes look now.

A penny (for your thoughts).

Skyped with Druncan (I did not give him the nickname but it fits) tonight for a long confusing time before I realized how lit he was. He was all filth and bullshit from the minute he saw me until I pushed away from the table and left his view, frustrated. Loch took over with his soothing Scottish lilt that he uses when he's really mad but using it as a Teaching Moment. Duncan got all sorts of made-up curses hurled his way and then was told to pick himself up and pull himself together so sweetly I almost wished I was the one in trouble.

But I'm not because I dyed my hair red and made a last minute save.

Or rather, Daniel dyed my hair for me because the appalling nature of the gold and silver was beginning to tip more toward silver in the sunlight but milky-dishwater under harsh fluorescents and I stood in front of a mirror in a Target store for twenty minutes yesterday imploring the boys to look at me and tell me how they let me out of the house looking like this.


For the record, they all deferred nicely and insisted they don't notice it at all because their wee little minds still see Bridget at the tender age of eight forever and ever but I still went sprinting back down the centre of the store to buy a box of something or other and Daniel did the dirty work and now I look human at least but still like a total stranger in the mirror as always. In order to look like myself I need the torn-out braids and the enlarged sugar-pupils and the lips stained pink with cotton candy and total glorious fear written all over my face from riding the octopus one too many times.

Oh, and in a clean t-shirt because Loch insisted on it.  *rolls eyes*.

For the record, he LOVES my hair. It's lighter than his by miles thanks to the February aspect of things and all the time indoors this winter thus far. And it makes my eyes explode in a sea of green. I would love to keep it but my hair always makes up it's own damn mind and begins the easy fade back into silver and gold despite protests, always. Even when it was blue. Or green. Or pink. Two weeks tops and it will look like it always looks. That's why I don't bother with it very often.

I feel tired still today but the pain is sort of easing up again. I'm still dividing my time between a couch or a bathtub mostly and I refuse to apologize for either. I think I have mono again or total mental exhaustion. The vapors, maybe. Something. PJ's death-plague cold. Schuyler's ennui. Sam's overwrought concern.

(No, wait. I don't have that, that's his albatross, not mine.)

In any case, I have two days left to enjoy my couch because after that the Olympics will be over for another four years in which I will be closer to Lochlan's age now than I will be to my own and that will be strange. Ruth will be eighteen and Henry sixteen by then and by then my hair will probably be completely white and I'll have had my precious lombotomy that will make me not care so much about all the stupid little things that I worry about but will never be able to change like the color of my hair or the condition of my outfit in the middle of a Midway in July or the amount that Duncan drinks when he's lonely.

Pumpkin.

Once I realized I couldn't think anymore, let alone type, the tequila party for one ended as quickly as it began. I'm a lightweight and an easy drunk and a bit of stick in the mud too so instead of dulling the pain any way possible they humored me with my new plan which isn't new at all, it's from two weeks ago. I'll lie on the bricks in the driveway and someone can drive over my arm until it parts ways with the remainder of my body. I can be the one-armed princess. It's not like I'm a good swimmer or able to wrap both arms completely around any of the huge men in this house for a hug so I won't miss it at all. I'll sweeten the pot and throw my useless ears in on offer as well.

When my blood ran red again Lochlan made some tea and toast and I resumed speaking (and typing) English, which was perfect timing because Ben came home and wasn't thrilled that I was still in pain nor was he thrilled with the others' attempts to fix it with alcohol. I don't think that's what it started out as but I don't think I'll be doing it again any time soon either.

!aw shit

Matt and Lochl are plying me withetequila today because it distracts me from the hurty part of my arm that keeps getting joltde and bumped to the point where I'm biting my tongue repeatedly just to avoid seeing the guys with the looks of soul-crushing pity that they sometimes throw me that make mefeel paper-thin and ruinous and..drunkent

Tequila is a special treat reserved only for random Wednesdays in Febryarywe no more than once a decaed, Wish me luckt!

A saw, a pair of scissors and a very loud cheer from me.

I don't want you to police my need to keep certain things the way they-

I wish you would let the past remain there and come forward with me-

We both started talking at the same time and then stopped. This is an impasse for sure but not one we can't bury in routine. He smiled kind of shyly and I reached out for him with both hands. 

I'm a jerk. I don't mean to seem like he is more important than you because he isn't but that doesn't mean his things aren't incredibly important to me. Can you accept that?

Maybe. I don't mean to seem like I'm trying to rush you through, I just don't want you to hurt anymore, Bridgie, there's been so much. I want you to be happy, don't you see?

So we stand nodding at each other with flooded eyes and hearts that won't start and pain drawn with needles on our arms, words meant to soothe and to ignite. I trace the tattoos on Lochlan's arm and ask him if he'll make some lunch with me but he smiles wider and asks me if I would rather he take me to...

I'm thinking some restaurant will be suggested but no, do I want to go get my cast off? (The hospital called while I was being difficult, apparently.)

Is the sky blue? HELL YES. 

Off we go. And after an inexplicably long wait in what seemed to be an empty department I am free (!) to take a completely-submerged-save-for-my-nose piping-hot bubblebath without my arm sticking up out of the water like a limby periscope. 

Which I am off to do right now because it hurts like I've been hugging a cinderblock since Christmas and my poor little arm looks like a bendy straw.

Airport extreme.

Duncan left this morning for a ten-week stint overseas. We're not worried about this run for him, the guys he'll be working for are all in the program now and long past their crazy years.

Gotta pay the bills, Princess, and he laughed. I think he feels old. I think he feels the pull of our family, wanting to stay home and just hang out forever when he really does need to take a couple of gigs a year to break even. 

What about your future? I ask him when he says he's turned things down. 

Beloved honorary hunkle and bouncer, affection meat lump for the princess? I think I have my hands full right here, he laughs and I stamp my feet in frustration. 

Go! Have a life! Get the girls! Bag it and tag it, Poet! Christ! Don't sit around here and watch me mope around and start shit. 

Well, at least you admit it now, but that's not what I do here.

What do you do then?

I sit around and molest you in my mind. 

Oh, well that's classy and wrong and completely wonderful.

Not the way I play it out in my imagination, it's not.

So today was sort of comforting in that he's taken a job and not comforting in that the balance tips against me in the house from where Lochlan and I seek people who agree with us so that our arguments are evenly matched. 

I'll bring you back some souvenirs, Duncan tells me. He's stalling. Last-minute regrets. 

Bring back yourself. D&D free, no babies. 

Yes, Mom. 

Don't call me Mom. 

Don't tell me not to go out into the world and get everyone pregnant. 

How will you support them all if you have a crowd of kids by Christmastime?

I'll sell my poems. Holiday-themed ones.

Oh, Jesus. You are flighty, Dunk. 

Not as much as you. 

I'm not out there planting seeds everywhere. 

God, you're crass for such a pretty little thing. 

I live with your friends. 

I need to talk to them about this. The 'lady' part of you is waning.

Good! I hope I grow a penis. 

Why?

So I can write my name in the snow! It's on my bucket list! Don't you ever pay attention?

Phew. I thought you were going to say something alot worse. 

Shhhhh. We won't speak of the other things I'll do. See you when you get home, Poet. 

If I come back and you've already grown a penis, don't ever tell me, okay?

Promise. Besides, I wouldn't tell you, I'd SHOW you. But I only want the penis, not the balls because balls are gross. 

They're less gross than vaginas. 

Nuh-uh. Vaginas are fun. 

You win again! See you before your birthday.

Don't be late. We're having a party.

Don't grow a penis! He yelled and then he was gone through the gate and I realized departures was full of people staring at me. 

Ha. Idiot. Sam scanned ALL THE LETTERS. Remember?

No?

Well, he did and he put them in a cloud so delete away. They'll still be safe from you.

Saturday it happened and we can't change it now.

I'll tell you about the Evan Peters thing. We started watching American Horror Story to fill in the gaps while we wait for Season 3 of Game of Thrones to show up on Apple TV and wow, is it ever bizarre and tense.

But then the character of Tate moved to the forefront, who's all a hundred and eighty miles an hour of white-hot teenage-boy sexy angst (oh, shut up) and he reminds me of someone I know at that same age, also with curly hair and determined stubbornness and almost-teary eyes when he gets so frustrated at things.

Yeah.

Totally a trip down memory lane except for the obvious living, breathing and non-psychopathic parts (knock on wood).

Lochlan was not at all impressed when I pointed out all the glaring similarities that I could see and he spent the entire second half of that episode staring at me. Not angrily, just curiously, as if I were some great riddle he was studying. Then he begged off the next one entirely, saying he'd catch up on it later, perhaps.

I went up after it was over and he was outside, sitting in the dark deep down into one of the Adirondack chairs, arms crossed over his chest, staring into the flames shooting up from the giant copper firebowl. He pulled me down into his lap when he saw me and buried his face in my hair, saying he was sorry. He kept saying it. Over and over and finally I pulled away and asked him what he was sorry for, leaving me to watch a television show? Yelling about some stupid offhand comment that may or may not be obvious to others but was just something I found interesting? For all the things since 1983 that didn't exactly go as planned so meticulously once upon a time?

No, Peanut. No, this is a big thing I did. Just now. Look at the fire. I'm sorry but I'm not sorry at all. In fact, I'm relieved and I wish I had done this years ago.

I look at the fire and after a minute I see why he's sorry because I see what he's burning. Jacob's letters. All of them, still stacked and folded in small white bricks in packs of fifty, tied with gold and silver ribbons because that's what I did to keep myself from swimming in ashes or from slitting my wrists after he flew. I folded each one carefully and made groups of them and then tied them like presents with the prettiest ribbons I could find.

And now they're gone.

The yelling by the others started almost immediately. They said he's brainwashed me, that he always has, they say I don't think for myself when he's around, that I revert, that I regress but maybe he's taking those risks by doing what needs to be done, even if it's an unpopular or horrifically shocking decision.

Even if he's right.

I wasn't curious but I am now. What if all the answers were there and I'll never know? What if everything would have been better had I read them?

I pushed away from Ben and Sam and ran back out into the dark where Lochlan sat, still in the chair, still watching the flames now with an audience of detractors and dissent.

I flew down the steps and he stood up and I smashed into him with an alarming violence. He caught me and he looked scared to death.

Did you read them? At least some of them?

Yeah. I did and I wish I hadn't.

I'm not talking about Valentine's day or my weird crush on Evan Peters until tomorrow.

I put the letter that I was carrying back. I was masterfully persuaded safely the other way. Spend the morning with one hypnotist and the afternoon with another and watch me fling myself back and forth within my own loyalties. In the end I wisely chose self-preservation.

(AKA Lochlan got me last and talked me out of it. He undid all of Sam's efforts only I'm not all that sure if it was for my benefit or his. Maybe both. But is that a bad thing?)

But really if I was curious I would read everything. My curiosity will most definitely be what kills me (if Caleb doesn't kill me first) as I've said so many times but I'm not all that curious about Jake's letters. In fact, I'm blindly and inexplicably apathetic to them. I ventured an effort and it got snapped back so maybe I'll just take that as a sign.

Of what? That I am more important than the past?

Yes.

Definitely. Because I'm still here.

(I came to that conclusion on my own. Sam did not agree with Lochlan's efforts to prevent what he thought would be healing for me. They're really gearing up over here and I want to know why.)

Probably because I'm insane. Like your front row seat? Of course you do. Everyone's a voyeur.

In other news, I'm about to go out and lie in the driveway so someone can run over my cast and crack it off because I'm so fed up with it at this point you have no idea. None. It's killing me slowly. Like winter in the Prairies and wind in the Maritimes and ghosts in my garage and on the wall and in my soul. I saw my soul the other day when Caleb came to get Henry. I think the Devil carries it around on a chain.

And in mildly riveting news, out of housebound boredom between Olympic events I started a Pinterest account, pinning some things I have, things I know, things I like...is that the point? I don't get it. Am I inspired? Not really but it's better than getting a high score of 5 (yes, five) in Flappy Bird and throwing my phone at Andrew.

In my quest to add the button just under my profile so you can visit my uh..page I also found that I can add a "Pin this!" button to my posts but then I couldn't figure it out because I'm about as HTML-savvy as a goddamned starfish. I feel like the cast is actually on my brain. PJ said it definitely should be so I hit him with it.

The cast, not my brain. I wanted to use something that will leave a mark. Or a pin, as it were.

(Update: Pinterest was a flash in the pan and is gone now. I still don't understand the point of it.)

Mercury glitter.

More forms. Taxes. Wills. High School. New Jake having a little issue with his blood sugar because motherfucker needs his mom. I can't watch him too. Fighting with Caleb about which school Henry will go to next year. Fighting with Ruth to pass in her assignments on time but she's floating away on a musical cloud. Daniel has such a bad cold I want to cry for him. Norway didn't stand up to Crosby & company and we trounced them so easily. Important things in drawers I'm supposed to remember if things go wrong but I can't because I don't have that part of my mind anymore. Loch being weird about Sam out of the blue, all of the sudden. Duncan and Matt standing between them as if they needed to. Meatloaf for dinner because it's easy even though everybody except John hates it and Batman swooping in to take Ben for a talk to try and keep him on the path but out from under the wagon wheels as I pull on my coat yet again to go back to more lawyers and more nodding and more listening and more trying to remember things I shouldn't even have to think about it, so instead all I can picture is sitting in the sun wishing my whole life was the thick glossy polychromatic glitter like on the boat that the boss towed behind his truck my first year on the Midway. I never got a ride in that boat but every time I see that kind of glitter it makes me feel energetic, invicible and young.

One single letter folded in the pocket of my dress because it felt important so I pulled it out of the stack and tucked it in my hand in case I want to unfold and read it later on.

I have patience for your music, popular people, but this is just asking too much.

(Judgey-judge fluff. I have horrible things going on so please enjoy a rare public rant on what's wrong with kids these days and I'll get personal again as soon as...something changes.)

This morning I sat through Achy Breaky 2 in it's entirety.

Who does that?

I did, that's who and I'm not linking.

My official review is that it's as perfectly terrible as the first one, which I remember not so fondly as it was played constantly on the fucking carousel at the shore while we tried to take ourselves seriously directly adjacent to said carousel on the sideshow and some of the old lecherous fools there taught me the line dance behind the tents where you could follow the pink arrows to the sex show. Embarrassed men would slip past me, staring too long as if I was one of the performers they were about to watch.

I was not.

But again, hated the first song, hate the second one. A half-assed chorus reprise with a bunch of rap stuffed in between. Billy Ray Cyrus doesn't sing so much as he allows himself to be processed.

Do not watch the video unless you love breast implants and electrical tape and very little else. If I cringe at some of the videos I've been in then I can't imagine how these twerker-ladies feel. Also, Dude. The one driving the spaceship looks like your teenage daughter. Gross.

I think the boys watched it a few times in a row on mute. They have no taste.

Give me that fucking Robin Thicke video any day. At least those breasts MOVE.

Sleepwalker Samuel.

Take my narcolepsy plus Sam's perpetual exhaustion, prone to napping wherever he sits down, throw in twenty-four hour olympic coverage and an endless supply of firewood and you have a couple of fair-haired snoozers who seem awake less than more and not the least bit apologetic for it. There's something inherently comforting about listening to crackling flames with one ear while the other is treated to a flannel-wrapped heartbeat.

Sam is not a thirty-minute power napper the way Loch is, efficient to a fault, Sam is a lose-the-whole-day-don't-give-a-shit-someone-will-lock-the-church sort of psycho-coma-sleeper who wakes up dazed and sweaty like a toddler. But rested. He wakes up rested. Well, until he sits down again and tries to read and then nods off.

I think I might steal him from Matt. Maybe Matt will take trades?

Leafs=3, Canucks=1.

After a good twenty-minute exasperated protest by one redheaded wet blanket, Ben settled for decorating the end of my nose with one tiny little rosette of whipped cream and then licking it off.

The whole ice cream and caramel sauce part of the human sundae had to be abandoned completely because we didn't feel like burning all the bedding and shopvacking (I made up a word because spelling vaccume is some sort of curse onto my existence, okay?) my cast. It's filthy already and it's new so I could see that, though since my Leafs won it only seemed fair that I should get to bask in my winning glory but don't you worry, I still got a sweet ride.

Wait. I get that every day. Twice. Sometimes four times. Then I walk around kind of shakily and fucked up and they laugh at me so let's just...uh...change the subject.

This morning the boys were cleaning up and picking up in the living room because I don't anymore after big man-parties and Ben had a whole tray full of bottles and he kept staring at them. I asked if he could just take them right outside to the bin and he did but he never came back. When I went out he was sitting on the back step dangling one beer bottle by the fingers.

I stood and watched him for a couple minutes. I didn't want to jump the shark. I know I should always freak first and sort it out later but I stood with my forehead pressed against the glass until Loch caught up with me, saw what I was looking at and charged outside quite readily.

What the fuck are you doing? He yelled. Ben is five feet away, on the top step. Yelling might not be necessary but freaking out is the way we do this, I guess.

Ben turns around and says he wasn't drinking. He thought about it but he didn't so he just sat there thinking.

Let me smell your breath. Loch gets right in his face and Ben kisses him. I counted to fifteen and then my eyebrows raised so high they floated off my face and up into the sky as the boys finally broke apart.

Fine. Loch says and grabs the bottle. You don't clean up booze, okay? He comes back up the steps with the bottle and goes past me.

Should I be jealous? What a kiss that was! 

I just wanted to make sure I couldn't taste any beer on him. 

So what did you taste? 

Loch just laughed and said nothing while I clued in. Ben got up abruptly and came over and smashed against me, pulling both Loch and I in tight to his embrace and I asked him if he was okay.

Yeah, I didn't actually want it, I just wanted to remember what it was like to not even think so hard about it, you know? Like how you feel about stuff. 

I nodded. Yeah. I know, Benny.

He put both his hands on my face and rubbed his cold nose against mine, while Lochlan breathed on the top of my head. I know you know, Bee, but this guy here's a much better kisser. 

Only cause he has a bigger mouth! I grin at Lochlan, victorious in my burn of him.

That's debatable, Peanut. He grins back, deflecting the flames onto me. I concede. He's a good kisser. They both are.

Fine. But don't leave me out! 

Never ever. I got smooshed in the hug just then. I think I broke something else.

Dark North, strong and free.

Up and at 'em, boys.

Today is a decidedly Canadian sort of day, with the new Maple French Toast bagels for breakfast and a firm confirmation that we actually did the right thing in giving up the Tim Horton's coffee in favor of Best Gourmet. Tim Horton's is much beloved, don't get me wrong, but mostly for their dutchies and maple dips, not their coffee. Small shops make good coffee. Chain shops make desperate coffee.

I make the best coffee. I'm currently using a French press to do so. Takes forever. The Best Gourmet is a localish company from out in the valley near where Lochlan's family is. So hundred-mile organic coffee french roasted, for the win.

Also! Canada has a first bronze medal in snowboarding by McMorris! Hurrah! And Moir and Virtue are first in figure skating! And Alex Duckworth from home is competing in women's snowboarding so we're rooting for her! And we shut out Switzerland (5-0) in women's hockey too! And now two more in moguls, gold and silver from two of the Dufour-Lapointe sisters!

(Sorry, I have Olympic fever hard. Last time around when they were here, ironically, I was in the Prairies selling the castle and packing up life because Caleb. Arse. Whatever. I'm going to eat Sochi coverage for breakfast, lunch and dinner.)

!

Jesus. It's a beautiful day for the red and white, and for the blue too.

Later today though is the second most difficult night of the year sportswise, in which I see the collective divided sharply down the centre as the Leafs play the Canucks.

Half of us (okay, a frightening minority) are true Leafs fans and the rest are (poser) Canucks supporters. The trash talk has already begun. The bets are being made. The tables are being bolted to the floor and the children sent to friends' houses for sleepovers. Hide yer women. Hide your beer.

Hide your halos because yes, I invited the devil. The amount of time we all have to spend together is non-negotiable anyway, with the amount of family dynamics we need to smooth over constantly and so the sooner he faces all of the boys the better. My bites have faded anyway. My mood is up and my cast is coming off on Valentines' Day if all goes well.

I hope the Canucks don't win. My bet didn't involve money. It involved some vague idea about a human ice cream sundae. And two guys with spoons. If the Leafs win apparently the sundae will be six-foot-four. I've never finished a sundae in my life, and boy, is Lochlan ever in trouble, since he's the only other Leafs fan in the house at present since August went home.

Facedown in the sand.

You would take the breath from my throat
And you would take the cherished people that I hold

Running gets so tiring. So exhausting. Hiding is worse, especially when I'm already afraid of the dark. I find myself inching back toward the light, as far away from the shadows as I can get but then everything just reaches out to grab me and I'm back at square one again and I never drew a map in the first place so I wind up searching from scratch for the right route. I wish Lochlan had sprinkled glitter or something so I would know what way to go but he told me I had to do it for myself. Maybe it's tough love and maybe I hate it for him even though the tiny part of me that is able to tell the rest of me that there's nothing in the dark that's going to get me is the same part that knows he's right.

I inched too far and I ran too fast and I found myself alone on the beach at low tide and everything hurt so much on the inside that it seemed like the only way to exist was to sit down in the wet sand and watch the waves break and then when I got tired and cold I lay down on my back but the light hurt so I turned to my stomach and pressed my cheek against the icy-cold gritty surface of the planet so I wouldn't get flung off of it again but then I went right up into space (Hey there's Orion again!) as Ben pulled me up so fast everything went blurry. He swore at me and stood me on my feet but then my knees buckled like a marionette and I laughed because oh, my brain is so cold right now I can't remember the things I should know by heart.

We will all take more chances (before our lives end too).

Bring along your tricks and trade
We will lie here, here we lay
And though this ship is out to sea
I'm content to lie peacefully

Claus came back through town this morning, and I was fortunate enough to be permitted to take him out for breakfast, just him and I, to hear all about his adventures on the island. We wound up talking for hours.

He said he enjoyed Ucluelet more than Tofino, that I remained difficult and debilitatingly enabled in my quest to keep my fragile-princess complex and that Ben is a short fuse just waiting to be lit. That I am a good girl for seeing Caleb with my eyes open and still maintaining a functional relationship when it comes to coparenting but I have to work harder to keep physical wants and pratfalls into his mild traps out of the equation. A lot harder.

He still does not understand Lochlan at all and says he would be well to find a little more consistency with me. Then he discounts that analysis with a dismissal about circus people and I frown.

You were but a visitor to that life. Something tells me Lochlan kept you protected from more of it than you realize and perhaps that's taken such a toll on him that he will forever struggle with his parental nature with you. No doubt he loves you more than his next breath, that's for certain.

And I beamed because princess. Because love. Because Ben what? Short fuse? Please tell me things I don't know. Please tell me how to keep him safe from himself for the rest of time.

(Oh and while you're at it, how can I turn off the random, surprise cries that overtake my face without my consent? I'm tired of crying. I'm tired of worrying. I'm tired of fighting for happy the way other people breathe without being acutely conscious that they are doing so. 

In other words, you're here. Before you go please fix the fragile princess.)

But he laughed and rubbed the back of my good hand and told me he thinks I'll be okay, still. But then he sat back and asked me if I planned to deal with the things I told him a week ago. I asked why and he said there's probably a very good reason nothing ever changes at the heart of this triangle, that it's going to hold me back because I let it. I reminded him of the stakes and he just shook his head and said he hoped I find true happiness before he dies, that time is short as I well know and that he thinks of me like a daughter.

Are you sick? 

Let's just say I'm an old man and some things are an inevitability. As are our wishes for you to find the happiness you seek. 

I'm working on it. 

Then I will work on sticking around to see it, dear girl. 

*(Don't be alarmed, the title and the lyrics are from Eisley's Many Funerals. The first verse is so beautifully sung. You should hear it.)

While I was being silly they were stealing my breakfast.

Duncan is sulking. Duncan LOVES pizza. Possibly more than he loves women and he didn't get any of either yesterday. I try to explain but he's a closed door. A big sulking four-year-old of a door, granted.

It was...private pizza, Poet. 

You could have put on clothes and made it public pizza. Not like you can eat a whole one and I saw two of them go up there. 

Woah. I can't eat pizza naked. Are you serious?

Yeah, that's too dangerous, man. Lochlan is laughing as he leans over and steals a piece of toast. I glare at him.

But you guys are super-skilled. You're probably trained in naked pizza eating in addition to the fire kissing and high wire shit. 

That's transfer of a flame and I rarely do that with her. Besides, Ben ate a whole one to himself. Lochlan justifies so hard he pulls something.

He ate the box too, Dunk. I confirm.

Yup. Loch confirms my confirmation.

Still though. You couldn't give me one piece? Just one public pizza slice for me?

Nope. That was private pepperoni. 

Okay, for the record I was not having an entire conversation revolving around a euphemism. I was talking about actual dinner. 

So was I! The mushrooms were private too. I lick my lips.

And the sausage bits. Tasty. Loch offers with a sly smile. I burst out laughing.

And the cheese, right? Can't forget the cheese. Remind me not to have conversations with you two when you're getting along. Duncan gets up, takes my other piece of toast and leaves the room.

I found heaven last night.

It came to me in the form of an electric blanket cranked to HIGH and a pizza.

Pizza in bed.

Like in New York.

I love you Ben.

Everything that's wrong with all three of us in one post.

We are fire
Burning brightly
You and I

We light the sky
When we ignite
When we come alive
When we come alive

Oh please, when I say several of the boys have been over to give Caleb hell, I don't mean he's gotten mild lectures. But I don't know for sure so I minimize it and look the other way. I asked them not to add to the violence and they just laughed with derision. But I know at the end of the day Lochlan has far too much character to do more than throw a few impulsive, wide punches. I don't have to fear for Caleb's life from one of the boys killing him but should I have to fear for my own from him all the time?

Caleb knocked on the door this morning and when I answered it, Lochlan grabbed the back of my shirt, twisting it in his hand, keeping me close. Reminding me that charm is a mask worn by the devil and nothing more. But I don't need to be drawn in, I'm already there.

Caleb had flowers for me. White roses. My favorites. He looked at Lochlan and then back at me, choosing his words carefully as he spoke. He's mirroring me, owning his actions the way I'm trying to own mine. He tells me that in an effort to regain control he would like it if I bring a chaperone when I come over or he will come here, that he is trying. That it's hard. I'm a drug. He knows how Ben feels sometimes. How they all feel. He asks if I'm okay.

Of course I am. A bite is not a death or betrayal, physical pain is a fucking joke. 

I'll try to remember that next headache, Caleb laughs shakily.  I'm sorry, Bridget. I lost control and I'm sorry. And Loch. I'm sorry for hurting her. 

We don't want apologies, we want changes. No more of this or I will fucking kill you. Stop plying her with booze while you're at it, she's a fucking minor! 

I turn and look at Lochlan, my eyes very wide. I joke about being treated like I'm twelve but that comment right there was active denial.

Loch-

You know what I mean! He brushes us both off and storms out. I turn back to Caleb.

You need to leave. Thanks for the flowers. I will stuff them in the holes you made in my skin and be beautifully embellished. 

Jesus, Bridget. I-

I know. The visual, hey? It's horrifying. 

I want to say Caleb is scared and taking his fear out on me but I'm not quite there yet. Instead I'm trying to own the night that I provoked. I don't listen to the rules that would keep me safe, I don't stop when I should. I don't pay attention until the fear rolls in and flicks my cheek, waking me up, wide and cold and hurting. 

The new cast is on for a couple of weeks more. The old one was very loose. No damage was done. I think he forgot. I'm pretty sure everyone has been over to give him hell but I think he has enough of it already, don't you? 

No? 

I really need to take and keep the blame for this. I do it to myself. I just have to figure out why I can't help it. I need to keep Lochlan and Ben from failing to understand who the real villain is here and I need to keep Batman's nosy face out of it. 

So, yes, it's Groundhog day. I didn't see my shadow though. I think that means there's hope.

Human pacemaker.

He took a moment and sent a message on his phone and then he walked me to the door and down to the bottom of the steps. I am shoved back across the driveway gently, drunk and ruined, Sazerac running through my veins. It stings.

***

Caleb bought an Audi R8. Not the crazy one with the wing that's an inch off the ground but a lovely glossy black sedan that goes like fuck and looks so beautiful I wanted to drive it and he said I could but I can't yet. Maybe soon. He took me on a long drive and asked a little about our attempts to wrangle the money and I deferred mostly because I just wanted to look at trees and we drove and drove and drove and stopped twice for food and then finally he brought us home.

This is the last car, he tells me and I smile because he's a Pisces, he can't settle on one thing and he smiled back and said he could, that he wanted to find the right one and he did so he bought it outright. He asked if I would do him the favor of capping off a good day with a drink and then somewhere into the second one I realized he wasn't actually drinking and so for my third I finished his first and then I am up against the door and he's pulled my arms up, pulling my cast right off.

I don't say anything until he bites through my skin and I give him the wrong reaction and he is surprised and punishes me for that too but it's fine, I'm numb. I can't feel anything at all except memories and they don't hurt, they're safe. He asks for a response and I give him a safe word and laugh because I know it isn't safe. He pulls my face up so that I pay attention and asks me to wake up and I try but this isn't like the last time and I don't like him when he's a demon and I like it even less when he puts things in my drink that make it so hard to count to six, which is the number of times he bites.

***

When I go inside the house, it's so quiet. Lochlan is sitting at the island looking like hell and he rushes over when I walk into the kitchen. I don't stumble in his arms but he's warm. It makes me feel so sick suddenly as we go upstairs. I refuse his order to have a shower and crash in the center of the bed. He pulls me underneath him and makes me cry with shame even as he absolves me of it. We find the same place together in our minds and engage in tearful angry love and we don't speak, we just pull and push and fight until sunrise.

Oh my God, your arm.

 Only then am I granted a fresh start on my life once more. The bites are covered with warm clothes and the shock is covered with sleep. The unspoken agreement to say nothing to each other remains but I'll write about it and then someone will pay Cale a visit and he'll back off for another few months. I keep waiting for someone to call me on the fact that I provoke him, that I tease him and draw him out and ask for it but to them I will always be too young, too small and too innocent to be a worthy adversary. Amazing. I want to ask how it's different? What makes it different? But Lochlan's voice was breaking and his eyes were glassy as he counted marks and asked me so helplessly why I keep doing this but I don't know.

***

This morning Loch gave me back my phone that he borrowed when he worked yesterday because his was stuck in a sync and he didn't have time to wait. When it was done I put it upstairs on the dresser in our room and he grabbed both this morning. He pulled his out too, to read his messages as we waited for the new cast to be put on. They started with There's nothing so wonderful as a beautiful little borderline/sex addict in my living room. I think I'll fuck her up. and ended simply with the one Caleb deployed just before he sent me home.

Catch.

I seriously doubt what he's getting is a shipping container full of Marshmallow Fluff but stranger things have happened.

I know I shouldn't look
But I can't turn away

He's twisting my soul right in front of me, wringing it out with both hands, making me writhe in agony as he smiles so kindly at me. I should have been prepared.

What do you think would happen if everyone you went to for a hug in any given day ignored your requests, as if...you weren't even there?

They wouldn't because they know-

Just answer the question, Bridget. How would you feel? I want you to think hard before you answer.

Lochlan wouldn't-

Answer the question! Please. He softens slightly.

I stop protesting over something so ridiculous and think hard.  I would die.

I can't hear you.

I said I would die.

How do you think it feels for me then to ask for your company, for anything-on my knees, no less, and to be ignored for it? How do you think it feels after everything I have done for you?

I'm not supposed to be beholden to you.

Oh, but you are.

I am not.

Bridget, you don't want to piss me off today with your impulsive, belligerent inner child.

The one in grade six, you mean? I don't think I've ever made Caleb speechless like that before but he dropped the subject so fast my head spun.

I need your assistance this morning. 

Loch won't like-

I don't care what he likes, frankly. Would you like to come with me on a big-item shopping trip? I'm taking delivery of something you might enjoy.

Sure. May as well die young. And you have it backwards, by the way. You're beholden to me. Have been since grade six. 

I know. How am I doing?

Terrible. 

I'll have to work harder then. Give me fifteen minutes and we'll go. Run and tell your keepers. 

They won't like it. 

Oh, Bridget. As I told you already, I don't care how they feel. 

This is why God invented credit cards, toast and ice cream too.

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY.

I plan to order one or two shipping containers' worth. You?

Post to follow later when I'm awake and not eating fluffernutters for breakfast.

Sleepless in West Van.

This. OMG I love this right down to the dumb video effects, the Where's Waldo striped t-shirt and the somebody stole my cookie expressions. They don't give a fuck about style, they are busy rocking our fucking faces off.

(I would embed it for prettiness but Google hates me and iOS hates all of us so until that works without coding hoops, stick with links, BRIDGET.)

Also, I never thought metal needed music videos but I've been in so many and it's wonderful and insane and sometimes embarrassing and sometimes gross and if there's a market then go for it, I guess.

I keep hitting repeat. I want to give them cookies and coats and see them smile really big and goofy. Just for a sec.

***

Asher has gone. I had breakfast with him and gave him a big hug when he left, even though I made no effort to get to know him or really include him in much because I didn't ask for a total stranger to be thrust into my life, one with no connection to us past a distant familial link via Batman. He would have caused more issues than he ever could have solved and at the end of the day PJ didn't welcome the extra hand nor appreciate it and all things default to Lord PaJamas, Everlasting Ruler and Much-Henpecked Destroyer of Conventional Domesticism in this household.

(That's PJ's full title, in case you're wondering. I regularly print out certificates for him that state that along with things like "For making the most epic tower of folded laundry so far this year" or "for not missing the toilet rim today because wow, are you fucking nearsighted or what?". It's really okay, you should see the ones he makes for me. I can't repeat any of them. My mom reads my blog.)

Batman was PISSED, however. He figured I would soften. Like wax, or like an ignored erect pe-WOW, I'm in a mood today, aren't I?

***

Blame the mood on Caleb, who 911'd me but no one else at four this morning and caused a hell of a row in my bed between Lochlan, who said to ignore it and Ben, who volunteered to go in my place, but only if he could wear the see-through babydoll nightgown that I've never actually worn. That made things worse instead of funny and I finally said they needed to tie a rope around my waist and set a timer and I would go over.

Everything would be fine! If the timer goes off and I'm not back, just pull on the rope.

For some reason, Lochlan didn't find that funny at all.

And so instead of going back to sleep I said the hell with all of it, phoned Caleb and established that he was awake and just lonely, bored and maybe...chest pains?

Seriously?

I wanted to say so many things but instead I hung up on him (don't worry, he was charming, threatening and negotiating and that's how I knew he was okay) and went downstairs to hang out with PJ, who couldn't sleep and was watching music videos on the big screen. But only ones that would rock his face off. He was very cuddly and fell asleep wrapped around me within about four minutes of my arrival so I watched the videos on my own until the sun came up, which was when I called Asher and invited him for breakfast.

Now I think I might die because I'm really tired and loopy and I want a cookie.

More from the confession without absolution crowd.

Claus was here today!

Remember Claus? Well, he came at a good time, for I had already decided I wasn't going to get out of bed. It's been five years since I've seen him. He was my favorite head-doc in the cold lands. Post-Cole, mid-Jake. 

He and Sam had a great chat. They remembered each other. I didn't know Sam was privvy to some of Jacob's private talks with Claus. Gee, you think Jake spent his time grooming Sam to be my keeper in Jake's afterlife? 

Yeah. I think he did. 

Claus got an earful from me, holy shit. I don't think I was ever actually straight with the man because he liked knowing how I felt in the moment. And then how to keep the momentum. How to use emotions as leverage to survive. How to thrive amongst the chaos. 

Instead I told him a bunch of other things and he asked me why I never told him these things before, that it would have helped, it would have made a difference. But I am no longer hopeful, just resigned and so I pointed that out, that thirty some-odd years of silence makes for interesting fucked-up-edness and I don't share these things because I don't want to be a curiosity. 

He made me cry. He told me that I was strong. 

I hate it when people say that because I am hypnotized, prosthelized, brainwashed and objectified and not nearly as strong as I could be, oh no.

He asked who was actually on my side and I gave him names as if it mattered. Does it? I don't know. 

He asked about Joel. Joel is pretty much guaranteed not to be on my side, so that's that. 

He said he had hoped things would be better. They are, I told him. Well, in a different way, I mean.

He's heading off to Vancouver island to do some exploring. Canada's a huge country. He said he'll swing back around on his way home in a week or so and he gave me some things to think about in the meantime.

But I won't.

Integrated trigger safety.

Caleb left me his Visa infinite so I could pay for Henry's field trip on the school website. I put my birthday in instead of his when it asked for verification and now I'm locked out of paying until I can use a different card.  Does anyone know when it unlocks so I can try again? Because this happens just about every month now and you'd think..well, you'd think someone would get me my own damned credit card and then I wouldn't have to ask.

Oh wait, what? Yes, I know it defeats the whole purpose of the exercise. That's what I was hoping for.

***

Yesterday Caleb abruptly told me he was nothing like Cole. Nothing.

(Short of the obvious DNA and predilections and the way they eat/breathe/obsess. Right so NOTHING like him.)

Lochlan agreed, almost laughing in relief before punching him in the head anyway. Poor Matt was the only one present besides and he didn't waste a minute getting them apart and on their feet again. Lochlan made a shitty threat and Caleb ventured a legal one and I asked them both to fuck off and Matt agreed with me and then softened it with a word or two about keeping the peace for all our sakes before wisely shutting up.

PJ came through the door not five minutes later and I told him what happened and he was just sad he didn't win the bet. He figured Lochlan would pop him before lunch.

***

I stand in the sun at the top of the stepladder on the back porch of the castle, peeking into the hanging pot of strawberry plants. I have a fork and the watering can and some fertilizer on the railing and I'm poking around when Jacob comes out and wraps both arms around my waist so I can't fall.

What are you up to? Trying to touch the clouds again?

No, I'm trying to figure out why I'm getting the little white flowers but no actual fruit on this one. 

I see. What have you found?

Nothing? I don't know. Maybe it's a dud. Or maybe the bees aren't doing their thing since it's up really high?

True. But you know, I can see it just fine so that wouldn't be it. 

You're huge though. 

I can see right into the pot. 

Stop rubbing it in. 

So when the berries are ripe I see them when I come in the door. 

Jacob, there are no berries on this one. 

..and then I eat them as I unlock the door and you always think I've got strawberry gum. It's actually been a crazy producer, this plant. I'm just about full by the time I hit the kitchen. 

You've been eating them?

They're really good when they're warm from the sun. You should try them sometime. 

Well I would but I can't see when they're there, obviously. 

Yeah, that's too bad. 

It is. 

A travesty!

I can't believe you've been pinching them all summer long when you know I've been wondering and watching. 

I'm not sorry either, Princess.

Shhh. This is for me, not you.

Need my bravery song*. Just look away or something, for fucks sakes.

*(I have no idea why these videos don't embed on mobile Safari. My apologies. It's Dare you to move by Switchfoot.)

Bitter beans.

Today was just lovely as I sat at the table sipping coffee and trying not to flinch while Caleb detailed to Lochlan the best way to kill someone, if he was indeed serious about wanting to take my soul back. He said the only way to transfer it a second time is in death.

I pointed out if I die then my soul won't be important to anyone.

I was sharply corrected and the graphic descriptions began, beginning with Loch's inner character battles and ending with my bereavement as Caleb becomes the next to die, instead of waiting for his body or his mind to be ready.

(I don't think he missed anything except the effect the entire conversation would have on me in a permanent way.)

And I don't think I touched my food at our month-end coparenting informal meeting at a restaurant I don't like all that much. I just drank coffee. A lot of coffee. I drank so much I asked the server just to leave the pot. He did not want to until Caleb said it was fine. Ever the child, I am.

Loch looked like he was taking notes, though horrified ones, for it all makes sense if we're going to continue our large scale games of life, death, marriage, betrayal, trust, telepathy and threat.

I just wanted to live in a camper and boil green beans for dinner, I swear. That's all I wanted. Wildflowers in a jar on a table outside and not worrying about the moral difference between choosing to die and being killed. I wanted to ride the Ferris Wheel on Sunday mornings and call it church and I wanted to sing love songs out loud into the wind and I wanted to burrow my arms into the sleeves of Lochlan's jacket while he's still wearing it and I want to never think past the end of the week forever and ever, amen.

Loch squeezed my hand on the drive home and said he pictured a wreath of flowers on the door, not a bouquet in a jar and I swore at him for all of 1983 through 1985, inclusive.

Binding on pickup.

Baby, I been praying hard
Said no more counting dollars
We'll be, we'll be counting stars

Take that money
Watch it burn
Sing in the river
The lessons I learned

No silent treatment this time, just a good rollicking curse-laden lecture, driven by fear and spat out in endless breathless words that made me cry like I did when I was eleven and Loch would scold me for going too close to the breakwater/highway/monsters. It's only effective if you can draw out their emotions, someone told him once, probably the fucking fortune teller, as he learned how to parent on the road, amusement-park style. I learned within two months how to cry on command just to get out of the room but now it just happens and I can't control it and that really pisses me off. He takes my anger personally to the point where we take a moment before throwing our words out, sharpening each one to a fatal point while the room fills with witnesses and supporters and peacemakers too. Sam puts his hand on my shoulder and all it does is make me hurl the words that much harder until I have laid out my side so nakedly and honestly no one can pick it up to argue, it's just too fucking sharp now. For my efforts I am rewarded with yet another list of all the things that make me terrible, right down to the fact that my emotions took up so much energy in my body, they stunted my growth.

And yet I am smug and standing my ground, because he is afraid. And because his hypocrisy is staggering. I yell that too but it's no match for his own pointy points and pretty soon I have won the room. I play the grief card last, twisting paper cuts into his very soul with its edge.

I'd dip him in iodine to make him sting on top of it all if only I could lift him but I can't so instead I remind him that I'm trying hard to please him and trying hard to please the Devil with such fewer timely resources and trying to keep Benjamin relevant and the children happy and the other boys content in their lives and he tells me I've got it wrong, that it's all backwards and everyone should be trying to please me for once because I'm no longer that eight-year-old girl running through the woods, trying to keep up, hoping I'll be invited or at least not sent away this time. Trying to be one of them.

Bullshit! I can't breathe anymore. Fuck this.

You've got it wrong, Peanut. We're trying to make you happy but you are determined to be miserable. 

No, I'm not. I just really don't want anyone else to die. 

You know, I didn't think it was possible to break a human being this badly but they really did it. You know that? They really did. 

I'll be okay. 

I'm losing faith in that statement at this point. Something's gotta give. 

Status quo, Locket. Just leave it. 

I CAN'T! 

***

The sunny day drifts into darkened twilight and I find Loch in the tiny studio we've set up in a little-used corner on the first floor. He is drinking tea and drawing. He looks up. The anger has passed, and in it's place hopeless indemnity has settled.

He asks what the kids are up and if I'd like tea. I nod but point out more than tea, I could use a hug. I figure he will tell me to go ask Caleb for one but instead he slides off the stool and comes to me, arms wide.

I will never get used to this. I don't trust him, Pea. I don't like his tactics. His games are too big. 

You have my heart. 

I want your soul too. I want to steal it back from him and then you'll be whole again. 

That would be nice but since we're a package deal, if we can get mine, we need to get yours at the same time. Now, please, can we talk about other things?

Okay. He pulls me in tight against the plaid flannel wall and I exhale for so long I think I am a slow leak in a small balloon, deflating flat and pokey in his hands. He laughs.

Stay here and draw with me. 

What are we drawing?

I dunno. Stuff.

The curse of wanting an eternal soul.

And I'm ready to know what the people know
Ask 'em my questions and get some answers
What's a fire and why does it, what's the word? Burn?

When's it my turn?
Wouldn't I love, love to explore that shore up above?
Out of the sea
Wish I could be part of that world

At the end of a helpless week in which he watched us do absolutely nothing with his generous gifts, Caleb called me over once again to ostensibly sign a card for Mike, who retires this week after many years of service as Satan's part-time driver (and mine though it was hard to call him and so I rarely did). Attached to the card is a large manila envelope containing a beautiful print and a smaller manila envelope containing his separation papers, a letter of character reference should he ever require it and cheques for vacation days not taken and a severance he is not expecting.

I'm not sure Mike is prepared for the fact that by leaving work he will have a higher net worth than if he continued at his old retainer rate but Caleb believes in rewarding people for their hard work.

I mean, look where I live now. 

But I work very hard to make the Devil happy all the while shoving him off the side of the cliff when no one is watching. Case in point, when I arrived at the boathouse, Caleb calls for me to let myself in. I wander down the hall and he is in the bathroom shaving with a straight razor. The strope is hanging over the top of the door. Shirtless and clad only in pajama pants, he is almost finished but still covered with three or so lengths of shaving foam left to remove. 

I'll come back when you're ready. Why didn't you say to wait?

Princess, does it actually matter?

It does, yes. 

You woke up in my bed less than a week ago. 

It doesn't mean we need to be... familiar. 

You're family. You're my obsession. The mother of my son. Sorry I'm trying to multitask today but I don't see it as a huge imposition. His hand begins to shake and he stops and takes a breath, setting the razor on the counter.

I pick it up.

Bridget, your cast will get wet. I just need a moment. The pills-

It's fine. I step closer and he lifts up his chin, looking skyward, blue eyes reflecting the lights of the bathroom while he studies the pine trees through the skylights.

If you were smart you would cut my throat and run, he tells me. He closes his eyes and waits and I dutifully finish and then he takes the razor back from me and presses a clean towel around my cast.

The glitter-

It's fine. Thank you for your help. He is two inches from my face and I tread water in his medium blues.

He kisses the space between my eyes

I should go. 

Stay. Have a cup of coffee. If you wouldn't mind waiting in the kitchen, I'll make myself presentable and be right out. Start some coffee if you can manage it?

Sure, but only ten minutes. PJ-

He nods. Ten minutes is fine. The card is on my desk, by the way. 

The butcher and the busker and the bumblebee too (please God don't let this stick).

I saw a different doctor in the practice this morning. This one was extremely personable and looked just like Tom Hardy.

I kept wanting to ask him to say 'You merely adopted the dark! I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't see the light until I was already a man, by then it was nothing to me but BLINDING!' in Bane's voice but I thought that might be rude.

***

Last night turned out to be an evening that I won't soon forget. The boys were jovial and tender, sweet through dinner and thoroughly generous with each other and with me when we returned home.

They haven't really been able to reconnect until now. Our nerves have been shot, patience so frayed we couldn't thread it through a day to save our souls, not that we actually could save our souls at this late hour but it's always a nice thought.

This morning when I got up to let the dog out and start some coffee I came back  to wake up Loch to get ready for his day and he and Ben were spooning loosely. They were both deeply asleep.

I stood there for such a long time and smiled. You have no idea.

I finally wedged myself in between them, making a Bridget-sandwich, waking up Lochlan when my cast bumped his shoulder and he said Good morning, meat. What in the hell are you doing? 

I told him how I found the two of them sleeping and he jumped up and pointed at me. Don't you dare write about it! I swear to God, Bridge. It was a vague threat that he left there because he knows I will and because he's technically proud to be here in our freaky little marriage for three. Ben woke up because of the shouting, smiled at Lochlan and sleepily patted the bed, telling him to come back, that he was cold and needed the fire close.

You weren't sleeping! 

I was. But damn. You're like a human hot water bottle. I think I'm going to have Bridget trade places permanently or maybe we'll just kick her out. 

Hey, wait a minute! This is my spot right here! I'm the meat! You're the bread! If you get rid of me then you're both...

Toast! Ben yells triumphantly and then looks alarmed.

See? I cover all the angles. Now you have to keep me!

You're lucky you're so cute, Meatlet. 

Meatlet?

Well, it's not like you're even bigger than a side cut...maybe a roast. Ben is thinking hard for someone who's not awake yet.

Wow. 

No WAIT! Meatball! That's what you are. Loch claps his hands together and I twitch.

Enough. I have too many nicknames now. 

There are never too many nicknames for you, Meatball. 

I'm writing about the spooning, Lochlan!

Well then I'm going to give up all other nicknames from here on out, you little Saltwater Meatball.

Pick somewhere good.

I'm never gonna open my heart again
The bleeding won't end
The bleeding won't end
There's not enough room there for love to grow
Anymore
Anymore

Ben and I had an unaccompanied coffee date this morning. And we did okay! No one got left on the highway so I'm assuming that's an improvement, though I was tempted to ask him to get out of the truck and walk home because he ate my banana bread slice that was like five dollars and something and I was starving.

(But I still can't drive.)

He said it was good. Then he said sorry? like it was a question. Then he drove to McDonalds. Because if all else fails there are sausage mcmuffins and hash browns if you get there before eleven. He got four of each. He ate all of the sandwiches and I ate all of the hash browns and now my stomach aches so badly I believe I'll just spend the afternoon lying on someone warm*.

He kissed me on his way out to his meeting. He said to find Lochlan and we would go out tonight and have a dinner date. I hope he means next week. I probably won't be hungry until then.

He didn't. He means tonight. I'm excited, actually though watching the two of them choose a restaurant is always a Sophie's Choice-caliber reenactment of hurt feelings and desperate measures. Wish me luck.

(*Someone warm turned out to be a Daniel and Schuyler sandwich. This time I was the bread though and not the meat! We watched Justin Beiber's recent escapades on the news and rolled our eyes so hard the television looked like a fisheye lens. It was very hard to get me to unstick myself from Daniel to get ready for dinner but I'm ready in spite of my arm. Seventeen days left with the cast. Gah.)