I wish I could see inside his head. Sometimes I wish they could see inside mine. Open books but muddled storylines. Tales crafted with words pretty enough to obscure the truth and hide the ugly realities from our gentle eyes.

Time doesn't stop for us.

Scott, this time I'm kidnapping you to add to my collection.

What a day so far. Smashed my ankle on a railroad tie, waiting to hear about a financial matter that could save me hundreds but probably won't, and I have no earthly idea which side of the licence plate I'm supposed to put the renewal sticker on for my car and far too proud to ask.

I'm waiting to sneak a peek at Ben's truck when he comes home and then hopefully go from there. It's confusing here. Back home it was simple. But back home we also had a single laminated card for a license and here it's a three-piece dealie with a laminated card and a paper card with a bunch of information and then a plastic sleeve. It does not fit in a wallet.

I don't complain though, every other single thing is easier here for some reason. Except learning to live with the cold. I see this coming week we'll hit our first zero for overnight temperatures and so I should be covering my gardens until I have them wrapped for the winter.

It's difficult to think of all this on a beautiful day like today.

When Ben gets home from running around with the boys, we're going out for Thai and then will grab some coffee on the way back. Maybe if I'm lucky we'll get to check out some other things along the way. Putter around, drive around in the truck listening to music with the past looming large in the rearview mirror and the future laid out on the highway in front of us, invisible roadkill we will drive over leaving marks on the asphalt but not even feeling a bump. I'll wear my seatbelt pulled tight and low over my hips and never find a comfortable way to put my head back to close my eyes because the headrest is so high and I'll have my window all the way down to feel the warm wind.

I'll forget about the sticker and the new ankle bruise and all the other stuff.

Just for five minutes.

Five whole minutes.

Jacob always said it was there, I just wouldn't claim it, always giving it to someone else first, a narcissistic martyr of the highest degree. You know you are loved and you exploit it and then make it impossible for anyone to do anything different.

This is my fault.

Over two decades now with the barest shift in the roster, the changing of the guard and we're still here. Hell, Jake is still here if you come knocking on the darker, windier days. My link to Cole comes through Satan, because depraved and evil older brothers are better than cake sometimes until you reach too far and find out you got quite badly burned indeed. I have zero business playing in Caleb's power playground but I persist because he appeals to all those parts of me that you only see on those days.

So there. Part of it is putting myself in the line of sight so that Caleb stops corrupting Benjamin, because he can so he does. He thinks it's fun. Pull the strings. Puppet, dance. If I take Caleb's focus off Ben then maybe, possibly Ben can get away.

Part of it is like I said before. Caleb brings the evil. Bridget has never pretended not to like that. To a degree. There's the catch. I like it until it goes too far. Don't we all.

Part of it is because we're irrevocably tied together in more ways than we can count and so it's a long slow dance of agony until eventually one of us will die.

I know who goes first, for once.

Oh dear. I've gone and darkened the sky just a little again. I had to, the glare was making it so difficult to see. I'm going to go now anyway. We're headed out for lunch now. I'm wearing flats because my ankle is sore and it will be lovely because I'll wind up with armpit head from constantly being tucked under various and sundry overwarm boy arms.

Worse things could happen.

My Dayquil could wear off.

I need one of these for Ben.

An Elizabethan collar. Maybe a psychological one and then he couldn't tear open the wounds in his soul every ten minutes. Oh, the analogies I can make right now but I won't because my eyes are closing.

The last load of laundry is in. The giant tattooed Benjamin is upstairs fast asleep under my Leafs blanket and I'm contemplating a cup of coffee. Just a regular one, nothing fancy. It turns out Bonham has an ear infection and some eye problems and scratchies from having too many baths with a dog shampoo that doesn't like his skin and so we have drops and washes and plans to not keep him fresh smelling all that much. I have this feeling this little dog is going to give us a run for our money, literally, for the next decade or so. That's ok. He's a pretty good dog, and soon he'll feel alot better, I hope.

Ben too.

Puppy has barfies. News at eleven.

Hectic day today. Kids to school. My parents left to catch a flight out an hour ago. We have to take the dog to the vet (terribly swollen eyelid, scratchies and pukeys too) and then I have a mountain of sheets and towels and all our regular stuff to wash. At some point. Probably long into the dinner hour and beyond, tonight. Maybe we'll go out for dinner. Who knows? Depends on what's up with Bonham and if we can leave him alone for a bit.

It was a good visit. Tense in a few moments for me as Ben tried to work his ass off downtown at the studio and then come home and be a social animal for a few hours, usually missing dinner but picking up right afterwards. He was too tired for all that but he did it anyway. And my parents had fun. That was all that mattered. We needed a good pulled-together visit and it happened, finally.

The really good news is the next twelve days are all mine. He will be home. Not just home but here. In the house even. Resting and sleeping and having fun and hanging out. Time we need. Then it all goes to hell at the first week of October again.

So I will just enjoy the next couple of weeks instead and not worry about anything else.

Well, except the dog and the wagon and the ghosts and all the usual things. But right now I have the sads for my puppy. So he takes first watch. Then I'll deal with the rest. Oh, and I have a cold even. It was six degrees this morning! But HEY, I CAN BE POSITIVE TOO!

Pft.

Department of defense

The most amusing thing that has happened all week long has been Lochlan and Benjamin fighting, in code, over my head and around my parents without coming to blows. I bet by tomorrow they'll be up to hammerfists and headlocks but for now they've got their nonsensical phrases and low growly threats that they've dressed in costume for the occasion.

As always, Lochlan is adamant that I don't put myself in Caleb's line of fire, and Ben..well, he doesn't so much care. Heh. As long as everyone sticks to the rules, of course.

It's jealousy on Lochlan's part, and he won't deny it. He would much rather be the one fighting over time with me instead of being left out altogether.

So I can safely say it's not a love triangle.

We're making fucking pentagons over here.

Cherries and bergamot.

Late last evening, a package was delivered. Mike brought it, because it was from Caleb. We didn't spend last evening with him but he wanted to make his presence known anyway. He is hoping to be back in town this evening to join all of us for dinner and put forth his good graces to my folks, seeming all the while existing to make the other guys seem less smooth, less accomplished and less pulled-together.

Of course the package did exactly what it was intended to do, confuse everyone. Easy enough for me, difficult for everyone else. Inside the box was a new Blackberry Bold, a bottle of Cartier perfume, Delices, and a Breitling, my initials engraved on the back. A smaller, more feminine version of his own. There was a text message on the phone already. I read it and put everything back into the box and slid the box onto a shelf.

I go back to work November 1st. As Caleb's assistant. Wearing my new perfume and using the new Blackberry which will be a work-only device. Just like last year.

I will most likely return the watch, though I'm not exactly dumb, once something has been engraved, it cannot be returned. It would be the single most expensive piece of jewelry I have ever owned and it's not right that it wasn't given to me by Ben. The last initial is not his last name, the one I use now. And I've wanted one of these watches my whole life. Hell, I want a lot of things that aren't practical. Doesn't mean I will get them. So yes, I think this goes back. And that will be it for defiance for the first little while because I would rather get off on the right foot this time around so I'll comply and wear the perfume and use the phone and dress the way Caleb likes. Like a doll.

Save for my decade old stainless steel watch with the scratched glass and the mother of pearl dial. On it's seventh battery and fourth band, no less. Because new watches don't work with me. I am magnetic or something. We've gone over this before. Would the new one work? It isn't cool for me to even try it on. It isn't from Ben. It must go back.

That would be proper, my mother says. But she doesn't get it either. I think I will keep things that way.

Don't even ask me what the text message said.

In absentia, in situ.

One of the hardest things about having so many guests this week is that it makes it hard to find time to post. I've been washing bowls and doing laundry and organizing activities and keeping the children from melting down with all the attention and basically enjoying things. But not posting. In a few days I'll be back okay? I had great plans to sit down for a bit and write today but Ben just called, he is on his way home and so I need to go brush my hair and put on my lip gloss and my smile instead. So whatever chance I had is over now. See you Wednesday unless some major downtime comes my way before then. Twitter might be more exciting. Then again, maybe it won't be.

You can live without me for a couple more days, right?

I know, I didn't think so either.

Give me a Sign.

I can feel you falling away
No longer the lost
No longer the same
And I can see you starting to break
I'll keep you alive
If you show me the way

Oh, goodness. I'm one hundred percent sure this song is going to replace Breath as Bridget's Favorite Song Of All Time.

Oh yeah.

Totally.

I an such a sucker for a tattooed balladeer.

Sigh.

Coffee first, then speak.

I like it when the house is quiet. The birds are not awake yet to sing and the dog even sacked back out on the floor after I took him for his morning walk. I had to wake him up the past week or so, instead of the other way around, so I'm wondering if this means I can go back to sleeping in some, especially on the weekends.

Ben was up early this morning and gone to the studio downtown to try and knock off a little more work that has been requested between the fits and starts of managing his life on the run and I got a fast kiss and a tight hug and if I'm lucky he'll be home later. If not, he'll be home late. But it's okay because my parents arrived last evening and we've got the next several days to catch up on things and they can catch up on kid- and grandchild-time and briefly adjust to the laid-back city life we sport here with pride because things are easier here then they are back home. Just daily-life-wise, I mean. Some things are the same no matter where you go. But the folks seem to like it here. They have never seen it when it's -55, however. The love affair would be over before you could say you were cold.

My goal for today once again is a caramel macchiato. Haha. I'm trying to go three for three. It probably won't happen unless Ben brings me one and he won't because he's tired and didn't really want to work today. Plus because I'm not a habitual fourbucks patron, nor do I make the kids wait around while I try and procure frou-frou coffees, ever. It's just the way I am, I guess.

I must go. There's a day ahead and it will be filled with a little bit of busy and lots of extra company and I have to get my ass in gear. More caffeine will help that. Right? Right?

Yeah, well, he's MY creep.

When you were here before
Couldn't look you in the eye
You're just like an angel
Your skin makes me cry

His body is here, his head is not. I've been watching him for days now, wishing I could help. But I know the best way to help him is to just listen to what he asks me for, and to do no more and no less than that. I learned that a long time ago. Long before I fell in love with him. No matter what he asks for. Even if I hate it.

His hands shake. He fires up cigarettes like they're lighting a pitch black path for him to walk. He lights them like they're an afterthought. Hands with the merest of tremors that push forth his vulnerability and leave it there. He tries to brush it off. Fatigue. Cold. Too much coffee. We let him. It serves no purpose to correct his efforts to be normal. There is no normal here.

Ben has let his hair grow out again. It's long and in his eyes. There are some incredible strands of grey now visible that weren't there the last time I saw him. His beard is back. He is hiding behind it. His skin is paler than pale. Vampires are always a hot ticket so no one notices that much anymore though. He has lost a little weight, not a lot. Clothes are neat though. Fingernails kept neat for playing guitar, as always. Weight of the world balanced neatly, heavily, on his shoulders. His big brown eyes mildly bloodshot, glasses on so he can be Clark Kent or Dallas Green or someone else as long as it isn't Ben. Tattoos. Tattoos everywhere. Full sleeves, neck, knuckles visible from here and more underneath his clothes. So beautiful. He has no idea.

What the hell am I doing here?
I dont belong here.

He used to be so laid back. The endless party boy. Never gave a fuck about anything. Cared about everyone but made great pains to hide that fact behind a flippant asshole persona that always put him in last place. I knew he wasn't that person. Always. And now as he gets older and life scrapes past him leaving glacial scars I see the real Benjamin. The worrywart. The tense, ruined man who wants to be pulled together but can't manage it at all. Walking doubt. Walking try.

And he succeeds. Bad luck has a way of following Ben around like a lost puppy and he'll feed it and scratch it behind the ears. That encourages it to stick around but he doesn't think about that. He only figures that if he doesn't have it someone else will, and that someone might be Bridget and she's had enough so he'd better take it. He's taken all the hard jobs when it comes to me and we've fucked up and made mistakes and wondered as recently as two days ago if we were just prolonging the inevitable and then suddenly we'll start to speak and say the same thing and the pieces just fall back into place again and we're sure. One hundred percent sure.

See, when Ben is away Lochlan starts in. And he has my interests at heart. An easy life. No worry. No fear. No stress. No one will blame you, just take the escape and don't look back. But I can't do that. I spend a lot of time looking back. And this time when I looked back I saw two ghosts and I saw Ben, who is not a ghost but a living, breathing representation of my heart. He is stronger than he feels. He feels more than they give him credit for. But he doesn't care about them, just about me. He stands back there and never knows what the hell to do, he only trusts one thing in his whole life. His feelings for me. Always living by that even though it's usually been a poor choice to make.

I can put my hands on his fingers and they stop shaking. Instantly. And I wish Ben could just stay here forever. Even if his head is somewhere else. It's extraordinary to me how fifty percent of Benjamin is better than one hundred percent of everyone else.