B sides.

PJ has put on his epic little-boy frown. Can't hardly see it behind his full beard but I know it's there. I reassure him that he is not moving again. He can keep the suite downstairs. He's very happy there. He is plotting his future there, or something, since I have graduated to not needing care and keeping twenty-four hours a day save for certain scenarios as detailed in the rules that they have about me/for me. I need to be escorted when on the grounds or at the water. Otherwise I am free to confront bears in the woods, play in traffic or just stick close to home to wallow in my own misery as I see fit.

At this rate I should just walk around naked for all the privacy I suddenly have.

But I don't like it much and frankly if PJ wanted to move to the new house I'd probably shut that down with some sort of fairytale emergency just to keep him close by because he's my big bearded shadow. I would grow a beard just to lead the PJ fanclub but when I tell him that he pretends to be touched but mildly horrified at the thought of a beard on my face because wow.

That would be something.

Checking for the blast (here, then, take this instead).

She once believed in every story he had to tell
One day she stiffened, took the other side
Empty stares from each corner of a shared prison cell
One just escapes, one's left inside the well
And he who forgets will be destined to remember

He came back today, cleanshaven and freshly shorn. He rivals Henry for his military cuts only Ben's hair is finer and less likely to behave, haircut or not. He looks like my Ben again. His eyes have dark circles, his irises see ghosts when he closes his lids over them and his brain is ruined, pickled and fried like carnival food, having seen too many things he would like to forget and now he exists in a space where he lives for himself, owning no one anything at all, while at the same time needing an almost debilitating unspoken amount of reassurance and support. He has been through as much as I have but that isn't why I'm with him.

I'm with him because he demonstrates a clear ability to comfort me. To love me. He can hold me and smile and everything vanishes. He is kind and sweet and incredibly silly and passionate too. He's a good hockey player and an okay guitar player. He can make me laugh with enough in-jokes that we have our own language that we send each other messages in and no one else knows what is going on. Ever.

I'm with him because I. love. him.

He does not give up even when the going gets tough. He doesn't back down but he'll back off to keep the peace. He keeps everyone on an emotional leash that helps him navigate this new blown-out tilted world we live in.

He's certifiable. Crazy. Hilarious. He's started food fights in each and every high-end restaurant we've ever visited (across the continent) and been banned from almost as many hotels for throwing furniture, people and drunken rages (sorry). He has always paid for the things he's broken and then some.

He does not fit in my car but he'll drive it anyway because I suck at things like overpasses, parking garages and drive-thru lineups. He crunches down with his knees around his shoulders and pretends to hold his breath while he steers with his fingertips. He'll talk in a high breathless voice until he gets out. I laugh so hard I cry.

He loves me, in a time where I am incredibly difficult to love, selfish and ignorant, to boot. He ignores all that and just says some day things will be different. While he says that he's busy eating my lip balms because he HATES when I wear them. He literally hates kissing me when I'm slathered in sticky, slippery gloss so if he eats them then I have nothing to wear. It's not working, I just buy more. Someday he's going to die of pink glitter poisoning, I can feel it.

I hope I'm a thousand years old and don't hear them when they come to tell me that he's gone. That's the only wish I have left is that I don't outlive any more of them, but especially him because he is different, he is mine and I am his and frankly I don't care what you think of our arrangements or my love life or polyamory or communes or musicians or circus rats or anything else.

He's downstairs now teaching himself Nothingman because it's a song I can sway to in place and he laughs when I do that. He notices when I do that. Not sure anyone else ever has.

And he doesn't like to be written about because he only cares what I think of him. No one else. So that makes it seem as if he is absent, or forgotten or lesser somehow.

Don't make that mistake anymore, okay?

I asked him about what happened with his devastating plans and the camping trip and the loss of his courage and everything else and I'm satisfied with the answers he gave me, whispered into my hair where all secrets go to hide.

At least the ones that don't belong here for all to see.

I know I haven't said much about the purchase of the house next door. I've been very busy juggling hearts and I haven't had time to even think about it and then Satan sends a message this morning telling me it is closing day and did I want a tour now that he has the keys?

That was fast. Doesn't it take longer to move furniture out of a house that size? Apparently they were mostly out the door anyway and the staging was all that was there, removed the day after the sale was approved. We probably could have gone in before now but Caleb is in no rush.

Also, change the locks first. Always change the locks first. I was going to tell him this until I saw New Jake heading out with him this morning. Jake will look after putting new locks on and then Caleb can pay him for doing so. Unless Jake goes to live in the new house too and then it can come off his rent. Don't ask me what their plans are, I'm never told anything until it's too late to change anyway.

***

Fortunately for him, Lochlan did not have his cat that swallowed the canary expression on when I saw him. His look was pure concern.

Where were you last night?

Theater.

You could have messaged me.

I don't think that would have been appropriate. Besides, I left my phone on the desk.

Are you okay?

Why wouldn't I be okay?

I can read, Bridget.

Then why did you ask where I was?

He looks up at the sky abruptly. It's an exasperated, almost eye-roll. Because I was hoping you would have a little more to say than this. Don't shut me out.

What would you like me to say?

Have you talked to Ben?

I really wish people would stop asking me that.

Does he know you know?

I'm guessing yes, since he can read too. In spite of everyone's assumptions that he can't.

When are you going to talk to him?

If and when he brings it up. It's not an issue. He didn't go through with it. Everything remains the same. If you want to push him around then that's your problem. Don't make it mine.

You want to stay with someone who would give you away.

I want to stay with someone who considered being unselfish and letting me out if I wanted out but in the end couldn't let go? Hell yes. Yes, I do.

I'm not sure who is more fucked up, you or Ben.

Then we make a good couple. So if you're so perfect, why are you with us?

Can't let go.

Then you understand him perfectly. And me. Are we done here?

He nods, eyes glassy, words forgotten.

Good. I have a house tour to get to. Want to come? It'll piss Satan off.

Sure. Just give me a minute.

Okay. I soften and try to smile for him and it fails. What a mess. What a godawful fucked-up mess.

Transparencies.

Today's bad joke involved walking past microwave egg poachers in a store and discussing the merits of hunting eggs out of season, or perhaps on crown land but only for their yolks. But not just any eggs, radioactive ones. It was a halfhearted and vaguely overtired joke sacrificed in place of simply discussing anything else at all, because sometimes that is what we do.

***

Last night I was cornered between Ben and Duncan halfway down the hall. I put my head down and Duncan gently took the forbidden bottle out of my hands and took it away, leaving a kiss slammed against the top of my head, bruising my brain. I didn't fight him. I let him take the alcohol and the kiss. Ben took the laptop and tucked it under his arm and into his other arm he tucked me and we went downstairs where he sat me down on the big couch while he hooked my computer up to the big screen and then Jake in all his former blonde Viking glory filled the fifteen foot wall while his voice filled my ears.

I don't cry when I watch him anymore.

Well...much, anyway.

Ben turned off the lights and locked the double doors and turned my head away from the screen with a kiss. A kiss that became something else and he worked his way through my clothes until I was free of everything and I put my arms around his neck and turned my head back toward the screen as Ben moved against me and there was Jake, watching us, smiling innocently, benignly, not knowing how to read the future yet except for the predictable parts.

When Ben stopped hours later, he rested his mouth against my ear and he asked me if I wanted to leave the movies on or if I was finished watching and I didn't say anything but one tear ran out of my eye and down into my hair and he brushed it away and sat me up and pulled my clothes back together and rearranged his own clothes and then he sat back down and pulled me in again, close to his chest, wrapping his arms around me, kissing the top of my head over and over again, squeezing me every time Jacob said my name on the screen.

It was like a party game except instead of drinking shots when I hear a specific word I get stabbed in the heart every time. And I've died a million times over here tonight but we keep watching. It's a montage of Jacob, six hours of smaller videos strung together chronologically of everyday moments, not big ones, just ones from the times when I would turn a camera on him when he was doing normal things. Sometimes he responded and sometimes he ignored the camera. Sometimes he made faces and sometimes his annoyance was written right up front for me to read first in his expression.

Sometimes he didn't even know he was being filmed, like when I was watching him warm up for a hockey game, doing laps around the rink. I see him turn back briefly to say something to Ben and then he turns away and Ben calls something to him. Jake turns back in a flash, launching himself into Ben's net. They go down swinging, brawling and in the background you can hear me say He's not worth it. Jake, come on, Ben's nothing to you. and I feel Ben's jaw tighten against my head but we just keep watching because we're masochists now and it's in the handbook, the actions we take to grind it in good and keep on going.

***

I arrive in Caleb's kitchen promptly at nine, in my battle-stilettos and a pencil dress (armor) so tight I'm seeing black spots at the edges of my vision but he won't take me seriously if I show up in jeans and a t-shirt so Pepper Potts is the only way to go.

What in the hell was that?

Did you talk to Ben?

Yes, I talk to Ben all the time. Now tell me why you tried to keep me from going on a one-night suburban camping trip?

Did you TALK to Ben?

Why don't you just tell me what I need to know and we'll go from there.

Caleb frowns and crosses the kitchen to the cupboards, pulling out two glasses. He pours three fingers of whiskey into one and drinks half of it before asking me if I want some. I tell him it's nine in the morning so he thinks for a moment and pours one finger in and hands me the glass. I return it to the counter and ignore it while he drinks the rest of his in one gulp. He looks pale.

I didn't want you out in the fucking woods with a pyromaniac who can't handle conflict and an indecisive drug addict with all the wrong bright ideas even though his heart is in the right place. What happened, anyway? Caleb looks up, dazed, distracted, and not at all like he usually does.

We camped. Then we came home. I smile. And then Ben and I spent last night watching ghost footage and fucking on the theatre floor. He's very good-

Bridget. Jesus Christ.

Why don't you just cut to the chase here? I have things to do, Caleb.

Your husband was going to tell you that Lochlan could have you.

What?

Exclusivity for Lochlan. An offering. You were to be a gift. Ben doesn't want to stand in the way of your happiness, if that's what he's doing by holding on to you.

I find the glass and drink the whiskey without returning his gaze. It burns and I feel alive and dead and somewhat blindsided and more than a little disappointed. So you didn't want me to go because...?

I didn't want that sort of disclosure to take place in an unsafe location.

You didn't want Lochlan to win.

I wasn't even thinking that far ahead. I know that Ben just wanted privacy for the three of you but it was a bad idea from the start and I'm glad he decided not to go through with it.

I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and hold out the glass for more. Yeah, me too. He fills the glass this time and I drink half. How did you know what he was planning?

He came to me and asked for help.

And you told him to give me away?

The look on his face smolders, burning a hole into my soul. No, Bridget. I told him to do whatever he could to make you happy. And not be selfish about it. That's what he came up with.

You told him not to be selfish? That's the pot calling the kettle black, isn't it?

You would be surprised. He looks back into his empty glass. He didn't tell you any of this, did he?

No. I say it softly. I don't think I can take any more, Caleb. It's a plea. Shut up. Shut up shut up shut up.

He really loves you, Bridget. The fact that he doesn't want to let you go is comforting.

We haven't been getting along so well lately. Things have been rough and I always put Loch in the middle and I-

The bad times will pass. They always do.

When?

When things are better. You both need hours of therapy and a good swift kick in the-

Nice.

It's true.

What's in this for you?

Hmmm?

Why would you tell me this, since apparently he changed his mind?

I want you to know the kind of person Ben is.

I know the kind of person Ben is. That's why I married him instead of Lochlan. Or even you.

Was I in the running?

I'm leaving now. I need to go home and sober up for lunch.

Good plan. By the way, you look lovely today.

This dress is killing me.

You should wear it more often.

Only you would say that, Diabhal.

Child all the way.

Oh, now this is a toss-up.

In one hand? A deep grey envelope inviting me down to the boathouse to discuss my camping trip because apparently it wasn't sanctioned though no one made a fuss because the children were present and wow, how adult we can be when reminded and how childish when not.

In the other hand is a stolen bottle of white lightning and a laptop full of videos of Jake.

Just guess which one I'm choosing.

See you on the other side of two hundred proof.

*self-destructs*

[Update. I have a passenger! He gets no fucking moonshine. Ben's not allowed to drink anymore. And I don't know why he would want to watch my home movies but hey I won't look a gift-Ben in the mouth.]

Synecdoches.

And he still gives his love, he just gives it away
The love he receives is the love that is saved
And sometimes is seen a strange spot in the sky
A human being that was given to fly

Home again, just after lunch today as the rain began to pour down steadily and the temperature, though mild overnight, dropped again mid-morning. My teeth were starting to chatter when I spoke and my shoulders shivered uncontrollably until the heat in the truck kicked in full on the way home. I reached a point where I just couldn't get warm anymore.

At one point Ben zipped me into the front of his hoodie, wrapped his arms around me and exhaled on the top of my head and still, the sides of my knees were cold. At another point I was sitting as close to the bonfire as humanly possible and Lochlan started to yell because he was worried I would catch my hair on fire (it's happened) and I moved back because the heat wasn't reaching me anyway.

I ate smoldering, charred marshmallows without even blowing on them first. When I slept I dreamed of being a hotdog on one of those stainless steel rolling racks because then I would be just toasty and done to perfection (that's what I imagine a tanning bed is like) and I woke up colder than I have ever been in my life, in spite of sleeping wedged between the human fireball and a man big enough to have his own independent climate control system onboard. He keeps it set far too cool though and the fireball is generally too hot to touch comfortably.

So there you have it.

Next time we go I hope it's warmer so I can complain about the stifling heat and how Ben's skin is icy and wonderful because he's the undead or the living dead or whatever they used to call him that was funny before too much time passed and we actually had to distinguish between those kinds of things.

Last minutes.

Seven o'clock on a Saturday night and Ben walks into the kitchen and says simply,

Little bee, let's go camping.

Who?

Caleb's got the kids for movie sleepover so I figured you and I would go. Go pack your boyfriend and let's get going.

He turns and walks out of the room. If I know Ben, he'll put his truck keys in one pocket, a guitar pick in the other pocket and proclaim that he is ready to go. Not sure he's ever really figured out the whole tent + sleeping bags + food part of the deal. Ben doesn't actually live in the reality he claims to. He lives in a different fantasyland, where camping equipment just falls from the sky for him to use. That hasn't changed in twenty years.

I take off, scrambling. Sleeping bag. Check. Tent. Check. Food. Check. Run down the driveway to the boathouse and kiss the kids and tell them where we will be. Check. Urg. Phone isn't charged. Will do that on the drive in the truck. Check. Sketchbook and pencils. Check. Extra blanket in case it's colder than the forecast. Check.

I am waiting in the front hall with mostly everything when he returns with his guitar case and he looks around.

Where's Lochlan?

I don't know? Camper, probably?

Go get him. Come on. We have to get moving to get a site before dark.

I thought you were being sarcastic about bringing him.

No. I wasn't.

You want him to come camping with us?

Yes?

Are you going to kill him in the woods?

Only if he tries to kiss me again.

He doesn't do that. You do it to him!

Oh, right. Okay, I'll only kill him if he doesn't respond to my advances.

You've a very hard man to figure out, Benjamin.

I hear you like guys like that.

Just..wow.

That WAS sarcasm. In case you were wondering.

Between two thieves.

It's a carpet bag with lavender stitches along the outside of one seam, a painstaking repair job done in the dark with a flickering flashlight and a rusted needle while I waited for him to return from tear-down. The rotation is horrible some weeks and so I am forced to go to the medical station each night and be watched over by the disapproving nurse because no one else is free. She doesn't like him. I think she likes me but she seems too worried to confirm that and instead I am treated to an endless routine of disapproving clicks and checks so I go out and sit in the dark behind the trailer.

She wants proof that I have not been kidnapped, stolen or otherwise forced to be here against my will. She wants proof that I'm eating, growing, menstruating even. I am weighed every week. Just beforehand Lochlan pours sand in my pockets and in my shoes. But she wants proof that he isn't doing anything to me that I don't want him to do.

All of this is carried out through charades. She doesn't speak English and I don't speak Romanian.

Lochlan does, but he isn't here now, is he? I just wait for him to come back and flash me a brief tired smile and she'll launch into a barrage of words at him that sound even stranger than the ones in the songs he sings when he thinks I can't hear him, and he'll answer back just as fast, beginning softly and ending in that stern none-of-your-business voice that he deploys as proof that he can handle this.

This.

This life, with it's broken camper with the makeshift lock on the door, one pillow to share and one thin blanket we hardly even need for the temperature Lochlan runs at. I often think if one of his torches goes out during a routine he could just blow on it it to reignite but he laughs and said it's his Scottish passion that heats him to a slow burn and it's his Bridget that fans the flames. Oh, the charm. It works magnificently when he is standing in front of me defending this life. The one with the stolen tablecloth and the hard-earned toolbox and the warm beer and fifty dollars in hand to procure a week's work of food but we run out on Thursdays usually by mistake and have resorted to borrowing regularly with no intentions to pay it back because if we do then we'll never get ahead.

The zipper on the bag is finicky, catchy and almost broken but not quite. In it always the same things. Something warm to wear. Something good to read. Some music to listen to (then it was the walkman with the expensive batteries. Now it's the expensive phone that can't last half a day on a charge), some photographs of times when I could still smile spontaneously, and a half-assed plan to rule the world on our terms, because there is no me in we, as Lochlan says late at night when we giggle as he pulls the threadbare blanket up just to the stars, calling it our night-fort. It's the safest place in the whole world.

It's where he teaches me those other languages I will instantly forget and where he tells me about all of the places in the world that he will take me someday and where he describes in great detail the food we'll eat on Saturday when we cash out again and head in town. I think I like that part best.

The part I like least is when he reminds me to keep the carpet bag packed and near the door. Just in case. I still listen. It's still there. His stuff is in it too.

Champion of the world.

Nothing you would take
Everything you gave

Did I say that I need you?
Oh, did I say that I want you?
Oh, if I didn't I'm a fool you see
No one knows this more than me
And I come clean

Outrageous. He's not holding to his word anymore, Bridget.

He's using logic as a weapon tonight. He's highly annoyed. The eyebrows are working overtime. I'm glad he cut his hair, I get treated to the full complement of facial expressions. Otherwise I just see a faceful of curls and his mouth.

I know but look at the other side of the coin. We have the whole peninsula now.

It's a trick coin, Peanut! Remember?

It will be good for the others.

My whole wing is vacant, Bridget. You could fit a couple of them in there.

That's your space.

That's my space, right there. He nods in the direction of the driveway where the camper sits with big wooden chocks behind the wheels. I never needed much. My sketchbooks and torches. He looks down at me. You.

I know.

But now it's out of control. I can't live like this.

You don't have to change anything.

Sure I do. This is it. The deciding factor. The final piece of this experiment and now it's all-in, Bridget. It's a compound. And he owns all of it.

You're making it sound like it's such a big deal. Caleb bought the house next door. That's it.

But now he has the whole peninsula, as you said. A hell of a lot of prime real estate.

And you're threatened by his money suddenly?

Lochlan shoots me a warning look. No, I'm threatened by his proximity. To you. To my daughter. To Benjamin. This isn't healthy.

Like you said, it's an experiment.

And you're the subject. That isn't right.

I would use Caleb to get Daniel and Schuyler out from under their mortgage any day. They can't afford that house. Having them move into the house next door and having Christian and maybe Corey have their own suites there too will help all of them immensely. Do you want to deny your friends the same help you received?

I want nothing from him. I never asked for this.

But you got help by default, Loch.

Jesus, Bridge. You're not going there. Not tonight.

I want to help them. It has nothing to do with Caleb.

He sees it so differently. His eyes are pleading and I can see his thoughts.

(No further. No more. You'll only get so far from me, Peanut and then I'll call you back and you'll come skipping down the dirt road at sunset, sugar streaked across your cheeks, tangled hair with daisies braided into your curls, and you'll ask if we can stay out later but I always have to disappoint you because you need a good nights sleep while I hold you so you can grow up healthy and someday leave all this danger, these thrills behind. Only I failed to help you do that and it's all still here, right behind me. I drag it with me as I walk.)

I straddle his knees and take his face in my hands. It's how I get them to pay very close attention. Old habits die hard, I've been doing it since I was nine.

I don't care how he sees it. I only see it as a means to an end. The land is worth far more unified and everyone will be in one place. I'm even going to propose some space to Matt and Sam, if they want, it might help them sort out their stalemate on living together. It's a good thing, Lochlan, please.

Then tell him you're using him.

He knows. I don't think he cares.

Exactly. He doesn't put your feelings first. It doesn't matter who you love, there he is, right there dismissing your plans for his own. That's not right, Bridget. Things aren't getting better with him here.

That's what Ben has been saying about you, remember?

I always put you first.

If you did that you wouldn't be here now would you! I shout it at his face. It's not a question, it's an observation.

Do you want me to go? Because I can go, Bridget and then you can live happily ever after with the Boogie Man and Frankenstein but don't cry for me when you wake up and you're afraid of the dark because I won't be there to soothe your fears. No one will. They're both too wrapped up in themselves to do the job. You know it and I know it and THEY know it.

You weren't there for y-

I'M HERE NOW!

He was so loud I was scared into silence.

I'm here now. Repeated in a whisper as his hand takes mine and brings it up to his lips, warm as they press against my skin.

Hades waits.

(A very vivid dream, but a dream nonetheless. Dalton said it was 'just a dream' which reduced it to manageable for me. If it's only a dream I can control it. Right? What do you mean, no?)

It took him forever and a day to open my hands. In one was a broken lock, the inside of the tiny door handle, the mechanisms that failed. In the other was everything else, the air removed, sealed into a tiny package. I can add water later and it will grow back to normal. It took even longer for me to open my eyes, I had squeezed them shut tight against the lies and promises, against the epic block of time I would never get back again. Life is over before it's even begun, that's what this sign says, while the one up ahead says Hell: Next Exit.

We get off here, sweetheart.

He smiled when he said it, arm resting on the door sill, aviators in place, hair ruffling in the breeze.

I didn't even want to come here. I sit back and cross my arms. It's a momentary lapse, this outward petulance. I resume the vacant stare out the window. I've been subsisting on panic and silence. Neither contains enough fuel to see me through. I know the platitudes involve things like keeping my strength up and looking after myself but somehow that just happens and I'll have nothing to do with it. I can stand here on the side of the road and watch as I drive past and wave only I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what the directions mean or what hell even looks like. This is not the roadtrip I planned. This is not the life I lead. This was not how things are supposed to be.

Pull over, I tell him. It's not a request, it's an order so he does when he sees the panic in my eyes and I rush out the door, almost tripping in the dry tall grass on the shoulder and I bend over, automatically pulling my hair back with one hand. He comes around and puts his hands on my shoulders and I wait for the retching but it doesn't come. Why is my head spinning? My stomach is empty and he knows that so he yanks me back up to face him.

You lied, Bridget.

I nod. I'm not going to verbalize anything. I no longer care. I'm the passenger. This is not my trip.

Why did you lie?

Silence again. What am I supposed to tell him, that I thought I could pull it off? That I thought I could eat the cake, that I thought everything would work out, that I like to torture myself because I've never felt worthy of any more than that? Fuck him. He doesn't deserve an answer any more than I deserve to know the reason I'm here in the first place. A few words on a page and complete and total invisibility besides.

He forces me back into the car, buckling the seatbelt around me, frowning at my obsolescence.

This is not a reason, it's a minimum at best, a tangent. A will to persevere in spite of nothing. Some will say it wasn't for nothing but that's a lie too and I see right through it. We drive through it and it spreads and dissipates onto the wind.

He takes the turn too fast but nothing happens. The car drives like it's on a rail. He smiles.

Almost home, Bridget. Then we can rest.

I've been here before. It hasn't changed a bit. It's exactly like I remember it and at the same time I have no memory of this at all.

This isn't my home.

Everyone feels like that at first. Just give it ti-

We need to turn around! I shout it and scare myself but Caleb just smiles.

Give it time, beautiful. All of this belongs to you now.