Nova's glow.

The sea, well, she was very pleased that I sang Castle of Glass to her, headphones on. I can't hear myself sing as it is but I think I did okay. When I turned around three of the boys were standing there and they clapped.

I don't know why they didn't harmonize with my most recent relentless brain-train track.

Fuck.

Trust fun.

Do you feel the chill,
Clawing at the back of your neck?
I start to spill.
Did you really think that you could fix me?
They'll sell your bones for another roll.
We'll sharpen your teeth.
Tell yourself that it's just business.

Sometime in the night, Ben finally appears. At some point he must have decided absence was easier than comfort and he lied and said he had a deadline. Schuyler hung up on him, I was told. He waited until another midnight hour had passed and then he sat down on the side of the bed and ran his fingers across my forehead. He leaned down and kissed my cheek and said he was sorry. That he should have kept a closer eye. That he gets caught up in his work. He slides his hand over my mouth so I can't respond. Like everyone in this house, Ben would prefer to live in the daydream of his choosing, and any deviation from that will burst his bubble. So I say nothing and eventually his hand leaves my mouth and I drift back into a dreamless, empty crash of a sleep. He's not there when I wake up.

***

I'm still foggy today, exhausted and dehydrated. PJ has already driven the children to school in the pouring rain. I don't think I remember how to drive anyway.

Lochlan is still yelling. He shoved a bowl of Lucky Charms and milk under my chin this morning and asked me how I felt. When I started to answer he just blurts out,

He could have killed you. Mixing drugs and alcohol! Jesus CHRIST! What if you had overdosed! What if you died!

I pushed the bowl of cereal back. These aren't questions. He's yelling at the wrong person.

If he wants to kill me, he won't do it with drugs. I stare at Loch until he clues in slowly around the perimeters of his outrage. It takes the flames out of his fire. Fear shuts him down instead of waking him up.

I asked the Devil to kill me once before.

He came pretty close.

***

The men come with the new patio doors. They are custom-made, a rush order. I'm not willing to board up the wall waiting for something to be ordered from some other place. One of them sees a framed item on the wall and reads the plaque underneath it. He asks if Ben is home, could he get a picture maybe? I tell him I don't know. He proceeds to walk around the room pointing out what a fan he is, stopping at the desk where my writings are. I ask him not to touch anything, please. He reddens and returns to working on getting the doors installed. As I leave the room he apologizes, but for what I don't know. Curiosity doesn't require an apology from a stranger but I accept it anyway.

***

I watch the rain from the dock. Caleb holds an umbrella over me. He is still surprised at the uproar his actions made in resolving my abrupt freakout.

I turn to him. You can't understand why they're angry. 

No, frankly. I can't. 

Then next time skip the Ativan or whatever it was and just ask PJ or whoever's home to see that I am just...restrained appropriately.

I feel more comfortable watching over you myself. He smiles softly. And it wasn't Ativan.

That's why they're angry, Diabhal. 

Because I can manage your needs? Because I love you?

Yes.

Benzo baby (now with...goats and kangaroos).

Sorry for not coming back with further entertainment. I don't think yesterday turned out to be a banner day of class, dignity or grace for Caleb or myself.

He has zero patience for games that involve locked doors (did I tell you that one? No, of course I didn't) and when I heard the glass breaking I freaked because the glass is supposed to be bulletproof. Breakproof. At least I think it is. I'm drunk. I don't remember. It should be safe, however.

Safe is an unreasonable expectation, a pipe-dream, a fairy tale.

I got tackled heading up the steps and went down hard on my chin on the top one, bit my tongue, tasted blood, dropped the bottle of rum and managed to elbow him in the face all in one motion. He wrestles me onto my back and proceeds to pin me there. There's blood dripping off his lower lip onto my chest and I don't want to be held down, thanks.

So I knee him where it hurts and he roars with a rage I haven't heard before. He straddles my waist, twists his entire body to one side and pulls his hand up and then he stops and sits there on me, staring. Out of breath. In pain. Dripping blood. I stare back wide-eyed, frozen, mute.

He shakes his head slowly. I was about to backhand you. Bridget. I'm sorry. Oh my God. You're so brave.

I shake my head in refusal. This isn't brave. This is terrible.

Did Ben take your ghosts away and then he went too? And you need someone. You do, you need someone to keep you safe.

I nod with great hitching breaths and he finally gets off me, pulling me up to a sitting position. He presses me against his chest like a doll.

You're safe. I won't leave you alone.

I shake my head, pulling back. I stick my index finger against his shirt. Not safe. I slur. SO fucken kangaroos. Dangeroos. Tell Ben. Tell Ben I want my goats back. Ghosts. Those goats. I want Jake and Coals.

When's the last time you slept, Princess?

I raise my hands, palms up. I don't have the question. I told him point-blank.

You don't have an answer, you mean.

I nod and burst into fresh tears. I don't ever have those! Can you buy me some?

He nods. Sleep. That's what you need. I'm going to suggest we get you some clean clothes and then you can come across to my house and sleep in peace. Okay?

I nod and wait as he opens drawers and closet doors and finds me an outfit. He is out of his league. He can have a Valentino custom fitted for me from memory but he's not sure the baby pink leggings and the Hello Kitty t-shirt are mine. Or even if they qualify as an outfit. Good enough. He tucks the clothes under his arm and pulls me to my feet, putting his arm around me protectively. We head outside and across to the boathouse and he asks if I can change without help.

I tell him no, because I read so much more into his question than he asked, in spite of being one hundred pounds of booze-soaked disaster.

He pulls the bloody t-shirt over my head and bends his face in to inspect my fat lip. He puts his thumb against it, pulling it down slightly and I wince.

So he kisses it. He gingerly stretches the new t-shirt over my head and then he turns the bed down so I can get in. Once I'm settled and almost asleep he comes back with a pill and a glass of water. I don't even ask him what it is, I just take it.

Out like a light.

I wake up at eleven this morning to shouting. I lie there with a pounding head and a numb lower lip and I can't focus on anything. Sound, lights, pain. It's all just gauze obscuring my mind. I try to get up but I can't even make neurons fire. It seems they are out of ammunition. So I just lie there, much like the character in the horror movie who is paralyzed but can see, hear and feel everything that's going on, they just can't move.

Lochlan bursts through the door. He's still in his version of a suit, which is his brown blazer and jeans. I smell jet fuel and bad airport coffee and complete and utter fear. I piece together that he came home, saw glass and blood everywhere and lost his mind.

I would too but I think sometime in the night I got my much-wished-for lobotomy. I can't care enough. I can't figure out how to talk. He comes in and kneels beside the bed.

Where's Ben?

I shake my head. Where in the hell are my words?

Did Caleb do this to you? Let me see you. He rips back the sheets and lifts up my shirt, front and back, he runs his hands down my limbs. He checks my head and then he resumes breathing finally and I shake my head. I feel a word or two.

I fell.

Bullshit, Bridget. He stares at my eyes and asks what the hell I'm on. Then without waiting for an answer he is up on his feet again, shrugging out of his jacket, heading back to the kitchen. I sit up but the fog hurts. Everything hurts. The gauze over my brain cinches ever tighter until I see stars. I hear more shouting only it's mostly Caleb. I drag myself to my feet, holding onto the walls as I make my way out of the bedroom.

Caleb sees me and crosses the room, his arms out. Bridget, you need-

She needs ME. Lochlan pulls him back and hauls off to throw a punch but then Caleb brings him down with words.

Right. She needed you and where were you?

Ben is home. She was supposed to be with HIM.

Then maybe it's time you talked to him about his disappearing act, because it's eating her alive.

Well shit. He's in. He broke the patio doors. I don't even.

And WHAT can I trade in exchange for being allowed to keep the music on?

You'll have to ask the Devil. He's on the porch but I've got the chain on the door so he'll have to use his evil powers to get in. This should take a while. In the meantime I can raid PJs liquor cabinrt

ONward and upward princes. Right jake. Tryin, here.

Mulligan shots.

GO AWAY.

The epitome of self-destruction involves hauling out the speakers on the patio and patching them into the ones in the garage and then playing love songs from the early eighties so loud I've already blown five out of eight of these suckers and I fully intend to blow the rest. Dalton tried to stop me but I screamed at him and he backed away.

Wait, the epitome of self-destruction is being fucking drunk on a Monday morning! What do I win?

When the cops show up with the noise complaint any minute now I think I'll entertain them with a gunfight and then my big plan is to light myself on fire and throw myself off the cliff before anyone can stop me. I'm small, I'm fast and clearly right now I'm flammable, thanks to all of this bourbon in my bloodstream. I'll jump in slow motion to the strains of Air Supply or REO Speedwagon.  Chicago. Fuck, Hall & Oates, bitches.

I wonder what Jacob heard on the way down?

(The ipod wouldn't work when they gave it back to me. There wasn't enough of it left.)

Survival skills don't include microeconomics and other things the devil doesn't know.

He lingers in what is supposed to be a quick hug hello, his arms keeping me against him, his head bent way down, his nose almost touching my jaw, lips against my throat. My goosebumps have deployed, every hair on the back of my neck stands up straight and I hold my breath. Of all the stupid things in the universe to be caught in today, this tiny allegiance would have been the most unlikely. Except for, you know, nonexistent boundaries.

You smell positively intoxicating. What is that?

Jacob's patchouli.

(One drop goes so far that there's still a third of a bottle left. I kept it, okay? Sometimes I put a little drop in the hollow at the base of my throat and then I can smell it all day long. I'm sure I'll still be doing it when I'm a hundred and twelve. It reminds me of him. It makes me feel safe. Unlike the Devil, who makes me feel as if I'm perpetually in danger.)

Remind me to take you to get something new. Did you like the last Cartier? I thought it was beautiful on you. 

I shake my head and attempt to disengage from his arms but he's having none of my escape, in spite of how he skated smoothly past the question of my loyalties once again.

I do need to discuss something with you. Henry's recent choice of weaponry-

It's a toy. 

No, it's very real, Bridget. Wasn't the pocketknife enough?

A slingshot is a good tool for him to practice his aim with.

 You're determined to live in a Lord of the Flies type of environment. 

What would you prefer I gave him to work on?

A laptop. I've been thinking about introducing him to the stock market. 

Caleb, he's eleven-

I was much younger when I started enjoying my first dividends from penny stocks, Bridget. 

Woo. Lucky kid. 

Smart kid. 

He's smarter than you'll even be, Diabhal. 

I don't doubt that for a second, but I want him to know more than busker tricks and outward savagery, Bridget. I want him to be independent early on. Then he can have everything.

Like you do?

Yes. Except that I don't have everything, Bridget. 

And that's why a slingshot is more important than a paycheck. You can get a girl with life skills and busker tricks but you can't get one with cash. Well, you can, but she won't be the same quality. Come to think of it, that's rather ironic, isn't it?

I smile at him and he finally lets go of me.

When one door closes, another opens (and in walks a BOY! Or TWO!).

I'm going to be a landlady again!

Yes, I know. Most people collect stamps. Coins. Cars even.

I collect people.

My only prerequisites are that you have to be ridiculously handsome. You have to like my random drive-by ambush-cuddles, twenty-four hours a day. You can't be afraid of monsters, angels, demons, fire or children. You have to know how to set a proper table, sleep with a cat (or dog or child or homesick boy) on your head and fold the laundry exactly how I like it. Instead of PJ's method which is organized mayhem. Stacks of it.

That's it.

Oh, and don't eat my cake. EVER.

Those are the rules as I present them, always.

Enthusiastic nods were the response to my lecture. We've got a deal. They move in May first, into Lochlan's old wing, which will see all of the easels and art supplies moved to August's old room over the rest of the month. They will be just in time for Bridget's Birthday celebration 2013.

Who's moving in? What?

The future Mr. and Mrs. Matt and Sam. Newly engaged since 6:46 this morning, or to those of us who are less inclined to be so specific, sunrise.

YAY! Also: More CAKE.

(I would have more words but when they told me my head exploded. And when they asked if they could take me up on my previous invitation of permanent lodgings, the rest of me followed my head and now I'm all just confetti and sugar and struck happily dumb, awash in endless sighs of how awesome this is.)

No memory.

Jacob leans right into the mirror snarling as he ties his tie. He sings to his own reflection.

Pleased to meet you
Nice to know me
What's the message?
Will you show me?

I've been waiting a long time, now
Now here's the answer
You're all mine now

What are you doing, Jake?

I don't look mean enough when I sing, Princess.

'Mean enough'?

Fierce enough. I'm trying to be fierce. You see, Pigalet, that's what makes the ladies scream at the shows.

I see. 

Doesn't it? What do you think?

Maybe you should ask a lady. I throw off the sheet and stand up on the bed. I am completely naked.

Yeah, you're right. He winks at me. Seriously, what do I look like when I sing?

Like a country music star from the seventies.

Well, shit. That's not what I was going for at all.

***

Caleb is tying his tie in the mirror when I arrive. He's got a meeting today with Batman. I'm pretty sure both of them will arrive fully armed and dangerous. I bet Caleb has a knife in his boot. I bet Batman is already cracking his knuckles absently as he writes notes in his chicken scratch on a legal pad. He is usually ridiculously early for meetings and then disapproves of everyone else arriving on time.

See, Caleb is still a key figure in Batman's...um...empire, and they have to work together. Hell, everyone would work together if it wasn't for that one pesky little blonde thing fucking everything up all the time.

You look nice.

He rolls his eyes. You don't. 

Gee, thanks. 

I prefer you without clothes, but in this tie. 

I stare at the tie and it dawns on me that it's the same one he used to tie me d-oh, you know what? NEVERMIND.

I'm not going to the meeting. I need a day to window shop and just get away from everything and everybody, so, you know, I wind up in a car with Caleb for a couple hours because that's not escape at all, no.

Where are you headed anyway?

Marshalls? Holt. Robson. Everywhere.

Need money?

I'm not going to buy anything, Caleb. He fishes out a credit card anyway and I shove it in my purse. I won't be using it. He's ready so we head outside just as the car arrives. I frown at him. I thought he was driving.

I don't feel like worrying about parking today. (AKA he wants muscle there, you know, in case Batman IS armed.) Where would you like to have lunch after my meeting?

McDonalds.

Seriously, doll...

I am!

He just stares at me.

Sushi? I smile with all my teeth.

Better. He concedes.

Maybe someday they will have McSushi!

I sincerely hope not.

He holds the door open and I climb in. The song is still playing, oddly enough.

I've been waiting for my sunday girl
I've been waiting for my sunday girl, now
I've been waiting for my sunday girl
I've been waiting for my sunday girl, now

Pleased to meet you
Nice to know me
What's the message?
Will you show me the way down town?

A little incendiary.

I wasn't watching you perfectly still
I'm near perfectly dazed
Out of our hollow and into a space
Fire and water and space
Yeah further and further away

I'm trying to keep up, running along behind them as they make their way through the woods quickly in the fading light. I am stumbling, tripping over roots and rocks. I've already ripped the hem out of the bottom of my sundress, it's a handmedown from Bailey and it reaches almost to my ankles anyway. My sneakers are covered with mud and my braids have come loose but I'm game. I want to keep up with them and Lochlan already said three separate times to stay put, not to follow. That he would see me tomorrow probably, that they were going to do things that sixteen- (Caleb), fourteen- (Lochlan) and twelve-year-old (Cole) teenage boys do. Eight-year-old girls are not invited.

I am bathed in sweat and tears of frustration but I wipe my face and keep struggling to catch them. Wait! I cry when I see Christian's green t-shirt disappear from view. I run faster and promptly trip over my skirt again and go down on my hands and knees.

Okay, I can't keep up. He's right. I'm going to turn around and see if I can find my way home from here.

Then I look up again and Caleb is making his way back to me. He looks worried. When he reaches me he pulls me to my feet and tells me to climb on his back, that he will carry me piggyback the rest of the way. I wipe my eyes again and he asks if I've been crying.

No, I snap, and when he turns away I wrap my arms around his neck and he stands up, pulling my legs around his hips, holding them just behind my knees. He walks easily with me, moving quickly enough to make up time but not too quickly so that he won't trip and spill us both. It seems like only minutes go by and then suddenly he walks out into the clearing and goes to Cole, turning away from him. Cole puts his hands under my arms and lifts me off Caleb, standing me on my feet. Lochlan scowls when he comes back from the place where he had hidden a flat of cheap beer and a pack of cigarettes by the river where they fish and never catch anything. He's really mad. His ears are turning pink.

You going to carry her back too?

Caleb walks over to him and gives him a good shove. Lochlan shoves him right back. I take a step toward the woods. I don't want them to not be friends because I followed them even though Lochlan told me to not to.

Christian turns and grabs my arm. Stay here, Bridget. It's too late now for you to go back by yourself. It'll be dark soon.

Loch takes my elbow and walks me away from the crowd. They are passing out beers and lighting cigarettes. They're going to get in SO much trouble. Where were you going now?

Home so you won't fight because of me.

You'd be smart to stay away from Caleb.

He carried me most of the way. He's nice. (Inside my head I also add and cute. And tall. And strong. And he smells like soap.)

He's not nice. He did it because he knew it would bother me. 

Why would it bother you? 

Because I told you not to follow. We're going to have a bonfire. How late are you allowed out? 

I don't know. I said I would be back in a few minutes. 

Shit. Okay, I'm going to take you back now then and then I'll come back.

Can I stay for a few minutes and see the fire? 

He smiled and scratched the back of his neck as he stared at me. I don't know why, but I want to stay with him. He might not be as tall as Caleb but he's so much cuter and he smells like woodsmoke and fabric softener. It's not just that though. When I stand beside him I feel all weird and excited and happy.

No, because then I won't be able to find my way back in the dark. Plus the fire is usually my responsibility. I like to control it. 

Please?

No, Bridget. Say goodnight to everyone. We're going. 

I stick my lip out but I dutifully march back to the loose group of boys and tell them to have fun but I have to go home. I thank Caleb for bringing me the rest of the way and apologize for wasting their time.

A chorus of Awwwwww's and Sweet Dreams! rises as Lochlan reaches out to take my hand. Dylan sings a little bit of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Caleb sits in the near darkness, frowning. His eyes glitter in the dark. Cole whacks him on the back and hands him a beer.

On the walk back I ask Lochlan why he lied to me about being mad at Caleb because he helped me.

What do you mean?

Why are you really mad at him? I won't tell him or anything. 

How did you know I lied?

The way you moved. Your eyes. You're a bad liar. 

So are you. You said you'd stay put. 

We're even then. 

Yeah, we are. He squeezed my hand as we walked. How come you're not freaked out by being in the woods after dark?

Because you're here. And you didn't tell me about Caleb. 

Did he say anything to you about me on the walk to the field?

No. He didn't talk at all. I thought he was busy trying not to trip and drop me. Why?

Because I told him you and I are friends. That we talk alot. That you're old for your years when we talk about things that are important. He thinks it's wrong. That I shouldn't have anything to do with a girl so young. 

So why did HE help me then, if he thinks I'm too young to hang out with all of you?

Because he knows it would bother me.

Does it?

Yeah.

Why?

I don't know. It just made me really really mad if I thought he was trying to take you away from me only because he knows it would piss me off and not for his own reasons. 

A little shiver ran up my spine in the dark, tickling the back of my neck. I don't know why but I like it that he doesn't want anyone to take me away from him. I have heard a few stories already about Lochlan and girls, mostly that a lot of them want to go out with him, mostly that he's a charmer who has kissed and yet not told all over town. But since I've been here I haven't seen him with anyone at all. Maybe they're wrong.

If I had to pick between you and Caleb, I'd pick you, you know. 

He grins in the dark. That's good, Bridget. It will save me and Caleb the inevitable fight to the death.