Pieces of bee.

• Lochlan has begun to call Caleb Lucy. It took me a few minutes to figure out the reference, since my brain kept sending me into Peanuts territory. Lucy is short for Lucifer, and Caleb is now suitably matched for all of his terrible nicknames for Loch. I guess calling him Satan or the Devil wasn't quite hitting home significantly enough.
• Doctor Sleep comes out tomorrow! I'll be at the bookshop when it opens, I'm afraid, for I'm a lifelong fan of Stephen King's work, beginning with stealing Bailey's dogeared copy of Carrie when I was seven, and reading The Dead Zone over Christian's shoulder when I was eight. I'm still going strong, I buy everything he writes and I eat every word alive. Doctor Sleep is extra special because it's a sequel to The Shining. I'm so excited I could burst. Sadly I'm a slowish reader and still up to my ears in NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. He's Stephen King's son, Owen, if you're not familiar, and he's a magnificent author too. (I'm not even going to point out here that Nosferatu is yet another nickname for the Devil because...well, YOLO.)
• Lochlan and I are leaving for a little teeny tiny getaway toward the end of this week, just a trip to Oregon for a couple of nights. He got paid and he's all excited so his plan is to spend his entire paycheque on me. Sadly I'm a cheap date, so we have booked a Motel, found a few diners nearby and we're good. He's going to have money left over. My main itinerary involves sleeping, then sleeping some more and then eating a cheeseburger on the beach. 
• The caveat to all of this is that I'm sick right now, having spent yesterday making excuses for feeling terrible only to wake up worse this morning. It hurts to swallow and to open my eyes and I'm only up and around due to the tea and Advils that Sam brought me a little while ago. Once the house is in order (AKA now) I'm going back to bed. 

Goodnight. Sleep tight. Don't let the wolf-dreams bite.

No excuses, no surrender (no reminders to hit publish instead of save, either..)

Here it is the first day of fall and I'm contemplating an entire day of baking before dissolving into the flannel arms of someone who is free and unencumbered with a laptop/book/guitar/hot beverage.

That's healthy for Bridget.

I'm also contemplating taking the unopened forty of Maker's Mark that I saw in Caleb's kitchen out to the garage where I will lie on the cold wet concrete floor in my pajamas, drink the whole thing and then ask Jacob in a hesitant, quiet manner why exactly a sixth year without him is suddenly cause for a whole new round of attempts to gently persuade me to move on, finally.

That's not healthy or something or other.

Maybe I can pull off a mix of both. Or maybe Jacob will appear in the living room with a book or a folder full of notes and his bible in hand and I can throw myself in his arms and then when he decides he actually wants to do some work I'll be handed off to Lochlan's flannel embrace for a perfectly innocent snuggle by the fire.

It's my brain, I'll decide.

I think I'll skip the booze, baking and bereavement and head straight for the flannel-wrapped nap. It's healthier even than the chocolate-chip banana bread I had planned on making today.

We bought a zoo.

I actually got my hand slapped yesterday for being bored because apparently it's my duty to be entertained by mindless reports and quarter-end statements.

Fuck this shit, I never asked to be on your board.

Oh, but someone is on a powertrip nonetheless and it's a long, relaxing one without interruptions and so I'm required to put on my uh...executive panties? or something and show up when summoned.

I drew skulls all over the reports they handed me, and a little baby dragon that the secretary smiled at before she realized Caleb was frowning at her. It's okay, no one else actually knows who I am either. I think half of them think I'm Caleb's personal assistant and the rest believe I'm the beneficiary of his fortune and I'm not interested.

They don't understand beneficiary is just a real swell way of coating sugar baby in..well, sugar. And sex. And denial and pretty covers on ugly truths.

I don't understand ventures or things like percentages or net asset growth and therefore draw skulls and post mildly passive-agressive journal entries from the boardroom table. I understand it later when he explains it in basic terms on the drive home. I want to cry Shut up! so I can listen to the car purr down the highway but he's busy explaining Henry's future to me and so I take dutiful mental notes so that I can continue to direct the funds to maximize returns long after Caleb is dead and gone.

When he says this I look at him, in shock, dazed, mouth open in a sort of horrified realization that nothing lasts forever.

I keep trying to forget that. Mostly by not listening.

When we get home Lochlan is pacing like a caged lion in the driveway. It's the hair. Somehow his curls are growing in dark red again, big and round and crazy and I would give God all of Caleb's money to have curls like that but I guess they are mine by default. He's all ragey-cagey because I left the grounds with the Devil and that isn't in his new rulebook.

But since Caleb is still in lawyer mode he makes it simple, telling Loch that we can all go back to court where Caleb will fight for access to the mother of his child, that no mediator in the world is going to allow the sometime-carnival-boyfriend of said object of desire to interfere in what is a healthy, productive co-parenting relationship.

Lochlan reminded him that they're aware of all facets of both co-parenting arrangements and our relationship, which Caleb is not to minimize and they're also aware that there's more to this than a litany of schoolyard threats to be determined.

Me, I walked inside while they were shouting at each other, took off my stupid platform shoes and sat up at the island in the kitchen, where PJ promptly poured me a drink and then went outside to make sure that everyone retreats safely to their corners. I'll fix it later. I just can't fix it now.

It's a vintage satin dress kind of day. Navy blue to match Caleb's new 370z with a spoiler because I said it would look better than without a spoiler. I'm right.

He's wearing a blue tie with his three piece suit. We should be in a magazine together or a perfume advertisement but instead we are stuck in meetings all day. He looks at me every now and again when someone is speaking and smiles like we have a secret and oh, do we ever.

It's just not a good one.

Fuck I'm so BORED.

Caleb showed me this.

“No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day. This is all practice.”

                     ~Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

"The hardest thing in life to learn is which Bridget to cross and which to burn." ~David Russell (with apologies).

If I die before I wake
Light a fuse, bake a cake

These days when I smile it hurts like an old familiar pain that I hardly notice anymore. Tolerable. I notice when the sky gets very dark and then it opens up like curtains and in sprays a million buckets of rain. I notice that I'm getting wet, that my hair is curling up into waves like the sea but I don't think I worry about it too much. I'll dry and if not then I'll grow mushrooms like on the grass, like on the tree stumps out in the secret garden, left to become tiny tables for pots full of flowers and strawberries.

When I write longhand now it's not as often that my brain switches gears, writing partial Jacob-memories before I drag the pen in a swish haphazardly down the page, ripping a jagged line that tears the paper up behind it like a shredded zipper. I sometimes call his number and now it tells me I dialed wrong, that I should check the number and try again. Where did his voice mail message go? The very short one that said, Call ye back when I can, 'tanks, in the quiet Newfoundland preacherman voice that he used in his office when someone was in distress. I believe I heard that voice more than anyone. I have voice memos that I saved from things so I can still listen to him but I only do that in the walk-in closet with the door locked and my headphones on so no one hears and thinks I'm slipping.

I'm not slipping. This is how things will always be.

I'm cold. I should run and slide into some jeans (new, straight-leg, way too long but nice) and a big sweater (Cole's grey one. Not giving it up ever even though it still reeks of paint thinner and gives me a headache and itchy hives because it wasn't made with soft wool) and maybe socks too. Ones with skulls that come up over my knees. Then I'll be super-warm but instead I'll probably just wait and have a hot shower before bed because that feels good too.

When I make coffee in the afternoon a dozen voices remind me that it's a bad idea. I do it around twice a week to be rebellious. When I pick up a pencil to start a drawing I immediately want to rip all the pages out of my sketchbook and start fresh.

Sometimes my music switches me back to another time and place. Sometimes I wake up with ideas about allegiance and loyalty and love that differ wildly from the day before. Some days I don't recognize myself in the mirror and some days I can rescue a downhill slide with any manner of stupid inconsequential actions and the moment I figure out the process for that instead of it occurring only by happenstance, well then I'll have conquered the world.

Stuff.

Sort of wonder why no one said a word
Don't you like it on the sly?
Don't you like it till it hurts?
Have I been on your mind?
What's a voice without a song?
Something in your head you've been fighting all along

Ben did not leap out of bed at six this morning and run off to attend meetings. Instead he remained under the covers tracing my eyelashes and lips and then Lochlan's for good measure until Lochlan got supremely irritated and got up and went to start coffee and let the dog out. Ben laughed and I opted to stay right where I was.

I hear there's a little bumblebee who said she misses me.

That's the biggest understatement of the decade.

Thought you had your hands full anyway.

No, if you're back but you're not engaged then it's eleventy million times harder.

Really?

Truth.

I'm sorry. I'm just trying to figure out how to coexist peaceful with all of these assholes.

Your brothers.

My brothers, yes ma'am. And also the assholes.

Who's an asshole right now?

Besides you, you mean?

Ouch. That hurt very far down, deep in my soul.

That sounds dirty. I should check that out.

I KNEW you were in there somewhere! Welcome home Tucker!

Fading best.

Let it go
I believe you're the fire that can burn me clean
I believe you're the fire that can burn me clean
I believe you're the fire that can burn me clean

Oh goodness, nothing better than waking up to a new Switchfoot EP. I think I died over Ba55. It's a very neat little song. I always like their outlier tunes best anyhow. It's catchy. So catchy I'm a little worried it will become the next big brainwave in Bridget's head, stuck fast for months.

Worse things could happen. One whole summer I had Jacob's cover of High Holy Day's Proud in my head and it almost killed me.

And Ben is uh..absent to all of it anyway. Did I mention he laughed when I told him Lochlan was going to set down a whole new list of rules for him? He said dryly that Lochlan drinks too much and that I wasn't supposed to take any of what he says seriously until he gets some help too.

(Because suddenly everyone has a problem, you see.)

Lochlan is stone cold sober two days since and not budging an inch. I almost had to rip his face right off when he tried to intercept a hug Daniel was planning for me. I thought he was going to try and pick a fight with Daniel and that is absolutely off limits.

It's the equivalent of if he tried to pick a physical fight with Henry, who is almost big enough to hold his own but I would be horrified nonetheless. That would never happen but it would be terrifying if it did.

So yeah, I was ragey about him, because don't. So he went away mad and that's fine. He'll come back.

Unlike You-know-who.

Ben breezes in and out of life like it's a brief stop on his itinerary in the day. He shows up, eats and disappears. I think he still knows our names but otherwise I've become a restaurant with a daily special and a fully-stocked kitchen with a reliable quality level. I've become a menu, come and choose depending on what you feel like today, have the special or maybe don't come at all. Leave a tip, along the lines of The soup was great but the waitress is always crying, maybe you should look into that or Stop waiting so hard, Bridget, you're going to hurt yourself. That ought to be worth fifteen or twenty percent, at least. Sometimes I'm tempted to put a CLOSED sign up on the door and see if he even notices.

And Daniel's holding this failing establishment together with his hugs. His hugs are bailout money, collateral to stay afloat just a little bit longer and see if business picks up.

Not a plan so much as a wish.

And your heart beats so slow
Through the rain and fallen snow
Across the fields of mourning
Lights in the distance

Don't shoot me, for I'm just the messenger here. I said it once if I said it a dozen times as Lochlan's unbalanced, impulsive plan is met with derision, disbelief.

Duncan's pretty sure he falls outside of the parameters. He's not a devil, he's certainly no angel and he's not a project currently underway. He laughs about the bullshit part, though, as if Lochlan conveniently managed to herd everyone who didn't fall into a specific label as a remainder and therefore still liable.

He says no in his cool throwaway voice and laughs out loud. He points at me and asks if I think Lochlan has any leverage here at all. I shake my head. He asks if I plan to only accept hugs and comfort from Lochlan and I open my mouth and Duncan answers for me in a thick Scottish bleat of indignation. Of course! I'm Greedy MacHoggish and I can provide everything she needs! 

I laughed and then I wanted to cry again but the time for that has passed.

You're going to have to show him your balls, Bridget. 

Well then I'm really in trouble because I don't have any. I'm a girl.

You've got the biggest balls of all of us. 

That's saying a lot of mean things all at once. 

You going to let him mow you down? 

He's trying to protect me. 

Naw, he's only trying to protect himself. 

From what?

Bridget, your fears and his aren't all that different. 

So you're on his side? You think what he's trying to do is okay?

I didn't say that, I'm just reminding you that the fear of losing someone is huge. Huge. 

Postscript.

I went outside long after dinner to collect all of the dishes from the patio. It's now pouring down rain but if I leave it for tomorrow it's always a bigger mess.

Plus...OCD, it's a doozy.

I get down to the lower level at the bottom of the steps and there's Lochlan lying on a sun chair in the deluge, drinking whiskey and water because hey, you can't stop rain after all and he looks up at me, grabs my hands and says,

I swear to God I'll never break your heart again and please know I mean to keep this promise if it's the only thing I ever do. But I'm going to lock you down now, just like my name. No more devils. No more angels. No more project guys. No more bullshit, Bridget.

Then he climbs out of the chair, kisses my forehead, takes the dishes from my hands and leaves me there in the rain, paralyzed and in tears.