On going too far and (almost) never looking back.

This took place after this but before this. I'm skipping all over the place, my apologies. It details the space between my big plans for reuniting with Lochlan properly and the darkness that swallowed us whole for a second time. Some things we can't get back, we have simply accepted this and forgiven each other anyway. I've grown up a lot. And weirdly I don't look back on it with sadness or anything for that matter. It happened. It was sort of a punctuation mark to that entire part of my life and now on to the next. We took a long break from each other after this. I started a family and a blog. And now here we are. The break is over, the past is history, the future was told (but no one believed her anyway) and it will take me the rest of my life to catch you up.

***

The music is loud and the club is dark when we are let in through the staff door. We are led through a small crowd. It's still early, the place is just beginning to fill up. As we walk I see different rooms with different stages. Burlesque dancers on one. Contortionists on another. We walk endlessly and I don't know how we'll find our way out when the evening is over. The room at the end opens up into a wraparound bar and several stages that reach out into the room, small semi-circles several feet off the ground. Everything is painted black and everything else is glass or silver. A curtain hangs in front of each stage. They are transparent but black. Okay. Okay.

Lochlan points to the ceiling. Listen, Bridget. I stop and pay attention. It's Echoes. Pink Floyd. Okay, focus on the music. My heartbeat slows and we're left backstage to get ready.

Loch is relieved. We're not the main event. I nod. I knew we wouldn't be, somehow. We're out of our league. We're children playing an adult game.

He takes the first half of the payment, all five one-hundred dollar bills and tucks them into the band of my bra. Then he kisses the top of my head, whispers showtime and the lights go out.

By the end of the night the entire place is jam-packed. Lochlan languidly rolls me in flames and licks them out. We don't actually go any further than that. We simulate a lot of things but we do it with such tension and chemistry that the crowd seems to like it more. They're holding their breath. The music pounds through me as Lochlan leans me back over his arm again, my hair brushing the floor before he pulls me up and I take the flame from him. His arms are strong but his eyes are unfocused and mildly apprehensive. He's not able to have much control, this is far too distracting and we're hanging on by a thread in reality, having giving up our plans to do the big tricks. The curtain precludes the big tricks even as we welcome the barrier it creates between us and them.

But the crowd doesn't care. The crowd just wants him to touch me. He looks handsome and evil and I look small and innocent. Every time he comes close the whole room pitches forward, tipping the balance and I wobble, afraid I'm going to slide into a darkness that never ends. His grip on me is the only thing I feel besides the fear and so I focus on that, just like I did when the world was bright and smiling and we got to be acrobats and it was oh so brief I blinked and the lights never came back on.

When we are packing up his tools at the end of the party the manager comes backstage. It isn't the man with the cane, it's a big young man, covered with tattoos. He looks like a caricature of a biker from a comic book. He hands Loch the rest of the money, five more big bills and asks if we will be a standing act. That we're good, people really liked it. Lochlan nods and pulls his ear twice which tells me to follow his lead so I smile wide and thank the man for the opportunity.

You, little lady, are amazing. He tells me and I grin stupidly but want to cry.

Loch shakes his hand and mumbles something about a taxi and off we go as fast as we can find the exit through a rabbit-warren of smokey rooms and lingering staff. I somehow don't expect us to make it out alive but then we do. Loch hails a cab and we jump in. The driver makes us pay up front. I don't blame him, we are covered in sweat, with matching smudged eyeliner and strange outfits. We go back to the rented room. Loch is keyed and manic, ecstatic. He shakes me and tells me how incredibly hot we were and we didn't even have to do what they thought we were going to do. I think they thought we were already there at one point. Even better. We can make so much cash this way, self-respect untouched. I'm so proud of you. He holds me at arms length. You are amazing. They couldn't take their eyes off you.

I just stand there, stupefied. I don't want to go back to that place. I don't want to watch them watch us and think we're doing things we aren't. That's sacred and precious. They don't get to see that. Why would they want to see that?

I break away from him and go and be sick all over the sink in the bathroom. He comes in and swears and then pulls my hair back. It's okay to be scared. Remember?

I remember those words because he said them at the bottom of the ladder too. That was the circus I wanted. Not this one.

You'll have to get someone else. I can't do this.

There is no one else. I can't just get a replacement. It's us. There's something about us. Besides, I couldn't do that with someone else.

It's not for sale. You sell us out for a thousand bucks? What's wrong with you?

We came here to make money. I found a way to double it!

The net profit isn't enough, Loch. Shut it down.

Net profit-what? This isn't costing us anything.

Think again! You may have something to prove but I don't!

And you're the only way that's going to happen.

Then I'm sorry but I can't help you. I can't do that in front of them.

Then don't do it for them. Do it for me. Do it so I can go back home with my bank account full of gold and I can shut Caleb up forever and punish him for what he did to you.

You're using me to ruin Caleb?

No! Jesus, no. I just want to be on even ground with him and his bullshit and the above-board shows pay nothing.

But the only way you can pull it off is through me?

Bridget. You're missing the point. With you by my side I OWN this town. They're going to remember me. I can get better gear with this money and have more time to hone my routines and apply to bigger shows and get back above ground and stay there once I'm established. We won't have to do it for long, just until I can get ahead of things. Okay? Come on baby. It's just like old times.

It isn't like anything else we've done. I don't like it Loch.

Tough. I did things your way but this is where the real money is, Peanut. Time to grow up. He grabs his jacket and leaves, slamming the door behind him but then locking it too. That part hurt the most, that he made sure the damn door was locked. By the time he came home I was packed, had shoved my bag under the bed so that he wouldn't see it and was pretending to be asleep. He crawled into bed, wrapped himself around me and fell asleep, thinking he'd convinced me somehow, in his absence.

He had not.

Bits + peaces.

(He knew before he forced me to admit it and then he took out my braids and cut my bangs. You looked too old like that, he said. He didn't say anything else after that for a long while, because he was too mad. Not at me, at himself. That was when he learned that my curiosity is a force to be reckoned with and reckon we have.)

I am directed to sit on a small wooden backless chair in front of a mirror while she braids my hair. Lochlan had to take a twenty-four-hour man shift and has gone ahead to the next town to put up flyers and distribute early-buyer discount tickets and so I am charged to remain with the fortune teller and will meet him there with the rest of the show.

Her real name is a closely-guarded secret. She's in her forties, single and makes really good tea. She said she wished for a daughter once but I have taught her children are nothing but worry. She doesn't like me all that much and I don't like her either but she is safe and Lochlan puts that before comfort.

I know this and so when she tells me to sit up straight because handsome young men like Lochlan don't like hunchback little girls, I do. I tell her the only things Lochlan doesn't like are when my bangs get too long and when my stomach growls really loud because he feels guilty.

She tsks and undoes all the braids and goes to work on braiding my currently too-long bangs right into to the braids so they aren't even there anymore. I look wide-awake and kind of surprised. Older. More mature. She puts a stack of graham crackers in my hands and stops talking for a while as I eat and she works on braiding all of my thigh-length heavy hair. When she gets to the bottom of each braid she secures them with three heavy elastic bands each and then wraps the braids around and around my head, pinning them together. Then she gives me a pretty scarf to wrap around my neck and asks if I want to try a lipstick.

No, thank you, I tell her.

You look better, anyway. Once you reach womanhood you are supposed to pin your braids up. 

Womanhood?

Sleeping with men. No longer virginal.

But I haven't-

Oh, I keep all secrets, darling don't worry about me. 

But we never-

Brigitta, darling-

It's BridGET-

It's so obvious. Young love, your tiny little camper, the fact that he never lets go of your hand. You should know your future though, it's important-

No, thank you. 

Did he tell you to say that? Because he told me not to read you. Men like Lochlan are practical and they will deal only in things that are easily proven. 

But he wants to be an entertainer! An illusionist! He does tricks and he believes!

She just laughed. You let me read your fortune, I could explain that for you too. She puts her hands on my shoulders as if there are things she needs to tell me but she needs permission and my guardian has expressly forbid it. But since I'm an adult now, with my braids pinned up I can give it.

Just once, okay? Don't tell him. 

You don't tell him. You're the one who will have to live with this, not me.

What do you mean?

Come and sit at my table and don't you ever breathe a word of what I say. Someone has to look out for you here, because he won't be able to when he must and because there are things I see from here, without even trying, that tell me things are going to become difficult and knowledge is power, my dear. I'd like to give you a fighting chance.

"Who cares about pretty?"

I saw this in a store window this afternoon and wish I had it at home on the wall. One light short of full power, they'd say and laugh but at the end of the day it's true and I'm not sure if that's all I can hope for or a grievous insult. I'll go with hope, since I'm learning how to use, it, wielding it as a heavy, awkward weapon against the usual crushing doubt. I'm working very hard at trying to be a capable human, because good is simply never good enough. Good is what default should be but I want to be extraordinary and unforgettable and...well, brighter.

I want to be brighter so that they have to shield their eyes and burn my image into their retinas and see nothing but me. Then and only then will I be content because oblivion is a frightening thought and I haven't had an impact yet in my young life, no, not at all.

We went to see Divergent this morning, as empty theaters are the best kind, you see. The popcorn was fresh, the fountain pop terrible and the movie fantastic. Just fantastic. They out-acted the screenplay, I almost sobbed out loud at one point and damn the heights, it was worth it. It was well-fleshed out compared to the book, tons of chemistry, the perfect teenager movie only none of us are teenagers except for the actual kids but they loved it too. I always get very nervous before a beloved book opens on the big screen but this time I was pleasantly surprised to see things appear the same as I pictured them in my head when I read the words.

So good I'd like to go see it again. Maybe tomorrow when my lights come back on.

(Also in movie news, a lot of people sent me this today. Thank you from the bottom of my twelve-year-old heart. Seriously.)

I see a never-ending weekend of beavertail* jokes coming up.

I knew today was the right day to put on actual clothes and so I am buttoned up to the chin in my most plainest black dress with ten thousand tiny black buttons, black tights giving me spider-legs and a black ribbon around my ponytail but the bow fell out and I can feel the tails hanging down over my shoulder. My black boots are by the door, with a hundred more buttons between them and the hook sitting on the floor but I probably won't be going anywhere because this week I am quarantined, pinned and otherwise unavailable.

But both my favorite boys are home. Sam and Daniel! Wait, I mean Ben and Loch. 

*(Damn it. The other ones bring me the aforementioned pastries I love so much.)

I have a vintage lace handkerchief in hand for full effect. Lochlan rolled his eyes when he saw me dab at my nose through breakfast and he asked if I was just about done mourning my own health and should he go build a coffin?

(Because Lochlan has no patience for this. He must be feeling better, he's so fucking cranky. He also doesn't like my usual day wardrobe all that much, honestly.)

Yes, please, build it for two, so I can kill you first and then we can be buried together. I snap at him because he knows I have issues with things like coffins and death and still he needles me.

No one gets a coffin. They get a box and get burned to ash and then I can eat the ashes. No burial. No cemeteries. No headstones. No engraving. No plots. No sticking someone you love so badly into the ground like they're a fucking tree that's going to grown and flower and thrive because that won't happen. They're not coming back. At least you can go to bed at night with your arms wrapped tightly around a little sealed (HA) box and that's better than nothing at all, or at least better than lying in the cold, six feet down, all alone.

They've tried to talk me out of things like cremation. Ah well. Everyone has their own opinions. Mine are just so loud. They're so loud I can't get past them and I get up and start to leave but he grabs my wrist.

Sorry, Peanut. I get ornery when I start feeling well enough to feel but not well enough to do anything. 

I know, Locket.

I let him off the hook as he lets go because he's right and I'm impossible and then Ben says Basically if she doesn't get outside soon 'nice' won't be a choice, it will be some long-forgotten memory of how Bridget used to be before she became the Fever Beaver from cabin three at Lake Echo Campground.

It sent both of us into sprawling laughter punctuated with harsh coughing.

From where? Loch recovers first but barely.

I don't know. I just made up a campground. 

Fever Beaver? 

If the shoe fits, Bridge, I mean water-logged microbeast. 

So sweet, with such a fantastic bedside manner, Benny.

What would you do without me? 

Be classified as a different species, at least.

Ha, you got a ways to go yet, Peanut. (Loch joins him because what is teasing someone if you can't get a whole tableful of meanies ganging up on you at once?)

Sam (whom I love unconditionally, take note everyone) brought me a beavertail an hour later. It made everything better. Especially the part where they all asked for a bite and I said no. 

:)     (<---still so sick it took me a good ten minutes to figure out why my smiley face was so lopsided. Italics for the win, because I refused to listen to my editor, who said to put conversations in quotes. No way.)

Social monsters.

I was granted a brief Skype-Cough session with Duncan this morning. He said he's doing a lot better, he's settled into a routine now that's working. On days off he plays tourist and visits antique stores. He says he'll be shipping a box of treasures home at the end of the month. He says I should be excited, that he found the creepiest, neatest little things for me and we'll have to figure out how to get around customs because half of it is probably banned for being things like dead creatures, black magic and/or simply offensive, like the vintage band t-shirts he found from a band Ben was in for three whole years but they were three wild, horrific years and so a closeup cartoon rendition of Ben's eye and his middle finger are on every goddamned t-shirt I've ever seen from them.

Ah, but these are different, Duncan says. They're in German!

Ben just rolls his eyes and heads to a meeting. While we were in bed for two days I introduced him to Instagram and he's become an unintentional senior citizen with his use of hashtags now because he missed my explanation on how to use them.

(Neither one of us have Instagram but some of the boys do and we can still look at their pictures. Yes I had one for a while but was convinced to shut it down.)

When I'm done on Skype I check my phone to see what time Ben will be home for lunch and this is what he sends me in lieu of actual words.

#sexbot #imissyou #thoselegs #youhavenoassthough

Hey Benny, just say the words. Those are search terms. They don't work in SMS. 

#sowhat #imcoollikethecoolkids #weshouldmakeasextapewhenyoufeelbetter #pervy #hot #2hot2handle #Bridget #hotwife #mineallmine #Tucker #polyawesome #filthylittlething #thighgap #belieber #lickitup #damniwishIwashomebecausethesetagsaremakingmehungry

Seriously. This is what I live with. 

(See the #belieber in there? He was paying attention. You put that on a picture you get more hits, according to those in the know. I don't know but that is fucking funny.)

Fever couture.

Today for breakfast I was served a heaping portion of Can't Breathe along with a side of Fuck My Life and a half-order of Near Death. Refills of Runny Nose were free.

Woo.

I saw the teaser for the Peanuts movie and I squealed. Snoopy was almost my first tattoo but then I bailed on the idea. Thank God. I can't imagine poor little snoopy surrounded by all of these skulls and wings and bottomless song lyrics. He would have felt scared, out of place.

I saw the trailer for The Maze Runner. I'm struggling to read the book. It looks so good. I can't wait. And we get to see Divergent in three more days. I ate those books in one sitting.

No music today. My ears aren't working at all. No, the hearing aids don't work, the congestion has completely obliterated just this one sense. I wish it would work on the sixth one instead of the second (I always list sight first, okay?). I may have to put a sign around my neck. Every time I've asked someone to repeat themselves, instead they make the suggestion of helping myself.

Sure. I'll help myself. Get me a a rag and a fresh bottle of chloroform.

In other news, Ben somehow magically didn't jump up and run out the damn door this morning to five meetings and three doctors and then lunch with his sponsor. He's still in bed, here with me. Arm around my hips, snoring into my shoulder. He needs a shave and a haircut. I won't let him get either. (I like him sort of wild-looking, truth be told.)

And now I'm going back to sleep and maybe I can find him in our dreams.

 I'll get up later, for dinner maybe. It's pizza night so that's a big draw, next door at Danny and Schuy's house. I will not get dressed because pajamas are the new look for spring. If they complain I will leave and bring the pizza with me. I've done it before.

Ben will probably threaten to show up naked. He's done that before too. 

Micrometal (married all the wrong guys).

Tell me that your final home is not a shot in the dark
Tell me that your hopes and dreams don’t end
In the heart of a graveyard

If you mix together Woods of Ypres and Breaking Benjamin you'll get Demon Hunter.

Just saying.

As hard as Jake and Loch have ever tried to sway me over to the lighter side (and I go willingly, you know this) PJ still rules my heart with his endless metal bands and this week it's all Demon Hunter because of the new album coming out tomorrow. It showed up a day early and he squealed.

No, literally. He did. I think he broke something. It looked painful.

The album has been on a loop ever since. I love it and won't let anyone turn it off so he's just hanging out beaming like a proud parent. I'm pretty sure it was a challenge back in the day. Make the little one a Metal Queen. Good luck, Pyro's got her started on that sappy shit already.

Okay, PJ said right goofily, because he really has no idea when someone is making fun of him and that's fine because over the years PJ has earned a lot of respect for doing the one thing no one else has figured out how to do yet.

Wrangle me.

I think I like this album better than he does. Who's hardcore now, Padraig?

Happy happy Saint Patrick's Day. Still sick, doing nothing. :(

(And yes, to those who've asked already, PJ was like this long before he met Ben. He was only starstruck for the first five minutes, like the rest of us.)

Proximity alarms.

An outsider would think us strange and somewhat wonderful and profoundly disturbing, but fully trustworthy too. Caleb walks into the kitchen while Sam and Ben are deciding whether or not I am well enough to go to church. Caleb crosses to me, putting his hand on my forehead and frowning before pulling me close for a good-morning hug.

No one bats an eye at that. His affection is like seeing a unicorn or the Aurora Borealis. I hang back in his arms and look at him. He looks well. A tweaked regimen of sleep, diet and exercise and some further tests have yielded a bit of a reprieve for his physical being but for some reason right now, looking into his eyes, I don't worry about what happens when he dies because I don't think it will mean his absence.

I know he's hypnotizing me and I let him. It's like a drug and for a single moment I'm not fluttering, tripping, hyperventilating.

But I'm not well enough for church either. Lochlan never goes so he's a little bit joyful that we get some time alone and so he asks Caleb about the horses. Warning him of the work involved. Telling him if it's a whim that's going to end too briefly then not to bother because both Bridget and the children will get attached and then to have them ripped away would be too much.

Horses are considered incredibly therapeutic. Caleb says without looking at Loch. He's still calming my soul while I have it. Staring into my eyes. Still rocking very slightly, back and forth and finally, reluctantly he lets go and it's like a trap snaps shut, my body stuck firmly in its jaws, my soul escaping but just barely, to remain with him. He smiles and turns to address Lochlan's concern.

They would be retired horses to have a good life in whatever time they have remaining. Of course I had no intentions of adding to the workload around here. We could hire someone to look after them or if the other Jacob or maybe John would want to take it on as formal employment I am..open to discussion. He shoots his cuffs. He's going to church so he's in a suit. He goes every few weeks with us. Henry likes that.

I giggle. I don't know if I can look at John and know he's the stableboy. 

Worst case scenario we recall Asher. That would probably please the mighty Batman to no end. 

He doesn't seem like a horse guy to be honest. What about Mike? It would be a good part-time thing. 

Bridget, this is how I know you're the smartest one of all. I'll give him a call later today and see if he's interested. 

Okay. 

I'm off. See you later. 

She's busy later.

Perhaps this evening then. We can go over the plans for March Break. 

Sur-

She's busy then too. 

Have a good morning, Loch. Caleb dismisses him coolly and gives my cheek a quick kiss on his way by. Get some rest, Princess. This is why you keep getting so ill. You know, all you have to do is say the word and you'd never have to suffer again. His eyes turn dark and hard, covetous. Obsessive. Longing. The un-charming parts of him that make me afraid. He leans way in close to wait for my acceptance but he isn't going to get it.

Gingerbread, I whisper in his face. Safe.

Just when Lochlan lulls me back to the safety of the good memories in my brain, Caleb throws a wrench into the works by appealing to the parts of me Loch can't reach because of the limitations of mere mortals.

He's decided to build a small stable, just behind the garage because the dead orchard is mostly a waste of space and runs from behind the garage and the east side of the boathouse all the way around and up to the main road.

Maybe enough room for two or three horses, he says. I point out that he sold my horses and besides, we really don't have room for them here.

Sure we do, he assures me. He's still smiling.

Did you know horses can't vomit? I ask him and he laughs and looks at his shoes. They're probably made of my old horses.

No, Bridget. I really didn't know that. 

Anyone who owns horses should know things like that. It's important. I tell him and go back to watching Lochlan try some new tricks from my vantage point on the porch because the rain is really coming down now but as usual he's still practicing.

When it rains it bores/Cranky when I'm under that weather.

I didn't mean to worry anyone but apparently I've been light enough on words this week that people are becoming concerned, first with my trip to New York and then relative radio silence thereafter.

I would love to write endlessly but right now I'm a little fed up with myself. I've been sick. More than a little sick but not sick enough to warrant antibiotics like both kids and all of the boys, just sick enough that I want to cry and don't have the strength to stay awake or open jars or anything since I came home and when I sit down to write it's an endless stream of complaints and I'm just not feeling it right now but as soon as I decide I don't care what it looks like or I feel better enough to actually fill you in, I will.

I generally still write more than most bloggers so if you're so enamored that you get mad and/or worried when I don't write enough to satiate you then by all means, pass my link along so I can get a big old book deal for writing my heart right off my sleeve and let's get some quality literature out there instead of an endless supply of bullshit crap like 300 Sandwiches or Brit + Co. Make Sandwiches or My Cat Is Trying To Make Me A Sandwich or whatever the fuck is up there now on the #&#@@%* 'bestseller' list.

Oh right. It was Overheard in the Elevators at Conde Nast/Facebook/Google/Goldman Sachs: A Conversation About...Sandwiches.

Thanks! But thanks more for your sweet concern. Sometimes I feel like you come for the schadenfreude and then I realize you actually care. :)

Oh God help us all.

Ben and Loch are making supper.

Momentum.

How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams.
                       ~Bram Stoker

The cherry blossom trees started blooming this morning. It was almost an audible pop in the sun.

I was out front, sitting cross-legged in the driveway while Lochlan tossed lit batons over my head, same as always. I was trying to read. My headphones still on, music up loud. If he missed and caught me on fire, I probably would never know it because I don't pay attention to the things I should.

Caleb asked for a pass on my insolent words and his nefarious deeds, half of which he said were preemptive, the other half necessary (bullshit).  He got it of course, because how can anyone resist her? Because how are we all supposed to live normal lives when this tiny giant interrupter flits among us?

(I don't know-

Shhh. Put your headphones back in, sweetheart. The grownups are talking.)

And yet he felt it was fitting to walk me into boardrooms, me in my stilettos with my little head full of market trends and intentions for his ventures because this will become the foundation for something else, and so I was paraded in as a fresh face, as an object.

If the others allow for a little business mixed in with life but no, there won't be any more trips for a little while. No more suitcases and planes and time zones because I don't feel like it. I'm still failing at fighting off this cold. I would have stuck the stilettos in my eyes if anyone would have let me and since March break is coming up I think I'd like to sleep a lot.

Or sleep at all. That would be great too but Caleb feels like I should learn everything I can about managing a private equity firm because he's evil and insane.

Neither, is what he says he is, but simply concerned about the future.

I nod off against my book and flinch awake. Lochlan swears and throws away from us. Then he goes to collect his torches and asks if I fell asleep. I said I did and he tells me March break is coming up and I'll get more sleep then when things are less hectic.

I frown at him because I hate platitudes. Especially ones that clearly aren't true.

He frowns back because he really picked a winner. I'm still furiously annoyed but falling asleep on my feet now instead of on my ass. But then I see the flowers on the trees and I think that means everything will be okay.

It has to be, doesn't it? At some point there has to be a break in the clouds, even if I have to make it myself.

Lost in the shadow of an endless grace.

I will fail you, of that I’m sure
I will remind you of the pain forevermore
And when my sins are just a memory
Faith restored
I will fail you to the core

I flew back alone. One person, one plane. The carbon emission people or whoever the energy shamers are will come and get me now. I sat with my hands clenched in my lap and one song on repeat on my headphones as loud as it could possibly go.

I kept my eyes closed and I didn't open them until someone touched my shoulder because we were on the ground. Someone had brought me a cup of tea while I sat with my eyes screwed tightly shut. Wonderful people.  

It's getting harder for me to fly (especially alone) and yet I made it the whole way home without touching the pills. I still intend to poison the Devil and so I will need them all.

He wasn't happy that I left but he didn't stop me either. I had enough and I screamed for my passport while he stood there trying to tell me that he loves me.

He kept repeating it and so I kept asking. I could have gone all night but he gave up first. He's getting old. I am not, forever stuck at twelve because that's what the Devil does, he finds you and keeps you just as you are for all eternity because he doesn't like change.

No one does.

Fine during daylight.

It's a shitty spring day here in Manhattan and I'm being as difficult as humanly possible. First I asked for a cronut for breakfast and someone actually brought me one. Then I asked for some Xanax and they brought that too (a. full. bottle.) but I didn't take it, I'm going to save it and use to poison the Devil tonight during dinner.

And then I won't have to listen to his endless instructions on how I should act while we're here.

Stop rolling your eyes, Bridget. 

Get your feet off the chair. 

Sign here. And here. And here. Initial here.

Wait here.

Come with me.

On your knees.

Stop crying.

And then I get some more champagne and maybe a trip to FAO to soothe my frazzled nerves because twelve. Because I didn't want to fly, not into a major city known for acts of terrorism waged within its limits while there are whole planeloads of people missing in the world, not without at least even Ben to be a buffer between us but it's only two nights (of crying) and then we get to fly back home to safety and I can put away the drugs and the poor little gutter rat turned rich princess act he loves so much and go back to who I am in real life because this ain't it and whoever thought it was a good idea to trot me around the country using what was supposed to become my money to fund ventures that I don't even understand is cracked.

He tells me the return is worth it, not to worry, he's good at this. He tells me he sacrificed being good at anything mostly in his personal life for success in his finances and I believe him, truly I do. I countered that I sacrificed everything for love and he laughed in my face.

You're a witch, he says.

If that were true you'd already be dead. I tell him and drink myself blind before lunch.

But hey, we're making money and Jesus Christ is he ever happy about that.

There are no good guys here.

(A gift from 1995.)

He sat there in his top hat, vest, ripped jeans and smudged black eyeliner, cigarette dangling from between his fingers, warm stolen beer in a bottle in his other hand, trying to talk sense into me.

I'm standing against the canvas because who is going to listen to an angry freak magician in eyeliner? He looks evil. He looks mean. And I think he's lost his mind.

It's a lot of money, Bridget.

I walk to him slowly, take his cigarette, put it between my lips and walk back over to my side of the alleyway. I lean against the wall, closing my eyes, sucking smoke back into my lungs. It gives me a headache but so does everything these days.

Fine. I drop the cigarette on the ground and cross my arms, pulling my shoulders up close to my ears. He jumps up and crosses to me, putting his arms around me, telling me I am doing the right thing. That we can do this. We've practiced. Everything will be alright.

This isn't the right thing. This is some weird underground thing and we have no business being mixed up with these people. Plus this isn't a show routine, it's an x-rated routine. Adults-only. This is a line I didn't think I'd be shoved across.

The door opens and he lets go, turning around. The manager steps down into the crowded alley and gestures to Lochlan. Your fire breather. Loch tips his hat and nods at a rather tall, sinister-looking man with a cane. But the man with the cane isn't looking at Loch, he's looking at me. I stare back with open hostility but say nothing.

He points the cane at me. What about her?

She's not exactly part of his formal routine-

Her, I want her. 

Loch, tell them to fuck right off. I push out from the wall and stand tall, all five feet of me. I am shaking.

The manager shoots me a dirty look but the man with the cane breaks into tinny, stilted laughter. He sounds like dry leaves scratching a windowpane, like death.

I don't mean it in that way, dear girl. I want the two of you to perform for my guests and you will be renumerated quite handsomely. If my guests are pleased I will offer a standing date with you for the same money. 

No, more. If they like us they'll want to see us again so our rate will increase fifteen percent. Also we get paid the day before. 

Ten and I don't pay freaks in advance. Why would you show up?

Code. I'm not a thief. 

Yes, you are, dear girl. A thief of hearts. Are you together?

No, I say and Lochlan says yes at the same time. I roll my eyes.

Ah. A lover's quarrel. Perhaps you can use that as material for your routine. Three hours, beginning at nine sharp. No drugs. No weapons. Half payment when you arrive, the other half when you leave. Do we have an agreement?

I look at Loch and he nods. We'll be there. 

The men turn and go back inside and I walk across the lane and shove Loch into the wall. What the fuck are you doing? We're going to get killed. 

He smiles that smile that makes it hard for me to breathe, dimples on high, eyes rimmed in black and I know he's picturing the nights he stripped me from my clothes and practiced a slow burn.

I can't wait to light you on fire for an audience. 

And we could go back to the way it was
And sacrifice the way it could be
We could fall apart or we could fall in love again

He didn't say a word. We made love, we slept. We got ready for our day this morning together and then he took Ben up to an appointment and said he'd bring me back a treat. He brought me back a slurpee (cherry cream!) and I thanked him profusely. Then I took a nice long pull off the straw and went to my knees with the worst mindfuck of a brain freeze I've ever had.

And Lochlan laughed. He laughed until he had tears in his eyes and then he said to me,

It fucking serves you right.

Favors.

Four in the morning and I'm sitting on the Devil's lap, feeding him birthday cake as he sits with his back against the headboard. I'm still making a valiant effort not to get it on myself or his sheets even though it's too late. He doesn't care. His hands slide up my thighs and he laughs as I jam a piece between his teeth with my fingers. I break off another but he shakes his head and tells me he isn't hungry for cake anymore so I shrug and eat it instead. I love cake.

He bends his head forward and kisses my chest, putting his hands up to cup my shoulders and pull me down against him but I fight to remain upright. I'm not finished the cake yet.

Yes, you are finished it. He laughs. He is delighted, wide awake. I knew you would come. 

I haven't come yet though. I shock him and he laughs.

Why are you here, Babydoll? I haven't had luck like this in years. 

I don't want to talk anymore. I get up off him and he follows me, pulling me back, turning me to face him, putting his arms around me, kissing all the little places that make me die a thousand deaths of thrill each time. I taught him all these things while he was busy pretending he knew it all, losing nuance for force and tenderness for strength.

He's much better now but I still fight him off.

I have to go. That's enough cake for one night. 

I want an established night to look forward to. Monthly. weekly, whatever it takes. Something no one can argue with. 

Then you would otherwise not ask me?

No, I would ask you more. All it takes is a taste and I'm left wanting more all the time. 

That's how I feel about cake.

So marry me and I'll give you cake every single day. Call this the end of a grand experiment and be where you belong. With me.

I belong with Lochlan. 

Then why are you here? 

I shrug. I'm a masochist. I look up into his face and he's not smiling anymore.

It's the mixed messages from him, isn't it? Lochlan brings you up weird and then abruptly demands that you conform, and be normal. 

No, you messed me up good and now I can't be normal. 

I never trotted you out as a freak, Bridget. I never encouraged you to stand under the hot lights and let people gape at you for whatever tricks you could do for them. 

Semantics, Diabhal. 

I wanted you to be a freak but only here, and only for me. He bends his head down and kisses me again, icing and all. His stubble hurts like hell against my skin and I can feel myself curling up on the inside like a fortune teller miracle fish party favor. All red plastic and cheap wax envelope and bullshit magic meant to entertain for seconds rather than a lifetime. A prize in a Christmas cracker. A blink and you'll miss me. A snapshot with a flash, blown out, killing all the details in favor of begging to capture a moment that's already passed.

I let him lead me back to the cake-covered sheets and I let him pretend whatever he wants until sunrise while I lie in a sugar coma haze, naming the movements as they happen, telling my own fortune, which isn't a fortune at all.

Passionate.
In love.
Jealousy.
Indifference.
Fickle.
False.
Dead.

I'm never going back, the past is in the past.

(You're only going to understand the last conversation here if you've seen Frozen.)

Hey. Don't worry so much about the amount of punch-throwing the boys do, they've been doing it since they were born. I first witnessed a bad umpire call when I was nine that left both of them duking it out in the gravel by the concession stand long after the game was over.

They were on the same team.

They proceeded to throw punches over every little thing throughout the next three and a half decades, right up through and into yesterday. It's a thing. I have visions of them in a nursing home in old age, tripping each other's walkers over and laughing hysterically when I'm long gone.

Ben thought it was hysterical but he finds everything ridiculous in his sobriety.

Ignore him, Bridget. He loves you. He wants what's best for you. 

That is bullshit and you know it, Benjamin. 

Then ignore it, he can't have you? 

That's better. 

Lochlan took it differently. He lay in bed half the morning singing Let It Go.

Conceal, don't feel-

Hey, Locket.

Don't let them know-

Oh my God, please stop singing. 

Well, now they know....let it go, let it go. 

I think I'm going to cry. 

Why? What's wrong?

I have one apathetic wagon-riding husband, one Disney princess and one demon to contend with. I wish the earth would swallow me whole. 

But what will we do when you're gone?

GET ALONG, Loch!

Ha, now there's a movie no one's ever going to make. 

Too fantasy-based?

You betcha.

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.