If you love someone set them free. If they come back to you, they're yours.

He didn't take the hat off until late last night when it tipped itself off his head as he bent down to kiss me, framed between his elbows, pinned by his weight. We don't like it when people pull apart our relationship, picking through the flaws in our love and judging our choices when it comes to each other. It feels too private, too invasive, as if they're right there watching as he pushes me down into the quilts and smiles softly when I bite against his lower lip, mewling against his skin. His hands are so tight, embedded in my skin, searching for my heart. When he finds it he flips the helmet down and welds it to his hands.

There. No going back now, Peanut. I said you were mine and I meant it and if this is what it takes then it's done. 

I closed my eyes and drifted along in his dream until the alarm sounded and I opened my eyes to daylight and comfortable chairs of the war office, AKA the library. Claus was asking me if I were to have a normal life, what it might entail.

Oh, dear. first of all, what in the hell is normal? Second of all, I think it would look like this. But I'm a soccer ball in a deathmatch. I'm a prize. I'm a shooting star that you wished for all night long and I'll be the biggest regret of your life. I'm Pluto, once the destination of every astronaut who ever dreamed of space, now stripped of my status and destined for obscurity. Except that they came back to me and saw that there was life. And where there is life, there is hope.

When I tried to move away from Lochlan, stretching his rules, finding my limits, it hurt. It hurt a lot and so I came back in close and remained there.

I told you that would happen. That's been the feeling I get when you leave me for the past thirty years or so.

I look up at him in surprise but he's put the hat back on and this is no longer open for discussion.

Ben sits back in his chair, resigned. For him this is a risk but when I asked him about that he only quoted me a song. Or maybe it wasn't a song but it sounded like a song to me.

Like trying to stuff an octopus into a net bag.

Don't mistake this. I'm not only spending a week trying to fix everything. The first week is just going to be a more intensive kick-start. In-house. All hands on deck. Everyone's home, everyone's here. The Devil even cleared some time to rage and glower in person. He takes this personally even as I remind him it's not about him, it's about me.

And how did you get this way? Right. It's all MY fault. 

Lochlan takes my hands and pulls me in close to him, away from Caleb. Don't listen. He'll have his chance to help. He looks up over my head at Caleb as if he expects Caleb to jump right on board and start furling sails.

Caleb nods and looks at the floor for a brief moment and then he leaves and all I can think is HE'S LONELY! LET ME GO! but I don't move. I don't say anything either. I just stand with my face pressed against the flannel of Lochlan's shirt, balling up the fabric against his back with both fists.

Once this week is done they're going to gradually step back and watch us try and implement all of their directives under our own willpower. Without ghosts and threats and drama and yeah, I don't think this is going to work either but I'm giving it a shot because I was the one who said I wanted things to change. I don't know why I said that.

Step one is to elucidate what we want.

I'm not sure I even know the answer to that.

Radio violence.

So don't talk to yourself and don't talk to me
There's the river running through it
The Devil's not my enemy
Yeah yeah

It's pouring and dim though I can see bits of blue where the sky is trying frantically to rub away at the clouds blocking her view. She'll fiercely turn her sun onto them to help disperse everything and then all will be right again but quite inconsequential because after living in a rain forest for five years where my roses bloom all year around anything save for rain looks like a stranger.

I've had three cups of tea this morning while sitting with Claus. He got in late yesterday and is absolutely incensed at my behavior yesterday and lately, overall. He's spending the week here, staying next door in the guest room at Daniel and Schuyler's. He loves it here. He doesn't understand how I can rail against everything in the face of such beauty. I tell him it comes at a price. He knows.

We're going to have a busy week, Bridget. Reinforcements arrive tomorrow. During this week there will be no drinking, no pills, no extracurricular friendships, no refusals to work harder than you've ever worked before, and no escape. Joel will be watching and learning. I am in charge of you and Nolan will take care of everyone else.We're finally going to do all of the hard work we had only just begun with Jacob's support. Sometimes I think he's the only one who was ever good for you, all told. 

If you come in here with a bias or a chip on your shoulder it's probably not going to go very well. 

If you come to the table with your continued bad habits and denial it's going to go even worse, Bridget. I'm going to begin with your relationship with Lochlan and work outward from there in a radius. I'll deal in terms you are familiar with and we'll work with learning these boundaries Joel set but didn't enforce and we'll work with everyone on this point to make sure they support you instead of sabotage your efforts to be whole. 

I don't even know what that is anymore, Claus. 

Then you'll love it when you get there. 

You're so optimistic. 

Onward and upward, Dear Bridget. 

Oh my God. He got it from you. 

Pardon me?

Jake. Jake always said that. I didn't know he got it from you. 

On the contrary. I think I took it from him. He was always so hopeful when it came to you. He wanted to give you the world but any time you get a big enough piece of it you simply throw it back. If anything, do this for him.

Against my best efforts I burst into tears. I hope his optimism is contagious. I could really use it. I may be sporadic posting this week. Just cross your fingers for me, would you, please?

Flocking.

Bless me Father, for I have sinned. It's been a year since I've worn my hearing aids and a month since I last slept with the Devil, not for lack of wanting to, however and so for that I will atone but for nothing else because I don't apologize to God. He did this to me, he can watch and weep.

I am met with predictable silence because God doesn't take kindly to sarcasm, and Sam is too busy to play Catholic priest today because he's got his hands full being a Unitarian minister. It is Sunday after all and on Sundays I like to begin with surprise for breakfast.

When was your last confession, my child?

Probably a week ago when I bit down against the shoulder of New-Jake and his arms tightened around me so hard I thought I needed to hang on for the ride to heaven. 

Did you die? 

No, I'm a tourist there. When I die I'm going straight to hell. 

What makes you think that? 

The Devil told me it's true. He keeps my soul. He stole it ages ago. 

How do you exist without a soul here on earth?

Good question, Padre. I was hoping you could shed a little light on that for me. 

Is New-Jake the Devil you speak of? 

No, he's just a friend. A friend I rode from one end of last week right into the this one. I'm not exactly sorry because I have issues but my collective thought I wouldn't do something quite so reckless so they're reeling a little bit. Besides, I told you already. It's been a month since the Devil touched me.

Is the Devil one of your friends as well?

You should know. Don't they pass out mugshots in seminary school so you know what you're up against? 

We work to spread the word of God as love, not as vigilantes to fight evil. 

That's too bad. I was hoping to do some recruiting. 

You sound as if you have men of the cloth close to you? Perhaps another minister? Someone in your family? Few speak as candidly in my presence. I'm a messenger of the Lord and so usually I am met with more...reservation. 

More tact, you mean? I'm sorry. And yes, I was married to a minister and then the Devil made him fly and his progeny I can now count among my closest friends. 

I thought as much. Can you not speak to him? 

I light a cigarette and scratch my eyebrow with the hand holding it. No, he's not as impartial as you are. I just want to know if I'll ever be alright. 

I can point you to resources if you need help-

I don't need help, just an answer will be enough. 

I deal in faith, not in absolutes. For a definitive answer, my child, you need a fortune teller. 

I was afraid you were going to say that. 

Not hyperbole in the slightest (postscript from a rainy early Saturday).

I was summoned out to the front porch after breakfast where Lochlan stands looking out into the woods, top hat in place for bravery and authority. The Ring Master. My Alpha. He turns and tells me not to get my goodbyes in order quite yet, that this is part of what they're dealing with. My need to rescind everything I agree to the moment the Devil instructs. That it ain't happening this time. That Joel will remain the house guest of a willing August in the gatehouse until Lochlan says he's done here. That some reinforcements are coming because Sam is failing, Ben is failing and I am forever stuck in limbo between the living and the dead, between good and evil, between night and day. Claus is coming and so is Nolan and we can sort this out and get some help on the light/good/living side for once instead of being swallowed by the dark that craves me so badly.

I always thought when we were older it would just be easier to tell him no, that he would have no influence over you once you were grown up, that you would find things easier to deal with when it came to him. But you didn't break evenly. So many rough edges and little pieces. If only I could find them all. We could put you back together and live out our dreams instead of remaining in this nightmare where I can't save you from him. This is my show and I don't plan to let him run it, Bridget.

Notes from a little loser on a rainy early Saturday morning.

Oh no, I see a spider web
And it's me in the middle
So I twist and turn
Here am I in my little bubble, singing out

I never meant to cause you trouble
And I never meant to do you wrong
And I, well, if I ever caused you trouble
Oh, no, I never meant to do you harm

They spun a web for me
They spun a web for me
They spun a web for me

I'll make him furnish his own transition, seeing me through the abrupt absence like a benevolent spirit watching over. Maybe beside Jake but unlike Jake I can't see through Joel. I have to look around him. I cut him off at the knees last night, dispatching him to care of my memory thief for the next two weeks because no one told me how bad off he is. Sam didn't admit a thing, preferring to watch the fallout over New-Jake from afar. Hands off. Uncharacteristically distant. It's like expecting a fireworks show and being handed a sparkler. It was muted, dulled by the rain and the time of year and the sheer weight of life bearing down on our collectively broad but frail shoulders.

So if something goes wrong with my brains or my unruly emotions because of Joel's absence he'll be here to fix it even as he has one foot out the door, bags packed and ready to leave the point finally. Ready to leave my life again, hopefully on better terms this time around. Batman made some calls and Joel won't be hurting for work and that makes me feel better.

I feel like once again the Devil comes in and razes everything we've just spent forever building and turns me around to look behind me at what once was everything and reminds me that it's familiar and habitual and that means safe even though it was never safe at all. I feel like he wins no matter what I do, where I go or who I align myself with. He's the puppetmaster still, always. He's the Coldplay fan, the hard runner, the financial wizard, the seasoned lawyer, the boogieman. My monster. If I look under the figurative bed, there he is, grinning back at me as I shriek in surprise.

Ruffles and Rages.

And don't deny me
No baby now, don't deny me
And darlin' don't be afraid

The dress was Alexander McQueen, a similar one to the one I adored in Nordstrom over the holidays. Something I can wear more often. I can't wear a Valentino to dinner, after all. It's a little over the top, even for me.

(Fun fact: I once showed up to dinner in a bright pink leotard and full face paint.

Actually I showed up like that every night that I didn't attend the meal in a black tutu and halter top, also with full face paint.

Welcome to the show. Dinner break was a seventeen-minute affair between the afternoon and evening shows. Once the regiment of the circus was over the freak show was a languid affair with dinner falling sometime between midnight and morning, after we had run out of whiskey, cigarettes and stories to tell. Out of drugs to do. Out of life to live.)

Except I probably wouldn't eat in this dress. It's too fancy. I would need a bib. A poncho. Maybe a full drop sheet. But it's beautiful nonetheless and it fits so perfectly it just confirms that he is the devil. He knows my body better than I do. I looked at the size and was surprised. This is my size? 

In McQueen it is, he says, though I've already had it altered for you for length.

Oh. Thank you. 

Just wear it until the spring and enjoy it. 

It's a rental?

No, then you get a different one. Then eventually you have enough nice things that you can rotate. 

I have nice things. 

Nicer things then. 

I dropped the subject. We had a toast to successful trips and he mentioned letting Joel go as his usefulness here has been exceeded. I asked if it was because Joel rarely agrees with Caleb. He smiled tightly and said maybe, or maybe Joel brings up more pain than I need anymore.

He's trying to fix me. 

Maybe he's simply making things worse for you. 

No pain, no gain. 

Bridget, sometimes it's good to bury the past. You did better when you did that. Bottom line. Watch your last game this weekend and throw a party, he'll be leaving next week. 

To do what?

That's up to him. He knew this would be month to month. 

Then I get two weeks more and then he can leave. 

Fine. But if you get worse I'm holding him responsible. 

Like he holds you responsible for the same thing?

He said nothing, taking a sip of his whiskey and looking out at the water. But I hit bone, I'm sure of it.

"Oh, and stop listening to Joel", he said to me. "If he knew what he was talking about, he'd still have his credentials."

Lost all innocence
Infected and arrogant
You burn all your life
(There's no telling you)
No deliverance
Consumed by the pestilence
Of hate, you're denied
Deep in your heart does it still remain?
Do you think you can bring it
Back to life again?
Is it still in your soul?
(No saving you)
Where's the deviant
The unholy remnant
That has made you this way?
Made you fall for this hate

Tell me now, who taught you how to hate?
Because it isn't in your blood
Not a part of what you're made
So let this be understood
Somebody taught you how to hate
When you live this way you become
Dead to everyone

Deep breath. Closed eyes. Take it easy. Don't panic, Bridget. Don't show him how scared you are. Just be normal.

Wait. What? I don't know how to be normal. I don't even know how to put on a poker-face. It's always inside out or blank or I find out there's a huge hole in it from where it caught on my teeth. Same pep talk since 1983 and it hasn't worked once and how does this self-confidence thing work again? I'm supposed to lie to myself and then I'm expected to be believed? That doesn't make any sense. Besides, if I don't even believe me then no one else is going to believe me either. May as well stick to brutal honesty.

I'm too short. I wear too much black. I don't pay attention to much except music and cheese and sex and I'm more than a little confused that I can be in love with someone who frightens me so much, though if you ask me outwardly I will say I hate his guts and I'm only kind and accommodating because we share a son. But you won't believe me because I'm lying. I don't even know how my brain turned abject terror into sexual tension. Joel said it was an unconscious coping mechanism. I think it was an escape route. Same thing, he says casually as if this happens every day but it doesn't. Everyone else has their poker faces on straight. I see them. No rips, holes or stains. No crooked seams. No abnormal thoughts. No fucked up love hexagons, because let's face it. Triangles were left back in high school.

I try to keep my eyes from welling up as I turn but they're going to defy me. I'm so scared. So scared. So afraid I start to shake as I turn around to face him, a formidable, handsome enemy also dressed completely in black, also as far from normal as you can get, and in no need of a poker face because his black magic never required one.

He's looking down at his hands, which are holding the most beautiful bouquet of black and white roses. White roses with their edges painted in silvery blue dyes for a special wow.

For a special girl, he tells me, reading my mind. She's not too short. I don't care what she wears, and I never wanted normal but I do want to address the events that took place while I was gone. 

I wonder if this is the part where he kills me.

There would be no fun in that, he tells me.

Stop reading my mind, I tell myself without speaking.

Sorry. He says it out loud but he's laughing.

I stick my tongue out at him and he laughs more.

Bridget, why couldn't you manage a few days?

Six. It was six. 

Well, I'm home now and I brought you a dress if you would like to come and see it. 

My eyebrows go up. The poker face is shredded anyhow. You could see me right through it all along. I cut him off completely. He gives me my children. I sleep with one of his targets, he buys me a designer dress. Joel said this is how monsters work. They hurt you and then they tell you you're beautiful. They damage and change you and then buy you presents. They don't let you out of their sight for very long and then they come back and take over your space. They invade your brain, control your every move and rip your poker face right off your head so your hair gets static cling and you get a scratch from a rough seam along the bottom edge of your jaw.

You can wear it tonight. The reaffirmation of his own monster-status alleviates my panic completely. As long as he's mean I'm comfortable. I know what to expect. I know how to behave. Not like it matters. Just listen and then comply. Shut out everything good so the inside is as black as the outside. Ball it all up so that you are smaller than ever. But don't forget to breathe.

Wait, wear what? The poker face or the dress?

Both.

3-2.

I lost another two hundred dollars to Joel tonight when the Leafs lost to Columbus.

And Caleb is still in New York. He was supposed to be home yesterday and didn't show. And didn't call. And didn't message me. He messaged Henry so I know he's not in trouble. He's just extended his trip a bit. Or so he said.

(The cold reality of what we're thinking.)

Stop, look and listen
Maybe that's the way we'll know

Running this morning with PJ and Joel. I'm mostly trying to ignore them, listening to my headphones. Army of Anyone today and hey, I have a thought. If Richard Patrick isn't doing anything, since it's been a couple of years since the last Filter album, and I know Robert and Dean DeLeo aren't busy because Scott's dead and Chester left, and they can probably convince Ray Luzier that any supergroup is better than Korn and get back together and make their second album. Would you guys, pleeeeeeaaaaaase?

We've got a long way to go

Joel is adamant that I face my fears of being labelled and stop taking the label of monster or slut over victim. Fuck victim. I'm no one's victim. Payback is well underway to the perpetrator and it's been thirty years in the making. Joel says my behavior has also been thirty years in the making because of him and blaming myself and allowing others to blame me is just as dangerous and dysfunctional as seeking out a friend who lives three houses over and sleeping with him out of the blue.

Is it though? I like to think that I'm a cold, calculating seductress and I went and got what I wanted. When I tell Joel that he doubles over laughing, out of breath and patience.

Bridget, as soon as you admit the truth and stop sugarcoating everything in your life you'll be on your way. 

Sugar lubes everything I want to fuck. I'm already on my way, babe. 

I tell him this in my Gemma Teller voice and he just keeps laughing before PJ's face makes us stop fooling around and get serious with What To Do About Bridget This Time.

You gave everyone the Sparks notes on what happened. It's time they read the novel. 

I didn't write the novel. 

Bridget, stop twisting all the words and listen to me. Okay? 

He's right, Bridge. 

(PJ knows everything. I didn't sugarcoat it for him. That's why he made no moves when I showed up in his bed that night. He tried to save face and be all manly about it but really he saves my life on a regular basis.)

FINE. What should I do, master? Oh, and the worst idea of all is letting you run my show again.

Start by making sure Caleb is very clear on his role in this and how it has defined you. 

He doesn't define me. 

Bridget-

Fuck this. I pick up speed, jam the headphones back in and run far ahead of them. It's not slippery this morning so I can go as fast as I want. Of course the minute I do, my knees and ears begin to ache from the cold. I slow back down and the boys catch up, one on either side. PJ is content to let my brain outrun my legs but Joel is back with a fire I haven't seen from him in a while.

I'm going to talk to Caleb. And then I'm going to talk to everyone else in your life, Bridget. They'd rather help you than take advantage of you but you don't give them a choice. And yes, I know that from experience and I'd like to finally make things up to you for good. I can't stay here and babysit you forever. It's time to grow up now.