This morning I received a text congratulating me on receiving my share of the sale of the marble monstrosity which closed this week and is not my problem anymore. I'm so glad. Besides, even after we moved the gate that house was too far up the hill and the gate's been moved back and well, he spends money like water so no matter, right? Besides, it's a really good time to have real estate to unload here in the GVRD.
A really stupidly good time.
Caleb's timing is great if he thinks he can butter my ass with cash. Unfortunately he can't because money can't buy actual happiness. Only stuff like new alternators, camper tires and stove parts. We need all of the above but that only actually came to $312.72 at Canadian Tire yesterday so the rest can sit in the bank.
I get half of everything the Devil profits from. That's the deal. Which is great if you don't mind dealing with the fun prospect of being me. Which as Claus puts it, is like trying to heal a burn victim while she's still on fire.
To top it off, Lochlan is the one who sold me out to Caleb and I don't know why because he did that and then within hours warned me not to go over there this week and that there is indeed some sort of cut-off time limit on grief.
I DON'T EVEN.
He made himself the bad guy, and then made himself the bad guy and then yup, made himself the bad guy.
Fortunately for both of us, August and Sam are WAY ahead of everyone because PJ made sure they would be. He has all the major holidays planned out far in advance, deathiversaries being right up with the rest. So Claus is here. Joel is here (URGHHHHH). Pretty sure they just backed up a truck full of tranquilizer guns/tanks and helicopters to the house and the army is all geared up and ready for battle. I should probably run now before they tie me down but I'm so curious about Lochlan's motives, I'm going to go find out about that first.
I'm also really calm and relaxed and happy so YUP. They're already drugging my food. I've got to hand to PJ. He's getting way good at this shit. He can see me falling a mile away. And weirdly I think if I look beside me Lochlan is falling too. No other explanation to be had, frankly. Unless there's a really good one I haven't heard yet.
Tuesday 12 July 2016
Monday 11 July 2016
My shallow heart.
I walk a lonely roadHe worked doggedly, stubbornly through the night, torches burning all around us in his efforts to pin me to the dark, to keep me right there in that place where he knows where I'll be but no one else can find me easily, if at all.
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone
He steps back and wipes his forehead across the back of his arm and staggers slightly against the uneven ground. He takes a sip of his drink and points at me.
Now you don't move, Peanut. His eyes are so glassy, I can't even see the green, just the flames reflected in them. Flames and fear and rage. Don't you go anywhere. You stay right here where I can see you. Don't even move a hair's breath or I'll...I'll...
You'll what? I duck down out of the first set of ties. I'm smaller than he realizes and better at this than he remembers. This was part of the first act. Tie me up, close the doors and set the box on fire. Outside he's hoping to God I can get out. Inside I'm getting the fuck out and going through the door in the floor, dropping seven feet into a dusty crawlspace hoping to God he remembered to put the padding on the cement floor so I don't break my legs.
Here I'm hoping to God there's a fucking door in the floor so I can escape but when I hit the ground it's solid and the fire's getting so hot we're burning alive.
Read between the linesHe turns around to pick up the bottle and I duck behind the night and I wait. I hear him swear and the bottle smashes into the dark, shattering into a million stars, showering me with whiskey and tears, bathing me in his terror, breaking my hiding place wide open.
Of what's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone
There you are. He says it but it isn't nice.
I nod. I'm afraid but I refuse to show it.
Come here.
I shake my head.
Now.
I shake my head again.
NOW, BRIDGET! He screams it and I take one step forward and the flames from the torch nearest me jump to my skin. I burst into flames and he smiles.
I'd kill you so they couldn't have you anymore.
No you wouldn't.
That's the sad part. I would. I would because I can't take it anymore.
I woke up screaming. I woke up screaming with the sound of that stupid ominous chugging guitar sound at the very beginning of Boulevard of Broken Dreams in my head. Loch said he would have woken up screaming too if he had Green Day stuck in his head and didn't take it seriously but underneath our easy dismissal is a slow moving river of pure dread.
Ten is a number I suddenly hate with everything I've got.
Sunday 10 July 2016
CYOA.
All of the distractions in the world aren't going to keep you from me this week, Neamhchiontach, the Devil reminds me, and with that statement I see the ground beneath the cart as the Ferris wheel tips us over the top and comes around clockwise once more, gaining speed.
I nod into his shoulder. His arms tighten and I take a deep breath and let it out.
Caleb adores my tattoo. He traced it with his fingertips in absolute awe, as if it were in reverence to him, as he shared Cole's initials and appetites, and has appropriated his life and efforts with ease, without permission.
You're glorious, he tells me.
I shouldn't even be here, I tell him and he nods.
I know. We'll finish this midweek. He kisses my cheek, smooths down my dress and pulls me back up with him.
I don't know if I can get aw-
It's already arranged, Bridget. He tells me. I wonder what the cost was and who arranged it. Just no more near misses with your poet or your thief or any of your other keepers in the meantime. I've got big plans for you. Ten is a big number and we will mark it appropriately.
I already did. I pull my dress up again to show him my giant X over my periwinkle blue cashmere underpants.
I meant together, but I do love that. He has an X as well but his is a beautiful script and he's had it for almost as long as Cole has been gone.
He lifts my face up with one hand and plants a gentle kiss underneath my chin before letting go and looking into my eyes. I can see why we love you. What I can't see is why they let you go.
He didn't. They made him.
He should have come to me.
He should have done a lot of things, Diabhal.
If you could go back, Bridget, knowing what you know now, would you have left him?
The answer snapped my brain like a rubber band, so instantaneously that I cried out in alarm and Caleb stepped in close wondering if he had broken something else with a sensitive question. I brushed him off with some excuse about him being cruel, and that I really did have to go. I pushed him off and left rather quickly. I don't know why it didn't cross my mind before or maybe it's just that I take so ridiculously long to sort through things. Most people take a few days. I take a decade or so. Always. It's maddening.
Would I have left him knowing that it probably is what killed him? Would I have gone with Jake knowing that I would have had seventeen incredibly painful months ending in Jacob's flight too? Maybe had I never done that Jake would still be here and then I could have gotten a sane, slow divorce and eventually married Lochlan on my own time frame. Maybe things would have been vastly different, no one would be a ghost and the only thing to deal with would be the endless inevitable stockholm syndrome that only ever bothered everybody else and never really bothered me at all.
I nod into his shoulder. His arms tighten and I take a deep breath and let it out.
Caleb adores my tattoo. He traced it with his fingertips in absolute awe, as if it were in reverence to him, as he shared Cole's initials and appetites, and has appropriated his life and efforts with ease, without permission.
You're glorious, he tells me.
I shouldn't even be here, I tell him and he nods.
I know. We'll finish this midweek. He kisses my cheek, smooths down my dress and pulls me back up with him.
I don't know if I can get aw-
It's already arranged, Bridget. He tells me. I wonder what the cost was and who arranged it. Just no more near misses with your poet or your thief or any of your other keepers in the meantime. I've got big plans for you. Ten is a big number and we will mark it appropriately.
I already did. I pull my dress up again to show him my giant X over my periwinkle blue cashmere underpants.
I meant together, but I do love that. He has an X as well but his is a beautiful script and he's had it for almost as long as Cole has been gone.
He lifts my face up with one hand and plants a gentle kiss underneath my chin before letting go and looking into my eyes. I can see why we love you. What I can't see is why they let you go.
He didn't. They made him.
He should have come to me.
He should have done a lot of things, Diabhal.
If you could go back, Bridget, knowing what you know now, would you have left him?
The answer snapped my brain like a rubber band, so instantaneously that I cried out in alarm and Caleb stepped in close wondering if he had broken something else with a sensitive question. I brushed him off with some excuse about him being cruel, and that I really did have to go. I pushed him off and left rather quickly. I don't know why it didn't cross my mind before or maybe it's just that I take so ridiculously long to sort through things. Most people take a few days. I take a decade or so. Always. It's maddening.
Would I have left him knowing that it probably is what killed him? Would I have gone with Jake knowing that I would have had seventeen incredibly painful months ending in Jacob's flight too? Maybe had I never done that Jake would still be here and then I could have gotten a sane, slow divorce and eventually married Lochlan on my own time frame. Maybe things would have been vastly different, no one would be a ghost and the only thing to deal with would be the endless inevitable stockholm syndrome that only ever bothered everybody else and never really bothered me at all.
Saturday 9 July 2016
Worst/best conversation ever.
Duncan is trying skip rocks on a roiling sea this morning in the rain. I'm balancing on a rock nearby with my teacup and we're somehow not mortal enemies.
Because hope still exists, Duncan says.
For what? I ask innocently, but I know better as he winks at me.
I'm teasing you, Bridget. And frankly, I don't know what I would have done had you invited me into that room. Part of me would have grabbed you on the spot, the other would have sent you upstairs with a lecture and a smack on the arse to make you cry for being tough on Loch again. I'm here but for the grace of his generosity and nothing more-
No, you're here but for the grace of MINE.
Damn. Wish I'd known that yesterday. And he smiles a rueful smile and I smile back really big and we're okay, we're just plain awful.
It's raining, Duncan. We should go back and make coffee.
Yeah, we should. Think they hate us?
The plebes always hate the beautiful people, I tell him and he laughs harder.
For the little fragile miss, you've got a 'narse streak a mile wide.
It's an act.
That's the sad part, but you're a great actress.
I know. Suddenly the levity is gone.
I wouldn't of turned you down, Bridge.
I would have offered, Dunk, but I couldn't. Are we good?
We're always good, Babe. I think somehow keeping ourselves on our toes works.
You do realize they had a pool going.
Bridge, there's one for every guy you haven't slept with yet, my brother included.
Wow. Nice to be known as the point whore.
Well, you are the only woman here. Slim pickings. Not like there's much of you to be had even if you did go around.
Because hope still exists, Duncan says.
For what? I ask innocently, but I know better as he winks at me.
I'm teasing you, Bridget. And frankly, I don't know what I would have done had you invited me into that room. Part of me would have grabbed you on the spot, the other would have sent you upstairs with a lecture and a smack on the arse to make you cry for being tough on Loch again. I'm here but for the grace of his generosity and nothing more-
No, you're here but for the grace of MINE.
Damn. Wish I'd known that yesterday. And he smiles a rueful smile and I smile back really big and we're okay, we're just plain awful.
It's raining, Duncan. We should go back and make coffee.
Yeah, we should. Think they hate us?
The plebes always hate the beautiful people, I tell him and he laughs harder.
For the little fragile miss, you've got a 'narse streak a mile wide.
It's an act.
That's the sad part, but you're a great actress.
I know. Suddenly the levity is gone.
I wouldn't of turned you down, Bridge.
I would have offered, Dunk, but I couldn't. Are we good?
We're always good, Babe. I think somehow keeping ourselves on our toes works.
You do realize they had a pool going.
Bridge, there's one for every guy you haven't slept with yet, my brother included.
Wow. Nice to be known as the point whore.
Well, you are the only woman here. Slim pickings. Not like there's much of you to be had even if you did go around.
Friday 8 July 2016
Rails.
Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?
I'm fucking up my entire life.
Miss? Pardon me? Do you have an emergency?
You know what? I think I may have this, sorry to bother you.
That's how it plays out in my head. In real life I sent two words to the message group on all our phones we labelled 911 that is reserved for the all-time worst moments of our life. The words?
Dalton's room
I heard a chair knock over one floor above me. I heard a door fly open and hit a wall and I heard feet on stairs as they came running and I lay there and cried because I'm awful but I did the right thing.
Or rather, I didn't do anything.
I sent my text. He would have received it just like everyone else. I'm not sure who is more relieved or more crushed. It's a road you can't turn back from. You can pretend you didn't see what was down that way. You can try but it's never quite the same. Ask PJ. Ask August. Duncan's always going be a weapons-grade threat to me but he's never going to be enemy number one and I'd really prefer to have more friends than enemies at this point, on this point. He would laugh and tell me he'll take that chance and that's exactly what I'm afraid of.
Lochlan's angry regardless. No one's going to blame him.
Stay upstairs. Stay out of people's beds. Jesus, Bridget! Boundaries. This isn't hard. Right and Wrong. It's black and white. It's easy, Peanut. For Christ sake, you've been through so much and you just keep finding more trouble. Just stop. Stop it, Bridgie. Please. You don't have to do this anymore!
I'm staring at him while he shakes me and it's like he's grown taller and blonder. Possessed by the soul of a preacher or maybe it's the other way around and Jake wore Lochlan's soul and maybe they're so much more alike than I ever realized before. Life is so simple to them. Cut and dried. Part and parcel. Black and white and it wasn't until Lochlan said it that I realized he's operating from the same place. Blind and deaf to everything I feel. Unwilling to understand why it's so hard. Why I can't do it. Why I can't just cooperate. Why I can't just stop. Why I can't get over it/knock it off/fall in line/smarten up/straighten out.
It's definitely not the first time I've ever been let down by someone but it's probably the first time I've ever been disappointed by someone and allowed myself to actually feel it. Now I know how he feels every damn day of his life.
I'm fucking up my entire life.
Miss? Pardon me? Do you have an emergency?
You know what? I think I may have this, sorry to bother you.
That's how it plays out in my head. In real life I sent two words to the message group on all our phones we labelled 911 that is reserved for the all-time worst moments of our life. The words?
Dalton's room
I heard a chair knock over one floor above me. I heard a door fly open and hit a wall and I heard feet on stairs as they came running and I lay there and cried because I'm awful but I did the right thing.
Or rather, I didn't do anything.
If you could only let your guard downDuncan took my refusal of breakfast (or company) as a sign that I wanted to be left alone and made himself scarce, heading back to his room, closing the door probably long enough to dress and then the door opened again and I heard the front door open and close. I heard an engine start and he was gone.
If you could learn to trust me somehow
I swear, that I won't let you go
If you could only let go your doubts
If you could just believe in me now
I swear, that I won't let you go
I sent my text. He would have received it just like everyone else. I'm not sure who is more relieved or more crushed. It's a road you can't turn back from. You can pretend you didn't see what was down that way. You can try but it's never quite the same. Ask PJ. Ask August. Duncan's always going be a weapons-grade threat to me but he's never going to be enemy number one and I'd really prefer to have more friends than enemies at this point, on this point. He would laugh and tell me he'll take that chance and that's exactly what I'm afraid of.
Lochlan's angry regardless. No one's going to blame him.
Stay upstairs. Stay out of people's beds. Jesus, Bridget! Boundaries. This isn't hard. Right and Wrong. It's black and white. It's easy, Peanut. For Christ sake, you've been through so much and you just keep finding more trouble. Just stop. Stop it, Bridgie. Please. You don't have to do this anymore!
I'm staring at him while he shakes me and it's like he's grown taller and blonder. Possessed by the soul of a preacher or maybe it's the other way around and Jake wore Lochlan's soul and maybe they're so much more alike than I ever realized before. Life is so simple to them. Cut and dried. Part and parcel. Black and white and it wasn't until Lochlan said it that I realized he's operating from the same place. Blind and deaf to everything I feel. Unwilling to understand why it's so hard. Why I can't do it. Why I can't just cooperate. Why I can't just stop. Why I can't get over it/knock it off/fall in line/smarten up/straighten out.
It's definitely not the first time I've ever been let down by someone but it's probably the first time I've ever been disappointed by someone and allowed myself to actually feel it. Now I know how he feels every damn day of his life.
Thursday 7 July 2016
I keep feeling like we fall apartReally I would have been content to spend all morning lying in Dalton's warm (empty) bed playing Owl Simulator and watching the rain pour down the glass. I hijacked a second phone too, just like the bed so I can listen to Shake This Feeling in one ear and The Grace in the second because I'm insane like that but it works.
Better than we fall in love
I can’t seem to shake this feeling
AloneDuncan comes the doorway with a towel around his waist, freshly showered. Did you eat already or would you like something?
Where I'm not alone
Kill me, please. Make it quick and painful, make it exquisite and whatever you do, donate my brain to science and tell the world I'm sorry.
Wednesday 6 July 2016
Sam said it means Christ. "Oh boy, Bridget. What have you done?"
They didn't actually put me down in the grass. Jesus, people. Can you use your imaginations? I'm pretty sure they just drug my food as needed. It's far more fun to be facedown in my dinner plate anyway, isn't it? Especially if it's tacos. Ouch. That would hurt. I imagine taco cuts are like paper cuts, you get all sliced up with stingy corn cuts in your cheeks, unless they're soft tortillas in which you wind up with a big squishy cheese mess all over EVERYTHING and that would be just-
What did I come here to talk about? I forgot.
Lochlan runs his warm hand across my stomach early this morning. He hates this tattoo. (You look like the end of a pirate treasure map, for Pete's sake.) Hates it but he understands why I have it. Honestly he's glad I have it as much as he hates it. As he said on his way out the door while Mark was finishing cleaning it up, One down, one to go.
The open vitriol surprised me so much I gasped. Mark's face came up over mine. Okay, there, sunshine?
I nodded.
Give him credit. I would have blown Caleb to kingdom come years ago.
Jesus, guys. My eyes water and Mark passes me a piece of paper towel. I ball it up and hold my fists against my forehead. Count to fifty, Bridget. Let it pass. Explore a city you don't know inside your mind. What's around the next corner? What would you put there to find?
Sam was teaching me self-control, emotional control before they took him away from me too. Not literally but figuratively. A 'break', they called it. Because I'm so intense I can break people from twenty yards away. He was breaking. I was breaking too.
Lochlan got a tattoo while Mark was here as well. Dóiteáin (pronounced doe-chane.). It means fire. (Surprise.) Across his back.
[Oh, you want a Gaelic lesson?
Neamhchiontach is pronounced nav-shun-toch. Diabhal is said as doe-vol.]
But yeah, a week from now is the date that ten years ago I watched as the light went out of Cole's eyes and let me tell you it's the most frightening thing I think I've ever seen. Certainly the most profound in that you have no control. You can't stop it, you can't change it and I had to mark it. I had to do something about it. I had to find some way to have some power over that moment or it would continue to eat me alive. Maybe it's never going to stop. Maybe I am doomed by my ghosts and by my living alike.
Maybe the X is perfect. It does mark the spot. But I'm not going to write much about Cole today, I'll save that for next week but I'm deliriously happy with the tattoo, in spite of Sam's teasing. It's just a big fucking X. It can mean anything. It can mean everything. It can mean nothing. It's just perfect.
Something I'm not.
What did I come here to talk about? I forgot.
Lochlan runs his warm hand across my stomach early this morning. He hates this tattoo. (You look like the end of a pirate treasure map, for Pete's sake.) Hates it but he understands why I have it. Honestly he's glad I have it as much as he hates it. As he said on his way out the door while Mark was finishing cleaning it up, One down, one to go.
The open vitriol surprised me so much I gasped. Mark's face came up over mine. Okay, there, sunshine?
I nodded.
Give him credit. I would have blown Caleb to kingdom come years ago.
Jesus, guys. My eyes water and Mark passes me a piece of paper towel. I ball it up and hold my fists against my forehead. Count to fifty, Bridget. Let it pass. Explore a city you don't know inside your mind. What's around the next corner? What would you put there to find?
Sam was teaching me self-control, emotional control before they took him away from me too. Not literally but figuratively. A 'break', they called it. Because I'm so intense I can break people from twenty yards away. He was breaking. I was breaking too.
Lochlan got a tattoo while Mark was here as well. Dóiteáin (pronounced doe-chane.). It means fire. (Surprise.) Across his back.
[Oh, you want a Gaelic lesson?
Neamhchiontach is pronounced nav-shun-toch. Diabhal is said as doe-vol.]
But yeah, a week from now is the date that ten years ago I watched as the light went out of Cole's eyes and let me tell you it's the most frightening thing I think I've ever seen. Certainly the most profound in that you have no control. You can't stop it, you can't change it and I had to mark it. I had to do something about it. I had to find some way to have some power over that moment or it would continue to eat me alive. Maybe it's never going to stop. Maybe I am doomed by my ghosts and by my living alike.
Maybe the X is perfect. It does mark the spot. But I'm not going to write much about Cole today, I'll save that for next week but I'm deliriously happy with the tattoo, in spite of Sam's teasing. It's just a big fucking X. It can mean anything. It can mean everything. It can mean nothing. It's just perfect.
Something I'm not.
Tuesday 5 July 2016
Chemical capture.
Today is less insane. I think they had a meeting after shooting me with a tranquilizer dart in the yard on my way back into the house and August warned them all that I need consistency, support and patience, not endless arbitrary rules, jealousy and infighting.
Actually what I need is sleep, food and booze, I told them with a laugh as I hit the grass face-first. Fuckers didn't even catch me. In my dreams it felt terrific and when I woke up I felt like me again.
I'm actually not a pot-stirrer. Habitually I don't throw dishes. I don't yell. I don't even talk back. If anything I stop talking. I stop reacting, I just plain stop. I turn into a shadow, a statue. I don't do anything. Lochlan says it's possibly more frightening, more maddening, more difficult than plate-throwing, yelling Bridget. At least then she's saying how she feels, what she needs, what she wants.
I realize that but it's too out there, too bratty, too out of control for me and I feel ashamed and immature and awful. But they're all cheering me on, for fucks sakes. Until they want to turn it off, I mean.
So I didn't get any of the beans I grew for dinner, I got medicine and a hot shower and a clean warm bed and it was lights the fuck out and I was gone and I didn't dream until early this morning and then I was up early and I was starving. Still am but coffee seems like the only thing my stomach can handle. My brain loves pills. My body? Not so much.
Onward and upward now, Princess. A voice cuts into my head in the dawning light as I sip the bitter gold. Too much sugar, not enough caffeine, as usual.
I nod. Working on it, Preacher.
Good girl.
Oh, don't you say it too.
Actually what I need is sleep, food and booze, I told them with a laugh as I hit the grass face-first. Fuckers didn't even catch me. In my dreams it felt terrific and when I woke up I felt like me again.
I'm actually not a pot-stirrer. Habitually I don't throw dishes. I don't yell. I don't even talk back. If anything I stop talking. I stop reacting, I just plain stop. I turn into a shadow, a statue. I don't do anything. Lochlan says it's possibly more frightening, more maddening, more difficult than plate-throwing, yelling Bridget. At least then she's saying how she feels, what she needs, what she wants.
I realize that but it's too out there, too bratty, too out of control for me and I feel ashamed and immature and awful. But they're all cheering me on, for fucks sakes. Until they want to turn it off, I mean.
So I didn't get any of the beans I grew for dinner, I got medicine and a hot shower and a clean warm bed and it was lights the fuck out and I was gone and I didn't dream until early this morning and then I was up early and I was starving. Still am but coffee seems like the only thing my stomach can handle. My brain loves pills. My body? Not so much.
Onward and upward now, Princess. A voice cuts into my head in the dawning light as I sip the bitter gold. Too much sugar, not enough caffeine, as usual.
I nod. Working on it, Preacher.
Good girl.
Oh, don't you say it too.
Monday 4 July 2016
Ten degrees isn't t-shirt weather and I need some sleep, I think.
Cold and rainy today and I've had my lecture for heading out with Sam without technical permission. John had his lecture and kindly told Lochlan to go fuck himself, though he means it as a friend, because in order for this to work Lochlan needs to let go a little bit, especially and most importantly when it comes to people who know Bridget's head and how to keep it on straight better than the magic man himself. Besides, John was there. Problem solved. Bodyguard in place.
I'm not going to let anything happen to her, Brother. Never have, never will.
Lochlan thought long and hard about continuing to push against this logic but ultimately decided John was right and he shook his hand and apologized. He came to apologize to me and I stared at him with my best steely-eyed child's disappointment, picked up my colander and went out to the garden to get beans for dinner.
He didn't come after me. Ben came out eventually because I was taking too long and said supposedly now we're surround by not only men and bears but also those coyotes now too. Many of them. And it's getting late so maybe I should come in.
They're like dogs. They sing because they're afraid of the dark.
They sing because they're hungry, Bridget.
The fence is live, I'm not worried.
Loch is worried. You daydream. I've heard the stories.
I don't do that anymore. Yeesh. Next he'll be wiping my ass for me.
That's what I said.
But you don't say anything to him.
How do you know I haven't? It's taken you close to two and a half hours to pick a pound of beans.
I'm thinking!
About what?
Why you only come when there's trouble.
Danger, he corrects me.
Whatever. I'm tired and soaked to the skin. I'm cold. I don't even fucking care anymore. This isn't Utopia today. Today it's prison and I got yard duty.
Let's go inside and get a fire going. You're shivering. Give me the bowl.
He reaches for it and I take whatever strength I still have and fling it about ten feet away. All of the beans spray out in an arc across rows of tomato cages and the colander comes to rest against a pumpkin plant beside the fence.
I don't want to! I tell him. Maybe it's not even his fault, maybe a lot of it is but I stand there staring at him and he stares back and finally he turns and goes to the fence, picks up the bowl and heads back toward the house without another word. I would feel bad about seeing him go alone but he's left me on my own for months now.
I pick up a bean and eat it.
When I turn to see if he's gone he is standing at the gate waiting. He looks at his watch.
I've got all day, Brat. he calls. He's smiling.
Asshole. I call back.
A real hungry one too. Better pick up those beans. Dinner's in an hour.
You took my bowl.
Fill your pockets.
I don't have any pockets.
Fill that gaping hole in your face that all those stupid lies come out of. Like me only being here when there's trouble. Is there trouble right now? Nope. Only rain. Only beans. Seems pretty low key for a Monday actually. Could you hurry up, Bee? I'm fucking freezing.
No! Fucking do it yourself.
I'll pay someone to do it.
No one TOUCHES my garden except me.
Then get to work. He frisbees the bowl at my head and I scream and duck down into a ball, losing my balance. I sit down in the mud hard.
ASSHOLE!
WHAT?
I fell!
Then pick faster so you can go in and change.
Help me.
What's that?
Can you help me? Please?
Are you asking for me to help you?
Are you fucking deaf too?
No, I've just been waiting for this for EIGHT FUCKING YEARS, BRIDGET but you're too goddamned stubborn. Just wait right here. He takes off his hoodie and slides it around me and heads into the garden, scooping beans into the colander as he goes. He goes up three different rows and somehow comes back in seconds with the full bowl that I threw and kisses me hard, almost knocking me off my feet, shoving the bowl into my arms, smiling at me gently, waiting until I hesitantly smile back.
There's dinner. All's well that end's well. I feel like I have to get you to some sort of incredible level of rage to reset you, almost and then you're you again. Except your lips are grey and the rest of you is...very dirty. Let's get inside.
I'm not going to let anything happen to her, Brother. Never have, never will.
Lochlan thought long and hard about continuing to push against this logic but ultimately decided John was right and he shook his hand and apologized. He came to apologize to me and I stared at him with my best steely-eyed child's disappointment, picked up my colander and went out to the garden to get beans for dinner.
He didn't come after me. Ben came out eventually because I was taking too long and said supposedly now we're surround by not only men and bears but also those coyotes now too. Many of them. And it's getting late so maybe I should come in.
They're like dogs. They sing because they're afraid of the dark.
They sing because they're hungry, Bridget.
The fence is live, I'm not worried.
Loch is worried. You daydream. I've heard the stories.
I don't do that anymore. Yeesh. Next he'll be wiping my ass for me.
That's what I said.
But you don't say anything to him.
How do you know I haven't? It's taken you close to two and a half hours to pick a pound of beans.
I'm thinking!
About what?
Why you only come when there's trouble.
Danger, he corrects me.
Whatever. I'm tired and soaked to the skin. I'm cold. I don't even fucking care anymore. This isn't Utopia today. Today it's prison and I got yard duty.
Let's go inside and get a fire going. You're shivering. Give me the bowl.
He reaches for it and I take whatever strength I still have and fling it about ten feet away. All of the beans spray out in an arc across rows of tomato cages and the colander comes to rest against a pumpkin plant beside the fence.
I don't want to! I tell him. Maybe it's not even his fault, maybe a lot of it is but I stand there staring at him and he stares back and finally he turns and goes to the fence, picks up the bowl and heads back toward the house without another word. I would feel bad about seeing him go alone but he's left me on my own for months now.
I pick up a bean and eat it.
When I turn to see if he's gone he is standing at the gate waiting. He looks at his watch.
I've got all day, Brat. he calls. He's smiling.
Asshole. I call back.
A real hungry one too. Better pick up those beans. Dinner's in an hour.
You took my bowl.
Fill your pockets.
I don't have any pockets.
Fill that gaping hole in your face that all those stupid lies come out of. Like me only being here when there's trouble. Is there trouble right now? Nope. Only rain. Only beans. Seems pretty low key for a Monday actually. Could you hurry up, Bee? I'm fucking freezing.
No! Fucking do it yourself.
I'll pay someone to do it.
No one TOUCHES my garden except me.
Then get to work. He frisbees the bowl at my head and I scream and duck down into a ball, losing my balance. I sit down in the mud hard.
ASSHOLE!
WHAT?
I fell!
Then pick faster so you can go in and change.
Help me.
What's that?
Can you help me? Please?
Are you asking for me to help you?
Are you fucking deaf too?
No, I've just been waiting for this for EIGHT FUCKING YEARS, BRIDGET but you're too goddamned stubborn. Just wait right here. He takes off his hoodie and slides it around me and heads into the garden, scooping beans into the colander as he goes. He goes up three different rows and somehow comes back in seconds with the full bowl that I threw and kisses me hard, almost knocking me off my feet, shoving the bowl into my arms, smiling at me gently, waiting until I hesitantly smile back.
There's dinner. All's well that end's well. I feel like I have to get you to some sort of incredible level of rage to reset you, almost and then you're you again. Except your lips are grey and the rest of you is...very dirty. Let's get inside.
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