World War B.

Schuyler squealed and dropped his coffee mug this morning while reading the news. It appears Brad Pitt is about to be single again.

We all won bets. Brad Pitt isn't someone you settle down with. You just jerk your dress back down to cover your knees and make your way home, tucking your hair behind your ears and fixing your smeared lipgloss.

All of this applies only, of course if it's Brad Pitt circa Legends of the Fall, 1994ish or thereabouts.

Several of us nod. Yup. That hair.

I turn to ask Lochlan if he'll grow his hair that long and he looks cross. Isn't it already, he asks?

No, I shake my head. Not quite. Maybe if we pulled on his huge loopy curls. Wait, maybe it is.

He's a little riled up this morning anyway. I didn't buy into his grand plan to stick it to Caleb using me as a weapon. Weapons don't have feelings, right? Instead I went off and listened to my own inner drummer, who marched right up to the loft and then on the way home jerked her dress back down over her knees, tucked her hair behind her ears and fixed her lipgloss.

Does that mean August isn't someone you settle down with?

Definitely not. He said as much. I'm on borrowed time anyway but at the same time he's got an addictive personality and I'm addictive.

This must be how Brad feels.

Inappropriation.

(I feel as if maybe this isn't how everyone else's counseling sessions go and I feel sorry for you.)

You may be right
But I don't care
So moving on

I'm telling him the story of how Duncan got invited for a second coveted visit, that Duncan agreed and then at the last second he said he wanted me to come back downstairs with him alone, that he didn't need an audience, thanks, and he'd bring me back up before I fell asleep. That he worked alone, as a rule. But that he's much obliged, as ever, to have the honor. And the trust.

What did they do? 

Nothing. You should have seen the shock on their faces though. 

So did you go? 

No, I got spooked. I feel like I don't really know Duncan like that. I'm not ready to be alone-alone with him. Naked-alone. Like this.

I see. He lifts my dress up over my head. I sit obediently in his lap, facing him, arms up to facilitate.

Plus I'm suddenly worried that Lochlan's going to die so I didn't want to take any risks. 

That Caleb might-

No, that he'll just vanish somehow.

It's normal. Do you want to talk instead of this? He's kissing up my throat, along my jaw and I nod and then shake my head no and he pauses.

Talk after. I unbutton his shirt and stick my face in between the buttons and the buttonholes. He's so warm.

I like this. He rubs his thumb along the band of my sweetheart bra. It's embroidered with roses and peonies in blush, lavender and pale blue. It's vintage.

Me too. I get up off his legs and head toward his room.

August stands up in a hurry, knocking his books off the arm of the couch and follows me to his bed. I crawl onto it while it swings slightly.

I keep trying to separate this but I can't, Bridget. 

I'd rather you didn't anyway. 

I should. I'm no better than Joel if I don't. 

That's different. 

How is it different? But he's pulling me up against him urgently, suddenly out of breath without reason, forcing me down without giving me the leeway to get there. So rough sometimes. Just like Jake. I pull his face down against mine and kiss him hard.

What are you doing, Bridget?

Trying to collect enough love.

And you're not there yet? But he doesn't wait for my answer. He just puts his head back down against my shoulder and begins to drive against me until we both forget what we were talking about.

Trouper.

History changes things. Time distorts the colors, the focus, the emotions and boils the facts down into hard points that I can load into a gun and blow like buckshot into the backs of those who wrote that history. That's how it should go.

But I won't, because they made for me to be submissive, to ride along, to go with whatever flow lit up our world for the time being without regret or remiss.

I understand that the way I understand little else, and so I hold up my history, pointing out the holes, the burn marks, the bloodstains and the broken hearts and I ask if this is the one, does it fit, is it mine? And Lochlan looks back and his eyes fill with tears and his voice betrays him as he says plainly I'm sorry. 

Only he didn't DO anything wrong and so I'm confused by his apology and by the silence from the others.

Leave it, Bridget, they tell me. What's important is what's in front of you but I know better, fighting my way out of their arms to where I can stand firm on the edge of knowing better, wanting different. If it doesn't get sorted out, there is nothing in front of me because it's obscured by the shadow that remains.

It doesn't matter! Lochlan screams it now. Adamant that if we don't move on it's never going to get better. How can it? The hue has changed, the panic has been paved over and in its place a knot of vague, horrible dread remains.

Do it! He yells as I raise the gun and aim it square between the blades of the shoulders of my nightmare. HURRY, PEANUT!

But then I lower the gun because I know the recoil will hurt like fuck, and I know I'll miss, so that I'll be the one who hurts from the risk I took in taking the shot and no one is even going to notice it was me.

'I'm not crazy, I'm in control.'

Who else was completely gobsmacked this weekend by Richard Brake's performance in Rob Zombie's 31?

I know I was. He's amazing. Holy fucking shit. Doom-Head just replaced Michael Myers as my all-time favorite scary man.

Aside from Caleb, I mean. I'm talking fictional characters. The monologues Brake did when he had the reverend captive and after he got the call to go finish a job (I don't spoil movies here) are incredible. Oscar-worthy.

Just you watch.

(Disclaimer: I'm a bit obsessed with Rob Zombie movies. Or maybe that's obsessed with Sheri Moon Zombie. Not sure. Don't care.)

Bit my tongue once and it hurt too much to ever to it again.

Dead flowers for the torn apart
Laid at the grave to heal a broken heart
Let it rain until it floods
Let the sun breathe life once more
Reborn

This morning I found a bent fork sticking out of the grass on my walk and I felt the familiar sting behind my eyes but I persevered and came home intact instead of red-faced, out of breath, drowned from the inside out. I came home weirdly content because the cool breezy air and the smell of rain means fall to me. Not pumpkin spice latte fall because gross. Too sweet. But fall as in soon all the beaches will be clear of people and I can venture back out.

I always have so many questions if we go to a beach that isn't ours, like how can you people just lay out in the broiling sun like that? And how tanned do you want to get? Aren't you hot? Don't you mind being stared at? How does it feel to know fully half of this public sand is garbage and cigarette butts? And the biggest one of all, don't you wish you had your own beach like I do?

But the boys tell me those questions are really rude and ignorant and God, why don't you have a filter any more, Bridget?

Oh, that old thing? I burned it with Cole.

I haven't needed it since. Those who can't handle me don't stick around.

Right, Lochlan?

Exactly, Bridget.

After lunch I stood holding my fork, staring at it with every ounce of concentration I could muster, failing to notice Sam watching me.

Jake's not going to bend this one, sorry, Princess.

Maybe I can do it.

No, those times he actually was doing it and made you think you were. He fancied himself a magician too, you know.

I smiled in spite of myself. He did. It was very sweet to watch his simple illusions because they were never done for money or for food. They never paid our way or made the news. They were just sweet. That's all. Sweet and really badly done, honestly.

The scars don't write a song for me at all.

I am a stone, unaffected
Rain Hell down onto me
Flesh and bone, unaffected
Your fool I will not be

I got to spend the morning recording with Ben downstairs. I brought my violin and my harmony and we recorded a perfect cover of Demon Hunter's I Am A Stone. We even went back and sang revolutions of the chorus at the end to change it up. We made it our own, but more importantly, we made PJ cry. He got the first listen. He mopped his eyes afterward with his beard and asked if he could have a copy. He said his favorite part was when I did the chorus after the bridge alone, ambitiously a cappella.

It should have been when Ben sang the bridge alone. That's MY favorite part but really I'm just happy he could tweak the headphones in order for me to hear myself, to sing on key instead of somewhere above it in a guess. I mean, everyone hates the sound of their own voice but I'm just happy to hear mine once in a blue moon.

Truthers in arms.

I feel like it's not a question of if you'll come back to me but when. 

His voice is sure but soft and far too quiet to hear over the roar of the surf. The tide is coming in and we should go. It's slow here on the west coast. On the east we had around eight minutes, less on the Bay. Super tides. Super feels.

Super weird.

Maybe. Maybe someday when things get quiet. 

It's a massive relief to not be outright denied. 

Is it though? What's the difference?

Hope is the difference. Don't you ever listen during Sam's sermons?

I sleep, mostly. 

Hope is what drives men, Bridget. 

And women. 

Oh? What do you hope for?

Literal peace of mind. 

I could give you anything you want but you resist. I'm not out to harm you, I'm trying to make things better. 

Every time I try to trust you on that something bad happens. 

Bridget, the watch was an unforgivable mistake and I'm just glad you're okay. 

Sorry about your face. 

Had it been me in Lochlan's shoes I would have exacted a far greater punishment. 

Like what?

I would have killed him for hurting you. 

That's why you can't be in his shoes. You're not safe.

Give me a chance to show you, Neamhchiontach. 

You've had too many chances already. I asked for a break and I still want it. 

All that will do is cement his place and put me out in the col-

As it should. You decided a long time ago what kind of relationship we would have and I'm trying so hard to make good changes in my life and straighten out everything that's bent and this doesn't help. 

I'm proud of you for the work you've done, even when it would be easier to give in, so you have to understand. I can't give in either. You're it. You're everything. I can't walk away from you. And I won't. 

Then we'll remain at an impass, because it's going to be decades before I come back to you. 

What do you mean.?

If I kill him too then I'll come back. But that will be the only way. 

You're not responsible for their deaths-

Then I hope you have a plan B, because if you're right I'm gone. 

Call it a low point, or just call it Tuesday.

Some days are worse than others. Few are as bad as yesterday, and yet, as the old Irish Proverb goes I hope my best days are the worst I ever have. 

I always pause at that thought, as if I've maybe got it wrong and then I work it through and think Huh. Yeah. I hope so too. 

I forgot, thanks to whatever drugs they gave me until I was loading the washing machine this afternoon and everything smelled like chlorine. Two full extra loads thanks to seven outfits. Six people jumped in to the pool while one probably would have sufficed, as it wasn't all that deep and I already pointed out that I am a champion toddler-level swimmer anyway so there was no danger but it wasn't the pool that served to be the scary part, it was the fact that I was drowning in feelings. 

Again. 

When am I not? 

I swear to you when I was designed God took a massive detour from Human Girl plans, dialing back the hearing while he dialed up the emotions. As if the lack of one explains the other. 

Maybe it does. I can't hear you but I can feel you and yet I don't have the capacity to hold your emotions, somehow. My own feelings are too big as it is, sorry. Mine are huge. I'm superhuman and yet I'm subhuman because I can't function at the level that everyone else does, at the level I'm supposed to. 

Lochlan grins at my sleepy, drugged out face this morning. You're fine. Things just sometimes get overwhelming. I just didn't see this coming. 

You need a wife that's not defective. 

No, just one that doesn't toss out ridiculous, unfair suggestions like that one, just now. Who I need is who I got. And I love you. And it will get better. 

What if it gets worse?

We already had worse, Bridget. And someday, someday soon, I swear to you, the best day we ever have will be the worst one we remember. 

That's not how the proverb goes. 

It is now. I just changed it. 

You can do that? 

Like I said, I just did. We need to sober you up. You don't listen. And he laughed very gently, and kissed me on the tip of my nose and then I don't remember what happened after that because I fell asleep again. 

One for death and one for habit. One for Bridge, run like a rabbit.

The marks from Caleb's Breitling have faded, on me and on him. I think Lochlan's eroded them with his hands until my skin wore smooth once again. He brought it up last night and it set my brain off from where it's been so quiet, and then Caleb pushed a few more buttons in an effort to find his way back in.

He's already here inside my head, his words conjuring that other ache to bloom huge, obstructing everything with a shadow larger than my heart. One holding my soul captive. One keeping my brain broken.

Neamhchiontach. I miss you so. I want to hold you. I don't sleep without you. 

It's true. He always said his best vacations were in Las Vegas, because I would be with him and he slept like the dead. It used to be a flippant remark and now it just makes me wonder if Jake, if Cole is very well-rested now, as a ghost. If ghosts sleep hard and sleep in. If I could maybe stay asleep someday, instead of waking up at an errant breath or every invisible noise around.

Considering I can't hear much of anything, it's ironic and ridiculous.

And Caleb knew he was touching off the part of my head that goes running flat out toward him, the part that invokes the worst of the Stockholm Syndrome. The part that loves him. And because he is the monster, I'm safe. I'm safe and I'm loved and I'm kept from every last little stress and he won't hurt me (much) anymore. He's toughened me into a resilient fight-backer. A warrior. A suitable partner.

The thought sent me running when I couldn't take the noise, the ache, the feelings anymore. They said get away from them. They said don't wait.

Outside into the dark of night, across the lawn and I threw myself in the pool, pajamas and everything. Drown the thoughts, smother the feelings, turn them off, turn everything off, MAKE IT GO AWAY only there suddenly six people there, in the pool, bringing me up, pulling me out, shouting to each other, shouting to me but it's like sound underwater, choppy, muffled, unintelligible and then there he is standing nearby watching everything and he knows, and he's pleased and he turns away and walks off into the dark until it swallows him whole.

And he waits there for me.

"Can you get me across the ocean?" "No, but I know a guy." (Translation: GUESS WHO CAN SWIM?)

I got a hand on the head during the sermon this morning as Sam talked about learning to swim through the fear, how God will always be close when you feel like you're in over your head. He gave my noggin a quick squeeze and moved along and finally we could come home. My stomach growled the whole time and I was scared to death someone would hear it, especially in the brief silences while rising for hymns and introducing the collection plates. Schuyler burst out laughing more than once while we sang and imitated me the whole way home in the truck with high-pitched squealing almost-words like I'mmmmmmm HHHUUUNNNGRY! Feeed Meeeeeeeee!

I'm never riding with them again.

I'll wait for Sam, who didn't notice I was hungry but told me I was pale when he finally got home and that an hour after lunch I would have my swimming test.

My...what? 

Your swimming test. It's time. You've worked hard all summer, practicing and such and it's time to graduate. 

Seriously?!

Is it not a good day? 

Are you KIDDING? It's the best day! See you at two! 

Wonderful. I'll warn you, it will be challenging. 

I'm not worried. God will be close. 

He winked. I thought you were sleeping through that. 

I had my head down and my arms wrapped around myself for much of his service. No, I was trying to muffle the sounds of my stomach growling.

Ah. That explains a lot of the laughing going on. See you at two. 

At ten to two I was studying hard, practicing my strokes. At two I was tired. At ten after two he finally comes out to the pool and I am already done, collapsed into a chair. He has a big box with him.

What's in the box? I whisper-scream in my best imitation of Brad Pitt in Se7en.

Your graduation gift. If you pass. 

Eeeeee! I dive in to the pool and surface to wait for instruction. He wasn't kidding. Forty minutes later I am so done I can't lift my arms anymore and I want to cry but instead I start talking to God. God help me, I ask out loud.  I can't float any more. God, I'm so fucking tired. Could you take this one so I can sit it out? And Goddamn it, I don't think I care if I pass anymore, I need to sleep for a little while. Let's try again tomorrow, okay, God?

Sam is laughing as much as Schuyler was this morning and when I finally haul myself up the ladder we have an audience. Everyone claps and Ben wraps a towel around me as I pass him to throw myself on a chaise. I close my eyes and pretend to sleep.

Sam places the box on the deck beside the chaise and I open my eyes, squinting at him. Did I pass? 

Open the box. 

Please tell me it's a head. That would be cool. 

It's not a head. Sorry. Body parts that people would miss are hard to come by. 

What about parts they wouldn't miss. What would those be?

I have no idea. And yes, you passed. Easily, Bridget. Open the box. 

I sit up and open the box. It's a delicately intricate stained glass mermaid panel. She has a blonde chin-length bob and a freakishly small head. So I got a cool thing after all. She's already hanging up in the skinny window beside the kitchen hallway leading out to the backyard. The window that I complained needed something stained-glass, something custom, for the past six years at least.

Oh my God. It's ME! 

It's you. You're a full-fledged mermaid now. 

Guess I don't need God anymore, huh! 

You still need him. Trust me. That was just the first few levels. Now you can swim as well as any ten-year-old. Next summer we'll continue on to the teen program and see how you do. 

Way to rip away that confidence boost, Baby Preacher. 

Way to pretend you could get out of church any time soon, Goofball.