A Caleb, a coffee, a crow.

What's happening this morning?

Reading about parallel lives.

And?

I am the female Steve McQueen. Partially deaf, abused as a kid, ran away to join the circus, dropping out of life to tour the country in camper vans, playing pranks on my friends, turning down roles etc. 

Anything else?

Yes, I'm best friends with Bruce Lee, supposedly. 

Name one of his movies. 

Lee or McQueen?

Well, Lee, obviously. No one's going to quiz you on McQueen movies. 

Better they don't. Um..Ah. Dragon. 

Enter the Dragon. 

Okay. 

You're funny, Bridget. 

No, I just love old movie actors. Remember my Ingrid Bergman phase? 

Yup. 

Saw everything she ever made. 

And what was your favorite?

Gaslight. And I'm not being facetious. 

He doesn't believe me, but that's okay. I have to go to IKEA and I don't have time for this.

Here's exactly why this happens.

(Here's a little holiday story about living in what I've come to call The Province That Hated Books. Our libraries have NOTHING. Our bookstores have LESS. Holy shit take me back to, well, any of the other provinces.)

I have a huge list of regular mass market paperbacks on various Christmas lists and since our Chapters store is a little weird in that they never have the books I want but instead seven hundred thousand copies of the latest political biography I figured I would order online.

I picked the smallest of my local bookstores to try first, Book Warehouse. I'd rather support local if I can, even if going into the actual brick and mortar shop, they have nothing. I find everything on my list and quick realize all of it is marked 'special order' or 'may be hard to find' and they couldn't guarantee access to any of it in the next month and a half.

Fine. I head to Indigo.ca. They let me choose everything. I use a coupon and it's all in stock, even items that haven't been released yet (interesting), and everything is going smashingly until I try to pay. Paypal? Failed. Credit card? Failed. Black card? Failed.

LOL

I try Chrome (which oddly enough plucks my paypal password out of thin fucking air, since I don't save passwords, so a note to figure that out later) and still nothing. I wait a day and contact their live chat, who ask if I've tried Internet Explorer (WHAT), tells me to refresh the page (seriously) and then it should totally work. If not to wait an hour and try then, the website will be fixed.

No, did and it definitely wasn't.

For fucks sakes. This is why people shop on Amazon. Even though I *just* got an order from Amazon this morning (Ben ordered something), delivered by a random man who popped out of a mustang parked sideways in my driveway with his hood up. Had he not been holding my amazon box I would have been a little concerned. So the thought of ordering again leaves me a little cold, just based on the professionality (okay so apparently that's not a word unless you're Scottish which explains why I know it) of the delivery...uh service they chose.

But I guess I have to go with hoodie guy, or no one's getting anything to read this Christmas.

In other news, I'm not panicking at ALL so far this season on how behind I already feel with my shopping.

(Update: Amazon let me ship it all to the post office. Sorry hoodie guy.)

The most wonderful gay of the year.

(Fun fact: When I look at Lochlan, seventeen-year-old me plays Def Leppard ballads at top volume inside my brain. Secretly he LOVES that.)

I don't wanna touch you too much baby
'Cause making love to you might drive me crazy

I got some sleep. Schuyler and Daniel took over operations here at Bridget Corp., inviting us over for Christmas movies and champagne in bed, taking matters into their own hands, as they sometimes do when they find out we're struggling.

(I love it when they host sleepovers. Get an invite to one of those and your social circle is solid gold.)

We happily accepted. Those two are cheese personified, and generous to a fault, sharing their massive bed and their big new TV, wallmounted so it's visible from everywhere. And it's always on, always playing something exciting like a romantic comedy or a documentary on saving the planet.

I think Lochlan had exactly one glass of champagne, poured half full and he was out like a light. I don't know how much longer I followed after him. I just know he was warm and Schuyler was warm and I woke up at five and Lochlan was gone and I was on the edge, Schuyler having gone around the other side to crawl in beside Daniel. They were still asleep so I left as quietly as I could, locking the house on my way out and checking for bears before I make my way down the path.

I could see Lochlan sitting in a patio chair waiting for me. His silhouette is easily recognizable (it's the long flowing curls, Jesus, they're beautiful) plus I knew he'd be around here somewhere as he's not one to allow me to venture anywhere alone, whether on the property or not.

I figured you wouldn't be far behind.

Did you get any rest though?

I think I got up ten whole minutes before you. Maybe I woke you when I left.

Or just admit our brains are fused now. The drift compatibility is complete. 

Yeah. He laughs and I start shivering. It's hovering around zero and if he wasn't walking fire he would be cold too. Let's go up and sleep for another hour. No movies though. Those were bad. 

Those were amazing. 

So fake and predictable. Girl has difficulty in the big city, girl moves back, meets hometown guy and falls in love and lives happily ever after. That doesn't happen. It's wishful thinking.

It is wishful thinking. That's what everyone wants. 

To have difficulty and have to move home?

No, to fall in love with a nice guy who's totally adorable and live happily ever after. 

Ah. Sorry to fuck up your plans then on the adorable part.

But you didn't! I grin at him and he figures it out, grinning wide right back at me in the dark.

Permission to rival the nearest airport.

I still woke up every hour on the hour, or so it seemed but every time I did, Caleb had his arm locked around my shoulder, holding me close against his chest, his chin against the top of my head. I would jolt, he would tighten his hold and eventually my heartbeat would slow to match him once again and I would drift off in the quiet dark.

When I got up this morning I still lamented the lack of meaningful sleep but he noted rest counts, at least for my body if not my mind, and that today will be better and I'll probably sleep tonight. Then he took the spoils of daybreak and I was left wanting nothing as I stepped out of his room and made my way back to my own rooms to start my day.

A hot shower, a different choice of perfume, my cross back around my neck from where it was in a little dish on the shelf and I let my hair dry by itself so it will go wavy and crazy instead of straight today. Straight feels heavy. I don't like the way anything feels. My skin is so sensitive you can breathe on it from two provinces away and I'll get hives or a rash. It's dumb but that's life.

(It's not the perfume, I promise. I put one drop of that in my bellybutton and one drop behind each knee. Otherwise I...get hives and rashes.)

Lochlan is downstairs reading. Home today. Tired, more than a little. Drinking his second cup of coffee of the day, which he hands over to me like it's ransom paid to achieve morning.

You okay, Peanut?

Restless night. I keep waking up. 

We'll fix it tonight. But you good? 

I'm fine. Better than usual, even. 

Satisfied I won't turn sideways revealing massive bite marks where my intact profile once was he goes back to reading. I give him back his coffee and make my own.

Is it time to decorate for Christmas? He says it out of the blue.

Oooh! Can we turn the lights on tonight? 

He nods. They've been up all year anyway, no point in taking them down but every night when it gets dark my hand hovers over the switch and so so badly do I want to fire them up but I don't.

YES. 

Then will you sleep, Neamhchiontach?

The nickname startles me slightly but I don't react so that he notices. I hope so. 

I think you will. The lights are like a comfort to you. 

Then why don't we leave them on all year around?

Then it wouldn't be special. 

Clockwork.

I didn't sleep last night, waking up constantly, Lochlan's elbow in my face, Ben's cold hands around my shoulder, the blankets ripped down to the floor, mostly. So cold. So uncomfortable. They sleep so easily. I'm sick with envy. My mind races ahead from one sunset to the next sunrise, afraid of the dark, afraid of everything.

Everyone is up and off early. Lochlan and Schuyler have meetings. Duncan has a meeting (still sober!) Sam has work to do. Dalton is still asleep. PJ is up and ready to get the day underway. We ran out of milk and cookies yesterday so there's a push to grocery shop and yet I am quicksand. I can't seem to get going. I feel like the world is caving in but everything is bright and fine. I wonder if it's a sign. I wonder if it's just me. I can't picture doing anything save for running back to bed, jumping in and yanking the covers up over my head, letting them find me later.

But I don't. I send Christian a text instead.

Why are mornings hard?

Just because it's dark. Get ready, get moving and you'll be OK. 

He's right. I know he's right. I leave my phone on the dresser and go have a shower, taking extra time to shave my legs (I never do this), underarms (okay, a little more often but not enough), stand underneath the hot spray for a few moments and gather my thoughts toward a different direction. I dry my hair out straight and choose a perfume. I spray my tongue with Rescue Remedy. I brush my teeth and leave the bathroom, getting dressed. All my jewelry hurts today. I don't like any of my clothes. I find something black, leggings and a long shirt. Passable. Add an enamel ring and my favorite bracelet. Lipstick. Okay. So far so good. I can turn my brain down just a little.

I can do this.

I manage to get outside and get all of my errands run even though my mind seems to scream the entire time. Distracting. Too many people. The lights are too bright. The traffic is too heavy. People are in my way. Lochlan isn't here. He makes things so easy.

And then I'm home again. It's okay. Everything's ok. I put away my purchases and finish up some chores. I find Henry and see what he has planned. I talk to Ruth who is already at school and I get a message from Sam asking if I can help plan a little Christmas dinner for the church staff. I take a deep breath, make a coffee and get busy.

A kiss lands on my shoulder as I make notes after hanging up my phone.

You okay, Bridget? I turn my head, looking up into Caleb's blue eyes. My safe space became a dangerous one years ago but I still even out my heartbeats without thinking when he's around.

I lose my thread of composure completely. No, not really. 

He sits down on the floor beside my chair, pulling me into his arms. It would be comical if it wasn't so kind. Tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it. 

I just feel awful. 

Last week was a tough one and you worked hard. You're probably exhausted. 

I nod and the tears just start to roll. Soon we're up to our necks and he finally stands up, bringing me with him. I'll take something tonight so I can sleep, I promise but I don't know if I'm making it to him or myself.

Come and stay with me for a night, I'll fight off your demons so you can sleep for a while. Before he's finished talking I'm nodding eagerly. He smiles. I'll let Lochlan know so there are no surprises.

Okay. 

It'll be okay, Bridget. 

Hope you're right because this is almost worse.

Oh my heck. WHY.

In a completely unexpected twist this Remembrance day Monday, I received a random dick photo in my email. I don't believe I like surprises like that. It wasn't from anyone I know. I guess a reader? The boys don't do that sort of thing so it was dismaying to say what is...wait, is that? What the fuck..and go through all of the stages of surprise to discover yes, it's someone's penis right there on my screen.

I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. Can I report this? Unwanted nude photos? Is it spam? I mean, it looks like spam. Pink and...compact and not very good. I forwarded it to Schuyler for advice with all caps warnings and he passed it around the point, collating a fine and hilarious list of unkind reviews. If whoever owns that was here in person they might have burst into flames for the level of humiliation in absentia the boys have levelled on someone they don't even know.

Before you decide we're mean, remember I didn't ask for that photo. I don't want your intimate pictures. I don't know you. And as I said, we don't do that kind of thing. We're not twelve or even twenty and sending nude pictures on the internet is asking for trouble.  Just ask the guy who sent me this one.

My policy was always if I wanted and deserved to see someone without their clothes on I can just go and ask. No one's turned me down yet.

Christ. This is why I don't like the internet.

Spiritual frost.

This Sunday morning in particular, Sam took PJ and Ben out for an early breakfast and then straight to church, where we joined them for a quiet memorial-type service, everyone in black, everyone with poppies. No one with coffee today, as we had church on the beach and really the only caveat is that you bring a warm coat, an umbrella and boots because the sand is messy. PJ led the hymns, an honor Sam rarely deploys to anyone but used to follow Jacob's lead in picking the person who seemed to need the most God that week from his observation. PJ didn't mind and did it with enthusiasm. Especially ending with Amazing Grace, a number Ben brought his bagpipes out for, a sound that reverberates right through my bones and into my brain in the best way possible.

I was impressed, anyway. I may also never be warm again, antsy as I held both the hands of Lochlan and Caleb, bounced on my toes, leaned against one and then the other, wishing I had worn the proper gear but opted for waterproofness over warmth.

I was not a distraction though.

Now we're home and I have Ben's hoodie on over my church clothes and we are plotting Japanese food for lunch which is fine by me, I'm excited. I did the laundry quickly and I'm ready and somehow I'm stuck waiting for everyone else. I feel good right now. I had eight hours sleep. I didn't wake up, didn't leave the bed, didn't wish for ghosts or see them anyway and I want to get on with the day before I fall in the hole I can see from here.

If monsters are real then the ghosts are too.

We've gone over Lochlan's Christmas list for what he would like to see me fix and as it turns out the only really significant things are less love for the Devil and less pedestrian, every-day ghost sightings.

Those are the only times he worries that I might have truly lost it, when he remembers that I am still indulging in a fucked-up romantic and sexual relationship with the person who abused me throughout my childhood (and beyond) and I talk to Jacob like he's still here (because he is) and let's face it, even that one makes me worry just a little bit, as I always feel like I'm one short conversation with him away from returning to that stupid place where I sat in a room that contained nothing I could use to end my days and spoke very little until I realized if I talked maybe they'd let me come home and so I did and here I am. Also a huge memory is that the sheets were so rough they gave me hives and no one seemed interested in my sensitive skin issues at all. I recall being the source of amusement when I asked for organic sheets and sensitive skin bandaids but when the hives came they just added benadryl to my cocktail of drugs and then I talked even less because all I wanted to do was sleep and-

*deep breath*

Why the FUCK am I telling you this? It's just a memory, just a thought. I can put the ghost away but he is stubborn and stuck, just like the rest of us.

Joel wants me to address other things, and not with him. He is subjective. I don't listen to him. But he has connections.

So do I, says the Devil, as he lifts my dress over my head. He plays his own advocate for brownie points here in the dark. Lochlan just wants you to be strong, he reminds me. These are things I know.

I'm not fixing it if it ain't broken, I whisper into his mouth.

I think he'd like things to be less intense with everyone else and more intense with him-

If we get any more intense we'll just burst into flames-

He wants the kind of love you had with Jake. The usage of past tense makes me cold.

We DO-

No, you don't. He's worked his whole life for this and you didn't mourn him as he left you, you simply moved on. 

He's alive, Diabhal. Jake isn't coming back. If he had just left it would have been the same. I would have been happy for his happiness. He had moved on and I would as well. And that's what Lochlan and I did. 

Then how does having Dalton, Duncan and PJ in your bed make you feel better?

That was Lochlan's idea- (Caleb forgot Ben, Sam and August, which I found so interesting but also none of your you-know-what).


Grand gestures to keep you happy, Neamhchiontach. Like roomfuls of roses or hot air balloons-

DON'T. 

See what I mean? His hand is warm against my back but I am stiff and cold now. The moment has passed and it's not going to come back around. The love isn't the same incredible crushing romance you and Jacob shared. This is more like routine-

That isn't fair. Lochlan is the one constant of my entire life. I would die for him. 

Maybe he needs to know that. Then as an aside, please tell him it was my idea and perhaps he'll resent me less. If the worst thing I represent in your life is a clean, safe, financially sound way to indulge your issues then he should be grateful. 

Since when are you safe? I smile at him in the dark, into his soul, through his lips, apart only a little. I love these conversations with him when we are nose to nose.

He returns my smile, eyes flashing dark blue. As long as you keep a little of that stubborn, twisted streak for me, Bridget, I'll be whatever you want.

Turn black, drop off.

Is that my post today? I don't know. Maybe. Does it matter? Do you want to know that my hair grew last night while I slept? Or that I cut my finger rather badly chopping onions (it's always onions, and no, I don't cry when I cut them -onions, not fingers, I mean) and the bleeding didn't stop for like two hours and finally Sam took over and sat on me for twenty minutes holding a towel around my finger and finally it stopped but only when I stopped. I made a joke about my blood stopping and then my heart and all I had to do was not move and I could finally die and earned myself a trip to the library to talk to Joel about my gallows humor and how I'm not allowed to indulge in it forever and ever, amen.

Joel's being a total asshole. Just thought I'd mention that. Can he leave now?  

No, Lochlan says. I indulged you. Now it's your turn to indulge me. 

(God, give this one WHATEVER HE WANTS.)

I wait with a smile and a bandaid, wrapped far too tightly around my finger.

He takes me in close, lips against my forehead, hands on my face and tells me we have to do more. That we need to make this easier, somehow. That it's time I resume the hard work and leave the play for a bit. It hurts worse than the knife and each word slows my heartbeat down until I'm standing there dead.

We tried that-

There are some things we could do, Peanut. He says it so gently. So hopefully.

It's broken-

I know-

Not my heart, well, my heart too, but my head-

Bridget, don't say that. 

It's true. Maybe you should move on. Go back to the living and leave me with the dead. 

I made that mistake once already, Peanut. I'm not making it again. Go talk to the asshole. I'll be in with you in a bit. He turns me around and gives me a gentle shove in Joel's direction. Fine. But I may just listen and not talk. Talking rarely gets me anywhere.

Yeah, right, Jake says from his place leaning against the wall, laughing.

Hush, you.

It's appropriate behavior if I drown Joel out with Christmas music, right?