Update: music barely working. Wide awake though.

And I'm not seized in desperation
No steel reproaches on the table from before
But I still can feel those splinters of ice
I look through the eyes of a stranger
For rumours in the wake of such a lonely crowd
Trading in my shelter for danger
I'm changing my name just as the sun goes down
In the eyes of a stranger

I was eleven when this song came out. It's my favourite Duran Duran song, only edging out Lonely in Your Nightmare by a note or two, in all honesty, and I always looked forward to becoming an adult so that I would understand the words. Or what they mean. 

I still don't. 

Maybe the I'm still chasing after rainbows part. I get that. I don't know if that's what they meant but I get it. 

Hopefully right now I am between episodes of 'emotional torment'. Maybe that's a kind way to put it. Lot of people have been to talk to me. They're worried it's worse than they think. The boys are even more worried that I go from joking about Duran Duran songs on the internet to crying so hard I can't breathe. 

Oh, well, welcome. It veered a little too far into the psychotic lane this week though and that was scary because I didn't even recognize my own brain at that point and I usually can predict what the little fucker is going to do. All I know is one minute I was lying on the swinging bed in August's loft, enjoying the perfect quiet, perfect temperature, perfect lighting, perfect foreplay while he kissed along the inside of my knees and then I looked at him and he wasn't August anymore. 

And I couldn't get him to switch back. Usually it stops in a minute, or at least when August says something or I blink but this time it wouldn't stop and so I told Jake I needed something at home and I'd be right back and I came home and hid under the covers and told them I was tired and no one believed me and August was here twice ratting me out and pointing out the strange behaviour but when he walked in and I looked at him Jake was still there instead only it actually was Jake and I lost it again and he's standing there just like Jake talking about me and my behaviour and I am hyperventilating and none of them are noticing and then I fell asleep (drugged) shaking like a leaf and then I woke up and I couldn't figure anything out. 

Then more drugs. As always. Drugs will fix it. Drugs will make her act less scary. Drugs will make her too slow to run and too mute to scream and too weak to fight us off and fuck the fucking ghosts anyway, right?

I am blessed with a high metabolism for drugs though and my body fights those too, just into a dull background river of absolute pink noise and mild irritation at not being able to concentrate. Words are harder to find. To arrange. Ghosts get hard to see again. No one buys my explanations (all lies anyway) and all of them wonder at what point we need to switch to professionals at all hours. 

Never, he says, and I watch his curls fix in defiance. If you had all left her alone in the beginning none of this would have happened. 

We can't go back. Even the devil has regrets. He'll never get alone time now. Not with this level of medication where I can't feel pain but I can feel my heartbeat in my own fingerprint whorls. 

I laugh and they look at me, alarmed and then look back to each other. 

He should be gone. We got rid of him. 

She keeps him here. 

Where?

All around. 

We need to fix this. This gets harder every year. 

She can't move forward. She doesn't have the capacity. There's no emotional maturity to draw from. 

(I wonder why, Caleb? Why is she ten years old? Because that's where time stopped for her and all of this is just a book she reads over and over.)

 It's not going to get better. You all know this. This is the deal. This is where we're at, thanks to you and to Jake. This is it. Find a way to live with it that doesn't involve drugging her out of her fucking mind twice, since you know I've already done it, just to navigate a holiday. 

I can't listen to her scream. 

Me neither. 

I laugh again, pointing out if I had screamed the first time I was told not too, this probably wouldn't be happening right now and Caleb gets up and slams out the front door.

I woke up breathless, in panic. I can't breathe, can't get enough air, can't quiet my racing heart with both hands pressed against my chest as hard as I can until the ache begins in my right hand and I have to rest it down. 

In my dream it was so hot and I was feverish and in ruin. Jacob was sitting beside the bed, trying to smooth my bangs back and failing and he would chuckle gently every so often and sometimes he would pray, brimstone and flames all around and sometimes he just sat back with his eyes closed and I could study his face for as long as I wanted with no one there to check me in my guilt. Sometimes I slept and then I felt slightly better, fever breaking along with the dawn. 

Lochlan asks what I need and I try to shove him away with my bad hand, hearing the bones crack and slide like they're not supposed to but it's the least of my problems right now.

Ben is on his feet. Lights are on suddenly and they are pulling on shirts and jeans. I can hear steps coming up the stairs and down the hall and then the door is open and there's more lights and then flashing ones and I don't know who to listen to first and then there is a mask over my face and air blowing into my nose and I try and focus on that and a pinch in my arm and then they let go, pulling the band off, letting the fake euphoria flow into my veins to chase away everything else. Reason, sadness and dread grab their shit and run out the fucking door and I turn over on my cloud, curling up into a ball to sleep. A sleep that would last, unbroken, for the remains of the day.

The tone of his voice (something I can never hear but forever feel).

And though I know all about those men
Still I don't remember
'Cause it was us, baby, way before them
And we're still together

 

And I meant every word I said
When I said that I love you
I meant that I love you forever

 

I didn't stay at Dalton's. We watched There's Someone Inside Your House which was a pure rip of I Know What You Did Last Summer and ate our breakfast leisurely and then I was returned topside without preamble. God, Dalton has so much self-control. Had he not I would still be there, if only for the escape. Duncan wasn't home so I couldn't wreak any havoc at all and Lochlan was readily at the door when we came up, expression checked, pointing out I could come out with him while he fixes the patio heater, if I like. 

So cool he drips content, relief and punctuality all at the same time. I love him so much and I hate his guts too.

The stereo is on outside piped through the awning speakers stationed all around the house and he has his tool roll already out. REO Speedwagon. He is nothing if not the biggest romantic alive.

All of the patio things are packed away save for what's under the glass-topped pergola and he has rolled the heater over to the very edge of the dry square underneath. I step fifteen feet away as instructed a million years ago. Away from the danger.

In case it explodes? Or? 

No, I just need room to disassemble.

(Same.) Ah. 

That's funny though. 

His mollification is all over, coating us in a fine mist, or maybe that's the sudden heavier rain to keep our conversation private and our time out here alone together. 

If it does explode, I love you, Peanut. 

If it explodes and takes you, I'm going with you, Locket. 

He drops his screwdriver and gets up, crossing to me, taking me in his arms and kissing my forehead hard. I make a half-hearted twist with my hips, pretending to slow dance when I hear the music again and he pulls me out from under the cover into the rain, taking one hand in his, sliding his other arm around my waist. I rest my head against his chest, letting out a grateful sigh, one he matches as he puts his head against the top of mine. 

And as if by design the heavens open and it starts not raining hard, but freaking pouring. I feel his face turn up into a smile but he says nothing, making no moves to stop even as I can no longer hear the music for the deluge. He can, and so he can keep time for us, though we last far longer than the song could have.Every time I think I'm fucking up my life worse it turns out better than I could have ever hoped, honestly. I smile at the ghost behind the gazebo and he disappears, there all along.

Go away, I say out loud. 

But you just got here, Lochlan says, and he holds me even tighter.

Out (HALA HALA).

I should be getting ready for church but instead I got high with Dalton and we're watching Ateez videos and discussing Korean boy band fashion and fandoms. He had the good cinnamon rolls in his kitchen and the warm blankets on his bed. I'll be here for the rest of my life if anyone needs me. He has the patience of a saint and a mind more open than the rest of the boys combined sometimes.

Terror management theory (Neuroticism or Eroticism. You can pick).

Schuyler and I are trading lines from To The Moon & Back as it blasts through the house. The only people still sleeping are Henry and PJ and both have sound-proof wings, or so we discovered over the years as we make attempts to wake up various people with various songs they don't enjoy. 

Only it didn't work for either of them. Lucky.

Daniel is laughing, watching Schuyler be goofy. It's rare but so wonderful. They came over to make us a breakfast casserole recipe they found that they said was too good not to share, and we are spending time waiting for things to cook. Gage is all but howling at his brother and Ben is too or maybe that's my stomach growling. I can't really tell the difference with my ears. Daniel and Schuy are wearing matching tiger-eye stones on black cords around their necks. Protection. Courage. Interesting. 

I point to it. Why? 

Worth a shot. 

Worried about someone specific?

Schuyler stops dancing and singing. No? It could be from landslides. Or peat fires. He looks pointedly at me. Maybe you should get one. 

Do they work? 

Landslide didn't bring me down yet. 

Ooh. Put on Fleetwood Mac. 

Oh. Yes!

(This is why I always start with Truly, Madly, Deeply. They play it every year, as they also danced to it at their wedding ten years ago this month. Otherwise we won't get to it at all and it's the one that's most fun to sing with him.)

'Music therapy can improve functioning and reduce symptoms in patients with trauma exposure and PTSD'. Well, DUH.

The rain has softened the edges and I stepped too far, straining to catch a glimpse of my favourite ghost when I began to slide. I thought I would stop but I didn't, picking up speed, taking on passengers as I went until Lochlan came charging out of the dark, pulling me up to a safe ledge, putting headphones on me so I couldn't hear all the horrible screams coming from somewhere where she hides, away from the pain that reaches out to catch a glimpse of her whenever it can, and the music swelled and the screams were gone.

I guess they were coming from me but I didn't know until I had turned myself inside out just to hold on to the edge. Now I'm tethered by a fifty-foot coiled cord that connects me to the only thing that ever actually worked. From lying in the cold packed-up camper on an unmade cot as the leaves turned colour outside the tiny gravel-pocked window at sixteen years old listening to Blue Rodeo on Lochlan's (who's now twenty-one) black edition Sony Walkman, churning through batteries like oxygen to walking around the whole house with this stupid cord keeping me in proximity of the big stereo because I can hear every breath with a headset that costs the same as a small car and my little airpods pale to the point of translucency against.

Like a ghost. 

Almost see-through but you know he's there. You can feel it like your own heartbeat. A little out of rhythm but part of the landscape. A little cold and then warm. A little good and then so, so bad. 

How is he? 

Pretty good actually. Just one more white-knuckle round and then we are done. 

The hard part? 

Supposedly not but the labs have to come back and that's the part that's scaring me. Another month of waiting.

He's fine, Princess. I can see it from here. 

Now you're a fortune teller? 

No,there's an arrival board and he isn't on it. 

Am I? 

And that makes him angry and he's gone as quickly as he materialized and maybe he wasn't there and I hit my head when I fell in the hole. Like Ben. Who's time isn't up yet either and he didn't die last year but almost and almost is too much and I can't do this for anyone else. I can't. I can't.

If I reach up and slide a name that I don't know out the other end of the letter-track I can use those pieces and a few more, rearranging them to spell my own name. Like an airport but instead of digital it's all analog. Like me. Tactile. Present. Visible. Obvious.

It doesn't work that way! Christ, Piglet.

He's back. The warmth comes in but with it, betrayal. Anger. Hopelessness and a distinct, painful awareness that I would trade everything for him to take a breath and be whole. 

But would I? Only in those first moments when he makes himself known. The rest of the time the Bridget-rage marches on. It's 'complicated grief'. I laugh but they keep saying that. Oh, boy, is it ever. 

I tuck my hands under my arms and rock forward. The pain is real, unlike the man. Just remember, idiot, you never had a chance at a normal life. What made you think you did? I laugh to myself, a pell sound, a beautiful laugh that used to be charming before now, before I was older and afraid. Two things messed me up and I can never fix either of them and yet the two men who caused them won't even leave because now I won't. let. them. 

What are you doing?

Trying to make it hurt less. 

Does it work?

Music works. 

Then go listen to music. 

I WAS WHEN YOU GOT HERE. I rip off the headphones and I throw them at him and the screaming starts up again and briefly I wonder if he's the one screaming but then Lochlan comes rushing back in, picks up the headphones and crosses the room to me, pulling me in under his chin, kissing the top of my head, rocking me gently in place. 

Find a song we should have scrubbed? 

Yeah, I lie, pushing my face into his shirt until I can't breathe anymore.

Fragile Miss Bitch.

Your hair is so long. I didn't realize. Forgive me, let me take this off.

My hair is just past my chin and his Breitling got caught in it. It's been a long time since that's happened. He put his hand around the back of my head to pull me up for a kiss and I squealed when he went to let go and he took a good sized wisp of my hair with him. 

It'll grow back. Fuck it. That's not the important part here. 

The important part is that he behaved, and I didn't leave and I slept with my hands curled in to my heart, my arms between us, head tucked down, his arms around me holding me close and so I didn't hear him when he actually told me to leave and so today, well, today the villain is Bridget, not Caleb. 

It's fine. I earned it. It'll blow over. Between the hearing impairment and broken wing Lochlan doesn't stand up to me. He hates it but it will never be my fault until they hold him down and make him understand that it is, and even then he'll doubt them all the while giving me that benefit and is it fair? No. Is it inevitable? Of course. He said I could have a boyfriend and I picked the worst one I could find, as a test. Well, Lochlan's still here and it's been forever. 

(Maybe I can trust him now?

No. Too soon.)

He laughs, incredulous. Do I need to look for bitemarks? 

There aren't any. He was kind. 

It sucks that I'm reduced to being grateful for that. Why the fuck didn't you stay put? 

But curiosity kills Bridget and I wanted to see for myself what kind of mood Caleb was in, and so I followed him down the hall, brandy in hand and learned the truth about him for the day. Today might be different because he was up and gone early, driving to the area of town where he parks and goes for a long run before getting coffee and returning to the point. He says if he doesn't get out of the house at least four times a week he gets the crazies. 

Which explains everything about me. Except I also left the house this morning, after a long hot shower to soothe the razor burn all over my skin and the remove the aftershave smell. Then Ben scowled at me, having slept alone with Lochlan, and we went grocery shopping. I bought a thousand mini Halloween chocolate chocolate bars for a hundred and sixty bucks. They'll be gone by Friday in this house. 

Sweetness is my absolution, courage my ever-elusive muse.

 Oh, great. George aches when it's cold and rainy.

Ruby Woo wasn't blue enough, even for me.

I should have gotten the Russian Red instead when I bought my last (Mac, we like em dry) lipstick and I walked past a Sephora on the weekend but we were going to get Lochlan a new ipad and so we kept walking and then today I remembered. 

Lochlan put the Ruby Woo on my lips for me- 

 (A small aside here: This gave me a bizarre jolt of PTSD from when he put makeup on me to make me look older so we wouldn't be questioned on the road, when I was eleven years old. He has already passed the lipstick task off to Ben saying that he figures Ben can do a better job and we didn't speak of it but I know he felt it too and that was weird and it's one of the reasons I don't wear makeup now. Well, I love lipstick and mascara but I won't wear the rest of it and a seventeen-year-old boy was doing a full face on me as best he could because that's how to blend in.  

That's what we do to stay out of trouble. You have a disguise. Okay, Bridgie? 

Yes, Locket.)

-since my left handedness is not all that capable and then I shrugged into a warm knit dress and we went and had a wonderful dinner next door. Came home late, drunk and full and fell into bed and had I known the Aurora Borealis would be visible here last night I might have struggled to stay awake but we didn't know and didn't stay awake and I'm just happy I've seen them before and I also found an app that will send forecasts to my phone from now on. 

We are also, thanks to the weekend, halfway through Squid Game. 

It's very good. It doesn't have the slick strangeness of Alice in Borderland but I liked this one from the first frame, whereas it took me forever to get into AIB.

 But now the long weekend is over and Halloween is coming on its freight train and I have my days cleared completely in order to not-actually-lipstick-shop and to actually sew a hole I can crawl into and then pull up over my head. It was fun while it lasted. We have so many leftovers that the boys next door gave us we'll be having hot turkey sandwiches tonight. We have plans for the future that don't include slowing to a miserable crawl every time the weather turns so cold but oh look, here we are.

On with it, already.

 

If only (getting those lyrics NAILED, guys. Poor Lochlan).

But you were history with the slamming of the door
And I made myself so strong again somehow
And I never wasted any of my time on you since then

I got the out from Christian this morning. Loch got up early and left to go hang out with August. Caleb was sent away by PJ early last evening and Ben just stared at me most of the rest of the night while Lochlan got much-needed sleep. 

Christian came over, sat on the edge of the bed, and told me they were hosting Thanksgiving today. That turkey and stuffing and gravy and mashed potatoes and maybe even a pumpkin pie or five will be at their house at four this afternoon and that if I would like to make an appearance there will be a chair with my name on it, and that if I'm not there by ten after, my chair will be removed and Schuyler will most likely eat everything. 

Or Ben. I laugh but it comes out weird. 

You gotta live, B. Don't let him continue to take this from you. 

I nod. It's a pointless conversation and I've had it a hundred thousand times. It doesn't matter. I don't know what's wrong with me but he said I was enough and then suddenly I wasn't. Suddenly I was so lacking that it was better to fly to Heaven then to struggle, like this. I forgave him. I understand and then when it's cold or I'm tired or I think too hard I don't understand at all. 

Christian leans down until he is holding me in his arms, head pressed against mine. But PUMPKIN PIE, he implores and I finally laugh for real, shaking both of us gently. He pulls back and smiles. 

Promise me you'll come. We're going to light the good candles and everything. Everyone's going to be there. Table is set for eighteen. 

Wow, that's a feat. 

You do it. 

I'm used to it. 

We'll get used to it. 

Actually?

Both tables. And the island. 

Okay, there's a use for open concept. 

Exactly. Let us treat you. Come and sit and mix your pills with alcohol. And eat something, for once. You're just bones. 

It's Halloween. Just trying to blend in.  

Stop trying, Bridget. It will never happen. Not with you.