Delusions. I must have them. Who am I kidding? We're not equals, Jacob and I. Not in the least.
He leads, I follow. Happily, I might add.
I started today like I start so many days. Figuratively standing behind him clutching his hand, eyes cast down, letting him be stronger because it's easier to be led. He makes it easy for me to let go and just be myself, that girl I'm finding I sort of like, though she's still a little difficult to coax out of her sullenness, she takes time to warm up.
Just don't push her too much. Oh, and she's still easily startled. Things you need to remember.
Which Ben did on Saturday, and he's no longer welcome here.
Shortly after I wrote in my journal Jacob and I made a late dinner. Quietly, resolutely we ate together. The suffocating disappointment of Friday's outcome still hanging over our heads made things tense, an unwelcome feeling for me now. Halfway through the meal I looked up only to discover Jacob was sitting there making silly faces at me. I laughed so hard. We made up. Okay, not exactly true. We made up in his dining room chair in various states of undress because going upstairs would have taken too long.
Here's where I point out when he was unzipping my dress he heard a creak. I told him it must be the cat. We continued on. That chair was fun.
Until we decided to return from heaven and we both saw Ben standing in the doorway watching us. Leaning in the doorway, because he had been standing there for a good ten minutes taking in the flesh-for-fantasy lottery. He struck Bridget gold. He saw everything. All of it.
Most people would have been embarrassed and left hastily. Ben? He stayed to watch the show. Which pretty much destroyed the already shaky ground he occupied in Jacob's good graces, because Jake hated the offhand comments Ben would make at any given opportunity. Or the lingering looks if my strap slid or the wind swirled my skirt. Jake always said that Cole and Ben were likeminded individuals.
Ugh.
So Ben was sent outside, and then kicked out of Bridget's army for good. Or at least for a long while. I'm summarily creeped out by his actions and now is not the time to ask me to swallow his temporary madness. I'm too fragile for that. I'm too fragile to even acknowledge that one of my friends thought it was terrific to watch me get...no, I can't. I have a cold feeling in the pit of my stomach.
So Ben is out. For good. Jacob doesn't want him around. I don't want him around. I don't care what his excuses are or his reasons. They can't possibly be good enough to justify the extreme breeching of our privacy, dining room or not. The back door was locked. He had a key because he was returning my car that I had let him borrow, thinking he would return it on Sunday morning, not at 10:30 Saturday night.
So with that I go back to deferring to Jacob. No more creeps, no more surprises, no more judging character so poorly and ignoring cues, refusing to believe in motives I still can't believe people harbor. For real. For me. I can live with your weaknesses, just don't betray me so magnificently. Please.
He sees and hears things I won't and can't. And that is exactly what I need.
