Sacrilege.

Low?
I'm on empty
Try to erase all the bad times
Free?
I don't seem to be
My soul remains tied to your life
Every breath you breathe deep
I feel you circulating through me

This morning Lochlan and I had a shoving match in front of the stereo.

Because I am fourteen forever with him and because he tends to forget that it's my house.

I wanted to put Godsmack on and all he ever seems to play anymore is Pink Floyd. I have something wrong with my brain, okay? If I don't want to hear something I physically can't listen to it. It frustrates me and I tried to push him out of the way and picking a fight with someone bigger than me is never a great plan (I only come up to his shoulder).

He is not above shoving back, and I sat on the couch hard.

We both looked startled. Like we both woke up suddenly and said what the hell are we doing?

Oh, wait, no, he said that out loud.

I waited. Lochlan usually answers his own questions. He never required a witness for a good honest conversation.

There's too much pressure, he says. How can you live like this? How can he be worth this, Bridgie? Why would you continue to put yourself through all of this. You think he cares? I don't think he understands the weight of this on you. He can't. Can he?

I waited some more. Maybe he was finished and I could play my songs.

Nope.

Ten minutes go by and he's still talking but I stopped listening because his fears don't have room in my head anymore. His selfishness is a thorn in my side and I wrap my arms around myself and rub absently at the sore spot on a daily basis. It won't heal. It hurts when I stretch. It aches when I'm cold.

You don't hear me anyway. He drops it like a challenge, lead weight on my bare knees, grinding my stilettos into the turkish rug on the living room floor and I'm pinned by his verbal expectations suddenly, brutally. That face that I've known my whole life contracted in vexation. He rarely looks any other way anymore. Lochlan is settling into a frame of mind as life goes on that really surprises me.

And we're supposed to leave for church soon. Penance on Sunday mornings prior to leaving is to play Mistakes and Changes and then I have something to sooth my brainwaves while I listen to Sam's words and give Ruth the Eye of Doom when she starts whispering really loud to Lochlan about something random.

I hear you, I finally said. I hear every word you've ever said. I smooth the front of my dress absently and the tears begin, and the fluttering hands, because teenagers are so mature, and the salt from them dissolves the weight he dropped on my lap and I'm suddenly light and graceless once more. I check my watch and the mother of pearl dial tells me we're running out of time to do this shit first thing on a Sunday morning when all of our friends are waiting for us.

No, I don't feel a thing
Life is going by me
And still I say, oh god
I'm making the same mistakes

He reaches out with one hand to try and hold on to me, suddenly overcome with the regret I wish he would have unloaded twenty-four years ago so I don't have to live within it now and I walk right out of his embrace.

Come on, Lochlan, we're going to be late.