(A very vivid dream, but a dream nonetheless. Dalton said it was 'just a dream' which reduced it to manageable for me. If it's only a dream I can control it. Right? What do you mean, no?)
It took him forever and a day to open my hands. In one was a broken lock, the inside of the tiny door handle, the mechanisms that failed. In the other was everything else, the air removed, sealed into a tiny package. I can add water later and it will grow back to normal. It took even longer for me to open my eyes, I had squeezed them shut tight against the lies and promises, against the epic block of time I would never get back again. Life is over before it's even begun, that's what this sign says, while the one up ahead says Hell: Next Exit.
We get off here, sweetheart.
He smiled when he said it, arm resting on the door sill, aviators in place, hair ruffling in the breeze.
I didn't even want to come here. I sit back and cross my arms. It's a momentary lapse, this outward petulance. I resume the vacant stare out the window. I've been subsisting on panic and silence. Neither contains enough fuel to see me through. I know the platitudes involve things like keeping my strength up and looking after myself but somehow that just happens and I'll have nothing to do with it. I can stand here on the side of the road and watch as I drive past and wave only I don't know where I'm going. I don't know what the directions mean or what hell even looks like. This is not the roadtrip I planned. This is not the life I lead. This was not how things are supposed to be.
Pull over, I tell him. It's not a request, it's an order so he does when he sees the panic in my eyes and I rush out the door, almost tripping in the dry tall grass on the shoulder and I bend over, automatically pulling my hair back with one hand. He comes around and puts his hands on my shoulders and I wait for the retching but it doesn't come. Why is my head spinning? My stomach is empty and he knows that so he yanks me back up to face him.
You lied, Bridget.
I nod. I'm not going to verbalize anything. I no longer care. I'm the passenger. This is not my trip.
Why did you lie?
Silence again. What am I supposed to tell him, that I thought I could pull it off? That I thought I could eat the cake, that I thought everything would work out, that I like to torture myself because I've never felt worthy of any more than that? Fuck him. He doesn't deserve an answer any more than I deserve to know the reason I'm here in the first place. A few words on a page and complete and total invisibility besides.
He forces me back into the car, buckling the seatbelt around me, frowning at my obsolescence.
This is not a reason, it's a minimum at best, a tangent. A will to persevere in spite of nothing. Some will say it wasn't for nothing but that's a lie too and I see right through it. We drive through it and it spreads and dissipates onto the wind.
He takes the turn too fast but nothing happens. The car drives like it's on a rail. He smiles.
Almost home, Bridget. Then we can rest.
I've been here before. It hasn't changed a bit. It's exactly like I remember it and at the same time I have no memory of this at all.
This isn't my home.
Everyone feels like that at first. Just give it ti-
We need to turn around! I shout it and scare myself but Caleb just smiles.
Give it time, beautiful. All of this belongs to you now.
