(I wrote this all down last night.)
Post-teenage-birthday, post-mind-implosion, post-shock at Lochlan's refusal to even discuss the issue of paying him back for his coverage of our bills through Christmas. It isn't his bill to pay, you see, we invited him to be here with us. I have great and terrible plans to verbally hash everything out with him tomorrow but for tonight there's a single tiny votive candle on the table, two untouched brandy snifters on each side and a flat refusal to accommodate any more guests, former housemates or FOJ on the point, no exceptions.
(FOJ= Friends of Jake. Funny how that never applies when Joel shows his unwelcome face around here.)
I stare down the Devil with my eyes and he returns my gaze so wearily I wonder why he even bothered to pick this fight at eleven at night when August has already crashed out and everyone else has scattered to the four corners to do that late night reading/brainstorming/unwinding thing they do. I have no plans to wake him and make him leave until he's good and ready, for in my mind he's been nothing but an absolute godsend to me in the months and years since flight. I understand Caleb's desires to not add anyone but in my mind that doesn't include ostracizing someone's who's left but then come back.
That was an awkward way to phrase it but I'm tired.
I don't want any brandy.
I just want to go stare at my sleeping daughter and marvel that she is as old and wise as she is at an age where I thought I was most certainly doomed, jaded and ruined already.
Little did I know.
And now here comes Lochlan's birthday next.
Okay, I want some brandy now.
Satan's mood lifts as he sees me drinking from the glass. Good. Confirmation that he poisoned my glass and not his since he knows sometimes I switch them if he leaves the room. He doesn't look like he's going anywhere and I'm not going to debate this so I dump the remainder of my brandy into his glass and stand up.
You know what? August isn't staying anyway. Wishful thinking and reality are two different planets and I promised to keep my orbit free of anyone who ever had a hope in hell of crawling out from under my weight. I'm just going to enjoy him while he's here and then kiss him goodbye. And then everyone will be fucking happy and right and vindicated. Goodnight.
