He turns me away from him and pulls me in tightly against his chest. My back is so warm this way and I stop shivering. My heart dislodges and pins itself against my spine, a magnetic pull forcing it there against Lochlan's heart, which has thrown itself against his ribcage and strains to get out. It hurts, almost but not quite.
When I sleep I dream that I figured out how to draw with colored pencils and I'm trying to balance on the wire. I wake up laughing. Weird dreams. I haven't moved, but Loch's right shoulder is pushed forward and down, crushing me down into the bed underneath him so and I have to push against him in order to breathe.
I don't think he minds.
I have finished NOS482 and Allegiant (!!!!!!!!!) and am back to reading Doctor Sleep. I keep picking up my phone to text Ben but then I put it down without doing anything. I still cough constantly and am trying to drink my body weight in water which isn't going well and I feel dehydrated and frustrated and hysterical and penned in. Andrew yelled at me once to go back to bed once already this morning. I ignored him.
I feel peaceful when I think about my ghosts though, down to checking my brain to make sure all of my memories are organized and easily accessible.
Once I lost Jacob's voice and I almost turned myself inside out looking for that one before I found it hiding behind the one of Bailey locking me in the basement bathroom with her while she played movies with her Fisher Price projector on the back of the bathroom door. Peter Pan. And then when I was released I promptly ran outside and start screaming Pirates! Pirates! at Andrew, who fell in beside me, trusting every word I yelled because we were both four years old with magnificent vocabularies and an inability to count past ten.
Where are they?
Everywhere! Don't you see them? I was kidnapped and managed to escape but they said they will never rest until I am recaptured!
Quick! Let's get under the deck! They won't find us!
Good plan!
We crawled under his parent's back porch on our stomachs and waited, keeping guard.
Do you see them?
SHHHHHHHHH!
He claps his muddy hand over my mouth and holds it there. My eyes are wide. Finally after counting to fifty by whispering ...seven, eight, thirteen, teen, teen, twenty, fifty!, we crawl back out and assure ourselves they're gone.
Phew. That was close.
That night I dream that I am eating crayons and trying to balance on a board. I tell Andrew the next day and he says, That means you're going to meet a pirate in real life! He won't be clear about it but he's going to steal you when the time is right and you will never go back to being Bridget the regular kid ever again!
How do you know?
It's what they do!
How will I know who the pirate is?
Easy, stupid! He takes your heart first and then comes back for the rest when the coast is clear!
How will I know when the coast is clear?
Nothing will be in the way!
But what about the crayons?
Pirates don't color, Bridget! They're big people. All they do is steal things.
But if those things are worth money then I want to be a pirate!
Is your heart worth money?
It's worth more than all the gold in the land. In the world even.
What's it made out of?
Me. It's made out of me.
