(I don't want to talk about yesterday, the two things actually cancel each other out, and my heart isn't in either, frankly so whatever. Call it filler, it makes no difference to me, I'd rather just keep steamrolling forward in the way that I do. It's neither interesting nor relevant but I was having a rough day so I wrote about other things instead of death. Instead of the things death brings to life that it has no right to.
I do that a lot.)
Ben continues to teach Loch how to share, how to not get up and leave, that sometimes there don't have to be such things as turns, and how, like with children, love isn't cut in half, it's simply doubled, magnified. Lochlan remains hesitant, reluctant, possessive in the same way he always was right through until Jake arrived and pretty much cut him out of the picture.
That was a mistake. Oh God, such a mistake. Jake saw Loch's possessiveness and trumped it whole and tried to bend something that broke and look at the mess we made.
But Ben is determined to do the opposite of everyone else and he welcomes Lochlan with his fears and his outward wariness of everything and everyone. Ben understands and steers Loch's attempts at control and he gives up so easily, letting Lochlan get away with things he has no right to ask for.
I hold her when she's sleeping. Not you.
(Taking orders in your sleep. Try that one on for size.)
I actually don't fully understand why Ben puts up with Loch's bullshit half the time except that Ben is trying to do unto others. He's trying to understand Loch's own pain when everyone treats Loch like the glory boy, the one who has it all and doesn't have to work for anything, it's just given to him. The proverbial charmed life. This versus Ben who has lost it all four times over and is hanging by a thread and he's the one teaching patience and generosity? He's the only one who seems to understand that Lochlan's pain is different but that doesn't mean it's lesser.
I try to make up the difference in affection for Ben and he practically pushes me away and tells me Loch needs me more, or he asks me where he is, tells me to find him, suggests I go share all this cuddly stuff with him too.
I fight with both of them about this. I demand that Lochlan open his mind and that Ben not let Lochlan walk all over him and they both laugh and tell me not to worry. It's maddening, frustrating to be bounced back and forth.
It seems like it should be so easy but between the greed, the guilt and the selfishness I'm never sure if it would have been easier to cut myself with my losses and bleed openly but do completely good by one instead of good enough by all.
Except that I tried that once and he didn't survive it.
