Both Sam and Joel fought for my morning today, because clearly I've gone off the deep end again. I can be very reckless. I can hold grudges and I can pretend I'm punishing Lochlan all I want but he tells me with the meanest, most incredulous laugh this morning that the only person I'm hurting is myself. That he's done taking the blame for being high-scorer in the broken heart game, that maybe if I could think of someone besides myself for even half a second I would realize that I passed him and got a trophy in that game years ago, and that he's got hardly enough left to form a whole beat inside his chest. He got louder and louder and his accent got thicker and more incomprehensible until I couldn't separate the words any more, but I could see everything on his face.
Everything. Right there. Spelled out so easily in his eyes, in the set of his teeth. In his shoulders drawn tight and his fists clenched up.
Sam said my name but I couldn't take my eyes away from Loch's.
I'm sorry.
But you're not sorry, Bridget.
I don't do it to punish you. I do it so I don't get so attached.
I'm not the dumb kid I was when I was twenty, don't you see that?
Nineteen and three-quarters.
Semantics, Peanut. I'm not even the dumb kid that I was at thirty. Or forty. Why can't I make you see this?
It isn't you.
Then what is it? Please, God, tell me what it is and we'll fix it.
I don't trust anybody, including you, and I'm sorry but that's never going to change.
I can fix this, Peanut. I can fix it with time. You'll see.
I'm not worth the effort.
I'll be the judge of that.
