You break around meThere I was, riding high on a cloud over the mere hours left in...life with Joel here and Caleb had to pop my balloon with the demand that we join him in private to discuss the impending plans that I've discussed with precisely no one here. Not Loch. Not Caleb. Just Ben and the lawyers.
You say that I should give my heart a rest
Let me wash away the painful words I wrote
We can smother out the flames within my soul
No more standing by the way that I believe
We can smother out the flames with gasoline
The plan was to shift all of the legal right onto the carny and give him a goddamn safety net.
Yes, him. The one who never needed a net for himself but if I was up there he wanted two. One standard, one secondary in case the first one failed because for all of the talk about carnies and circus folk trusting each other with their lives, well, that's a myth, folks, just like Happily Ever After.
We had a couple of drinks. Strong ones. I could feel my ears buzzing louder as the level in my glass went down. Loch got friendlier and less tense. Caleb didn't drink at all, and just watched and finally Loch pulled me out of the big chair and said we were going.
And Caleb asked for a private show. He promised he wouldn't leave his seat. But if we maybe melted some sugar he would finance the tax issues himself as payment and we could skip all of the hassle. A forever offer. A humiliating admission that floored both of us.
It was a lot to ask for and at the same time it was nothing at all. This is muscle memory, rehearsed warmth, maximized returns for all. We know how to do this. I measure my breaths as practiced while Lochlan threads a tiny flame from between his fingers, chasing it across my skin, using it to trace the night, connecting us to the stars. The only thing I hear is the crackle of our heartbeats synchronizing, wrapped in an occasional whispered reminder from Loch, single words at a time. Wait. Go. Stop. Sometimes a warning in the form of half my name. Finally a conclusion. Okay, as he lifts the palm of my hand up to his lips and blows out the flame. It's an incredible show and yet I've never seen it.
Without argument Caleb says it's late. His voice is quietly strangled as he tells me to take Loch to the spare bedroom and we sleep drunkenly, solidly. Loch's hands fall away as he turns to get comfortable and I dream of Ben behind a wall of airplanes with no way to break through.
At three-forty-five a hand slides over my mouth and I am picked up right out of my dream, carried down the hall in the arms of the Devil to his room, where there are candles lit everywhere, flames to make me feel safe, to make him feel familiar.
He does, but not in the way he always hopes he will.
I am not returned to the guest room, instead falling asleep in Satan's arms because my eyes and arms are so heavy and I'm so grateful just to stop moving for a moment and I'm wildly narcoleptic, unapologetic, frenetic and drugged again to the point that the words aren't coming when I need them anymore. And Satan is the last person on earth who is going to correct this for me without my express input.
So we sleep. At least for twenty of the heavenliest moments of Caleb's life before Loch barges right in and takes me back but by now we are awake, it's almost six in the morning, the sun is coming up, I am bathed in sweat and surprise and exhaustion and it's time to go home.
Caleb sees us out without speaking. No one speaks. It's a little bit amazing. We're all in shock, I think.
Outside his front door Loch turns back and takes my hand, pulling it up to his mouth, kissing the back of it firmly, with a squeeze. I squeeze back harder than I ever have and he kisses the top of my head.
He doesn't own us.
No, he doesn't.
Then what was that?
Something in the drinks, that's what it was.
We're going ahead with the lawyers then?
Yes.
We stare at each other. Just a show. Nothing more. It isn't us. It's us in character. Our carefully cultivated performance. It isn't who we are. He can't have us. He gets a show, that's all. He gets a taste of the life and then we pack up in the middle of the night and run for the next town over, where no one knows us and we hide in plain sight, freaks of the night, beggars of the dawn.
Loch whispers that he loves me and we head home. I never say anything in return. My head is reeling. Every time this happens I have a harder time separating that girl on stage in the flames from the girl who puts the fires out with her tears offstage. I have a harder time breathing. I have a harder time just coming down. I feel high and sick and out of my league and I just want to go home, if only I could remember where I felt the most like what that is.
He doesn't move though. He waits while I pitch and reel and then when I stop and focus finally I blurt it out. I love you too. I don't love that. I don't know what that is but I don't love it and I don't want to do it ever again.
I know, Bridget. I wouldn't either.