Today you baked a birthday cake and had to put a note on it so no one will eat it. You can't find your toothbrush, which means someone borrowed it and everyone claims it wasn't their turn to put the clean laundry in the dryer so it was still sitting in the washer when you went down to see Matt.
There are seven bottles of Nyquil if you need it because everyone remembered to buy some, the kids have multiple ride offers for their plans today and if you need a hug there might be a line forming to your left.
When you go out you have to msg two different people, one of whom is always sleeping, to move their trucks and the dog has been walked four times by ten in the morning. That stuck screen door is fixed before you can bring it up and Dalton would like you to change to his religion, which is the religion of nothing where no one follows any books, they just live from day to day and not worry about being so good and just be happy.
You decline because you can count your ministers on one hand while you reach out and touch both of them with the other.
When you can't sleep there is company.
When you want cookies there are never any left.
When the shit hits the fan they close ranks around you like a shield, buffering you from life and they can keep you there until you feel like being hit by life-shrapnel again, or at least until your thick skin grows back over you like armor.
And everywhere you go you're tripping over love, because that's the way this life was designed for you.
***
Batman invited me to lunch today, mostly as a vulture to pick through my remains all the while pretending to be the benevolent anti-devil, save for the fact that he isn't all that much different, to tell you the truth, though his attempts to hire me to be his sugar baby fizzled out early on. He has a weird sort of chemistry with me. Hot as fuck and yet I can never read him. I want to know what he feels as he feels it and yet he is always closed off to me, rarely forthcoming, occasionally open and engaging but mostly reserved and quiet.
And I'm only like that when I'm done with life and today I'm not that, I'm just me and I chatter and prattle and fidget and blink and he looks so weary by the time our food arrives that I ask if he'd rather have it boxed up to go.
Maybe. Oh hell, yes, let's do that.
We brought our food back to his house and set up on his garden patio and it was really nice. Not sunny but very overcast and cool. He gave me his jacket to wear and turned on the heaters and we had a leisurely pre-rain picnic at the glass table.
Then he sat back and asked me point blank why I went back to Caleb.
Oh, it's a hollow-point sort of day, I see.
Because if I don't things are worse.
Bridget, I can't tell if he's coercing you or if you go willingly anymore. Which is it? No poetry this time. Are you continuing this arrangement because you enjoy it or because he makes you?
Um.
Does he hurt you?
Define 'hurt'.
Jesus Christ. What do you get out of this?
I shrug. Things.
Such as?
Honesty. Power. Cole.
What do you mean?
I don't want to talk about this.
What does Lochlan say?
I don't know, he just opens his mouth and all of this loud swearing comes out.
But you persist.
No, the Devil insists.
I'm not sure whether to save you or kick you off the ledge into the pack of wolves you seem to tease so constantly.
I don't recall asking you to pick one or the other. Thank you for lunch. I drop my napkin on the table and leave. Suddenly the heater isn't working that well anymore and it's cold.
