I'll smile, I know what it takes to fool this town(Well, fuck it. I broke the song.)
I'll do it 'til the sun goes down
And all through the night time,
Oh, yeah, I'll tell you what you want to hear
I'll turn my head and shed a tear
It's never the right time, yeah
I'll put my armor on,
Show you how strong I am...
I feel as if we've reached the part of life where we look up overhead, into the sky in time to see the Kaiju fight the Jaeger. They wreck a bunch of stuff, suffer wounds and retreat back to their own sides, with a solid divide in between to keep them apart perpetually.
There's an analogy for a sleepy, rainy Monday in which I've had four hours, maybe three of sleep and have an absolute mountain of work to do and I don't think I want to talk anymore, for that's all I ever do and I find it tiring.
Batman is angry about Caleb.
Not your concern, I say it flippantly, looking straight ahead. If I bluff maybe I'll get out of this alive.
Oh, it's my concern. I didn't even get a whole breath and I'm dead as the oxygen is sucked up through the atmosphere and out into space.
Cole is dead. You don't have to soldier for him anymore.
I'm not defending him. I'm trying to defend you.
You don't lead this army.
I would if you'd let me. Especially when Lochlan hasn't been here. I don't think he's even willing to notice how Caleb creeps in around the edges of your life, attaching himself to you-
Stop it. Please.
Bridget, you can't let Cale have these sweeping gestures.
Oh, I get it.
Get what?
You're jealous.
It's not jealousy. It's concern.
Okay.
I don't say anymore as I turn on my heel and walk home. I deployed that last word and I'd like to keep it, a boomerang of loyalty that won't stick to Batman no matter how hard he tries. The only thing between us is the nostalgia of a brief moment in which we learned what life would be like with money and we never looked back. Or rather, the moment Cole got so much worse and Caleb shifted from tormentor to savior and everything got so fucked and lost we never found our way back at all.
When I return the creep in question is in the kitchen, harassing PJ, who just returned from his own trip and talking with Lochlan, who doesn't seem to recognize anyone or anything and is all fucked up in his routine and where to put dirty plates and what times the dog goes out, every manner of a decided level of exhaustion that trumps common sense.
Between the three of them I'm about to get crushed by the present too, it seems.
Amazing how men straighten up and unconsciously flex when I walk into a room. As if I'm the final boss they have to fight. All five-feet-nothing, one hundred pounds of me. Hell, if you're not looking square into the doorway you'd miss me coming in, if the truth were known.
And it is. No one's in denial here.
Hey, Ugly-
Peanut-
Neamhchiontach-
One nod, two searching looks and I keep walking because suddenly I'm scared and I'm overwhelmed so I make some excuse about letting the dog in and I walk out the back door, across the patio, down the path next door to the still-empty pool and I climb down the ladder and jump off the final rung to the bottom and walk to the center, sitting cross-legged in the shallow puddle of rain and I close my eyes. If I do that they can't see me. They can't hear me. They can't find me.
A voice next to my ear makes me scream suddenly as I don't hear people when they sneak up on me and my head was already off in my imaginary land, doing other things.
Bridge.
My eyes fly open expecting Cole, getting Lochlan, who is on his own, now in two inches of water in his good shoes. But he doesn't care. I don't care. It's a relief suddenly that grounds me again. Centering me where I want to be in life when I rarely seem to know.
He smiles hopefully. At least you stayed in the shallow end like I told you to.