This is the calm before the stormI can't sleep. The night is cool and quiet, the house muted. Someone left a light on in the kitchen. I wander quietly through rooms, turning off lights, closing curtains. Checking doors and windows. I touch the door at the end of the hall before the foyer. PJ's domain now. Used to be Lochlan's. I miss crawling in with Lochlan when he wasn't the way he is now. When history didn't jam itself down between us like a wall, separating us until we can no longer even touch without the world burning its reaction into our lives with a swift flash of flame.
This is the sea between the isles
And this ain't the time to chase the dawn
This is the time to count the miles
So hold your fire and clear your mind
You won't get left behind
I miss a lot of things.
I miss being everything to you. He says it softly behind me. Pulling on pajama pants, following me as I made my rounds, me oblivious to any sound he would have made, Lochlan's been behind me this whole time. But the house is muted for me virtually all the time, not just in the late hours before dawn. I wouldn't hear him if he were an intruder and yet the person I trust most in this world just walked up behind me and stuck a knife into my heart.
I start to shake my head as he pulls me in but he twists the knife and leaves it jammed between, cracks forming in the wall that keeps us apart. It hurts. Oh, it hurts.
Don't fight it. You didn't need them when you were with Jake.
Because I had you.
No. Not most of the time, Bridge. You didn't. You had him.
It was fleeting. You act like it was so long-
I watched you fall in love with him right under my nose. And there was nothing I could do. That changed me. Watching you slip away changed who I am. And I've been trying to get back to who I was before that but I'm just not having any luck.
The tip of the knife now sticks out my back and is catching on everything. I thought pain was a feeling. Now I know it's an object one has to get around. Or through. But not over. Never over.
So what can I do? Here it is. The part where my trust strips back and shows the raw pain on the inside, the part where he said goodbye because he couldn't manage his own feelings. He never could. I thought I do better but the fourteen-year-old he kissed goodbye all those years ago still regards him with suspicion while she waits for the other shoe to drop. And that's why she goes to them. And keeps him at arms length even as she swears she won't.
Trust me.
Oh, that's a big one, Lochlan.
You trust your demons. You trust your nightmares, Bridge.
They've never left.
I won't either.
Those are just words, Loch. You're so good with them.
Not compared to you. Your words have torn me apart and rebuilt me. I'm asking you to stop. To trust me. I'm not playing musical beds for the rest of our lives. I'm not. Something has to change. I've tried everything. We need to try this.
We did it before-
That was then. This is now.
Why is now different?
Because we deserve this. She. She deserves this.
But he doesn't mean Ruth. He means the fourteen-year-old he left standing beside the fair gates.
How do I just forget that and go forward?
Believe in magic.
It's a risk.
So is everything else you've ever done but the Bridget I raised would jump with a laugh and not hesitate.
The Bridget you raised has been through too much to be that girl anymore.
See, that's where I think you're wrong. He pulls the knife out and I bleed all over the floor in my own death before being resurrected in his flames once again. Let's have the greatest love story ever told. Like we always planned.