I'll be the one to protect you fromHe tried, I guess.
Your enemies and all your demons
I'll be the one to protect you from
A will to survive and a voice of reason
Dinner was beyond decadent. Vertical food. Probably plated with tweezers like I've seen on Chef's Table so it was cold by the time it made it to me, and then I didn't know how to eat it.
You haven't touched your food.
(Sorry, I'm busy savouring this six hundred dollar wine instead. Tonight's going to hurt, better anaesthetize myself while I can.)
I don't know what it is, Cale.
He rolls his eyes. Chicken. Mushrooms. Risotto.
Which part? I squint at my plate. I see no chicken. I can identify a green bean and what I think is shaved parmesan. The rest is roasted beige something. It's a poultry inukshuk. We were here alright.
Tell you what. Finish your glass. We'll go find some Monte Cristos.
Really? I light up. I'm starving and pretension robs my appetite.
Tension robs everything else. Including common sense. As I never saw the shift in him, the one that took him from trying to please, to expecting to be pleased. There's always a price for a six hundred dollar bottle of wine. I should have stayed in Vegas. At least then it wouldn't have been the same monster over and over again. It would have been a different one every day.
Bridget.
Mmmm? My attention is drowning in oak-aged grapes and wrath.
You're preoccupied.
Sorry. Just thinking.
About what? Be honest with me. He's got our coats now, helping me into mine, the familiar roughness taking over where his gentlemanly efforts are beginning to wear away. He leads me out by the hand and we are in the car and then we're in a more-brightly lit but far less affected restaurant where he orders cokes and sandwiches and then he smiles but only with his mouth and we eat quickly (he eats the half I leave) and then we're in the car again. It's late. Deciding you chose the wrong place for dinner and having to choose again takes time.
Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about how Joel said Lucic makes one-point-five million every time he scores a goal. It made me laugh.
I didn't think you followed Edmonton.
I don't. I follow Lucic though.
And then we're home and it's hardly lit at all, the outside lights are mostly off. It's later than I thought and the house is quiet. The kids' doors are closed and no one is around and there are a few lights burning in the library and Lochlan is there but I don't even know if he followed as I am led upstairs, still with my coat on. Still with my buzz on. Still with no lights on and I stumble against furniture as we make our way to my room. He wastes no more of his precious time, stripping me down, again without the gentleness of before, now with barely-concealed need leaking out from the darkness of his eyes, the strength of his hands and the bent of his brain that has to do this.
(Why does he have to do this?)
And then he has already begun, his hip bones grinding against mine, his fingers in my mouth, my buzz heading out the door. Lochlan isn't coming. No one's going to save me now. I can feel doors closing in my brain as history takes over and a ten-year-old starts calling the shots in the best way she knows how.
Don't shut down on me, Bridget. It's a warning I can't heed. It's too late.
He shines a flashlight directly in her eyes. You're safe. Everything's okay. I'm here. He slows down, no longer grinding down my bones, instead bearing down hard enough to break them instead. My jaw unclenches and he holds my head in his hands, hard enough to squeeze my brain. I cry out and he loves that and his fingers go back into my mouth and I can't move a muscle. But I don't have to, the Devil is working my limbs, trying to touch my brain, trying to reach my soul so he can have it back. And the ten year old suddenly steps away and he sees my hiding place and I can't help it anymore and I give in.
This is his reward, the one I never want to give him anymore.
Go, baby, he whispers. Go get it.
Harder, I cry and he twists my arms up over my head as I arch my back. I can't reconcile anything anymore but goddamnit I'm going to get something out of this fucked-up life too.
But the moment it's over she steps back in to hide me, my hands start shaking and the look of certain victory on Caleb's face in the dark makes me want to throw up.
This is why I would give you the moon if you asked, Neamhchiontach.
Can you just get Lochlan for me instead? I need him. The look of victory and all of the air is sucked right out of the room with that request and I can no longer breathe at all.