He refills my champagne, but only a quarter of the way this time.
It's early, he explains, with a shy smile for him. Shy is not the way you would describe Caleb, but he is always trying on new and different personalities to try to appeal to my heart. My heart will never respond in the way he hopes. It might have early on but he made sure to take on the villain/monster role the moment my crush on him went through puberty.
And that was that. Goldilocks in the woods. The wolf. The shadowy bad man you're warned about if you go out at night. The monster you know. Always a friend. Always a near-relative or someone close. Always with his eyes on me. Always trying to wedge himself in.
And I still let him. The crush is long gone but the payback lives forever.
And I still love him, too, but I can't explain that at all. I will forever appreciate his efforts, violent as they were, his work ethic and the fact that he has never changed his story, not even once and has never tried to deflect blame or minimize our tragedy. I appreciate his presence and his familiarity.
I appreciate his whispers as he makes it so I can still hear him in spite of his efforts to be quiet thanks to Lochlan still sleeping (but probably not sleeping) on my other side.
(Ben is at Daniel's having a movie marathon. We had a free moment and Caleb asked if we wanted the bottle to celebrate getting my cast off (ha) so we took the bottle and the offerer, too.)