I am not afraid.

I've decided I'm going to take Ben to visit Jake and Cole when I go back. Don't even ask me how I'm going to do this, it's not your concern. Just like Caleb's bid for immortality and the fact the boys have built a truly magnificent life for me here in which reality doesn't even have a speaking role isn't either.

Just know that there are some things you just need to take on faith. Not these things. Other things. Nevermind, please.

Houseguests when you have a double ear infection.

In my defense, I already did three loads of laundry and cleaned up after all of the slobs currently occupying every last space, hard or soft, left in the house and I've even thrown together a whole collection of freshly prepped things to eat, fruits, veggies, hard boiled eggs, cold meats, etc. No one's going to die of hunger on my watch, Duncan.

And now I'm going to demonstrate the true princess nature within by spending the bulk of the afternoon lying on the kitchen floor listening to Apocalyptica on full blast and yelling for my minions to bring me orange juice. Note: The stereo speakers are on the fridge. If I reach out with my left foot I can whack the fridge door.

I just don't want to drink out of the carton, even though that's not a deterrent for all of you.

Chop chop, people. Bring cake. Bring Thai. Bring Vicodin. Princess down.

Battened hatches.

It's an odd day. This morning there were not one but two days in the coming week's forecast that had snowflakes and flurries included. Enough for me to pick the cold, cloudy day to go out and rake up the leaves and mulch in all of the beautiful perennials Ben talked me into last spring when I pointed out I just didn't feel much like doing a huge vegetable garden again. Lucky thing that, because it was the coldest summer in a long time. I put away the patio umbrella and the watering cans and upended the wheelbarrow. I traded my gardening implements for the snow shovels and contemplated emptying the rain barrel. The hose is away and the patio lights too, and it already looks barren and abandoned in my once lush and overgrown Victorian patio. Ben already put the storm windows up on the weekend. We're ready.

It put me in the mood and so I continued inside the house, putting fresh candles in the candlesticks and the candelabra. I went to the store to get some things, and bought a door decoration that says simply "Happy Halloween". I came home and hung it up straight away, that and the gruesome skeletons from last year, the ones tied with jute, each one with a tiny, painstakingly-tied noose. It's quite disturbing, actually. I put out the small collection of skeleton snowglobes and we already have the pumpkins outside so aside from picking up some candy I do believe I am ready for Halloween.

You'll be pleased to know the store had some other door signs as well, including one that read "Insane Asylum". I didn't buy that one.

I probably should have.

The shepherdess of the damned, apparently.

What colors would you like, Jacob?

Whatever you think will be best, princess.

Hmm. I think dark brown, navy blue and cream will look good on you.

Okay, good. For a few seconds there I was afraid you were going to deck me out in purples.

This morning I dug way down to the bottom of the knitting basket I have not touched in two years and found the sweater I had started making for Jacob. I took the entire thing, hours of work and threw it into the pile to be taken to the garbage, needles and all.

Ben watched me thoughtfully.

Zero was going to get a sweater for Christmas?

Could you not call him that, please?

Sorry.

But are you?

No, Bridget, I'm still pissed at him. That's not going to change.

How can you hold a grudge against someone who is dead?

I don't know, Bridge. You tell me.

It's weird that you do it on my behalf. That's all. You know what's so dumb? I may not be the most domestically inclined person in the world but I try so hard, Ben. I wanted him to be warm.

So finish it.

What?

Finish knitting the sweater and we'll take it out to the bench. Jake will see it and then maybe someone will pick it up and be able to use it.

That's generous for someone still hung up on calling him Zero the Hero.

Yeah, well, I have my moments.

I don't think I'm going to finish it.

Okay. It's your call.

Good, then can I do something else with it?

Sure, whatever you want.

I want to give it to Jake's mom. She can finish it for his father.

He smiled and left the room. I kept up with my chore of reorganizing the sewing corner, sweeping out the corner, jamming the brace back into the leg of the chair I used to use for spinning. It always pops out when anyone heavier than Ruth sits on it. Before I really got anywhere, Ben reappeared in the doorway.

We're flying out to Newfoundland the morning of the nineteenth. Back on the twenty-second.

We?

The four of us.

Serious?

Yes?

Oh, wow.

Wow what?

I thought I would have to go alone.

You don't have to do anything alone, Bridget. That's what I'm here for.

He went out again and I was left sitting on the floor surrounded by spools of thread and possibly, maybe, just a few lucky stars.

God help me I've come undone
Out of the light of the sun

I can feel you falling away
No longer the lost
No longer the same
And I can see you starting to break
I'll keep you alive
If you show me the way

Try this one on for size, boys.

This year Halloween is easy.

If you remember, every year Caleb throws a significant costume party. And every year we go all out on dressing up and coming up with good costumes, sometimes as a group and sometimes as sets or duets. This is one of those wonderful years where everyone is involved in one specific theme, and this marks the first year that Ruth and Henry can participate.

Because they picked the theme.

The children decided back in early August, upon release of the movie, that they would be going as Storm Shadow (Ruth) and Snake Eyes (Henry) from G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra.

It was a natural progression after that.

I'm going to be the Baroness. Benjamin is going as Duke. Caleb will be the Baron (stop laughing). PJ is General Hawk, and Christian is Heavy Duty. Sam is Destro. Lochlan is going to be Dr. Mindbender and oddly enough it seemed far too easy to convince Schuyler to be Scarlett. The rest are rounding out the team as Zartan, Ripcord and all the other characters I have forgotten the names of already but find equally awesome.

It's going to be a blast.

The party is the Friday night before Halloween, and since the children won't be attending, we'll have a costumed sit-down dinner party at the house with everyone coming here first for food, and then we can travel downtown as a group to Caleb's loft after I take them to PJ's mom's for the night. The kids are incredibly excited.

Not sure if I am yet, the idea of spending ten or twelve hours in a full latex body suit that is that curve-hugging kind of has me wishing I had picked Hard Master, or someone in a far more comfortable looking outfit. When I expressed my doubt to the boys, however, they assured me that my suit will look amazing.

I bet.

I don't think they share my concern. Do you?

Hello goodbye Ducati. I'm not sure I'll miss you.

And I always paid attention to all the lines you crossed
Forgive this imperfection it shows and know
I am the child that lives and cries in a corner
Dies in a corner, alone inside your mind

Based on recent weather patterns, we've decided to take the sunny day today and use it to get the bikes down to Nolan's and winterized for the year. Which means I get to spend three hours alone in Ben's truck, following the boys while they take their final ride of the season. And I get to be warm and drink coffee and listen to loud music.

When they're finished we'll take Nolan out to the little diner for lunch in the town nearest to his farm and we'll have soup and club sandwiches and a little more coffee and then we'll plan to be home before dinner to collect the kids from after-school time with Sam and maybe we'll go see a movie.

Or maybe we'll just hang out in front of the fire and thaw the boys out. It's going to be a very cold trip. Tinged with relief that Ben is putting the new beast to bed for the winter. First bike I ever met that I am afraid of. Every time he rolls on the throttle I hold my breath and pray.

He says there is nothing to worry about. But he says that about everything.

9 pm and Bridget is on the run.

We're crazy. Yes.

PJ and I are trying our hands (or maybe that's our feet) at night running. We're heading out with one tiny keychain canister of bear spray left over from a camping trip in 1994 and the blessings of absolutely nobody in the house, but because it's cold and rainy and dark, no one wants to go with us. We're going to head over to the benches and then turn and come back. As it stands today, I am thirty-seven days out from the second anniversary of Jacob's death.

And I can't do this. I see it coming a mile away like a freight train. And I can't move off the tracks.

Macbook Amateur.

Damn Benjamin and his weirdly compelling overpriced laptop. I can't type on this thing. I don't think I can live with the doorbell noises and the fact that everything is on the left as opposed to the oh, doorbell again. How distracting. Otherwise it's like the iPhone. Overly easy without much effort at all. But I think I'll keep the Acer. Like I tell him every day he tries to get me to learn this thing, if I manage to kill my laptop with my electromagnetic princess pulses, I've only flushed four hundred bucks down the drain.

So there. Princess out.

I gave it a whirl. Now give me my machine with it's blink and you miss it battery life. Yes fine, there are perks. I am just not quite there yet. :)

Dark Horses.

Circles, people. Here we go. Watch for the boomerang around that last curve. It's a doozy.

Holding the hand that holds me down
I forgive you, forget you, the end

I didn't mean to actually publish that momentary rant last evening. I meant to type it out, delete it and shut down for the night. I was distracted, as you well know now and so this morning waking up to a shitload of emails telling me to DTMF (go to Urban Dictionary if you don't know what that means) surprised me and I wondered how all of the sudden everyone had insight again into my heart, other than what I give you. It wouldn't be the first time one of the boys started a journal in response to some atrocity I wrote about them. Ben's went on for months, after all.

I don't just feel things, I type them. I won't apologize for that any more than I will apologize for holding on to those who drag me down. You've met Lochlan, you know what he's like. He chooses to live idealistically until told otherwise and then when the going gets rough he walks away, only to return post-haste and demand that things go his way.

I'm learning this as I go, bear with me. Maybe the things you see so easily don't fly here because we are not that analytical. Put those emotions in there and we can't see a damned thing. It's so thick. A pea soup of emotions. Visibility will be limited.

Lochlan has had a huge hand in my upbringing, having been the object of my affections since I was a child. Then as a teenager, his aloof and loyal affection for me changed, and I learned so incredibly early exactly what to do to bring a man to his knees. Ever since then, with very few interruptions, we've been dropping and picking up our love affair, almost unconsciously. He's a polyamoric nightmare. He broke up with me when I was fourteen because I was difficult and he wanted to teach me a lesson. I was 'difficult' because his friends were making his life a living hell. They stared. They openly drooled. They were always very happy when I came along and he was jealous that I took attention away from him and afraid I would find a better boyfriend. I did. I found Cole. As a result, Lochlan has sought absolution from me periodically for the past twenty years. He tries to move on, I try to stay out of his way.

Try. I'm never all that good at undertakings without merit. When the going gets tough we have a tendency to fall back into teenage patterns that should have been undrawn decades ago. He's still affectionate, loving, logical Loch to a fault. He's also a judgemental, controlling asshole when he wants to be. Like all my boys, only Lochlan is always right up there because he spins it as the voice of reason and I could never win an argument with him. He's the Alpha and I, apparently am the goddamned Omega girl.

Things are changing, maybe.

He found the good in Satan's deal initially. Our souls and in exchange Bridget gets her boys home. Lochlan failed to remember her soul is tied to other needs of Satan and when made aware of such plans, instead of being concerned for my welfare, reputation or safety, predictably he only saw his share of Bridget shrinking.

See, we tricked him, or so he says. The deal was equal time. Bridget's a handful, between the two of us we can make her happy, Benny. And I betrayed him and fell in love with Ben. I married Ben. We made space for Lochlan in our lives but it's never enough.

I did not make a mistake and I'm also not continuing to make them and he should know better than to create a monster and then yell at her when she proceeds as instructed. And God FORBID anyone else should have any of her time at all.

Last I heard, she was a grown woman and not a teenager anymore but he can't or won't see that. And last night I was given the chance once again to escape. Walk away. No one will place blame, no one will be surprised. No one will find fault if you just want to come away and be done with the difficulty.

I am so predictable. You all know what I'm going to do before I do it and I'm fickle and impulsive and immature and insane.






So I dug my heels in instead.

There's room there, behind Ben, in the dirt where I can dig in hard and then I can hook my fingers in the belt loops of his jeans and hide from all of them. I'm always hoping that if I do the opposite of what he has taught me to do then maybe Lochlan will stop pressuring me. Maybe he'll stop trying to secure a larger share of my heart and stop adding even more drama to an overly dramatic life. Maybe he'll fall out of love with me.

See, this is where we both fail. Because pigs will never fly and because Bridget doesn't run on logic.

And it isn't the same as Jake. These are not the same old roles with different players. I wanted to get away from Cole and be with Jake. I took whatever I could get from Jake until I felt like I couldn't stand another minute of life with him in second place. Which is exactly the same way I feel about Ben. I want to be with Ben. Ben is oxygen.

NOT Lochlan. Lochlan's had eleven million dozen chances in this life and he blew all of them. He takes me for granted when no one else does. That is the difference.

I owe you nothing.

I made my choice. Jesus, why won't you listen?

Slip Stitch and Pass.

Trey Anastasio is forty-five today.

Happy birthday old man!