Reprobate.

Hello, are you still chasing
The memories in shadows
Some stay young, some grow old
Come alive, there are thoughts unclear
You can never hide

Even in madness, I know you still believe
Paint me on canvas so I become
What you could never be

I dare you to tell me to walk through fire
Wear my soul and call me a liar
I dare you to tell me to walk through fire
I dare you to tell me
I dare you to

Early this morning in the pool, I stayed in Ben's arms, face to face, the cool embrace leaving me with teeth chattering that he tries to stop by holding me tighter. Enveloped in his cold flesh I simply shake more and I put my head down on his shoulder and try to sleep in the water but that's dangerous and it doesn't take him long to ruin it and lead me out into warmed towels. I still smell like chlorine all over but it's similar to bleach and maybe that's a good thing.

Last night I stood between them, my back pressed against Ben, my head low against Caleb's chest. Eyes closed. Silence in the form of a wall of apathy and hate. Regrets scattered everywhere, the aftermath of the argument about who forgot and who didn't. You want to know why I had house guests? You want to know why I threw myself into New-Jake's problems on purpose? You want to know why I've been Bridget, twice-removed?

Caleb took my hands and turned them over, exposing scars that he traced with his thumbs. He put my hands up over my head against the wall and held them there with one hand as the other wrapped around my back and pulled me in closer, burning my skin, away from the cold that is Benjamin. I could feel his hands shaking. He is so angry and I am afraid. He whispers something against my hair and I miss it and he stops and looks at Ben and Ben says no in such a soft voice I almost missed that too and then I'm aware that Ben has left because I can't see him and I can't go to him right now and I don't know why everyone finds this so hard. I can't feel anything. I don't want to feel anything.

It's wrong. All of it. I know this.

I failed to acknowledge Cole's death out loud for Caleb's benefit (or as he says, for Ruth's) and so I need to be here for my amercement.

I didn't forget, I promise.

Ruth and I had talked quietly, long into the morning. Ben and I talked about it too. I talked to God about but God wasn't home (he never is when I need him) and so I talked to Sam instead. I talked to New-Jake a little bit and I didn't talk to Lochlan at all.

I didn't talk to Caleb either and the rage is spilling into his eyes now, blue-black, crowding out the envy and the lust, killing gluttony altogether. He is so angry he's failing to notice the marks he is leaving on me, marks that Ben will tally later tonight when he removes my slip and marks that will be added to the death note and then Caleb can go and be with his precious brother who liked nothing more than to hurt the one he loved.

I finally turned my head back and spoke very clearly between synapses of pain firing all over the room, making holes for the moonlight, making an escape route for my brain.

I wish I could forget him, and I wish I could forget you too.

May as well give him exactly what he wants. An unfair fight. I want Ben so badly to help and he senses that and returns to watch but he can't right this wrong and I hate him too, but so briefly. Save me, you're the strongest. Please, Ben and Ben shakes his head because he is paralyzed with grief, with perversion, with some heroic need to be the one who doesn't try to lock me down and maybe for that he will be with me forever.

Caleb pours vodka all over me and then in my mouth until I am drowning and Ben can't touch that. It's forbidden and he wants it, me, so badly I know he can already taste it and I don't want him to touch me in case it gets on his fingers, and then on his lips but I can't hear myself, the music is so loud. So loud. I'm choking into the black now. I hope I wake up again to escape from this because no one's going to save me except Bridget but I don't know where she went.

It's morning. I open my eyes and I'm staring at Ben's tattooed skin, his arms tight around me and maybe he rescued me after all and he's wide awake and I stir and he loosens his embrace but not very much and I hit him with my aching arms and I tell him we're not coming back here because I want to forget now, I do, I promise. I am sobbing quietly and he asks if I want to swim and doesn't say anything else and I shake my head but I am led there anyway and then I'm grateful because it feels better than anything else so far.

At some point Caleb comes into the room and stands by the window that looks down on a city of glass and he listens as we don't speak. He has become the caustics on the walls and I forget he is there for the moment as I kiss Ben. He watches when we get out and I am led past him by the hand, Ben's fingers tight against those scars they promised to protect but haven't. I look back at Caleb as we leave and all my eyes tell him is that I didn't forget. I can't forget.

No matter how much I want to. Sometimes.

Only sometimes.

The disclaimer keeps me alive. The acrimony keeps me warm. And Ben keeps me safe, believe it or not. From the devil, but more importantly, from Bridget.

She's an alarmingly dangerous girl.

Black hole Sunday.

Break, break, break, on thy cold gray stones, oh sea.
And I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me.
~Tennyson

Last night Ben said that when I had one day left to live I would go and sit at the edge of the sea and not move. For the entire day. I was struggling to do a task in which you list what you would do if you had a year, a month, a week, and then a day left to live. He knew my answer before I did.

It should be so easy but I have seen death that was not scheduled and death that was and the logistics of compressing your dreams into a list and a suitcase is completely overwhelming to me. I range wildly between living off the oxygen of those dreams and pushing them away for their sweet futility. I'm not sure if it's better to know or to just be bumbling along and be wiped off the face of the earth.

The music was missing. Company coming means I don't put on my music and it becomes an uphill battle to reinstate a necessary addiction. And then everything is okay and the confusion stops and I know exactly where I am once again. And I'm sorry for that. The very first thing I do every morning before I press the button for the coffee pot to brew my awake is to flick the switch on the stereo and blow the sleep out of the house via the dial welded on eleven.

I hope there is a song I like playing when I die.

Oh, well, hello, morbid Sunday morning, how have you been?

Things I can say under my breath but never out loud.

Caleb brings raisin scones and good coffee over for breakfast and wants an update on Lochlan and on New-Jake because on both fronts he is curious.

Well, Lochlan's being difficult and aloof as usual but is still forthcoming with his affection and New-Jake I saw briefly yesterday as he wolfed down a sandwich that he made himself and then he took off with PJ. So....not sure why everyone I am interested in seems to speak of sexual competition for Caleb but heh, may as well milk it and watch him slowly self-destruct.

Oh, stop. Who can blame me for that? He has it coming and I take my hits where I can.

I think everyone has the wrong idea, including some of the people in this house. New-Jake is an enigma to me because I can say that name to a face I don't recognize and it's a skill I will have to learn. I'm aware that Jacob Thomas Finnian Reilly is a unique name (maybe not on the rock) but Jacob is not.

I have no trouble with Henry Jacob, just not with Jacob on a strange set of facial features. It's getting easier. Clearly he is not my Jacob and perhaps that's where the fascination ends. Not to say he isn't a terrific guy, I just have my hands full already with the three different sets of arrogance that rule my world as it is.

There won't be any more. Hell, if I had my way I would dispense with two altogether but the part of me that needs to be arrogant as well won't allow for it and that's the part of me that Caleb adores. The reckless Bridget, the completely ruined Bridget who takes risks and loves so hard she leaves a mark, not unlike the reckless ruined Benjamin that I keep on love support because he needs me so badly most of the time he will tell you he doesn't need me at all.

I don't need to remind Caleb of any of this. He is painfully aware of how pathetic I am. Only I'm not, outwardly. I'm trying to make this new place a success instead of a failure, like the last one. I'm trying to be better and be fun and smart and I feel like I can turn a corner only to find there's a set of hands there that shoves me back to the starting place. It isn't me. I want so much and I can't seem to ever catch a break to actually HAVE any of it.

So instead I sit in tears while Satan evaluates whether or not I'm embarassing him on this day. If I make him look bad I am taught not to and if I make him look good I am rewarded with a taste of what it is I want only I'm not sure and I can't commit because all of these things come with a price and I don't have anything to pay with.

Or rather, I do and I'm not willing to part with those things.

So once Satan is satisfied that he doesn't have to extend any lucrative offers to get rid of new boys he returns to the task at hand. Lochlan. The ever-present logical golden boy who says a third of what's on his mind and we're still all wishing he would just stop being right all the time, his arrogance fed by massive self-doubt because perhaps he raised me wrong after all and a few different decisions along the way would have meant we might have had some sort of Utopian happily ever-after and we might have gone to Cole's funeral and been sad for a friend that died and then a few weeks later had a picnic at the beach and life would have returned to normal with our children and our lives.

So blame him for the mess that I am. This isn't fascinating, this is ridiculous. So I don't have an update on Lochlan, Caleb, so why don't you just go fuck yourself for a change, and leave me alone?

(When I wasn't looking this morning, Lochlan hitchhiked back to the cornfield and got down on his knees and dug with both hands until he unearthed everything we buried there when we were young. He's brought it back here and spread it out on the table, clods of dirt spilling off and exploding in soft pufts on the floor. Dirt, sweat and tears streak his face and all I could do was freeze. I need to take it all up in my arms and run back out and bury it again but I can't move. I just can't move.)

One constant.

The minute I hit the sand at the ocean all of it goes away.

Everything.

Time.

Fear.

Life.

Just give me that, okay? Stop telling me that's my song. Stop telling me what to do, who to spend time with, who to love. Stop haunting me. Stop tormenting me. Stop judging, just fucking stop everything.

It's Henry's birthday today and you couldn't even let this go just for one single day and some days I wish the ocean would just take you away.

Dinner shift #1 is just about over. Now I get to clean up and await the late shift boys (my favorite ones. Shhhhh!).

Inevitably Satan comes back and ruins everything Lochlan missed.

Sometime late last night Caleb returned to the city from a trip to the hot potato and read my journal and decided he doesn't like New-Jake.

At all.

Fear of the unknown or maybe it was the three entries in a row that sent him over. The others don't care. They find it fascinating the way I zero in on people and draw them out. It goes against everything you would normally expect from me.

Caleb's instructions were to remove myself from the presence of Sam's friends and wait for him to drive up this afternoon. Also he needed last names and as much information as I had on them in order to run them through his ledgers in hell to see if they were on the list.

No, I said. (Now I'll get down on the floor in a ball and cover my head with both hands, but that's beside the point.)

Caleb is simply jealous because when we boil down the mix here and skim off the top, he isn't a part of the collective.

And doesn't he hate that.

I'm surprised I haven't been abducted in the middle of the night only to have my internet removed and then dropped off on the side of the road and left to walk home with a fresh incision where my brain used to be, honestly.

No, there may be some sort of complicated love..ahem..square going on here that you will never understand but aside from that, he isn't a member of Bridget's very special commune.

God, how I hate that word.

Anyway, I gave him last names and birthplaces and he'll simply have to dig for the rest. And he won't find anything I haven't already checked because Sam isn't dumb and frankly neither is Bridget. And there are reasons people are guilty until proven worthy, I just don't need to rehash that stuff. Too bad no one ever checked the brothers-grim, isn't it?

Yeah, too bad. I wonder where I would be right now if I had never fallen for Cole?

Or Caleb for that matter.

You know what? Let's change the subject. I have a busy day ahead of wrapping and baking a big chocolate cake and some folks are dropping by to wish Henry a great day in advance and I need to tidy up a bit and we have to run out and buy the special dinner ingredients because all of the extra people here mean I ran out of things I thought I had handy. Also I should really set up the sprinkler this afternoon because yesterday the children grew bored quickly in the afternoon and so this way they'll have something to look forward to and really I will need to go lie down at some point and close my eyes because I have the sweetest mother of a headache beginning.

I didn't even get into that whole other elephant standing there, now, did I? Find me a way to add some hours to my day or wait a few more, okay? Really they can stuff their fucking man-drama for a bit here. If Lochlan can't control his impulses I will start replacing people, I think. But stuff it nevertheless, because we are standing on the edge of greatness here.

My boy is turning nine tomorrow, and nine is a really big deal.

(Resistance is futile) A snapshot of dinner clean-up.

You're not seriously going to call me New-Jake, are you?

Yes.

From the big door-table in the kitchen, I can hear Ben's laughter. Or rather, Ben's attempt not to laugh out loud at the obvious awkwardness of the question.

You know other Bens, what do you call them?

Not-my-Ben.

Really.

Yes.

That's fascinating, but I don't want to be New-Jake, I'm forty years old. It feels a little like the first day of school and I've been singled out.

Try and be flattered. It's a very special name.

Aren't they all?

Nope.

I see. Well, maybe in time it will stop and you'll just call me Jake.

(THUD)

Or Jacob, if that's easier for you.

(THUD) (THUD) (Right now, please shut the fuck up.)

What should I call you?

What do you mean, Jake?

Everyone calls you princess. I don't think we're ready for nicknames.

Oh, I don't mind, it's a thing, besides, I think we're ready for nicknames.

Why is that?

I just called you Jake.

I didn't even realize.

Me neither.

That's good then, right?

Yes, it's good...Jake. (trying it on now.) (THUD)

Cool....uh...princess. (he smiles.)

Ben finally rescued us, and clapped a hand on Jake's shoulder.

No worries, Jake, soon you'll understand perfectly why she has the nickname.

Why is that, Benjamin? Do tell. (I flicked soap at him from where I was washing pots.)

You're very high maintenance, Bridge.

Fuck you, rock boy.

And a filthy mouth to boot.

You haven't seen anything yet.

Ooo, I'm scared.

Good. I like fear.

I heard that about you.

What else did you hear?

That you like the bad boys. (He grins and THUD becomes mush.)

Damn, my secret is out.

You're a billboard, princess.

Hey, Bridge!

Yes, PJ? (the volume level in the kitchen only needs a calliope now to complete the cacophony.)

I'm bad. I mean, I can be bad. I was bad once. I...uh...

Be quiet, PJ.

Yes, Ben.

It's nice to have some laughs. We need to laugh more, don't we? Yes, I think so too.

The project boy.

I'm severing the heart then I'm leaving your corpse behind
Not dead but soon to be, though.
I won't be the one who killed you
I'll just leave that up to you

I'm walking on the beach this morning with New-Jake, who told me I should call him Jacob and maybe that would help, and since he didn't know any better I nodded like a child and promptly changed my mind.

In my head he is New-Jake and I resented the hell out of every inch of him and I couldn't understand why. I resented the half-wave, half-straight hair on his head, the pale caramel that fades into dark golden blonde. I resented his eyes, green like mine. Endless, like Jacob's. I resented the way he'd quietly consider your response before he makes his own.

I had a whole list. I could have gone on for days. The way he holds his phone. The posture. All of it. Don't walk into my life and force me to hear your name over and over again. Don't be a Jake who hates shoes. Don't be a Jake who asks hard questions, the kind I'm still turning over at four in the morning as I stare at the ceiling. Don't be here, okay? Just go away, New-Jake. I don't think I'm going to adapt. I guess now I die.

That's what my Jake always said. Adapt or die, princess. As if it wasn't a choice and I had to actually adapt or something.

Oh, right. I do.

Ben and New-Jake get along like brothers. Keith and Lochlan get along like brothers. Sam still introduces ideas or cautions me to stay on the road and not go off picking flowers up a hill because then I get lost and mixed up and turned around and then we're all late and then Sam retreats back to the background. I haven't heard much from Stephan, I think he'll be continuing on in another week, maybe stopping in different sorts of places to see where he fits. One of the joys of having the boys in my life is that they all know so many people and through them I have met some amazing souls. Stephen is one but he just doesn't belong here. And for the summer I'm happy to host Keith and Jake because they seem to.

Time will tell. If I miss them when they go, then I'll have my answer.

Besides, usually when someone seems to fit it means someone else is leaving and I just don't know yet. More often than not it's Ben or Lochlan so I don't want to know yet.

I won't replace people, if that's what they are doing. If that's what you are thinking. Not fair.

New-Jake insists that he was aware that Sam had a friend he held an incredible loyalty to, and was moving for, but he said he didn't really understand how one person could have that sort of influence until he met me. He said the image of me standing with my back to the house, blonde hair and black ribbons flying out behind me in the wind at the edge of the sea will forever be burned into his mind.

(Oh no, please. Don't be a poet.)

And then he stops and says he didn't mean to objectify me. Which I don't understand at all actually. People are objects, aren't they? They are safe havens and life rafts, sure things and contraband. They are emotional grenades and food for thought and sights for sore eyes. Are those not things?

I wonder what I am, aside from striking image, which I think is what he was going for before he went for something else.

New-Jake changes the subject, I'm thinking to take the weird feelings away and instead his history explodes in the sand at my feet and then the tide comes in and washes it away and for some reason I know he is home. Here, with me. A fresh start. A better life for someone else who has felt things people shouldn't have to feel. He is worthy. It's as if word has finally reached the cosmos, Bridget's magnet is emotional in nature. Overwhelmed? Find her and everything will be better or at least you will have Schadenfreude you can swallow with milk. I wonder if I should have invitations engraved? I wonder how this happens?

I'm going to take today to finish thinking about things he said. I'm going to take today to reflect on the amazingly fun visit I just had with my folks, for the first time feeling like a true equal rather than an honorary one, and I'm going to finish up my chores, because it's almost lunch time and I've already dawdled enough today. I need a little extra time to cook, I only have two hands. Thank heavens they seem to be able to hold a lot.

Full. Not full. Fall.

This mourning is cold. Windy. The air feels so heavy, the rain must be close. I untangle my arms and my hair from Ben's uneasy sleep and slip away, crossing silently to the door on the other side of the room. I dress in the dark, fastening buttons by memory. Fourteen. Then eight. Then two. I slip into my boots and cross the room once again. I am followed this time by a little white friend who is happy to be the focus of my time for the next little while and thrilled that the heat wave is finished.

He recognizes me in black. As do they all. It's a customary sight, a cold kind of comfort to see sometimes. A warmth that you wouldn't expect from Miss Spindley-Bones with the soft scowl. I am elated to see familiar weather in a place that still reeks of mystery and newness. I reach back for my hooded sweater. Pale blue elicits a further frown but I wear it anyway since everything goes with black, except for pale orange. Never wear that, for some reason it's awful. Now we are warm and we take off at a clickety-clip down the concrete.

We pause mid-step, in the air, to listen to the windchimes. Oh! So beautiful!

My stomach is empty and I still am waking up with headaches from Friday night's excitement. I need toast and aspirin and coffee too and maybe a little more sleep would be nice. My guests have two more days to spend with us but it won't be at the break-neck pace we set over the weekend as we tried to impart such magnificent beauty on such a brief period. The effect is delightful, I believe we were successful.

Now we are at the top of a hill and I have let off the gas to coast, considering the brakes but only for a moment, there is lots of room at the bottom and we will slow so gradually. I am working hard to keep the transitions smooth and painless, though I like the pain so very much indeed.

What's amazing to me right now is when I am hungry you can hear it and even feel it and when the boys are hungry you can see it in their eyes.

Patience, please. Patience.

Otherwise I can't go on.

Well, now.

I finally got to see Tool!

Toooooool.

Remember, this is my bucket list. I won't be able to hear forever.

It was the perfect show. Tickets were cheap, the parking was easy, the crowd and venue were super-sketch and we didn't have to sit through an unknown opener because of the line-ups just to get in (which! I don't advocate. I've fallen in love with all kinds of opening acts, please support them, they work so hard.) We walked in, got comfortable and the lights went out and they came on. Perfect timing.

I hoped for Sober. I hoped so hard but it didn't happen. I heard Forty-six and 2 live, Jake. I closed my eyes and felt the music. I had the biggest contact high of my life. Dear God, the drugs at that show. These kids are all about endurance and I was fucking toast halfway in. So high. Looked at Twitter this morning and laughed. Going to burn the shoes I wore last night. Might burn the skirt as well and definitely the shirt. I might even cut my hair, that's how incredibly filthy we were by the time it was done, soaked to the bone with sweat, bathed in smoke and happy we finally snagged a show by a band we have listened to forever, it seems.

Am I getting too old for this? (Yes, Bridget, you are but it probably won't stop you.)

I hope not. The sound last night was perfect. Perfect. I could manage all of it and missed nothing.

Next up. Deftones. Mastodon. Alice.

Squee!