Four a.m. shadow.

Jacob smiles ruefully, tossing his head back to keep his waves out of his eyes. His hair is getting long again and I'm struck by the fact that I didn't realize this was possible in heaven. That his hair would grow. I say as much and he laughs bitterly.

This isn't heaven, pigalet.

I ignore that, because I know, and we don't talk about how I fail to release him, ever, because here he is closer. Here, I might get him back with a lick and a miracle.

What was the tequila for?

I hate it when they fight.

And the tequila helped end the fight?

Of course not.

Then you don't need it, Bridget.

Maybe I wanted it, Jake.

Don't use that stuff, princess.

Then come back and I won't have to.

I would if I could.

(hear that? That was the sound of my broken heart clattered down out of the cords and into the bottom of my soul again. THANKS A LOT, JAKE.)

How is Ben?

I'm fine, preacher.

Took you long enough to carry this through.

I had to do it my own way. I thought it would work but you were right.

Jake smiles, not in a superior way, just in a glad-it-all-worked-out way.

And Lochlan?

Angry.

I don't doubt it. Caleb?

You gotta ask, preacherman?

Bridget? How are you with all of this?

I don't know, Jake. Why don't you all ask each other how I am? Isn't that the way this works?

You're full of it this morning, princess.

It's temporary, Jake. Ben, not to be difficult but you make decisions and stick with them until the wind blows.

I stuck with you, didn't I?

That wasn't a choice, Benjamin, it was an inevitability.

Ben grins and sticks his tongue out at me to dissipate my sudden, unwarranted attitude. I melt and I can feel pieces of my heart climbing back up my insides and tack-welding themselves back together. It hurts and I wrap my arms around myself just in case I pass out. I hate it when he's disarmingly smug. It usually means it's followed by some wonderfully sweet moment that invariably finishes me where I stand.

I am not disappointed.

We stand there and smile at each other.

What a goof.

The angel of Patrick Wilson.

The fair was so much fun. I wanted to pet the baby goats and ride a few rides and eat cotton candy and not fry in the sun and I managed to cover all of my bases save for the part in my hair, which is pink and slightly tender, especially where Ben held the top of my head this morning as we woke up slowly.

I left my hair down yesterday and at one point wished I had put it up as I was whipped around over and over and my hair was flying out everywhere. Usually I put it up (okay, daily), not only for the heat but because it could become tangled and God forbid my untimely death occurs at a carnival because well, that would just be serendipity, wouldn't it?

Speaking of death,

Okay, maybe not yet.

Also good to make note for the larger carnival next month would be that cotton candy made on-site is better than bagged, imported cotton candy and that texting teenagers who fail to acknowledge you at the counter can ruin the entire experience. I believe I much prefer the leering pizza-on-a-stick man from the Red River Exhibition because at least he gave a shit. This intensely distracted seventeen-year-old (who was so busy on her blackberry she had it plugged into a charger) made me feel vaguely annoyed.

But again, I'm sure the big one will be better. They always are, with a contagious, kinetic energy that runs through me like a current. I am saving my dollars and my energy and will probably not ride the scrambler again. Oh and the best part? The kids are 52" tall (and then some!) each finally. So I'm not forced to accompany them on the screamingly terrifying ones like the endless slide or the tilt-a-whirl. And they are not forced to join me on my favorite, the ferris wheel. Not the big parasol one that stops a billion feet up, I prefer the rickety little metal ones, and only backwards, if you please. Leave me there all damn day and go have fun, I will still be smiling when you return.

Maybe it's the only place that suspends time that isn't the seaside.

That's okay too. More options are better though I think I'll need a winter choice now as well. Carnivals in the winter are incredibly sad places to me, and frankly so is the beach, though less so. I do love a beach without people on it. It's one of the reasons I live here now. It's almost offensive to see someone else strolling along what I have come to consider my beach, and anyone who brings me down to it is summarily dismissed. Walk ten feet behind me and disappear if I turn around, because I'd like to be alone now, please.

There is no 'alone' at a carnival but it's interesting to be surrounded with crowds, line-ups and people and not know any of them, save for my boys. When we left, we fulfilled our usual tradition of bestowing all of our remaining tickets on a family who was running dry. They hopefully spent another hour there on the rides. Tickets are expensive. All-day bracelets are cheaper but I usually figure that out halfway through.

Last night the late-night plan was to watch a few movies. I was awake (for a change) and was blessed with watching Losers, which was incredibly fun and Passengers, which ripped the rug out from under me and left me sobbing long after the credits rolled. Not just a few tears but sobbing and I think I'm afraid of death again, which is good news if you are not Bridget but bad news if you are.

I can't explain it. We thought it was going to be a profoundly creepy movie about people who develop ESP after a plane crash.

Well, it's not.

Not even close.

I wanted to check afterward and see if it was written by M. Night Shyamalan, in a good mood for once, since I have grown to despise his movies but it was written by someone else. I wish I had had some warning. Maybe it was better this way, but honestly I ignore most movie reviews and buzz and prefer to come to my own conclusions. Which is also the way I view music and pretty much everything else in my life. Let me make my own mistakes and then I will learn from them. It was incredibly good and quietly profound, just like me. So go see it if you missed it, and take the tissues with you. You will need them. You're welcome.

Tonight we have The Hurt Locker because we're trying to catch up on movies because the end of Ben's project is finally in sight and vacation has appeared in a faint glow on an imaginary horizon. We are making plans to go to the beach and to picnic on the top of a mountain overlooking the city and hit the big fair and watch a million movies and sleep until noon (which Bonham will NEVER go for, unfortunately) and have a few of those romantic dinners at new restaurants (I staked out before I even got here) but will keep quiet or Caleb will trick me into going to them with him and that's finished for now. Bridget's going to do the famous Grouse Grind as well. I am excited. I'm going to get a t-shirt.

And I need to write. I'm just barely beginning to get back into writing and pulling out old projects and waking the fuck up from bad dreams and finding my cadence that disappears so easily and comes back so painfully, with so much effort.

2010 is now half over and we've spent enough time starting over and re-arranging life. My life is half over and I've spent enough time starting over and re-arranging time.

Far too profound a conclusion from a day that was constructed around mindless entertainment, wasn't it? Some days are like that, I guess.

Let love rule (Thanks Lenny).

Sorry, I took a tequila vacation and Lochlan followed me around all morning cleaning up internet messes as I made them, I think.

He is still here. What, did you think he would be thrown out? Asked to leave? No, the only new rule on top of Stop Touching Bridget was No More Fights, Goddammit, We Go Through This Every Single Year.

Both will be ignored, I'm sure. But the collective will stay intact, because we're a family. No matter what.

Caleb was amused as well and will play along as long as he can until it becomes overwhelming and then he'll just squeeze by threatening to petition to have my primary custody of Henry revoked in favor of English boarding school. Which, well, literally, darling, over my dead body, if that's the way it has to be. Ben won't let it come to either threat so really, how have we advanced here this week other than the knowledge that Friday mornings in Mexico are profoundly underwhelming?

Well, I'll tell you how. Since you're here.

Sam and Duncan ganged up on me and poured the tequila out and the coffee in because the boys like to force me to do all kinds of healthy things too, like confront issues and deal with life as it happens so that I don't follow Ben down the path of total escape. That path is a parachute with no strings, tossed out of a plane running on fumes and your pilot has already bailed.

Oddly I don't think Ben is going to cave and I knew this would happen when I rinsed the dirt off Lochlan's secrets and put them here. Ben feels threatened by my past because he is never sure if he's enough, if this is good enough, if we have enough love or can make enough history together to supersede or even just compete with everything that has happened thus far.

That makes me so fundamentally sad I can't even quantify it. And surprisingly Ben will tell you he doesn't give a fuck about anything and you will probably believe him because Ben lives life with a total recklessness that is only borne of hardship and pain. You don't have to understand why I'm going to abide by his wishes, you just have to know that I am.

As long as is humanly possible.

You laugh because something so simple is such a challenge task for me. You come to absorb my words with such curiosity, such disbelief. Well, you don't have the history and you don't live in this house. In this house, love rules everything and death takes those normal basic rules and turns them inside out and it's years before you realize you've been running on one set of feelings to outrun another.

Years.

This is where I am today. Half-sober, half-ruined, and half-renewed.

Over time (the end of the grand experiment).

Told me you loved me, that I'd never die alone
Hand over your heart let's go home.
Everyone noticed, everyone had seen the signs,
I've always been known to cross lines.

I never ever cried when I was feeling down,
I've always been scared of the sound.
Jesus don't love me, no one ever carried my load,
I'm too young to feel this old.

Here's to you, here's to me, oh to us,
Nobody knows
Nobody sees
Nobody but me

He bent his head down low, pushing against my hair, his arms sliding around my back, easily across the satin slip. He pushed me down onto the bed, kissing my throat, tracing his fingers down my face.

I love you.

I braced myself for him and then I was tearing at the sheets, turned over and hammered into, kissed all over, crushed beneath him. Returned to my back so he could smile down at me, slower now, harder now, until I'm clawing at air, his hand over my mouth so I can't scream, his head pressed against my mine. Then his hands are down, full weight and he pulls my hips into his so hard I can't breathe. Razorburn brings sweet stinging agony to my skin, sweat challenges our strength as efforts are wasted when our limbs slide freely over one another.

I am lifted, pulled away and then brought back to my delight and everything else goes away until the only focus is Ben. I am suddenly touched by how happy that makes me. How incredibly sure I am that after all of these efforts to test my loyalties they still remain with this man, and I am sitting above him now, knees up and wrapped around his back and his arms are around me and this is how we always end up and he kisses me because I am on his level at last. Cementing that loyalty. He looks at the clock, sighs and gets up, passing me my dress, apologizing for tearing my slip. It was vintage. Pale rose. He adores it on me and I am made to sleep in it often. I believe I can mend it still. He steps over to me and grabs my head in both hands, pulling me up to him for a kiss. One of these days I fear my head's going to come right off when he does that but I love it anyway. I am returned to earth gently. Beauty and the beast. So much heart in one room we're going to blow the walls out.

I love you, Bridget.

I love you, Ben.

We should have kept going. It took another two hours for everyone to show up for the family meeting Ben called, after hardly speaking to anyone for the past two weeks.

I should really learn that when a man stands in front of me with his back to me, blocking access that something very serious is about to take place and I am being shielded from harm.

Ben took this stance. Last night when he first came home and took me upstairs he looked at me with his eyes red and wired and exhausted, and he said simply,

Enough.

He turned around, facing his friends, taking a drink from a bottle of water. Almost to the letter I could have sworn it was something else because the action is the same but it was water. He put the bottle down on the table and he scooped his arm behind his back, me within his reach and gently pushed me further so I couldn't see their faces, so they couldn't see me.

I just pressed my forehead against his back and his arm came back again, pressing me against him, squeezing me in his own shorthand. It will be okay. And then he started to talk and I was shoved to the floor abruptly as Lochlan picked that moment to go for broke. All of the sudden everyone is shouting and PJ went for Lochlan and nailed him to the floor, keeping him there and Ben turned around and pulled me up off the floor and I tried to ask them what in the hell is wrong with all of you and I couldn't and I don't want to see them fight and Ben is trying to talk to me but Lochlan is still yelling, screaming for me and PJ is sitting on him so he's going nowhere.

Ben took my hand and he kissed it and he tucked it into his and led me upstairs to sleep. He was finished. Something I wished for. I don't know how it's going to work with this house or the new company or with the devil for that matter but all he had to do was say those words that burn Lochlan's ears and heart so badly and I can't help it.

She's mine.

This is what I have said all along as I've been passed from one to the next. No timeshares. Don't do this. Please. I can't do this. And then, fine. I'll embrace it. This is life now if this is the choice you have made. This is what grownups do. They take their bad ideas and they run with them and then later on they learn the cost. And then they have to figure out how to pay. I am bankrupt. I have no more emotional currency for this. It is over.

We're leaving now to drive downtown for breakfast with the devil, to do this all over again, so forgive me if I'm a little stressed this morning. I need to keep making sure it's water Ben is drinking because if he changes then he doesn't get to make any rules and Jesus Christ, no one wants me making them.

He holds my hand. So tightly I want to cry with relief but I'm waiting. Maybe later when we are safe again.

For Caleb.

And the tail-lights dissolve, in the coming of night
And the questions in thousands take flight
My love is the miles and the waiting
The eyes that just stare, and a glance at the clock
And the secret that burns, and the pain that won't stop
And it's fuel is the years
Leading me on
Leading me down the road

I'm sitting on the raft, waiting for Lochlan to swim back out and bring me in to shore. It's too far and I'm not a good swimmer. I'm still not a good swimmer. He would always stay beside me and take long slow strokes to keep pace or he would let me piggyback on him, arms around his neck the whole way out if he felt so inclined.

Caleb appears from the other side of the raft. The 'deep' side where the older kids hang out at the rope swing. He is twenty. I am twelve years old. I have secret dreams about him but it's rare that he pays me any attention. His wet hair is in his eyes, his trunks are dripping, low on his hips. He is thin but strong. Twenty-year old muscles look good in comparison to the ones of a seventeen-year-old Lochlan and a sixteen-year-old Cole.

Do you need help getting back, Bridget?

No, Lochlan is coming for me.

He stands, looking toward shore and he smiles into the sun, hand up over his brow to cut the glare.

I don't think he's coming out, Bridge.

He will. He's mad at me.

Why?

I want to go with him when he goes out with the show.

For the rest of the summer? What about swimming? What about your friends?

He's my best friend. I don't want to be away from him so long.

Everyone else is here, Bridge. You're too young anyway.

I'm not.

Wait a few more years. I'm heading in now. I can drive you home if you want to come with me.

I stared at Lochlan. He was talking intently to Bailey, his hand up pulling on his ear like he does when he's self-conscious but trying to look fascinating. Bailey only has eyes for Caleb right now, and she's staring back toward me, I make a motion for her to wait and I indicate that Caleb will drive us. She nods and I know she's about to ask Lochlan if he's going to come and get me for her so we can get home.

It's too late. Caleb sinks into the water and then waits for me to descend from the raft. I try and nonchalantly slide off the edge but it's scraping my legs so I push away and my head goes under instantly. Caleb reaches down and grabs my arms and pulls me back up and he pulls me in until his arms are around me and I didn't see but PJ always tells it like Lochlan stopped mid-sentence and ran down to the water, wading in and then diving under and that he's never seen a look like that on Lochlan's face before. I just remember wow, what a weird feeling to be in Caleb's arms and it's not bad but it feels really strange and good and then all of the sudden, Lochlan is there pulling me off Caleb and Caleb is laughing and Lochlan says something about thanks for taking care of her. Caleb says that someone should be and swims away.

Lochlan just stares at me for a moment and I'm not sure what I did to upset him so much. What I know is that he didn't like it. I got his attention by paying attention to someone else. Someone he considers competition maybe or someone he aspires to be like. I would file that away for future reference. Lochlan turns away now, pulling my arms around him and I lock my hands around his neck and huddle against his back as he slowly makes his way back to shore.

That night at the bonfire I am sitting between Lochlan and Christian. I have had three burned marshmallows and half a bottle of Schooner and I'm buzzing into the flames and zoning out, falling asleep because it's late and my head dips onto Christian's shoulder so he gives me a gentle shove until I lean the other way, against Lochlan. Lochlan kisses the top of my head but keeps talking. They are talking about cars. I am so tired from the fresh air. I can hear the music down the beach. Caleb and his friends have backed a truck down to the sand and the doors are open and Robert Plant is on, Big Log. Caleb is sitting quietly by a bigger bonfire watching the others make fools of themselves but he is a little bit blurry because my eyes keep closing and because there is fire blocking my view of him.

Soon Lochlan picks me up, carrying me to the truck in his arms. I'll never be a grownup at this rate and I am dismayed but I think I'm too drunk to walk and not awake anyway. He puts me in the passenger side and pushes me until I am lying down and then he gets in the driver's side and rearranges me, shoving his hoodie under my head. He drives and I fall asleep again. It's warm and safe and comfortable. He turns off the radio and I am in dreams.

I'm out of dreams suddenly. We have stopped. Lochlan is sitting with the engine off, his hand stroking my hair. I sit up abruptly, sleep leaving me. I look around but it's pitch black.

Where are we?

Just up from the dunes. Look that way. See the light from the buoy?

Oh, okay. What are you doing?

Just sitting. Letting you sleep. Thinking.

About?

I think maybe if you want to come with me for some of the work this summer, than you should.

I want to but how?

We'll just tell your parents that you're staying at the cottage with us. (I had been going to his parents cottage for years already.)

What about Bailey?

Same thing. She's busy with her friends.

Really?

I jumped on him, squeezing him hard. I was so excited. Old enough to go out with the midway. Lochlan's approval was my oxygen. He wanted me to go along. Best day of my life.

His arms closed around me and he didn't let go right away. We just stayed as we were. I was sitting on his lap and he was still belted in. He reached down with one hand under my thigh and unfastened his seatbelt. And he kissed me, not letting go an inch. I couldn't breath. I wasn't sure what to do. I just kind of stayed where I was and let him try and teach me without words how to kiss him back and then I figured it out quite quickly and his hands went to my head. He pulled me back and stared at me.

He swore softly, in my face.

I burst into tears.

We didn't move.

He pulled me in against his chest and I could look over the back seat and see the mess of beach towels, stacks of Chilton car repair guides, Pepsi cans and empty cigarette packs. I stayed clutching Lochlan's neck forever, it seemed. I closed my eyes. I started to go back into my dreams and he let go and I felt cold and he shoved me back into my place beside him and kissed my cheek and started the truck. We drove out of the dunes silently.

We never saw Caleb was sitting at the top of the boardwalk stairs above.

Two days later I was packed, wearing my baby blue backpack, waiting on the porch for Lochlan when Caleb drove up to pick up Bailey and her friends for yet another day at the lake.

You coming too, little Fidget?

No, I'm...heading to Lochlan's cottage for a week.

But Lochlan won't be there, he's starting Midway tomorrow.

I know. I'm just going to hang out there.

Bridget. I was seventeen once.

So?

I saw you guys the other night, after the bonfire.

So? (I'm caving in now. I don't understand.)

Don't cry. Just don't go to the fair, okay?

I won't.

You promise me? Please? When you get back from the cottage I'll take you out for dinner at the A&W drive-in in the car.

Just us?

Sure.

Okay.

He continued to look at me.

What?

It's just..weird. You're still a little kid but you're not a little kid anymore.

His eyes dropped to my legs. Brown and bare. I stood up, self-conscious, hugging myself. Caleb corrected his gaze.

I just want you to be careful of the wolves, Bridget. It's only going to get worse now.

That's what they call you, you know.

He laughed.

When will I see you?

Probably around the end of the third week of August.

You're staying at his cottage with his folks until he comes back from the Midway?

Yes.

You've already lied once to me, then.

I'm in tears as Lochlan pulls up. I hide my face behind my hands. Instantly there's a shoving match. Lochlan is the smaller of the two but he's brave. Caleb, for all of his burgeoning power, is not a fighter.

What did you say to her, Caleb?

That she needs to watch out for predators.

So you're showing her what one looks like?

Yeah, you. Caleb points at Lochlan, who counters with a fist. Miss.

This is none of your business, Caleb.

She's too young for you.

I'm not interested.

That isn't what I saw the other night. At the beach.

Oh, hell. It was a mistake.

One that's going to get a lot worse if you take her on this run.

Mind your own business.

I am. Leave her here.

Are you ready, Bridge?

Lochlan gives up and turns back to me. He takes my backpack off me and looks at his watch. He's breathing hard from the physical confrontation. He tries to smile at me and drops it quickly.

Yeah, let's go, Lochlan.

This isn't over, Loch.

Yeah it is.

Caleb just shook his head. Probably too cool to fight over a twelve year old. He was fighting from a different place. I understand that now. And he and Lochlan are still fighting and I'm sure it stems from that incident. But I also think that incident sparked a change in all of them. I was no longer the little girl following them around. I realized that the morning after the night Lochlan and I finally did seal our fate. I stood in the cornfield covered with dirt, crying with shame as he dug the hole, wishing we were burying Caleb instead of secrets. We had to go back and he would know. He would just know.

Funny how NOTHING EVER CHANGES.

Your move, asshole.

Can't hold on to me.

I linger in the doorway
Alarm clock screaming
Monsters calling my name
Let me stay
Where the wind will whisper to me
Where the raindrops as they’re falling tell a story

In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me

Don’t say I’m out of touch
With this rampant chaos/your reality
I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge
In the nightmare I built my own world to escape

Swallowed up in the sound of my screaming
Cannot cease for the fear of silent nights
Oh, how I long for the deep-sleep dreaming
The goddess of imaginary light

This morning we have Amy Lee's voice competing with the theme music for Wayside on the television and everyone is patiently waiting for the baby-muffins to be ready. Daniel is baking them. Alone. Which means they will be perfect because he's a perfectionist. It also means they will take forever because he butters the pan perfectly and cracks the eggs perfectly and makes perfect conversation to cover up the fact that his eyes are puffy this morning and he is rather drawn and tired-looking and I know he fights with Schuyler and I know Schuyler can be cutting and cruel. Caleb-caliber cruel except that Caleb is afraid of nothing and Schuyler is afraid of me. And so he should be. Daniel is my charge, just like I am Lochlan's for the time being while Ben works overtime on top of overtime to finish this project.

Lochlan is reading through his notes and working from home. His reflexes are to lock me down and bar the door whenever Caleb's horns and forked tongue are showing at the same time and frankly I believe he feels left out. I spent hours hanging out in the crook of his arm yesterday, working on some stories I have been commissioned to write and then trying to stay awake while I listened to music on my BlackBerry, headphones jammed in tight to block out his parental tirade. Gentle, but still parental so I rebel and invite Daniel to come up and spend the morning because Daniel needs to be shaken, not stirred some days and really I wish that everyone would just act the same all the time, which is on their best behavior but oh, then things aren't any fun and it's much better when there is some fun.

I have chosen to retreat back into black this morning and the black stockings, platform shoes and buttoned-black dress are almost too much for Lochlan to bear. He prefers beach-Bridget, as did Jacob. Bikini top under eyelet camisole. Jeans. Flip-flops or dirty feet altogether. Evil eye bracelet leaving a tan line on my arm and tattoos covered with SPF30, always because faded tattoos make sadness in the world. Same big black bag slung over my shoulder, full of lip gloss, pennies, bobby pins, CDs and photographs. Always.

Imaginary would sound better on eleven but Henry takes priority and so it is on three. And these muffins would taste a lot better if Ben was sitting here eating one with me but really we all know he would shove the whole thing into his mouth and then get up and knock the chair over and proceed to eat the rest of them and then drink the coffee straight from the coffee pot before taking a bite out of the glass to wash it down so really in a way this is maybe better because this way everyone gets some and I'll still be able to make some coffee later when the afternoon narcolepsy begins to soak through my limbs and brain.

If it can find the way through all of this black, Lochlan says, reading my mind.

It comes from the inside out. I scowl at him and return to my words, I can arrange them with the blinding white light of a seaside morning where the sand is still warm and the waves break clear on broken shells, or I can go dark and shine a dim light on the letters as I pull them off the floor, puncturing my hands on the nails scattered around them, peeling back my fingernails, blood pouring down my knuckles as they become slippery but having to endure the pain to feel which letter I picked up in the first place because I cannot see. For the death of me, I cannot see.

Both are equally compelling, and equally likely on a day like today.

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.