Fine.

Lochlan is where I learned that birthdays were to be dreaded and then pointedly endured and it took Jacob the better part of three years to teach me differently. Just as I began to get excited about them again for the first time since I was in the single digits he was gone and birthdays revert back to an odd sort of industrial-emotional obstacle that I'm never sure I fully clear.

I would try harder to deflect Lochlan's opinions on things but it's so hard. Too hard. Once we were back home from his birthday dinner and I had the kids safely in bed I returned to him. He pulled me into the bathroom where he proceeded to roughly scrub the remainder of the sharpie marker off my fingers from Saturday and then he steered me back into the den.

He passes me his library card.

What is this?

The privilege of borrowing, princess.

I have one. I try to pass it back but he just hammers his index finger on it to grind his point home, a hole through the plastic, straight on through to the other side, baby.

Life is a library card, Bridget. You borrow emotions, events, experiences and then you put them back on the shelf for someone else. All of it is temporary. Life is borrowing love, breath, joy. Then we're done.

Don't, Lochlan.

Why the hell not? I'm in love with a fucking library book! I can check you out but you're a bestseller so I can't renew! Fuck your fucking allegories, princess. And fuck Benjamin too! I was here first!

I'm going to go. I'm not doing this tonight.

You're not alone. Why would you care?

I have been alone.

Yeah, for a whole hour. Maybe less.

What do you know? You've NEVER been there when I needed you.

Yeah, well then maybe I'm not worth it. Get the fuck out.

How much did you drink tonight?

CLEARLY NOT ENOUGH. It hurts. It fucking hurts so bad and it never goes away.

You made the call.

I know. Don't you think I know that, Bridget? What I don't know is how to make you forgive me. How to make you mine again. I've watched every one of them home in on you and then take you from me and I don't know how to stop this. Once and for all. I just want it to stop. How do I make it stop?

Go to sleep, Lochlan. You need it.

Yeah. Goodnight, library card. Check you out tomorrow.

Goodnight, Lochlan.

Like my pun?

No, not really.

You should stay, Bridgie. I just wish you would stay. I miss you. God, I miss you so much.

I am already gone. I close the door quietly so that it doesn't click. I'm sure he is asleep before I make it down the hall.

Anything to make you smile
You are the ever-living ghost of what once was
I never want to hear you say
That you'd be better off
Or you liked it that way

But no one is ever gonna love you more than I do
No one's gonna love you more than I do

Written across my knuckles in Caleb's neatly printed script with a sharpie from his big wooden desk in the other room.

OBLIVION

I'm wondering if it will last through a few more showers so I don't forget, ironically. Maybe if it washes off soon I'll have it written again on my forehead instead because that's what they read when they look at me. Forgets everything. The slights, the betrayals, the violence, the struggle.

(Forget history, forget the present and forget about the future, for now, baby.

Live in your sweet circus fugue and everything will be okay. Life is a big-top cotton-candy bubble for you, the outside can't touch you, the inside won't stop, and you can make as many rules as you like and paint them, numbered on a huge wooden board that you prop up by the entrance and we'll read it and then serve to ignore or break every last one.

For you.

Because that's the way you wanted it. Your needs are like the tide, always shifting. In and out. Aquamarine dreams, froth disguised as rapid eye movement, twitching, aching limbs from paddling against the current. Scattered, random waves.)

He watched us last night because Ben allowed nothing more, the correction for changing my appearance without permission, reparations for scaring me so badly and yet staying away is something I can't seem to accomplish at all and so I am brought, vaguely tranquilized on wine and unsteady. Undressed, given a marker and license to let go of my thoughts on their flesh, assent to print blame should I want to, or make promises to be tattooed. I remember distinctly writing I wish you were Cole down Caleb's muscled left arm. I remember writing don't leave me on Ben's impossibly-broad back where he would never find the conscious of my self. I remember nothing more than landing in the soft sheets after that, Ben's arms around me, the way I like life best. I no longer held the marker. The lights of the city were the last thing I saw.

I turn over and gaze out the window. I am upside down, facing the windows and therefore, the water. Ben sleeps easily beside me, rightside up. Caleb is nowhere to be found. I trace the letters on my fingers and turn my hands palms up. I love you is written on each one in my own handwriting. I am surprised by that, and pleased.

It is a first.

Grace in Ben's dark.

Ben's head pushes against mine. A subtle nudge. I turn and his lips cross the bridge of my nose. He whispers something but I miss it because his hands are over my ears. The kiss takes my breath away and doesn't return it. I'm drowning in his life, in his hands.

Closer still, his arms keep me against him. It's pitch black. I can't see, can't hear. Oh God, I can't breathe you are so heavy Ben and then suddenly an exquisite agony comes over me. When I cry out the weight lifts and his hand covers my mouth.

Shhhh, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay.

It isn't. I am pushing him away, bracing myself against him, uselessly blocking his advance and he moves right through me, no obstacles, no hesitations. I am clawing at air and skin now, pulling his fingers away from my mouth, scraping his shoulders all to hell and still he is close and tight against me, always reassuring, always unapologetic, rougher than he knows, fighting me, pulling my limbs in until I am powerless, shut down.

Suddenly there is air again. I am on the other side, free to move, the ache is gone, the power returns. Suddenly every single hint of movement is bringing waves of a drug that I am addicted to, gratified for those small moments before the thirst returns, mortified when it returns worse than ever. We are matched move for move, depravities accepted, welcomed. His hands slide up my leg and I am crushed again as he muffles my cries, cradling my head in his hands, kissing me. Giving up on his pretense of gruffness and might, overcome with a tender quiet that surprises us in a way the violence does not, strung out on rage to feel anything at all makes for a derivative joy when we reach that impossible place where rage is not required. Through, not around. A welcome struggle to keep our love visceral, to not change what we have, what this is.

I am lifted into the air and brought back down, fresh blinding pain presented in a spectacle of devotion, my tiny piece of air ripped away on the downswing, a conscious effort to relax every muscle, the circus girl who knows how to fall.

His love is the shield and his history the sword that cuts so deeply the wounds cauterize before the blade has been drawn through. I am covered with scars and choking behind the grasp of his hand. I'm lost in his psychological landscape with no map to guide me through his hot and cold emotional display, ruined by the sweet tenderness that remains behind his brutality.

Every inch is then examined for injury, every hair on my head kissed, every inch of my flesh stroked and tested for bruising. Proclaimed good enough, his hand returns to my mouth and his intent to my soul as he travels the rest of the night fighting my slumber as a human antidote for Bridget's nightmare fuel.

This darkness does not belong to the devil to exploit. This darkness is our own.

Oh, Benjamin.

Look out.

Shine for you.

How do you feel?
That is the question
But I forget you don't expect an easy answer
When something like a soul becomes
Initialized and folded up like paper dolls and little notes
You can't expect a bit of hope
So while you're outside looking in
Describing what you see
Remember what you're staring at is me

It was fun driving through the twilight last night, up, up, higher into the mountains to be spit out at the top, walking back through the woods, climbing over the gate and trespassing through the remnants of a fire pit to get to the edge of the world to watch the sun melt into purples and reds, bleeding into the clouds, leaving stars as a marker for morning.

Night came blissfully slowly and then it was gone before being appreciated, ripped away with terrors and dreams, reassurance and unexplainable fears. I walked a steady path around the house it seemed, maybe this is how a new phase begins, always with trying to shoehorn ourselves into a routine that seems to be the wrong size and color at first and then we get used to it, rolling up the sleeves and maybe pinning it, deciding we are okay with lavender or cream yellow or deepest ocean green. We make do and then eventually we can't have imagined it any other way.

Today is Ruth's eleventh birthday, which means she begins her twelfth year right now.

I'm not sure again how time passed me on the inside when I was slowing down to admire that sunset but it happened and I would like them to give me a restart because I'm pretty sure time has jumped the gun and there will be no cheating in this race.

This is the first no-toy birthday and it feels weird. She has chosen some pretty dresses that I went back for later, some clothes for school as well, art supplies. Endless art supplies. She has taken to disappearing with her drawings and headphones and she will lose hours and hours drawing the most intricate pictures from somewhere deep inside her mind while she listens to music and I am floored daily by how similar she is to Bridget of twelve and how she is nothing like me, so different, so unique sometimes that I have this urge to introduce myself again.

She is mine and not mine at all. She is independent, for eleven. No one gets away with anything and yet she has a tenderness about her that she guards jealousy.

She makes me proud.

She is like a sunset that never ends, impressing us with her beauty and her colors and her staggering depth. We are grateful witnesses to, and participants in her life.

Happy birthday, beautiful girl.

Extreme proposing.

(Apparently it's a sport now, and the winner is plotting triumph for quantity over quality. Because for the record? He has never had a ring present to accompany his question. NOT ONCE, LOCHLAN. Not once.)

Found on my desk shortly before I went to bed last night:

The mermaid slept in my empty bed
into the early dawn
the house was quiet, the night remained
until the sun turned on

She woke and checked the roses first
from my upstairs windowpane
greeted with a a riot of pink
a postcard picture frame

The mermaid's life has changed you see
much different than before
her house, her hair, her attitude
her heart an open door

She is the bravest soul I know
to juggle all our lives
just like old Jimmy at the show
with his axes, guns and knives

you see my girl was a midway girl
and I'd like to take her back
to walk behind the caravan
in the dusty wagon track

the memories don't fade for me
they are as clear as day
It's time to make some new ones now
She'll see, I'll lead the way.

Because the mermaid wasn't meant
to be with someone new
her soulmate was here all along
and not out of the blue.

Look, Bridge, I've made mistakes
I know I've made you cry
I've been a jerk, a thorn, a fool
but you're the apple of my eye.

The offer on the table here
remains for all to see
I will be here til the end of time
Will you marry me?

And my response:

Lochlan, I think this is enough,
You've never had it so rough
You made your advance now
Take no for an answer
and yes, here's poetic rebuff.

And his response to my response:

Fine. See you tonight, princess.

Why am I mad? He puts the same effort into this that he puts into asking me if I want one of his french fries when we go to Montgomery's. So hell no. Oh, and perhaps asking when I'm not already married or engaged might work better too but your mileage may vary.

I think I need my brain sharpened.

The dullness continues. The exhaustion continues. I sat down last evening to watch some (bad) music videos with Daniel and fell asleep instantly, prompting the house to collectively determine that I could just remain where I was and was not to be woken up under threat of much pain from Ben toward whoever dared move me, disturb me or breathe on my head.

This morning I was marginally energetic up until ten or so, long enough to deflect Schuyler's aggressive passion (or is that passive-agression?) over the fact that HE wanted to sleep with HIS boyfriend in his own bed and didn't I have enough musical beds to play a full set with already?

Ow. Sour grapes, Sky. Motherfucker.

Right. So, anyway...

Today we managed to stock the house with groceries in anticipation of the long (and boring) weekend. Ben is now down to single-digit days remaining on this project and I have officially lost my mind again missing him but aside from waiting and planning and organizing back to school and birthdays that will be deferred and other significant days that may fall completely under the radar, there isn't a whole hell of a lot I can do except work on getting better. I think I am. Slowly. Like molasses. Like lava. All of you can outrun me with your legs duct-taped together, starting from quicksand.

Maybe by the time Ben is finished I will be all better.

Maybe this is purgatory and I am dead after all. It would make sense, judging by the quality of music videos these days.

(The company rocks though. Dead Ben is awesomely depraved. Exactly what I hope for in the present AND in the afterlife, vampire-boy.)

Much ado about OJ.

Oh, you sillies.

*I* am the butler.

At least at home. It's become a running joke. Ben and I take turns fetching juice late at night. We really adored having a butler when we stayed in New York but none of the guys here will go for it so we split the job in half.

Please.

My silver spoons are not in my mouth, they're all in a drawer, bent by Jacob, straightened by Ben. I may call myself a princess but most of that is simply wishful thinking.

The lot of you, on the other hand, well, let's just say thanks. You're learning. Instead of a hard time about sleeping in Lochlan's bed, you all wanted to know if I actually had a butler here at the new house.

Seriously, wow.

We're making progress.

Circumvention and the safekeepers.

Frail and dry
I could lose it all
But I cannot recall
It's all wrong
Don't cry
Clear away this hate
And we can start to make it alright
So fly away
And leave it behind
Return someday
With red in your eyes

I see you
Cause you won't get out of my way
I hear you
Cause you won't quit screaming my name
I feel you
Cause you won't stop touching my skin
I need you
They're coming to take you away

He left me pinned to his needs for hours last night, held fast against escape. Protests went unanswered. Struggle was met with force. I reached down and grabbed his hair, pulling it. My legs gave out. I kept reaching down until I could pull on his jaw and then he came up and kissed me and pushed me down again.

I was not allowed up until he was satisfied that I had writhed hard enough, until I was completely exhausted. Until I was desecrated completely.

Stick a fork in me, Benjamin, I am so done.

I'll stick something else in you, princess.

Pushed back down, this time on my face. I am not complaining.

Really considering Ben is as sick as I am I don't know where he finds the energy for everything. I thought I was on the fast boat to dreamland last night when he pulled me against his chest in the bathtub but then he abruptly pulled the stopper and let the water drain out. We were zonked and falling asleep against each other.

I was wrong and I'm now missing a few extra hours of sleep to prove it. I just wish I was operating at one hundred percent instead of twenty-five. For myself and for Ben's own pleasure.

The butler brought the best-tasting orange juice we have ever had. Over alternating sips I asked Ben what he said (or did) to Caleb.

Nothing for you to worry about.

He smiled and took a sip of the juice. And then he set the glass down on my bedside table and kissed my forehead and I was out. Dreamless, citrus sleep, oh how I love you.

However the sleep dissolves before I am ready for it to and another day begins with dead silence from the glass cage, and louder silence from Lochlan and Ben. Ben is away before the sun comes up, in true vampire fashion and I take my blanket and wander down to Lochlan's wing and climb into his feverish and empty bed to try and sleep for another hour even though he is gone as well. The house is so quiet and I drift away into a light slumber, this time filled with disturbing, violent dreams. I sit up suddenly, the blanket tangled all around me so tightly I feel trapped.

I think about calling Caleb. Just to see if he is alright. But I don't and I won't. Ben said not to worry about it and I'm going to trust him. I call Lochlan instead.

What did he do?

Bridget? What's wrong?

What did Ben do to Caleb?

Go to sleep, Bridget. It's five-thirty in the morning. Why don't you go down to my bed and snooze for a while. At least until sunrise.

Okay.

Promise?

I'm there already, Loch.

I'm happy to hear that. Now, sleep, princess.

Psychic relay.

He asked me to bring his car back and then requested that I come up to his condo for a moment so that he could have a word. I've been waiting for twenty minutes, picking at the hem on my skirt. My sleeves are too long and my fingertips are barely visible but that's fine because it's cold in here, not just because of Caleb's mood. He finally walks in and takes my arm, moving me to his office chair from the comfortable chair at my little wrought iron desk by the window because he wants to pace and yell and accuse and be dramatic but it's okay, I have left already.

Why do you write these things, Bridget?

It's what I have. I am trying to be strong but I have that thick-throated feeling when I'm just about to cry, it's inevitable and I'm embarrassed by it.

I gave you everything.

No, what you've done is pay to ease your guilt.

You need to stop.

I ignore him. In my head I'm running down the steps to Jacob. I'm running carefully, trying to concentrate so that I don't slip. Slowest race ever.

Caleb grabs a handful of my hair in his fist and yanks my head around so that I am staring right at him. My eyes swim into focus with fear in them and he smiles. Oh, I see. Pay attention.

Will you stop, Bridget?

He says it softly, kindly almost. Save for the fact that he is hurting me I would have been moved.

I can't shake my head so I match his tone, equally soft. The smallest voice I have.

No. We've had this conversation before. May I go now, please?

He continues to hold my head along with my attention while he slides the scissors off the desk with his other hand. They are good scissors. Sharpened twice a year. He brings them up close and I close my eyes.

I hear them open and close and I'm not dead. He lets go and I open my eyes.

And then I understand perfectly.

Handfuls of my hair are landing on the desk. On the floor. I no longer care if I'm careful or not, I'm running down the steps now, sliding along the banister, feet almost off the ground. Don't touch me. Don't touch me. Don't touch me.

But he keeps taking hold of huge handfuls and cutting and cutting until my hair is close around my face and then he throws the scissors and they bounce off the wall and clatter to the floor. He has tears streaming down his face as he looks at me and then walks out, slamming his office door. I reach up and touch my head. My hair, my crowning glory of blonde that was almost back to my waist is now chin-length. I look like I did when I was young, when I cut my hair briefly for a change. Cole was the change. I cut it for him. I never cut it again until after Jacob and even then that turned out to be a big mistake and I was back to my mermaid hair as fast as it would grow.

And now it's gone.

I shove away from the desk and the chair smashes to the floor as I run after him. I don't catch up with him until he is almost through the living room at the balcony doors. I land both fists against his back as I call him a coward for running away.

He turns around and I am looking in a mirror, matched tear for tear. Helpless, frustrated rage written all over our faces. He is in shock.

Suddenly I laugh. I didn't expect to but I seem to have all the power. Hold on to it, princess. I put my hands up and touch my hair. It's close to my head. I bet I look like I did as he remembers me best. Helpless and young.

They're going to kill you.

I'm already dead, Bridget.

WHY DOES EVERYBODY KEEP SAYING THAT??

Because we want to be the ones you love, and because it's the only thing Jake and Cole have in common.

My eyes flash to the sky beyond his shoulder and he turns and throws the bolt on the door, weirdly so, as if I was going to be able to get past him somehow and climb up over the railing and drop to the street below with the high end stores and strange faces.

You don't know me. Don't act like you can do things and not pay for them.

That's just it, Bridget, I can. I've been a monster forever and you let me get away with it. Long before the fallout with Lochlan, long before Cole became your favorite monster. You changed and it's all my fault. I do the work and they reap the benefits. I take the risks and they get the rewards. What the fuck is this? I live in fucking fear but I can't help myself. You won't help yourself. We're all sick. All of us.

You're delusional if you think you've ever gotten away with anything. Look around, Caleb! What do you have?!

I have you. I have Henry. I--My God. Look what I did to you.

You don't have us. You have nothing. Remember that when you feel the need to keep being the monster. Just remember what it got you. You ruined your perfect life and you took mine with you. So everything you have is an overcompensation for everything you wanted and drove away.

It's not over, princess.

It was over before it started. You saw to that quite nicely.

Why are you bringing up the past suddenly? I thought we were over that. You had crafted a lovely tale of absentia for your own brain to swallow, it seemed. Lying to yourself is always a nice comfort against the ugliness of truth isn't it?

I don't know, you tell me.

We belong together, Bridget.

Like hell we do. You can pretend all you want, Caleb but the truth remains and eventually I'll tell it. Just keep pushing me and see where we end up.

You've had some good times with me, Bridget.

Sure, only because the one thing you've ever taught me that I can talk about out loud is that I can use you for my own sick games too. I don't have to worry about destroying my boys, I'll just use you instead, and then you go away when I'm finished. Because you mean nothing.

I can see him crumbling now. It isn't calculated for maximum advantage, it isn't staged, it's real and I don't want to do this anymore.

I'm going. You can see Ben later and explain this shit and clean up your own mess.

He nodded. I have the control again. We hand it off like a baton. I nod and I'm out of there. I walk outside into the evening breeze to John in the Rolls and I wish for my scarf because my neck is freezing. John's eyebrows go up when he sees me and I ask him if he can stop at one of the salons nearby and he does and I come home with a perfectly cute tapered bob and a new scarf too.

I had planned to tell them it was just a whim but then I remembered that feeling of terror as Caleb picked up the scissors and so I will condemn him instead. But he's right. I hardly even mean it and at the end of the day after death, history, cash and love pay out their dividends a haircut is not that big of a fucking deal.

I am still, though. Sadly. The hopes I had when I was eighteen fade quickly now. Like the last rays of sunlight as we drive back up the coast. I am practicing my explanations in my head to soften it already and I'll never know why I protect him from them but I do.