Loco (motive).

Hey everyone,
I got nowhere to go
The grave is lazy
He takes our bodies slowly

And I said please
Don't talk about the end
Don't talk about how every little thing goes away

She said, friend, all along
Thought I was learning how to take
How to bend not how to break
How to live not how to cry
But really
I've been learning how to die

One of the biggest positive changes since the move has been the daily dog-walks.

You'll remember the old walks. Every day I contemplated the incredible proximity and danger provided by the train yard at the end of my street. I could reach out and touch the trains as they roared past. I flattened millions of pennies on the tracks. I could have stepped in front of every last one of those trains. I jumped out of my skin dozens of times a day as they sounded their whistles. I lamented the location of the castle in the dark winter mornings when the night train would screech through the west end of the city at a walking pace.

It was possibly the loneliest place in the world and I hated it though I went every single day, sometimes twice.

When there were no trains, the fields were desolate and spartan, deserted and dangerous. What used to be the perfect place for Jacob to let Butterfield off his leash to run circles around us was no place for a small blonde girl alone with her laughable fifteen-pound puppy.

There are no freight trains here.

We walk on a lovingly swept and power-washed sidewalk when we are not on a landscaped evergreen path into the woods. We pass big beautiful new houses, admiring the gardens and outdoor decorations. The expansive front porches and custom-built fences, the slate walkways. The neighbors are mostly around, and they say hello. Other people walking their dogs say hello. Children smile. Sometimes people come out and begin conversations. I almost feel as if I'm in a pageant every time I leave the house. Smile and wave. In the prairies I could shrug into my big heavy but not warm jacket and my not-quite-warm-enough boots and wouldn't see another person for miles in the minus thirty degree average winter day. The trains were my company and they never had anything to say.

This is much better. The boys are so happy there are no trains. And I kept one very flat smooth penny, for luck. Or maybe so I don't forget how lucky I am.

The hand went up, his thumb smoothing my bangs across my forehead, revealing my eyes, smoothing my hair back behind one ear and then leaving his hand there while I fell asleep, my cheek against his warm palm. One of the few ways I could ever fall asleep in the camper, with the strange noises that seemed as if they were right on the other side of the wall and the way it would bounce gently in the wind, no shocks left, bald wheels and a rusty hitch lending it all the credibility it was ever going to have.

Cole called it the have-not years. Bridget's hedonism. Ironic because Cole and I never had two nickels to rub together until Batman saw one of Cole's photographs of me and introduced him to people who made a sport out of art, and Cole was exposed to enough high-profile, wealthy people that suddenly his work was in such demand he couldn't keep up and he became an overnight success in such an incredibly strange and esoteric niche that life flew by in an instant and suddenly we were moving and then we were drowning in Cole's madness and the pressure was too much for him and for every dollar they gave him he broke off a piece of his soul and handed it, crumbling, back to them.

Batman had opened the floodgates but he had no idea that blessings are curses too. He was too busy, anyway. When he wasn't flying in and out of town, he was pretending he didn't need to check up on me more than once a year by having Caleb do it on his behalf, only Caleb fed him a steady stream of lies and Batman finally cut him out of the picture and they became adversaries, both siding with Cole, both jockeying for credit for Cole's success.

Cole's success belonged to Cole and Cole alone because whatever Cole saw through his viewfinder he could transfer to print and it stunned me to a fault. It's why I laugh when I look at the Ferris wheel picture Lochlan took and cry when I see the candids that Sam took of me at the first Mother's Day brunch that Jacob held at the church. They can't do with a camera what Cole could do and that's okay because they have other equally significant gifts.

My hedonism was an invention. I was simply a girl afraid of the dark and I knew where to go to feel safer.

Feet on the ground.

An awareness of standing on concrete. Pavement. Grass. Mud. Hard-packed well-traveled dirt even. I would become consciously aware that I was standing. That I was living. It always seems to hit out of the blue in the two seconds of silence before the next song begins.

Maybe that was how I decided I hated snow. I wanted to be on the ground.

In any case, the feverish disdain for blacker days here that I was warned of a thousand times over has not hit, and I am still cautiously inclined to point out it's the snow and the cold that I can't stand, and really having grown up on a rainy damp coast I'm well-suited to life as a duckling. My feet might be webbed. Water might bead on my hair. I imprint easily, if you have a beard and a smile for me.

My fingers have not split. My hair has not dried out to hay-status. My body has not degenerated into a battleground of hives and eczema and extreme crackled dryness. My mind has not shut down in the cold, bereft for lack of music on the worst days because my phone (any phone) ceases to operate at those temperatures. Instead I can pick out pretty shirts that will show (AKA without sweaters!) and run around the house and porch in bare feet for the entire day if I want and I won't feel a chill. The heat in this house has not made it over 57 and we haven't noticed if it's even on, half the time.

When the dark closes in I light candles and reading lamps and sometimes have a fire in the fireplace. When the rain pours I make sure we have a few backup umbrellas and the other day I laughed out loud when I went to shrug into my winter coat only to realize how warm it was and I went out in jeans, a t-shirt and a hoodie instead. The hoodie wasn't even zipped up. Everyone I met was treated to a whole enthusiastic depiction of the fact that It's January! We don't need coats! Can you believe it! And they shrug and laugh at my excitement and tell me I will get used to it. I practically skip down the road now. You would laugh.

I have mastered driving in night-rain. I have solved most of the problems with wet feet. Instead of extra gloves and sweaters, the children carry extra socks in their daypacks and we buy very good rain boots and umbrellas to keep the rain an arm's length away. I have all but dimissed worries involving freezing to death and I'm almost grateful for the damp air to breath when we aren't well, because dry air has a tendency to bring the colds and keep them in our lungs.

With Ben still very sick it is easy for me to head out in search of juice and soup and cough drops and nyquil without him worrying about me driving on ice and I've already forgotten the description they used to use for when the snow packed down hard and glossy and they would have to bring in the big cats and dumptrucks and carve down to the road level again so that people could actually enjoy brakes when they drove instead of drifting right through stop signs, despite that top speed of five kilometres an hour. Was it gloss? No, I'm pretty sure I would have remembered that.

I believe the snow was weighing me down, frankly. It looks so innocent and beautiful. Special, individually. No two are alike. But then it forms a gang and chokes off the flowers and the life visible for miles and you wear it on your being in the form of layers of wool and silk and gortex and thinsulate and you curse your feet as they slip out from under you and you breath out fog that contains epithets of misery and everyone pretends they are all in this together when really you have been standing on the fringe trying desperately to escape into your head for so long now you can only tell the difference between the place inside your head and the one outside by the presence of snow.

I'm putting snow into its place in my life now. It dusts the tops of the majestic mountains that surround me with a pure white coat of icing sugar. It beckons to come play and then leave it behind again. It's a Bob Ross touch painted with a number five brush dipped in a swatch of titanium white, left to dry on a canvas of fantasy and that's where I'm leaving it today. The lowest low through the end of January is slated to be three degrees and I am jumping for joy.

Thrill.

He pulled the hoodie down over my head roughly, still vaguely angry that I failed to remember to bring a sweater. I was in a rush. He made no move to pull my hair out from underneath it. I never did if I knew I would be on the rides. I couldn't stand ponytails and if I braided it it just became kinked-up later and so instead I left it tucked into my shirts and jackets virtually all of the time.

Warmer?

Yes. Thank you.

Good.

Lochlan kissed my forehead and then grabbed my hand, pulling me up the ramp and then stopping and waiting for me to climb into the basket first. I did and he paused, pulling out his little camera and telling me to say cheese. He snapped the picture and then he piled in against me, putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me in close to him as the bar was secured in front of us. A little thrill ran through me. This was one of my rewards at the end of every evening. The wheel was kept open an extra twenty minutes so that I could have one private ride. So I could enjoy the stars and the weightless drop without being surrounded by crowds. I always had an hour to spare before Cole picked me up.

The wheel creaked forward. Three times backwards, five times forwards and then three times backwards again. I never counted anymore so that I wouldn't have the looming disappointment of knowing it was coming to an end. I never closed my eyes until at least the third trip around the wheel and I never let go of the front of Lochlan's shirt, holding on for dear life as I had every year for five years running because the very top of the wheel never ceased to scare me just a little even though I watched them put it together. I watched the inspections every morning and I trusted these boys with my life.

It stopped when we were right at the top. I knew I had about one minute to take in the stars before it would start up again.

Make a wish, Bridget.

(silence)

Did you? In time? Want me to ask for another stop?

I got it. I'm good.

What did you wish for?

If I tell you it will never happen.

Sure it will, once the wish is loose it comes true.

I wish I could do this every night for the rest of my life.

He squeezed me. Me too.

When we got to the bottom again I asked Lochlan if I could have the picture he took. He shook his head and laughed.

Maybe I can have a copy made for you. Besides, why would you want a picture of yourself?

So I can remember this.

I'll make sure to frame it and always keep it where you can see it whenever you want.

Promise?

I promise.

Cole was waiting in the parking lot when we got off. I walked through the gates, got into his car and we drove away. Lochlan went back to the camper. I would see him tomorrow morning again, so I hardly ever said goodnight. Years later he would tell me that really bothered him, that I never said it.

It still bothers him now, if I forget.

It bothers me that I was right about my wishes.

Prince of hotness.

The bento boxes are actually real.

My plan is to learn to get very good at doing designs and critters and characters out of every day foods since three or more members of my family take lunches with them when they leave in the morning.

Yes, even the big one, who would just be so impressed to unpack his meal at lunch time and find hard-boiled egg bunnies or carrot flowers.

Right? Right? I know! The look on his face. I would pay for it. I'll have to settle for the awkward suggestion when he gets home that I stick to sandwiches cut in half and no Sanrio please, we have no sense of humor after all.

Pft.

Lunches were lacking this week anyway since he didn't work, choosing to suck in all the germs within an eleventy-zillion mile radius and come down with pneumonia and at this point he's relegated to a few delirious hours a day where he proclaims to have obsolete pop songs stuck in his head and lists wildly to the right as he walks across the room. And also? Lochlan's crown as (literally) Hottest Man Alive has been stolen, Ben smashing it down over his own skull as his fevers ranged from 102 to 105 and back again all damned week long.

I have two and a half days to make more tea and soup, fetch more juice, encourage more sleep and generally police the bottle of penicillin that sits by the sink waiting to be opened every eight hours in case Ben forgets, in his delirium. Then he goes back to work. Back to his office where he churns out projects and impresses people so jaded they arrive in shades of green and the cycle will continue again. Back to routine.

Back with tomato roses and cucumber sprigs curled into filigree!

Muhahaha.

Bento boxes. He said I forgot those too.

Now don't believe she'll never leave again,
I can't forget the words she said back when.

(Daniel wants me to remind you to not forget to store your pens together. This is critical. Especially if you need a year to motivate yourself to do it.)

Today I bought myself a new pair of army pants, found out my favorite bakery has a whole! big! bin! by the door of lovely things they made yesterday that didn't sell that will fit in my freezer just fine, and then drove all the freaking way downtown on a moment's notice to pick up a still-sick Benjamin.

And then for Benjamin, and ONLY for Benjamin, I did not resist when he suggested a picnic in the car, since we stopped at a drive-through on the way home because it takes forever to get downtown and home again and we had fifteen minutes to spare before the kids were finished school. If you know me you'll know that I don't eat in my car! Seriously. I threw a fit at Cole in 1999 after we seemed to spend more time in the parking lot of most fast food restaurants than we did in the tiny kitchen of our rental flat and I said I would never do it again. Ben promised it wouldn't become a habit.

This evening I took Ruth up to the high school for her first honour band practice, because she was asked to join. I am very, very proud. I tend not to talk about my children much online, simply because some day they will take a serious interest in reading my archives and I don't want them to think that I mined their lives for blog-fodder (the boys on the other hand, well, they're grownups. It's different.)

My legs fell asleep sitting on the steps by the gym waiting for her and I got to see an incredibly entertaining cross-section of high school drama and I sat there biting my tongue, desperate to tell the two involved that in twenty years so much will have happened that it doesn't matter.

I didn't say anything, if that's what you're wondering.

So it was sort of a long day, in that my knees were asleep for most of it and all of it involved looking after everybody else, which is a nice change from everybody looking after me.

We got the patina thing from Apartment Therapy too.

Barometer?

It's rowing out. Which is snow mixed with rain, in this house. Making for eleven-hundred pound shovelfuls, and Bridget's little turbo parked in the driveway isn't going anywhere until the snow is gone. Mostly because life is all uphill and downhill here (HA, I made a funny) and frankly hills + snow sort of terrify me and I will scream out loud as I'm driving. I can drown out Pete Steele on my stereo and he's parked posthumously on volume number forty-two, in Bose car-stereo speak. That's VERY LOUD to you without my car stereo, amps under the seats so Bridget gets her full-body sensory musical experience, every time.

Bonham leapt through the snow this morning like a small, furry gazelle with no legs, and wore himself to bits sixty feet down the sidewalk (his legs are six inches long, we got eight inches of snow, so he body-surfed with no one to carry him along, you see), and is now resting comfortably at Ben's feet on the couch. Ben has been sleeping on said couch since six this morning. We woke up at four, realized the power was off (again, what is it with you, Vancouver?) and checked our phones, snoozed until they actually went off, and then he got ready for work, I took the gazelle up the road and then Ben told me over one hell of a barking cough that there was no way in hell he could manage the day and that was that. Third day in a row and that's when I start to worry and so when/if he gets up he's going to go to the doctor because he's been too miserable too long.

I am faring much better. Possibly because I refuse to let it get me but I've got a very raw throat and some seriously exciting and questionable things coming out of my nose that *almost* make me want to show the boys but otherwise I am still holding steady. The massive aches and pains don't seem to kick in until late evening.

Being sick 'adds patina' to the house, I guess. Otherwise we're just glaring perfection in the face of flawed humanity.

Oh, shut the fuck up. I'm kidding. I'm delirious from lack of sleep and the knowledge that this spring, an Anthropologie store is going in on Granville Street and I swear to God you're never going to see me again.

Also I heard Michael Kors is coming. I have a Michael Kors bag but empty it is too heavy to carry because of the latch so if I have to use it I make the boys carry it for me and that looks a little awkward and also it comes back sans lip glosses. That pisses me off.

I'm starving which always makes me weird. Three pieces of (sprouted) grain bread with jam (the closest thing I can find to the Goodhearty bread from Wolfville that my mom discovered and smuggled out of the Annapolis valley for me) and I'm eyeing the clock. I should just eat the damned pretzels in spite of the salt. Fuck the salt when I'm hungry. Feed the Bridget.

She's a monster.

PS I haven't heard from Caleb. I did hear from the court. Everything is duly noted and I could hear audible eye-rolling going on as I was warned to get our acts together because we use up a lot of resources with this whole love-hate-parenting arrangement. Lochlan is cautiously optimistic and terrified and nostalgic and remorseful all at once and secrets loom large. Caleb could respond antagonistically or he could be uncharacteristic. He is not usually unpredictable but I never know.

So I am instructed to hold tight, and I will for the moment. I'm going to go back to my new favorite hobby with Daniel, which is snarking on Apartment Therapy posts. Where they discuss riveting topics like the revelation of using coat hooks for...a coat rack! And microwave 'hacks' like cooking eggs. And my favorite, how to manage your laundry! If those don't make you wonder, these same people extol the virtues of choosing throw pillows, all under $100! (Who buys a $100 throw pillow? Someone who can't figure out how to make an egg in a microwave, apparently.)

This is the apocalypse, my friends, only it's very slow-moving and well-coordinated, with designer fabrics and the word 'hack' sprinkled on everything liberally, like a bad cough.

With that I am out. Places to go, people to molest. Possibly antibiotics to buy. Drive safe.

A place that might surprise you, and a Ferris wheel made of cheese.

(For the moment, I will try to bring closure to one damn thing on this journal.)

I'm pretty sure that Jacob would be rolling over in his grave today, if he was in one, but he isn't, he's in a big copper urn in a little white house in Newfoundland and some of him is in a tiny copper box here on the mantle with Butterfield in one as well. I seem to be collecting boxes with dead things. Oh joy, I've finally become one of those really creepy-

Wait a minute.

I always was vaguely creepy and weird so maybe nevermind.

What I meant to say is that Jacob backed up Ben and forgave him time and time again, when there was positively nothing redeemable about Ben whatsoever. Jacob gave me his blessing to rely on Ben in the letters left for me and Jacob believed that deep down Ben was a good person, when everyone else threw up their hands, blocked Ben's phone number and told him when he finally smartened up they would be happy to be friends again.

Maybe Ben is just coming full circle after an incredibly difficult five years. Maybe Jacob was just better at reading people. Maybe Ben is a trickster, a shaman, a fraud. Maybe Ben and Lochlan are working together on a slow and non-suspicious snail-paced abduction and brainwashing and I am too stupid to understand the difference.

Maybe none of them will ever get along sufficiently to last a week without a punch thrown or a few hours of silent treatment, or a silent mark kept on a lifetime board that holds so many strikes-you're-out that the game has become one of endurance, played through decades and styles and mindsets and plans.

Maybe I am the last of us to turn forty this year (shut UP) and it's simply time things change, because things were out of control.

So far out of control that it has come to this and this is something I can endorse because I tend to agree with Jacob. Ben was never much good at keeping up the charm for long. At worst he's an unruly five-year-old with a truck in one hand and a sunflower in the other and he had big plans to rule the world with his music someday only at best he's one hell of a wild, unruly type with little self-control and no plans for the future past riding out the day. Throw in a case of incurable stage fright, an inability to get along with others in close quarters and hold to big decisions for very long and a heavy hand that belies his incredibly fragile heart and you have a force to be reckoned with. The Dark Side.

Ben needs time apart from people. Down time. Time to unwind. He needs space to spread out and please, don't touch his stuff. Advise him of the best way to proceed and then trick him into confirming the most beneficial choice with you and call it a decision. Don't try to contain him, for there isn't a room that can. Get him off the stage and let him rule the world in a different way, in which his name will become synonymous with great things without him having to sell his soul every night under the hot lights to get it.

Jacob gave me permission to love Ben when all signs pointed to that being a recklessness of the highest degree.

But Jacob didn't make me fall in love with Ben, Ben did. And when no one's looking (better yet, when no one is talking about the last thing Ben ate that wasn't exactly edible like truck tires, ipods or Bridget's watermelon all-chemical lip gloss), Ben does things that continue to surprise.

Like spend years culling favors and keeping friends in order to help another friend and save my life at the same time, in a way I can't tell you about because the Internet remains a stranger sometimes, not a friend.

And now Ben holds the upper hand, in everything. And even Caleb with his threats and history and potential for total ruin can't touch us anymore. None of us. Lochlan is safe. I am safe. The memories are safe, tucked in tightly with the secrets and the grief and I was taken this morning to close another chapter of life that I left open a little too long, page turned down repeatedly, threadbare fibers waging tears between the words, spine cracked on a book that is too hard for most people to read. One I now know by heart, word for word.

I stepped through the threshold into the concrete room and Jacob was standing in the light. Ben entered behind me. Jacob nodded. Tucker, he said softly. Zero, Ben replied. Jacob broke into a gentle grin and my heart strained against the stitches. It's funny how things that shouldn't be are intertwined in a way that everything happens at once or nothing ever happens at all. I would like more of the latter, I think.

Are you sure I have to do this?

I need to go, princess.

Just so you know, I'd like to keep you here forever, but I know I can't.

I think things will be easier for you now. You don't need to come here to spend time with me.

What if things don't get better?

Then you have a willing cavalry to help you.

I love you, Jakey.

I love you, princess. You know where to find me.(Thankfully he did not point straight up. I might have died from cheesiness and a proliferation of flashbacks to watching Highway to Heaven.)

I closed my eyes together tightly. I squished my whole face up in an effort not to cry. When I opened them he was gone. No goodbye. No drawn-out departure. No last chance. I was aware I was holding Ben's hand so tightly my fingers ached. I let go and shook them to bring back the feeling. Ironic. Usually I want to make the feelings go away.

Hey Bridge.

Yeah.

Can we use the garage again now? It's going to snow tonight.

Maybe.

Oh, fuck. I'm going to go move the truck before you change your mind.

With the best of intentions and his invisible cape.

Trying something new, because it's been a while.

Trust.

When I hit publish yesterday morning, Ben walked into Caleb's office, holding the key card that gives access to the elevator. The card was still attached to the doorman, who didn't look very happy at all.

Ben let him go and he beat a hasty retreat. He knows Ben. I'm sure the moment he returned to the ground floor he would have called Caleb on his cellphone to warn him there was an angry giant waiting in his office but Ben didn't give him that chance. Ben looked at me and then went barging through the condo, walking right into the bathroom where Caleb was and telling him we were leaving and just stay where he was.

Caleb was too surprised to say anything, I bet.

Ben returned to the study, took my hand and asked me if I had anything else with me. I said no and he pulled me back to the elevator and outside to the waiting truck, still running. He buckled me in, locked the doors and then called Lochlan to let him know we were on the way.

He called Caleb again and told him to have my car brought home too.

We came home and he made no move to go inside. I am sitting quietly. Tears rolling.

You gotta give me some of it.

What?

This part. The hard part. Stop running to him when you feel angry about Jake. This is part of being together, Bridget. You're supposed to come to me.

You have enough to deal with.

And I would rather deal with you and help you than worry about you twenty-four hours a day. That just adds to my problems. Let me help you. Stop putting yourself in the path of a freight train.

Caleb's a train now?

When it comes to you, yes. I think it's time some things change.

That's what he said.

Caleb?

Jacob.

Ben stared at me without a word for so long I started to squirm shamefully under his attention. His face started out positively furious and then I watched as it softened. As he went from monster to lover in the space of two minutes, which was an eternity and then he finally asked.

What did Zero say, exactly?

That I have to let him go now, and that I should stay away from Caleb.

And how do you feel about that?

Well, fuck. I hate that question. That question sent me out of the truck, doors slamming, jaw clenched. Marching back to the house where I stopped, patiently waiting for Ben to catch up and unlock the front door and then once inside, I went straight for the library where I threw myself face down into the pillows on the chair.

Bridget-

I know. He's right, you're right, everybody's right.

I don't want you near Caleb anymore.

Is this an ultimatum? My Ben doesn't do ultimatums.

Yes it is and yes he does. He's just been a lot more perverted and more patient than most Bens.

My Ben isn't patient at all.

Sure he is. Your life up until now is an example of that.

So I've gotten it all wrong.

No. Not at all.

What about Lochlan?

Let me deal with everyone from now on.

You can't deal with them, Ben. If you shut them out Caleb will crush Lochlan and me, by default. Is it worth it?

I have aces in my hand too. Maybe you haven't paid attention to the game.

Why didn't you use them already? Christ, Ben, we've been to hell and back a hundred times now.

I was waiting for you, but, really, Bridget, you're taking a while and sometimes I think you take advantage and really I have had it up to here with everyone else taking their piece of you and leaving me with crumbs. They need to go find their own lives. Caleb needs a new hobby that doesn't involve terrorizing my wife and playing on her weaknesses.

You're going to take Lochlan away from me, too? I have already forgotten about Caleb. I don't need Caleb. I need Lochlan though. This is one dealbreaker I won't indulge in.

No. Just Caleb.

Good luck. If this were possible it would have already happened.

Let me fix this. Once. Just this one thing.

No, sorry. I can't risk Lochlan. And you shouldn't risk me, by default.

And you shouldn't doubt me, Bridget.

What do you mean?

Maybe I've spent the last three years planning. To be sure. Do you trust me?

I had to think about this. For a long moment. Holy fuck. I actually DO trust him.

More than anyone.

Then let me deal with Caleb. The only time you'll see him is when he picks Henry up or drops him off. Okay? I have spent so long saying nothing. I'm done, Bridge. No more.

Okay.

Can you do this, little bee?

Yes.

No more Caleb, no more Cole.

No more Caleb, Cole.

No more Jacob either, princess.

What?

Package deal.

You can't put restrictions on Jacob. I didn't sign up for this.

Yeah, well, princess, I didn't sign up to watch you hammer yourself into the ground squarely between them either.

Caleb will kill all of us. Did you warn Lochlan? Does he know?

I want you to let me handle him. If Caleb contacts you, I want you to direct him back to me. Okay?

Okay.

Nothing else, Bridge. The company will be run by the board. You don't have to touch it.

Okay, Ben.

I love you.

I love you too. What if-

There are no what ifs here. It's okay. Everything's going to be okay, bee. I've been planning this since the day I fell in love with you.

Eight years?

Three, goofy. Okay, maybe longer. And I've had it with him. It's time to move on this.

What if-

Trust me. I love you. And I love Lochlan.

Do you really, Ben?

Sadly, yes. He's pretty hot actually. (Ben grins briefly and I start choking on tears. Laughing and crying at the same time. So pretty.)

It's going to blow up in our fac-

Or it might just all end happily ever after.

You know we won't know that for forty or fifty years.

I can wait, Bridget. I've waited through worse.

What's worse than Caleb?

Jake was. Believe it or not.

Condemning the already-condemned (AKA The Devil is real).

It was pitch black and cooler than I remember the temperature of the room being when I fell asleep. I slipped down to the bottom of the bed from between my guards as they slept on and shrugged into yesterday's clothes. Buttoning my jeans I saw one guard turn over and then he pulled the quilts up over his head and the soft growl of his snore resumed. Not so much of a snore, actually, more like someone getting a cold. I frowned but kept moving.

I gingerly pulled on my warmest zippered hoodie and took off, down steps, down hallways, lighter than our room by virtue of the lack of window coverings. Down, down, deeper until I hit the stairs that turn to the right and then I was home free. At the bottom of the steps is a frozen sheet of water, once a perpetual rain puddle in the place where I land after hundreds of trips, turned to treacherous ice by the overnight drop in degrees. I keep my hand on the railing until I'm sure I'm not going to wipe out.

I made it. I turn and walk slowly down the hallway today. The ice-puddles are everywhere. I'm surprised it is so cold. My hands are numb and shaking already but I need to keep them out for balance. It's a tightrope without the fall, a line drawn between wrong and wrong.

The door is open again. I either keep a messy grief or he has been waiting hard for me. The iced dead leaves remain curled around themselves along the walls. A light wind whistles down the corridor, echoing off concrete. I feel lonely. None of the boys are here at this hour. No one can convince me this isn't real. Nobody understands why the sadness ever goes away and I never wanted to have to make this trip on a regular basis but it is expected, and the obligations to the dead outweigh the ones to the living every time. All I ever wanted was to bring him back to life and until I figure that out, everything else will have to go away.

Jacob is still sitting on the floor where I left him last. When I step through the door and look around I instinctively know he's still going to be right there, even after six weeks of not coming here.

He has his knees up with his head buried in his arms, resting on top of them. He doesn't look up.

You're hurt.

It's nothing.

WHO DID IT? He breaks out in a roar and I shrink away from him, back toward the door. He looks up finally and stands. I am small in front of him, the top of my head level with his chest. He grabs my arms and I shriek involuntarily and he drops them and meets my eyes. His are sunken, faded blue ringed in black. Betrayal floats in his irises alongside sadness and rage, each one struggling to be on top, drowning the others, taking turns pushing each other under the surface.

I am surprised at his rage.

It isn't rage. He's read my mind.

Like hell, Jacob.

I'm helpless here, princess.

There isn't anything you need to help with!

Was it Caleb because I can get to him.

He gets to you, you mean. And no, it wasn't and no it didn't happen on purpose. It was an accident.

They can't afford accidents.

They watch each other.

That only raises the stakes and puts you in danger. You can't be in that place anymore. You had enough from HIM! Jacob raises one hand to the sky and points at the darkest corner of the room where Cole lurks in frustrated silence. He isn't allowed to talk unless I give him permission.

It isn't like that.

Oh, man, you're just going in circles now. Let me go. I can't help you stuck in here.

I can't do that.

YOU HAVE TO. Keeping me here compounds all of this. You shouldn't be here. I can't do anything from here. This is insanity. Bridget, make something different. It's okay. You can visit the memories but this..this room isn't real and it's not right and it's enough already. Enough.

You don't know anything.

I know your heart, Bridget.

If you knew my heart we wouldn't be here, Jake.

I was really hoping they were strong enough. You have to try something else. Jesus, this can't be happening again.

Get off it! It isn't like that. Just STOP. I can't do this today. I have to go back.

When will you come back?

When I think I need you.

What about when I need you? Six weeks since the last time, princess.

The rage transfers from his eyes to mine and I taste the bitter thrill of victory and his helplessness surrounds me and takes all the air out of the room but I have enough left to let a little bit of the rage out.

Yeah, well, what about when I needed you, Jacob? Where in the hell were you then?

I shocked myself and stumbled backwards, away from him, away from the sudden realization that I'm not magical and keeping him here isn't doing anything for me but reminding me that I am ordinary and useless, that I can't bring him back to life but I can't keep him here.

This isn't working only instead of being sad, I am so angry. Angry at everyone. Angry at myself. Angry at Jacob, who was elevated to angel-status up until this moment. Sainted. An innocent. A victim of my emotional tides and my insatiable need for things no single human being can fulfill and no group of human beings can surmount peacefully.

Hence the injury, as I was pulled violently between them like a rag doll, the threat of my arms ripping away and my stuffing coming out a sure eventuality until the breathless, silent terror on my face halted a moment that never should have happened. They both let go and I careened off one, colliding with the other at a hundred miles an hour. Their arms came back up to catch me but it was too late, their expressions admitting how startled they were at how incredibly out of control we have all become.

My tears and pain did nothing to dilute the treachery and I realized we never place a limit on their selfishness, allowing their predatory instincts to continue unabated, until I became their victim instead of their prize.

Jacob's voice cuts back in, gently now.

Bridget, stay and we can figure this out.

I need to go. They're waiting.

I can help you if you let me out.

I'll think about it, I lie.

I turn and run, stupid fucking door almost tripping me again. Instead of heading back to the stairs, I run in the other direction, toward the endless dark. Toward hell.

The doorman lets me in, aware that I am not dressed properly for visiting, aware that my hair is not combed and I have car keys and nothing else. Aware that I am shaking like a leaf and he reaches in close and presses the elevator buttons for me to give the code that will spit me out on Caleb's floor and then he looks at me questioningly as I shrink away from him, a silent inquiry as to whether or not I am okay.

I dismiss it without responding and close my eyes as doors close and the elevator rises.

When the doors open again, the Devil is waiting, pulling my hands into his fire. They are still ice-cold. He is smart enough not to touch more than just my hands. He tells me he has to get ready for the day and I should wait in the safety of his office, that I could read on his laptop or whatever I wanted to do, really.

That he won't be long.

All of this is a mistake.