Sweet little hypocrites.

I am sitting on the edge of a long couch in a Vietnamese nail salon near the edge of nowhere downtown patiently waiting for Caleb to finish with his metrosexual grooming errands. He is getting a manicure in which they do little more than file a few ragged edges and buff and then collect a hundred dollars from him. Four times I have refused to be umm...treated so instead I am listening to the women who are waiting for their appointments as they seem to arrive in groups and I am getting an earful.

They have all decided Caleb is exceedingly hot and then helpfully the shop owner whispered something at the largest group and then pointed to me and a sea of falsely-tanned, overly-streaked blinged-out blondes gave me their heavily-practiced 'disappointment' faces. One of them mouths She's so LUCKY! to her friend.

Oh, girls. If only you knew.

But I did not correct them out loud. I will let them live in their bubbles. I haven't opened my mouth short of asking Caleb directly how long he would be and he responded that I may as well sit down for a moment but don't leave. Fine.

The tanned girls are reading celebrity magazines and discussing other nail salons. They are complaining about the place that ran out of the right color and the one where the water for the pedicures wasn't warm enough and at another place the horror was in having to wait ten minutes past her appointment time and her time is valuable, she had tanning afterward and it got messed up and she had to reschedule for fifteen minutes later. Yet another was downright PISSED because her nail technician got up once to answer the phone and it took two extra minutes to have her polish finished but she didn't get a discount after all that trauma. Still another won't go to her favorite former haunt anymore because their Sex and the City reruns are 'annoying'.

If he takes much longer I might slip off the end of the couch into sheer stupification, perhaps to rock myself back and forth and I remind myself this is why I don't have girlfriends (other than the obvious glaring reasons). Because I will go buy a bottle of pretty color and paint my own nails a hundred times for $3.99 and it takes very little time (Sally Hansen Insta-Dry) and then I have nothing to complain about and no one's going to take my hundred dollars only to make me wait five minutes or force me to endure dumb television shows and gossip magazines. And....tepid water.

I consider that very good value. I just don't understand how you can be so spoiled as to pay someone to regularly paint your nails and then have the nerve to complain that you weren't pampered enough.

I really hope he's finished soon though. I really fear I might punch somebody in the face.

Let me get some things straight.

-Yes, we did see the supermoon last night from the back deck! It came up right over the trees by the road and rose higher and higher and turned paler and it became cold so we gave up around ten. The geese were coming home at the same time, flying in the dark, honking softly. It was beautiful and funny, I thought they were on the roof. The telescope is still taking up most of the back entryway. Something tells me there is more stargazing in our future, now that Ben has had time to tinker with the bolts on it and get it set up just right.

-I realize Ben needs a haircut. Thank you for pointing that out. He's been very busy. However my main goal is to get him in the woods today because for some reason that has turned out to be total and utter decompression for us as a family and we love it. I'm pretty sure the bears love it too, and as we walk by they most likely take inventory: blonde meat, blonde meat, blonde meat, metal meat OM NOM NOM.

-The Lululemon bug has hit me. I don't really like the clothes but I'm dying to know what my ass would look like in those famous Groove pants. It will be a spectator sport too, since everyone else is wondering as well. But really, I can't justify $98 for a pair of yoga pants. Ones that pill, according to the reviews because I wouldn't be washing them separately. I won't buy anything I can't chuck in the washer along with everything else, though I'm fine with drying things in special snowflake ways. So fail but the curiosity remains.

-I finally figured out the #^@%@*# goshdarned fucking curtain tracks. They're I-beam single tracks for pinch-pleated valances. Which means I can either buy the little sliding eyes to put hooks through or see if I can find where to buy the curtains that have the plastic track-sliders sewn right on. You know what? Never mind. You know how long it takes me to cover all the windows in a new house and I'd really like to work with the hardware that is already installed if I can. Yeah...never mind. I need to go to IKEA but I can't seem to drive there by myself.

-Stop with the baby rumors. They don't hurt or anything, they're just so pointless and baseless. I am done. I've been done since 2001 if you want to be truly technical. It's great to get up late on a Sunday morning and find your children in the kitchen making themselves hot breakfasts. Ruth shuns juice this morning and I know I don't have to care because they eat well and I have to know draw on my recall powers, remembering what it felt like to be twelve. We all know I remember exactly what it feels like to be twelve.

-Ben and I are plotting a road trip. I'm excited. It may not for a while but we are developing some grand plans to drive to San Diego and back again. I haven't been so excited about an idea since forever. We just have to save our gas money up first. No, really, we do. Haha. $1.47 a litre!

-I think I screwed myself with this English toffee syrup in my coffee. I'll probably never be able to drink coffee without it ever again. Thank you Daniel, I think, or maybe curse you, Daniel. I had black coffee in a styrofoam cup at a roadside truckstop down to a science and now I'm all high-maintenance again. Pfft.

-I'm going to go enjoy my Sunday now. See ya. Have a good day.

Supermoon.

Ben is playing his guitar. He's sitting at the table while the children finish their dinner and he's playing from memory, his head thrown back, eyes closed. He's taking a nap. Such is life here. Soon he'll be played out and he'll move to a more comfortable chair and he'll motion for me to join him and I'll run and curl up in his arms and fall asleep with my head on his heartbeat. When I wake up at sunrise he will sleep on for hours still.

These precious moments are like oxygen when we have been drowning in waves of obligation.

More distracting things for both of us.

It's the last day of winter. Next week we'll celebrate our first full year of living here on the west coast and I plan to celebrate, because it's been a year of adjustments and more courage and more growth overall, learning how to put myself out there and meet some people and get what I need and find a little familiarity in the face of all things new. More on that next week, not today.

Some winter it was, too. It snowed precisely four times, the last of which caught us downtown on Davie street with a bus sliding backward toward my little car. We turned off into an alley and made our way out of downtown easily with the snow tires no one here seems to own because...well, it only snows four times a year.

In January I wore a hoodie to walk the dog, mostly. I think I put on gloves twice. My ears froze once and the power went out three times, all for less than the time it took me to get annoyed and pull out the lanterns. I opened the windows every single day for a couple of hours, in every room to air out the entire house. When I do I can hear the birds singing. That's how close we are. That's how loud they are.

The ivy never turned brown in the garden. The snowdrops were blooming on Valentine's day. The grass remained green and Bridget learned that perhaps, just maybe, she might never have to put up with winter again.

But I will still welcome the first day of spring tomorrow, for spring brings Easter and maybe just shirts instead of sweaters buttoned up high and maybe the windows can stay open in my bedroom while I sleep and maybe I can start planning for a few more plants to try from the nursery because the ones we have aren't going to cut it.

I can look forward to late nights on the verandah with beer and guitars or maybe just guitars and swimming will start again for the kids and everyone will get excited about fishing up at Camp Crystal lake (my name for it) and boy, I want to go there at night just to see, but the gates are closed at dusk and I have no interest in walking in, thank you.

The big bears and the cougars will return for another run at our garbage cans and soon the blackberries will bloom and fill in the bare patches from the past four months, competing with the cherry blossoms and filling the whole mainland with a riot of pink confetti set against an endless blue ocean sky.

And then what happens?

Oh, yeah. Summer! I can't wait.

A diaphanous cheer (under my breath).

Yesterday didn't turn out nearly as fun as I had hoped. I watched five proposals and only cried through the most recent one (Brad and...Emily? who have already broken up, as is tradition for the Bachelor series and this is why I hate television) and then a call came that said I had an appointment downtown and it was for three. Three. So...in three hours? Yes.

SHIT.

And DRUNK.

Eleven cups of coffee later and a giant danish and Andrew brushed my hair while I waved him away and I was off with a run in my stockings, a pinstripe suitdress (TIGHT. ARGH.) and my kitten heels because newly-soberish is no way to wear stilettos.

I met Ben in the lobby. He laughed and said sorry for ruining my grand plans. I felt dumb for having such ridiculous plans in the first place but he is working around the clock and we are wasting time as fast as we can.

Yes, so anyway. The meeting went very well and then all of it turned out to be for naught this morning when Caleb found another way around me, as usual. While I am busy charming the front lines and melting hearts with my vulnerability, Caleb is chewing the skin off my back, exposing raw nerve endings to string up and pull tightly into bows until I scream with rage and pain.

(Why, yes, we have a very cordial relationship. Why do you ask?)

In any event, we will do what we need to do and get where we're going and muddle through like we always do. Plans are still in place (aka can't talk), Ben is still spending every waking hour trying to find a way around some things that seem to be carved in stone but may have been spray-painted on after all, and I have a tiny ace up my sleeve in that one of the horses Caleb sold did not belong to him and so boy is he in trouble and he's going to have to answer to Nolan for that.

And Nolan thinks all of this is bullshit as it is, he has no time for Caleb's rich-man games of cat and mouse and he wishes Jake was still alive because Jake did pretty well at deflecting Caleb and I know Caleb was afraid of Jacob in a way he should be of Ben, but isn't. Why? He's already been inside Ben's head and he knows where the weak spots are. There aren't very many but the ones that exist are profound and frightening and wouldn't you know Caleb would exploit them to get to me. Only I won't have that and so I give Caleb whatever he wants and he'll leave Ben alone. He'll leave Lochlan alone.

Oh, he won't leave me alone, though. In case you thought I would write that next.

Nope. You see, when Cole died I didn't do the one thing Caleb thought I would. I didn't cancel my plans to get on with my life. Caleb expected me to stop moving forward and hunker down and take solace in the fact that I was still irrevocably tied to Cole, that the fact that we hadn't actually managed to start divorce proceedings yet would give me comfort and I would spend the rest of my life taking Caleb's guidance and deferring to him, as things should be.

And I didn't. Boy, didn't I EVER.

I didn't give him the time to move in and take over and somehow fix the past and engineer my future on my behalf and well, Jesus H. Gotta pay for that now too.

Herrings in a crimson hue.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

My own personal saint Padraig (PJ!) is sick today and has not ventured out of his boathouse cave (though I've had several SOS texts), and so Daniel and I have retired to Daniel and Schuyler's bed to pour the rest of the Baileys into our coffee, eat all the cupcakes iced in green and alternately play U2 and snark at the canned proposals from all fifteen seasons of The Bachelor.

Hopefully by lunchtime we will be positively shitfaced but in my experience life just never gets that good, now does it?

P.S. Duncan, we saved you a spot. Bring more cupcakes though. Daniel can shove them into his face whole. Amazing what being Ben's little brother can do for one's appetite. Could be worse, at least he's never tried to take a bite of my Macbook.

See ya. Have fun. Avoid the green beer, it's lethal. Okay, by lunch? I meant breakfast. Clearly. Here, maybe he should eat the laptop after all.

Opto-mechanical.

(In my rush to ignore the front lawn that faces the woods and focus on the orchard, the grapevines and the Pacific ocean in my backyard, I failed to notice the two beautiful cherry trees that flank my front walk. All I saw were some sort of previously-bloomed trees when we moved in, I figured early Dogwood, maybe Magnolia if I was very lucky indeed but lo and behold they are baby-pink cherry blossoms and they are EVERYWHERE.)

Here we are with your obsession
Should I, could I

Heave the silver hollow sliver
Piercing through another victim
Turn and tremble be judgmental
Ignorant to all the symbols
Blind the face with beauty paste
Eventually you'll one day know

Change my attempt good intentions
Limbs tied, skin tight
Self inflicted his perdition

He bent down and smoothed my hair back. I think he wanted to see my face. As soon as I felt his eyes fall on my skin I mouthed a curse at him, sure he got the message without a sound. I failed to stand however. I'm going to remain here, crouched in the corner of a dark room with my back to the world until something changes. Only I can't do it in these heels forever. I'm going to have to change my shoes. And the bones of my corset are digging into my flesh and really people should only pull petulant stunts such as these in pajamas.

But I don't have any pajamas.

And so I will do it in full graveyard dress. Sped up and full of film grain, you'll get bored easily and turn off the projector and walk out of the room, leaving the curtains drawn and the air heavy with cigar smoke.

(I'm already dead.)

I did not say that out loud either but he responds as if I have.

Not true.

I nod, slowly. Tears are dripping off my chin, mascara mixed with salt forming cloudy pools on the floor all around me. Soon I will be Alice in the drowning pool. I cast my gaze around for some cookies to eat in order to grow big but let's face it, magic isn't going to save me now. When confronted with a stressful choice I pick the inappropriate choice every single time, as if I am bound and determined to make things more difficult than they have to be.

Yes. You could have been a trophy. You could have been paraded around the world collecting admiration. You could have been fed. You could have been given the best of everything. You could have let your secrets go, and let the chips fall where they may instead of trying to arrange them in the shape of a heart and you could have been mine.

But instead you gave everything to my brother.

This time I nod. I know all this. This is nothing new. I rise up onto my toes in an effort to make my imprint even smaller. At this point I could disappear into his open hand and no one would ever find me but today is not going to play out that way. The strip is flapping off the feeder and no one recognizes the family in these home movies.

(Stop reading my mind.)

But it's so...entertaining, Bridget. As is how when pushed you run straight to me. That touches me. He pulls me up with one hand and I am wedged in between him and the wall. Flames lick up my limbs. It burns. The blue in his eyes is cool and I dive inside before I can be scarred from heat. Sweet relief.

A knock on the door startles him to the point where he loosens his grip and then turns back to give me a look. A look that says put on your public face, we have company and I wipe the backs of my hands across my cheeks and sniff and turn to head for the bathroom to wash my face before anyone can see me.

I am too late and now must present myself in this decorum, which is none at all. Caleb walks back into the room and gestures toward me. Then he steps aside and Cole is standing in the doorway. Relieved that I have been found. An odd emotion for him, considering when he is painting he has a tendency to hand me a twenty-dollar bill and tell me to go find PJ or Christian to take me out for a coffee, that I shouldn't bother him anymore, that he knows I'll turn up sooner or later.

Cole crosses the room to me quickly.

What's wrong? He takes my hand and turns to block me from Caleb. He's standing in front of me and facing Caleb down and I don't really understand why the conversation Caleb and I have at least once every single month is suddenly front page news.

Nothing. I'm fine. Just a momentary lapse.

Overwhelmed?

Yes.

I'll take you home. You need sleep.

I nod and defy Caleb to read my mind this time. Cole's false concern is a mask he wears for the benefit of his friends. Everything is just bullshit and I am knee-deep. He knows damn well his brother has caught on and he knows Caleb doesn't like what he's seeing. He knows his days are numbered and he knows it isn't Caleb who will reap the rewards when I finally find the courage.

The film is changed and suddenly the faces are familiar again. Happy, smiling, fake. Comfort in assumed roles, succor in experience. Nightmares in my future. As we leave I am careful not to place myself directly between them. There's a reason for that. I wave my hand in front of my face to dissipate the cloying cigar smoke and I try to pretend that Caleb can't bring me to tears with his stupid uncanny ability to read my mind as easily as his brother transcribes my heart.

The angel of Highway One.

Jacob is watching me as he stabs the few potatoes left on the plate. He still has his boots on. They're leaving puddles under the table on the tiles. He did take his coat off, however. His collar is standing up, along with his hair, and his sleeves are rolled up. Dinner is serious business. Abandon all pursuits and appearances and dig in.

He points his fork at the radio on the counter.

Want to turn that on for the news, why don't you, Piglet?

No, I don't like the news, Jake.

He shoots me a look of affectionate disdain and impales another piece of potato. He is talking with his mouth full. I can hardly understand him between the food and the heavy Newfoundland accent.

Current events are necessary, Bridget. You need to keep up with what's going on in this world.

At least that's what I think he said.

Maybe the world should keep up with me.

I think it already does.

Good, then. We won't have any more problems.

He laughed loudly and pushed back from the table, finishing a beer in one gulp and standing up. He gathered his dishes and brought them to the counter, turning on the hot water.

I can do those, Jacob.

So can I, piglet. He smiled at me as he poured a little soap into the sink and washed the dishes efficiently, putting everything in the rack. I always forget Jacob was a bachelor for so long and a very good housekeeper besides. Except for the glasses. When he puts the glasses away they are right-side up. I always put them away upside-down. I don't know why but I like my way better.

Want to keep me company in the garage?

Sure.

Get yer coat.

I went to the back porch to collect my coat and Jacob headed down the hall to the guest room to ask Lochlan to keep an ear out for the children, that we might go for a little drive. I didn't hear the response but Lochlan does not have any problems with that. After all, he is currently living here rent-free and so I'm going to take full advantage of him the same way I have perpetually since 1983. He owes me, but for what I can't articulate anymore. It's been too long.

I follow Jacob out through the snow into the dimly-lit garage. He fires up the work light and opens the hood on the Chevy. It's my truck. It's a rusted albatross and an impulsive hunk of waste. It will never run the way I imagine it does in my head as I rumble down the highway firing on hopes and sketchy mechanical skills and a CAA card clenched tightly in my fist knowing full well that every man I know will be positively incensed if I called for roadside assistance from a company instead of calling one of them.

Not like I'm allowed to drive it on the highway here anyway. Here the highway is an infinite ribbon that leads to nowhere after hours of white-knuckle white-out navigation. It is a drive through hell and back out the other side, as we have checked out of civilization and are living in an alternate reality. Lochlan says every time he drives from here to Toronto that he think he has somehow missed the city because it's just nothing but highway for so many hours it's stupid and we really should move already.

Jacob breaks the news to me. She's never going to run well, or run like I am used to with his Ram. Or even the Suburban. She is on life support and everyone has signed her away. We should pull the plug. I am stubborn and I say no.

Jacob is exasperated with my recalcitrance and begins to yell. I should just listen. Maybe he does know better. Maybe I should step back and let someone who is unbiased give me some guidance. Well, shit, he's put on his preacher digs and I'm getting a lecture only it's cold and I thought we were going for a drive.

Objective? Snort.

I pull up the garage door. It takes more strength than I actually have but I'm mad. It flies up easily with a loud clang and Jacob looks up. I walk around and get into the truck and I fire it up. On the third try it actually starts and Jacob begins to walk around to my side just as I throw it into reverse.

I ignore him and back out. On the way I hit the mirror on the door frame and the garbage at the end of the driveway.

He is still yelling but the window is up and I can't hear a word. Good. It's just another lecture anyway about how independence isn't necessary and I should just mind him because he knows better and I'm wondering how I manage to collect these men who think they can just run the show and what it is about me that makes them just take over and do everything?

I drive until I hit the edge of town and then I turn left toward Lochlan's highway of hypnotism, the ribbon that chokes off my escape and lulls me into an endless field of nightmares.

I've never been on this road before, but the first rule of decision making is to just pick something. And left is East. East is never a bad decision.

Except when I turn I pull off into a gas station (fill 'er up, just in case) and I turn off the truck. It doesn't start again because he was in the middle of fixing it and boy, look how foolish I am, just making sure I confirm it for all, with my impulsive actions and rash moments because I never learned how to deal with frustrations and it's some sort of wild instinct that sends me into a spiral and they know how I am better than I do so I won't even try to understand it.

A knock on the window makes me jump out of my skin. Lochlan is there. His truck is idling beside mine. Jake is using his old trick. If a dog runs away you don't chase it or it will just run further. I am the most unloyal pet ever, I guess.

Come on. We'll come back and tow your piece of shit home tomorrow.

I swear. Every bad word I know. I hit the steering wheel for emphasis once or twelve hundred times. Lochlan nods and waits.

You done? Because you make him fucking crazy. Just like you did to me.

You're still here.

Tell me about it. You know, Bridge, I fucked up a lot. More than anyone. But Jacob doesn't deserve to have to deal with the fallout from that.

Then maybe you should apologize to him, because you did this. You and Caleb and Cole. I could have been a normal human being but I'm fucking not, am I?

He doesn't speak to me for the trip home, except to tell me the headline that will be spoken on tomorrow's news report will be something like this:

BRIDGET FAILS TO LISTEN AGAIN. ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE.

The paper has the same headline every day. And as I'm falling asleep in the truck on the way home beside Lochlan, I remind myself to get another bag of potatoes. Jacob averages ten pounds a week, by himself.

That can't be normal either.

Words like violence break the silence
Come crashing in into my little world
Painful to me, pierce right through me
Can't you understand, oh my little girl?

All I ever wanted, all I ever needed
Is here in my arms
Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

Vows are spoken to be broken
Feelings are intense, words are trivial
Pleasures remain, so does their pain
Words are meaningless and forgettable

I'm really disappointed. I thought I could go to the man who bought my horses and buy them back for more. Apparently I can't.

Blameless (I can see the moon and it seems so clear).

Lochlan has my hand in both of his. He won't let go, clutching it against his chest, thumping it for emphasis. He's been shouting at Ben for the better part of the afternoon, in between everything else. PJ has tried to calm him down without infringing on our issues but it's a moot point. Everyone has a say, it seems, and none of it is good.

Last night I left my regret in Caleb's hands, my hair tangled in one strong fist as he slid his other hand across my throat and over my shoulder, pulling me closer to him, breathing me in with palpable relief. It's been a long time. I did not resist. I only did what he expects and Ben watched quietly from the balcony, smoking cigarette after cigarette in the pitch black night tinged with a yellow glow from the ambient city lights in the rain.

I listened carefully as Caleb whispered urgently against my ear, I played along as he instructed and I knew that all I had to do if he went too far was scream and everything would be okay because there is no way in hell Ben is going to let Caleb have more than this night. He doesn't get my life. He doesn't get my heart. What he gets is something different. I call him Cole and he responds in kind and the homesick chill bleeds out of my veins in a rush. The relief of being in Caleb's arms is a sick covert thrill I will fail to acknowledge properly because it's reprehensible. But here it is now again, just like the endless rooftop lights of the glass walls he calls home now.

He rises and pours three glasses of red wine, taking one out to Ben. Ben sets it on the table and ignores it. It was still there when I woke up this morning, tangled in limbs, my hair tightly wound around Ben's fingers instead, holding my place in the night.

My head pounds. My skin is raw and flushed. I have forgotten where we are.

Contrition comes flooding back in along with the muted sepia morning light. Caleb is in the kitchen pouring coffee now instead of wine. He is casually dressed in what I call his driving clothes. Black chinos and a white t-shirt. He'll add a black fleece jacket and his sunglasses (rain or shine) and he'll begin to glower now gradually as the day progresses, lifted only by a visit with the children and then a return to the realization that he has begun to wait again for the next time Benjamin surrenders to my pressure when confronted with the perfect chance to turn back time. When reminded that it's not only me we are saving.

These ideals are not shared across the board, obviously and here comes Mr. Outrage to rile against Ben, layering blame upon him until he is buried. Ben who is still working to untangle the mess that Lochlan made so long ago but sometimes Ben is human, easily swayed by his pretty girl and when am I not human? There we were on the balcony, whispering quietly beforehand. Feverishly, in order to ascertain whether we should just cancel this and leave. No harm done. Bridget remains intact.

No, we're here. On with it. I make the decision with my last measure of courage in the face of evil. I talk Ben into things he isn't comfortable with because I know he will come around. At least I hope he will. Life holds no guarantees now, does it, Princess?

If Lochlan thinks we have any less doubt then he is dead wrong. If he thinks I can ever change he is also dead wrong. If he thinks Ben is going to change and become more like Jacob, or worse, more like Lochlan, then he's so wrong he's beyond dead and back to life in a zombie-shuffle-fight-to-the-bitter-end.

When I am moved in the dark, my head hanging upside-down off the edge into the lights while Caleb's hands slide around my neck once more, I see Ben look away briefly. I see him put his hands up to his face as if he is horrified by what he sees and then I see him drop his shame on the floor beside his dignity as he chooses from among his various degrees of excitement instead. And I smile inside my head. In a moment he will come inside. In a moment the guard will change. In a moment I will be liberated from my transgressions. In a moment I will be safe. The homesick will slide back in around my shoulders to complete his embrace but I will be safe.

As Caleb was leaving tonight from his brief stop to see the children, I walked him out to the front hall. We were still talking about Henry's report card as if nothing ever happened. As if there is no abject chronicle written of our lives thus far and he abruptly tells me he has sold the horses. That he had an opportunity to turn a profit and he took it and if the children miss them we can arrange for time at the nearby riding school.

I am so dumbfounded by this I can't speak as he kisses the top of my head and leaves. Eight minutes later I am still standing by the door, tears rolling down my cheeks when Ben comes into the foyer and asks what's wrong and I tell him, woodenly. I am still numb. I love my horses and they've been sold out from under me.

Just as I thought we had smoothed over the bumpy road we traveled when I failed to allow for a smooth spring quarter with the company and delayed his time with me as long as I could and I worked so hard last night to make it up to him and see that he is happy and leaves the boys alone, this is how I am rewarded.

Business as usual. Only it's so personal. You don't understand.

I don't know how many times I've tried to tell you, Bridget. This is what happens. You think you keep him under control and he just erodes a little more of you. He's not going to stop until there's nothing left. WHY CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT? Lochlan's voice has returned to a low simmer, seething desperation. I try to pull my hand away and I can't.

I'm not willing to see what happens if I don't engage Caleb. Clearly he's adept at removing things I love when I don't obey his word. I don't see why that's so hard for them to understand. If he requests me, I have to go. Eventually. Inevitably. It's not a difficult concept. I don't have a choice. I never have. Just a reprieve here and there, and look where that has gotten me.

You can take the road that takes you to the stars now
I can take a road that’ll see me through.