Please don't ask me how I am
A little tired, a little scared
I'm not amused, not upset
Don't need a leash
I'm not your pet

So loosen up, feel the breeze
Let me hear, hear you breathe
It's better than bitter now
When you breathe I love that sound
But you know I'll look after you like no one

This must be what having a teenager is going to be like. If I double-cross every last one of them it's not that hard to take the keys to the truck and head out early, up the snowy highway singing cheesy songs at the top of my lungs, absolutely no idea where I'm going. I even emailed in sick to work and then I told everyone else I really had to get some work done and when I drove home finally after not feeling like doing anything at all there was sort of a crowd in the driveway, a bunch of pissed-off guys with their hands in their pockets and looks on their faces that told me I should probably throw the truck into reverse and peel out of the driveway sideways, smashing through the gate and drifting around corners as I head back up the hill and maybe I could drive back and get Ben, since I mostly prefer to stand behind him these days and suddenly I am exposed and vulnerable and open to punishment for all the things I do that I'm sort of not supposed to, most of the time.

But I didn't have my passport on me, it's sitting on the dresser because I haven't even unpacked yet and I have no cash on me either so I can't even bribe anyone to let me into the US and if I call Batman, odds are he would have the same look they all do so I frowned and pulled into Ben's parking spot and sat there staring at the siding on the house until Lochlan knocked on the window and yelled for me to turn off the engine.

Aw, fuck. 

Rattle and thumb.

He did not abandon you Bridget. He needs help and he's getting it and when he comes back he'll be that much stronger. 

I didn't even say anything yet, Sam. 

No, but you're wound up so tightly I'm afraid you're on the verge of springing wide open. Do you want to talk for a bit? I'll be free this afternoon. I can come over. 

No, I want to sleep but I'm too wired. 

Bridget-

Not to escape. I haven't been to bed properly since Friday, Sam. 

I know. Get some rest then but if you need me call, okay?

I will. I promise. 

I press End on my phone and throw it on the cushion. I sit back and reach for Daniel's hand. He is pretending to read but he keeps nodding off and I wait and count and then try to slide the book out of his hand and he will startle and insist that he is fine. But he won't go lie down and he won't leave my side and I know he's a little bit scared and a little relieved too but Ben is still all he has.

Though, that's a lie. He has Schuy. He has me. He has everyone but no one replaces Ben.

That I understand.

My phone buzzes again and I reach to pick it up. It's a message from Caleb. How convenient. 50 days remain. 

Asshole. 

I text him back. ITS ABOUT YOU NOW? SELFISH.

He sends another.  No but we can't help Ben now. He's in very good hands. If you were too things would be better but you're not so they aren't. 

I send one back. Daniel's looking after me so I'm just fine thanks. 

Caleb replies almost instantly. Daniel is made of moonbeams and unicorn tears so that gives me no confidence whatsoever. Where is Pyro when you need him? Wait! Don't answer that. 

Not cool. If you look outside he's in the driveway with YOUR SON, cheering him up with a little show. What have you done to see to Henry's feelings about Ben being away?

I turn the phone off.

Blood sugar.

We were here just under four years ago. Under the same set of circumstances even, with Ben making a swift and surprising descent into his addictions and finding himself at the bottom with no way out. I don't know what happened, I just know that it happened so fast.

As per instructions I was to blow the whistle the moment I felt afraid of him and so that's what I did. But I don't want a pat on the back. I enable him. I excuse his endless absences. He is busy. He works all the time. I don't tell you he hides out with his guitars. I don't tell you he fights for every goddamned day of his life. We're just trying to be normal over here.

We're failing miserably, I know.

So it's off to a treatment program for Ben thanks to many strings pulled.

I'm flying home tonight. Daniel hasn't left my side. Batman walks ahead of everyone, in charge and in control. I think he likes feeling needed. Lochlan already got into it with the intake people, when I was taking too long to answer their questions (I couldn't hear the questions, everyone was talking over me but drunken-Ben was the loudest) and Lochlan started answering and they asked his relationship to Ben and he blurted out indignantly,

I'm his wife! 

Daniel smiled very quietly. August would have laughed if there had been any levity to find whatsoever and Ben totally categorically denied even knowing Loch before saying I'm sorry, Bridget to Lochlan's face and kissing him.
 
Yeah. I didn't even get a goodbye.

Sepulchre in a sunrise.

Sometimes I don't know why I write anything at all. I'm a broken record. Or rather, I hold the record for breaking things.

Just a break
We could shrink to something
That might not make it back

He got down on his knees and pulled me in close, resting his head against my chest, my heartbeat his metronome. He didn't move as I held my breath, my arms wrapped around him, my lips against the top of his head.

I could smell the alcohol on him before he made it across the room so I knew the apology was coming. I could light a match and everything would go up in flames right now. I only asked for one thing and this isn't it. This isn't trying. This is falling into familiar patterns for Ben. Reaching for flammable creativity and liquid confidence. Reaching for the dark when the light is too blinding. Reaching for the rage because contentment feels alien and strange.

But it doesn't work and I can't keep time when my heart is skipping, rolling out the door, beating a hasty retreat instead of throwing a lifeline.

Cold reading.

He said, 'Love I leave, but only a little, try to understand
I put my soul in this life we created with these four hands
Love, I leave, but only a little this world holds me still
My body may die now, but these paintings are real.'

The sun lingered today, just long enough light the clouds up like spring as it waited near the horizon for me to notice but I was busy watching Lochlan paint. When I looked up into the sky it was so abrupt and beautiful I almost started to cry. I could only point to it and so he stopped, putting his brush down and he watched with me until it faded back behind the clouds and he pulled me into his arms and I watched the sun go to sleep over his shoulder, my arms locked around his neck.

You've been doing this since you were a little girl.

Liar.

Maybe I just remember things a little better that you would. 

Why, because you were older?

Yes, so I knew day changing to night freaked you out and I chalked it up to your overactive imagination. 

And now?

I don't know, Peanut. Night is when the monsters come and maybe you knew that before the rest of us.

Keep your silence or
Reach for life beyond the stars
Save your mercy
For someone who needs it more
I'm the guilty
All the feelings come crashing down on me
I'm taking you with me

I couldn't get all of the writing off my arms and so I was forced to wear a cardigan with my dress today, which brought comments from Caleb within minutes of me walking through the door this morning.

How long, exactly, is the Ringmaster's speech, Princess?

Seven minutes, sometimes as short as five, I reply.

And what did you generally do while he gave it?

I was still in makeup, usually.

He stands there staring at me for several uncomfortable minutes and then asks to see the words so I shrug out of my sweater and stand on display while he makes two circles around me, frowning, his head cocked dangerously to one side so he can read all of it, though it is faint now from the thorough scrubbing I did in the shower last night and again this morning. Lochlan's handwriting is gorgeous and illegible and hasn't changed at all since he was sixteen because he isn't a book-learner so things like penmanship and cursive writing are afterthoughts instead of efforts. He spends nothing on them and so he gets little in return.

Caleb swears under his breath and instructs me to put my sweater back on. He holds his hands out as if to take it and hold it up so I can be put into it. I ignore his hands and pull it on without help. He's in a hurry to cover up any trace of Lochlan's predictable defiance.

Aren't you a little old to be writing on each other? Says he who wrote oblivion on my fingers and Neamhchiontach across my back, one very recently and one decades ago.

No, I reply in a dull voice. This subject is off limits. I'm not doing this today.

Today my task is to file all of Caleb's souls by Justification for Purchase. It's cross-filing, since they are always filed alphabetically immediately upon acquisition. He likes to peruse the arguments, he likes to absorb the lingering desperation and he delights in the elation that emanates from those he enters into transactions with before they can realize the true gravity of what they've done.

These contracts are kept locked up tight. None can be broken, none have ever been dissolved, for he is the Devil and once you give him something, you can't ever take it back. I have the key only as long as it takes me to get the job done and then I will return it in exchange for unparalleled, unwarranted attentiveness.

I'll sit here in the semi-darkness and make neatly-printed labels for the multitude of color-coded files spread out on the floor around me in an ever-widening circle. Labels that say things like Financial Independence, Talents, Indemnification, Vanity, Comfort. There is also a label that reads Innocent, and it is the thinnest, for the one file that rests within it, the one with my name on it. Because the Devil not only purchases souls, but he can acquire them through other means, by mere proximity to someone young enough to not understand that their soul must be protected.

He can appropriate it when no one is looking and keep it forever, but the price he pays is that the soul's original bearer gains access to everything he has to offer. They will hold those respective positions in a virtual deadlock for time eternal, with holes forming on both sides at various intervals throughout their lives through which coveted promises fall. Currently he doesn't have the loyalty part of my soul and it's been a hell of a long time since I've had any comfort, and that's just where we stand right now.

But by far the thickest file is Requited Love. As I thumb through it I see all of my boys' names, alphabetically from Ben right through Jacob and everyone in between. Because in their rush to exchange what seems like a valueless anchor, a myth for something they desperately want, they fail to obtain the most important thing: the definition of what they are asking for, for all love is not created equal.

Some love is brotherly, some fatherly, some distant and some benign. Because vanity means different things to different people, and comfort comes in so many forms if you have something in mind, you might just be disappointed. Each of these things the Devil can twist and shape into something that barely resembles what you wanted most. This is his greatest deception.

And so by the time you realize what you have done, it's usually too late.

No, wait.

Let me correct myself.

It is always too late.

The scorched earth policy.

(If you're looking for the Part II of yesterday's post, or even the second half of what was posted yesterday, it has been removed. Some memories are safe, warranted and welcomed while others are the nostalgic equivalent of swimming in lava. I was cautioned not to proceed. My apologies. Perhaps another time.)

While I'm on the phone with Andrew, Lochlan picks up the sharpie from the counter. Before I can stop him he begins to write all over my arm. Before I can read what he wrote he admonishes me for not paying close enough attention to my conversation. As if he had nothing to do with distracting me.

Is it Ben-safe? What you are writing?

Jesus, yes. Is anything not Ben-safe? Or rather, is there anything safe from Ben? He'll probably think the words are food and try to eat them right off your flesh. 

I laugh and Andrew thinks he is clever, on the other end of the line that travels across Canada and underneath the Atlantic to get to him. They are in Ireland and I've progressed past mild jealousy and straight toward seething, rabid envy. Dalton is collecting women, they say and they haven't seen him since yesterday or he would have a turn on the phone too.

I ask that they maybe keep a better eye on each other and Duncan laughs over the speakerphone on their end and says, But it's Ireland, Bridget! It's safe enough! And then Andrew howls and I realize they are mildly trashed and having a blast and I ask them just to be safe and look after one another and they promise me they are but I don't want to know how and by the time I hang up Lochlan has written all over my other arm as well and is capping the marker, quite satisfied with himself.

He holds up the sharpie. I think you might need a new one. This one's worn out. 

I have dozens. 

Oh good. I'll do the rest of you later on. 

PJ snorts over his cereal at the island. I....forgot he was there. Apparently so did Lochlan.

Hush, you, I tell PJ and he laughs out loud and mimics Lochlan's words in Lochlan's accent but then he adds all of this crass stuff I won't even repeat. Why the boys didn't take him overseas I don't know. He might have been useful. Oh, right. Bodyguard duty here, though technically he is the nanny. That's right. I said it.

What did you write? 

The Ringmaster's speech. 

Oh fuck. You didn't. The whole thing? I am spinning in a circle, trying to see the backs of my elbows. He did. The whole thing.

Lochlan! Why couldn't you have just written the lyrics to a Pink Floyd song or something. Now I feel like the freak that I am! 

Good. He said and broke into a crafty, peculiar smile. Might make you less appealing to the more conventional types around here.

Proving ground.

You said that you love me
And that you always will
Oh you begged me to keep you
In that house on the hill
Looking out for love
Big, big love
I wake up alone with it all
I wake up but only to fall

Today I tied my hair back in a messy little knot at the nape of my neck. I shrugged into my blue velvet leggings and a very long black sweater and I slid my rings onto my finger, grabbed my phone and my coffee cup and walked next door. Barefoot. In the pouring rain. In January. Because January here is a laughable winter compared to every other place I have lived. Because I haven't even gotten my boots out at all this year, let alone most of my shoes. Caleb now has a big sisal mat outside his door and inside a nice plushier one to catch all the leaves and sticks I track in. I'm like Ben without the size fourteen boots, undomesticated and clomping all over the house making a mess before we call to him to take them off already. I ignore the rug and track leaves right through into Caleb's office.

Caleb frowns when he sees me. He's already at his desk with coffee close by and pen in hand. I thought you would be running errands this morning. It's Monday, is it not?

I can't do this.

He stands up and comes around the desk. Can't do what? What's the matter? He frowns when he sees my dirty bare feet and I smile. It illustrates perfectly the point I am about to make.

I'm not the sort of girl who has a driver.

You can be any sort of girl you want. We've already proven this. Last week you were extolling the virtues of sleeping in furs and now-

There's a difference between a night of luxury and a life of one, Diabhal. 

I know, Neamhchiontach. That's why I want to give you that life. 

What if I don't want it? Any of it?

You'll come around. You always do. It's just the pain talking today, making you doubt everything. Go get some sleep. All of this will keep until tomorrow. If you need anything call me. 

If I need anything I'll call Loch. 

His hand tightens around the back of the chair but he says nothing.

Heart of clay.

If you twist and turn away
If you tear yourself in two again
If I could, yes I would
If I could, I would let it go
Surrender, dislocate

Lochlan's out there in the pouring rain practicing. Maybe for a show in his memory. He's on the unicycle and he's juggling dry torches, keeping the cycle rocking slightly in a back and forth circle about fourteen inches across. Sometimes he does a loop around the fountain.

I stand at the window and watch. After a minute Ben speaks and I jump seventy-five feet. My headache hurts worse as I unclench my whole body bit by bit.

Think when he comes in we should put money in the hat?

Definitely. But only a tenner because there was no fire.

Tough customer.

Go ask him to light them up and we'll make it twenty.

Ben pulls me back to lean against him, putting his cool hand against my forehead. I close my eyes and when I open them again Lochlan has fallen and Ben has torn away from me to run outside.

It's the stupid bricks Caleb had put into the driveway in a pattern to make the driveway sort of tie the whole property together. They form a square with the fountain marking the center, and as you drive around it the brick connects the boathouse and garage to the house. It looks pretty but it's somewhat lethal if you only have one wheel under you instead of at least two or hopefully four for best results.

I watch as Ben reaches him, as he was out there before I even realized what had happened and Lochlan is sitting on the driveway surrounded by the tools of his other life, the one that he would trade everything to go back to sometimes, when life was so much simpler. Ben claps him on the back and pulls him up onto his feet. They look at the window where I stand with my hands pressed to the glass. Ben nods and smiles. Lochlan's okay.  Lochlan waves toward the window without meeting my eyes. His pride. Oh, goddamn his pride all to hell sometimes. He begins to pick up the torches. Ben helps and soon they have all four plus the cycle and they head toward the garage and I go to the kitchen to make another pot of coffee.

Lochlan just needs to practice more. Maybe on the concrete instead. I reassure myself as the side door opens and Ben walks in, followed by Loch. He is soaked, bleeding from one elbow and his lip too where he bit it on the way down. I grab a clean towel as he tells me he just needs more practice. Maybe on the concrete. Because those fucking bricks. My brain smiles in response but not my face as he assures me he is fine. He puts his soaking wet arms around me and pulls me in close, resting his bleeding lips against my forehead. I close my eyes.

I told him about your headache not being any better, Ben apologizes as if he had crossed a line and I reach out without opening my eyes and take his hand. He squeezes it gently and then moves in to surround us both in a hug. Dripping and all. My pajamas are wet and the boys are both freezing now but if you think I'm going to move from this embrace first then you don't know me at all.

This desperation
Dislocation
Separation
Condemnation
Revelation
In temptation
Isolation
Desolation

Let it go.

Bacon fixes everything.

Yesterday's entry brought a little bit of that thing I hate almost more than when Lochlan swings at Satan and misses. Yeah, that thing called pity that wells up in spite of their efforts to keep it quashed lest I see it. I don't say a lot about Cole, overall. I never have. We were seen as a somewhat idyllic match at one point. They all crushed on him. They worshipped his passion. He ruled this collective in a way that would blow your mind. I didn't want to be the one to ruin their image of him.

I still soften things. Habits this old are hard to break.

So between the pity and the newly-missings, this is shaping up to be a wonderful day. We took Dalton, Duncan and Andrew to the airport this morning. They are headed overseas to work on a thing and God love them, my only hopes are that they don't take anything offered to them unless it's a hamburger, they wear protection so they don't bring home anything...untoward and that they just hurry up and get home, only it looks like it will be March Break before that happens, as they go and work their butts off to see that things run smoothly for everyone else. They have promised to bring me as many skull tanks as they come across in merch, too. Awesomesauce.

They also said they will call and check in every Tuesday and Friday night at ten pm local time, which will be morning for them there. Duncan's promised to not come back in the same shape he did last time and Dalton I've never worried about. If anything I worry for the girls he will leave with broken hearts all over because he tends to lay it on really thick. He's like that. Andrew was never as crazy as the rest so he'll do just fine.

Since Ben had to drive to the airport, he organized another breakfast out for himself, Lochlan and I. He really loves going out for breakfast, mostly because I am slow to awaken and refuse to use the stove in a sleepy state. We went back to the same place he took the boys the other day and they got me a Lumberjack! Which I demolished!

!

And then they told me not to worry about anything.

(Always the inevitable ambush. Always in some place that has the super-thick white coffee mugs that I adore but won't purchase for home use because then it won't be as fun to use them when we go out.)

They both promised that everything will be fine, because we are the three musketeers.

They made me cry. The waitress thought something was wrong with my food and I couldn't get a grip long enough to tell her that it was great (Lochlan did it for me) and then we came home and piled downstairs into the big couch to play Halo and I almost fell asleep because I don't like very many of the games but I do like it when the other two musketeers are close by. Yes, I really do, in spite of how much my stomach hurts now from all that grease I ate instead of my usual banana for breakfast. It was so good though.

Also an important note on grudging: PJ has finally come around after Lochlan's New Year's Day teardown of his bouncer skills. They have hardly spoken to one another since and finally Lochlan grabbed PJ in a big hug and told him he was sorry. Out loud. PJ pretended not to react for so long we could see Lochlan's hopefulness waning mightily and then PJ threw his arms around Lochlan and kissed him on the mouth. I love it when that happens. Lochlan said he lost control out of worry for me and PJ accepted that and said he hoped he would never be lumped in with those who have any less than my very best interests at heart and that he wouldn't see me hurt for the world.

They shook hands, which seemed a rather formal after that kiss and then PJ only asked Lochlan to change one thing in the future: to make sure PJ gets invited to all these breakfasts out because he would like to have a lumberjack too.

I asked PJ if he was coming out of the closet or something because..that kiss... and he looked at me sweetly and told me If it has bacon on it then yes.

Remind me to have Loch brush his teeth before he sees PJ again.