Thursday 7:15 pm

My fever rests at 102 now. I don't know if it's because Lochlan is always so warm when we nap or if I'm sicker than I even realized in my bid to be so stubborn. We're at a pub now that boasts state lottery, pool tables and handmade burgers and the server was dispatched to bring us some chicken soup and crackers.

The camper has a tiny little wonky heater. I don't trust it, it took Lochlan 35 minutes of tinkering with it to get it to turn on so I'm guessing a combination of strep throat and post traumatic stress disorder will be what kills me. It's been fun. Soup is here.

Beaches in HD.

I'd let you go, but you're always in the way
I'm the damage done, your scar of yesterday

Hi Oregon.

Five and a half hours of fighting over music in the truck with Lochlan. Just like old times. Especially when we stop for lunch and he says,

Hey, by the way, you'll have to get all your stuff in on wi-fi at places like this because there's no wi-fi in the camper. 

Camper?

Sending us off with terrible poetry.

There's a big blackboard on the kitchen wall. I used to draw elaborate menu plans on it so everyone would know what we were having and could pitch in but lately it's been taken over by budding haiku artists. I'll let you decide who wrote which one.

I'm taking Bridget
To a place where she can sleep
See you Saturday

This is such bullshit
She needs to recuperate
Don't let her die, Bro

Have fun Mom and Dad
Everything will be just fine
Ignore these losers

Hang in there, Love.

You've been drifting and stealing
Trying to walk in my shoes
But they don't belong to you
You know, you know
But you can't find the meaning
Sing to yourself and hold on
Cause everybody's on the run
Everybody's on the run

I skid to a stop in front of the Devil, waiting for my inspection. I know I'm going to fail. My hair is escaping from the knot at the nape of my neck, my shorts are too short and my t-shirt says WEEZER on the front. The end of my nose is bright red and raw.

Is there any way I can talk you out of this? He isn't fit to look after you, you aren't fit to travel and Ben-

Ben is busy and Loch does just fine as long as you aren't around. 

What if you have an emergency? What if you get sicker than you are now, which is too sick to go, frankly.

We drive home. Jesus. I'm not going to Siberia. Or even Los Angeles for Christ's sake. 

Bridget, you might as well be. I don't like it when he takes you far from home. 

He feels the same way about you. 

Can I...Can I give you a little emergency cash? And a number across the border should you need anything?

No, you may not. If I have any problems I will ask someone for help. Like an adult. I'm sure if all I have on is a bikini help will find me, you know? 

Bridget, it's almost October. I hope you're not thinking that will be appropriate wear for the beach now. 

No.

Oh, good, I was beginning to-

I'm bringing a sweater. 

Jesus, Bridget. 

I'll bring you back a souvenir. Maybe it will make you less cranky.

Invalid arguments on rainy Tuesday mornings.

Ben swore up and down that he would save me a slice of pizza last night so I could warm it up for breakfast but then he ate it. Then he and PJ decided it was a very good day to listen to Pantera on the stereo and I woke up so much worse than yesterday, complete with what sounds like whooping cough that I lunged for my reader and bought Doctor Sleep on it instead of trying to get to the bookstore later this morning.

(It opens at ten and I am still plotting and scheming, even though the book is in my lap.)

I had reheated beef and vegetable soup for breakfast and the leftover grapes from someone's lunch that they didn't eat yesterday and now I'm waiting for UPS because we had yet another pair of lifetime-warranty headphones bite the biscuit and really it would just be easier to cut the price in thirds and provide no warranty at all like in the good old days when things were built to last for years instead of weeks because now an exchange or replacement involves seven hundred emails, a trip to the UPS store to send out the broken thing and a whole day waiting around the house for the new thing to be delivered on whichever day fits UPS's schedule instead of mine.

Thankfully it coordinated on a day when I'm feverish and have a new book to read and have to stay home anyway, but that's not the point. The point is Ben owes me pizza for lunch now and the minute he turns his back I'm changing the CD back to Pallbearer, because it makes me feel better.

So there.

Pieces of bee.

• Lochlan has begun to call Caleb Lucy. It took me a few minutes to figure out the reference, since my brain kept sending me into Peanuts territory. Lucy is short for Lucifer, and Caleb is now suitably matched for all of his terrible nicknames for Loch. I guess calling him Satan or the Devil wasn't quite hitting home significantly enough.
• Doctor Sleep comes out tomorrow! I'll be at the bookshop when it opens, I'm afraid, for I'm a lifelong fan of Stephen King's work, beginning with stealing Bailey's dogeared copy of Carrie when I was seven, and reading The Dead Zone over Christian's shoulder when I was eight. I'm still going strong, I buy everything he writes and I eat every word alive. Doctor Sleep is extra special because it's a sequel to The Shining. I'm so excited I could burst. Sadly I'm a slowish reader and still up to my ears in NOS4A2 by Joe Hill. He's Stephen King's son, Owen, if you're not familiar, and he's a magnificent author too. (I'm not even going to point out here that Nosferatu is yet another nickname for the Devil because...well, YOLO.)
• Lochlan and I are leaving for a little teeny tiny getaway toward the end of this week, just a trip to Oregon for a couple of nights. He got paid and he's all excited so his plan is to spend his entire paycheque on me. Sadly I'm a cheap date, so we have booked a Motel, found a few diners nearby and we're good. He's going to have money left over. My main itinerary involves sleeping, then sleeping some more and then eating a cheeseburger on the beach. 
• The caveat to all of this is that I'm sick right now, having spent yesterday making excuses for feeling terrible only to wake up worse this morning. It hurts to swallow and to open my eyes and I'm only up and around due to the tea and Advils that Sam brought me a little while ago. Once the house is in order (AKA now) I'm going back to bed. 

Goodnight. Sleep tight. Don't let the wolf-dreams bite.

No excuses, no surrender (no reminders to hit publish instead of save, either..)

Here it is the first day of fall and I'm contemplating an entire day of baking before dissolving into the flannel arms of someone who is free and unencumbered with a laptop/book/guitar/hot beverage.

That's healthy for Bridget.

I'm also contemplating taking the unopened forty of Maker's Mark that I saw in Caleb's kitchen out to the garage where I will lie on the cold wet concrete floor in my pajamas, drink the whole thing and then ask Jacob in a hesitant, quiet manner why exactly a sixth year without him is suddenly cause for a whole new round of attempts to gently persuade me to move on, finally.

That's not healthy or something or other.

Maybe I can pull off a mix of both. Or maybe Jacob will appear in the living room with a book or a folder full of notes and his bible in hand and I can throw myself in his arms and then when he decides he actually wants to do some work I'll be handed off to Lochlan's flannel embrace for a perfectly innocent snuggle by the fire.

It's my brain, I'll decide.

I think I'll skip the booze, baking and bereavement and head straight for the flannel-wrapped nap. It's healthier even than the chocolate-chip banana bread I had planned on making today.

We bought a zoo.

I actually got my hand slapped yesterday for being bored because apparently it's my duty to be entertained by mindless reports and quarter-end statements.

Fuck this shit, I never asked to be on your board.

Oh, but someone is on a powertrip nonetheless and it's a long, relaxing one without interruptions and so I'm required to put on my uh...executive panties? or something and show up when summoned.

I drew skulls all over the reports they handed me, and a little baby dragon that the secretary smiled at before she realized Caleb was frowning at her. It's okay, no one else actually knows who I am either. I think half of them think I'm Caleb's personal assistant and the rest believe I'm the beneficiary of his fortune and I'm not interested.

They don't understand beneficiary is just a real swell way of coating sugar baby in..well, sugar. And sex. And denial and pretty covers on ugly truths.

I don't understand ventures or things like percentages or net asset growth and therefore draw skulls and post mildly passive-agressive journal entries from the boardroom table. I understand it later when he explains it in basic terms on the drive home. I want to cry Shut up! so I can listen to the car purr down the highway but he's busy explaining Henry's future to me and so I take dutiful mental notes so that I can continue to direct the funds to maximize returns long after Caleb is dead and gone.

When he says this I look at him, in shock, dazed, mouth open in a sort of horrified realization that nothing lasts forever.

I keep trying to forget that. Mostly by not listening.

When we get home Lochlan is pacing like a caged lion in the driveway. It's the hair. Somehow his curls are growing in dark red again, big and round and crazy and I would give God all of Caleb's money to have curls like that but I guess they are mine by default. He's all ragey-cagey because I left the grounds with the Devil and that isn't in his new rulebook.

But since Caleb is still in lawyer mode he makes it simple, telling Loch that we can all go back to court where Caleb will fight for access to the mother of his child, that no mediator in the world is going to allow the sometime-carnival-boyfriend of said object of desire to interfere in what is a healthy, productive co-parenting relationship.

Lochlan reminded him that they're aware of all facets of both co-parenting arrangements and our relationship, which Caleb is not to minimize and they're also aware that there's more to this than a litany of schoolyard threats to be determined.

Me, I walked inside while they were shouting at each other, took off my stupid platform shoes and sat up at the island in the kitchen, where PJ promptly poured me a drink and then went outside to make sure that everyone retreats safely to their corners. I'll fix it later. I just can't fix it now.

It's a vintage satin dress kind of day. Navy blue to match Caleb's new 370z with a spoiler because I said it would look better than without a spoiler. I'm right.

He's wearing a blue tie with his three piece suit. We should be in a magazine together or a perfume advertisement but instead we are stuck in meetings all day. He looks at me every now and again when someone is speaking and smiles like we have a secret and oh, do we ever.

It's just not a good one.

Fuck I'm so BORED.

Caleb showed me this.

“No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day. This is all practice.”

                     ~Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters