Floss and batter.

1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/4 cup of butter
2 large eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
3 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla

Matt and Sam let me spend most of Friday torturing them with my misery and then finally Lochlan was home and he did what he always does when he comes home from many hours gone. He grabbed me in close against his chest and rocked me while standing in place. Tight enough so that I can't breathe which is ironic because he's home and now I can, white knuckles showing color again, brain unravelling, heart filling up with blood, nerves repaired.

He tucked his head down against mine. You are a Good Human, you just give too much of yourself to people who don't deserve it. 

I shake my head and he says, You have to trust me. In this world where all of us are awful and selfish and reckless, you are selfless, sweet and careful. 

Great. 

This is not a bad thing, Peanut. Never a bad thing. And I missed you. I get a kiss that rivals just about any movie I've ever seen and he finally pulls away and winks at me. I brought you a present. 

A home lobotomy kit! 

What? No.... 

A bunny-pancake machine?

Uh. No. 

A devil-containment kit?

Oh, I could contain that fucker but no. 

Then what is it?

This! He unwraps a gorgeous little stained glass camper. It's a lamp. It's beautiful. It's similar to ones we saw in Tofino but this one is stubby. Like our camper was on the fair.

JESUS CHRIST THIS IS AWESOME! 

It's cute isn't it?

Oh it's SO cute!

I will make a list for Christmas with those first two guesses on it though. He walks over to the counter and plugs in the camper. It glows softly. I love it, it looks like home. I never had post traumatic stress disorder inside the camper afterward and I thank him for that. He always said bad memories shouldn't come from places, only people and he was right.

Where am I going to find a home lobotomy kit anyway, Bridgie? It's December. I don't have much time. 

Pshh. The hardware store? Seems kind of obvious. 

Sometimes you frighten me. 

You should have been here yesterday then. You would have been terrified. 

I heard. But do you want to know something? He's got enough money and time to travel to the best doctors in the world so there is no point in worrying about him. 

That doesn't mean I can just turn it off like a light switch. 

I wish it did. I wish I could be selfish and ask you not to care. Hell, I wish I could ask you exactly what I'm supposed to buy at the hardware store that comprises this kit because your brain literally terrifies me. 

A chainsaw, crowbar and a good claw hammer, Locket. 

And you do what with these things?

Open up the top of my head and take out my brain. 

Then what happens?

I'll fill the hole with cotton candy and colored lights. 

What will happen when you try to remember the past?

That's the good part. I won't be able to. It will be like starting fresh. 

You'll lose the good memories too. 

No, I won't. You can tell them to me all over again. 

And they'll go in one ear and out the other if you can't retain them, Peanut. 

Sure I can. Cotton candy is probably very absorbent. 

Naw, you better stuff some pancakes in there too, just in case it's not. 

This is going to be fun. 

I don't think it is. I think I'd rather buy a bracelet for you for Christmas than a chainsaw. 

God, Lochlan. I thought you knew me. 

Pretty sure I do, so chainsaw it is. Maybe I can incorporate it into my routine. 

Now that will be awesome. 

You'll be impressed with me every damned time, because you won't remember if I'm good or bad at it. 

I'm already impressed with you every time. You just don't believe me. I'll give you a lobotomy too. Maybe we should write down the memories we want to keep before we do this. 

Yeah. Good idea. And the pancake recipe. Just so we're ready. 

I woke up the next morning to find both of his arms wrapped tightly around my head like he was holding the whole world in his arms as he slept. When he woke up and I remarked on it, he told me he was.

I wrote this a long time ago and everyone's always teased me for my ridiculous sweet spot for all things Paul Walker.

I'm telling you right now, it isn't safe for me to love you.

Going to go gather up my action figures and cars and watch Timeline, Joyride and all the Fast and Furious movies a hundred million times until the shock wears off.

Rest in Peace, Mr. Walker and thank you for your blue eyes and silly grin. Like all good and wonderful things, it was far too soon.

All those places I got found.

Caleb has a whole host of new issues to deal with (not a great checkup by any means) and Joel was still here when we got home. I walked in and he said hey and I turned and went right back outside.

It's a love-hate thing. People want to know why I'm so hard on him. Well, I detailed it quite graphically at the time. Basically when Jacob flew I went away for a few weeks, because breathing was too goddamned hard and when I came home, wait, within twenty minutes of coming home, Joel had me out of my clothes and took me on the floor of the front hall, on his Hugo Boss trench coat.

I think they call it abuse of a position of trust, because he was my psychoanalyst at the time.

But I blamed myself, not him because I didn't know any better, but because I do that. I mean, I also mowed through half the guys in my life during that same time period and they are also in a position of trust, if you want to be totally honest.

Should I be quietly avoiding PJ every waking moment then too? (Yeah. Pretty sure I hurt him the most and still he's so amazing to me every waking moment.)

Instead of being mad or vulnerable I choose to believe that they were going above and beyond the call of duty, providing comfort, providing whatever I wanted, at their own expense. But Joel had no reason to do that. His job was never to provide anything but his expertise on my brain. Something he's still really good at.

I have to go inside, Jesus, it's five degrees and I'm tired. What a long day. My demon is slowly dying. I need a fucking drink. I need to get laid. I need a lobotomy and I need a vacation too.

I walk right past Joel into the kitchen and order a brandy from Dalton, who fetches it so fast it's as if he knows me.

Oh wait.

(No, not him, in case you're wondering.)

Then I text Lochlan. He's in San Francisco and he tells me he'll be home tomorrow but he won't be home until supper. Oh fuck, I forgot.

He says to stay home. He says please and I instead decide I want the better brandy because Joel won't be where it is so I walk out of the kitchen, out the side door, across to the boathouse where Caleb is slouched into the couch, reading on his laptop about all the things that are wrong with his heart that yesterday was better than ever. I tucked myself under his arm and fell asleep in seconds.

No brandy, no dreams, no Joel.

But no Lochlan either.

I wake up at four in the morning and drag myself back across the driveway, leaving the one with the broken heart still asleep on the couch. I wish there were tests and measures to determine how ruined I am so someone could begin a plan to fix everything that's wrong with me. Maybe that's what Joel would like to do but he was gone when I came back. Everyone is gone, doors are closed, lights are off.

This is hell. I know it. I would know it anywhere. I thought I was a Good Human but I guess not.

Holter tops.

Since I've held it together so long, they figured today would be a great! day! for a surprise visit from Joel, who still seems to function as their expert in the wake of August's painful absence.

Nevermind that Joel may or may not ever have been qualified. Nevermind that he isn't welcome anymore. They all just ignore me when I say that.

So when the Devil sent me a text asking me if I'd like to join him at the hospital this morning for his annual ticker-check I may or may not have been in his car before he hit send. Someone might want to take a note that I would rather sit in a waiting room than stay home and visit with Joel today.

Need a pen? Dictation? Whatever, get a clue.

So here I am, sitting on a hard chair being smiled at by gentlemen in gowns and every single doctor who wants to address me as Mrs. C today. Which is jarring and weirdly comforting because that used to be my name back when I knew who I  was.

Let it ring on.

I'm fine, really. I don't have a pantry to hide in anymore, living here and they took the doors off the library (it's being expanded. With a ladder for the top shelves even!) and so I've taken to some rather dramatic displays of self-soothing that work about as well as you'd expect. I really should go see someone or take something but the way I see it eighty-five minutes of lying in the grass watching the stars is as good a medicine as anything.

Also: Hypothermia.

If you ask Lochlan (which I don't recall doing), he'll point out that it doesn't actually fix anything. 

He has a point but at the same time it would have made things worse had I just remained indoors and exploded all over the walls in a fine red mist. 

Besides, PJ didn't just come out and peel me off the lawn and carry me inside so that implies full consent. And Duncan still doesn't think I can outrun his sorry arse so I was perfectly safe. I point that out and Lochlan laces his fingers through mine, pulls me in close to smash a kiss into my forehead and laughs shakily.

No, you're not. And they do a real shitty job of looking after you. 

That's because I'm old enough to look after myself. 

Right. That's why you're face-down in the grass before dinner?

I was face up, actually. 

Semantics. 

Oh, hell no. Face-down is a whole different thing. Then you should really worry. 

You don't get any less impossible as time goes on, you know. 

I know.

Loyal subjectives.

The lunatic is on the grass
The lunatic is on the grass
Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs
Got to keep the loonies on the path
The lunatic is in the hall
The lunatics are in my hall
The paper holds their folded faces to the floor
And every day the paper boy brings more
And if the dam breaks open many years too soon
And if there is no room upon the hill
And if your head explodes with dark forbodings too
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon
The lunatic is in my head
The lunatic is in my head
You raise the blade, you make the change
You re-arrange me 'till I'm sane
You lock the door
And throw away the key
There's someone in my head but it's not me.
And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear
And if the band you're in starts playing different tunes
I'll see you on the dark side of the moon

It's one of those days where the only place I feel calm is facedown on the lawn hoping the sun will just hurry up and go down already and usher in night so we can get the whole day over with sooner rather than later.

The grass is crunchy. It's covered with frost.

Come on, Poem, get up before Pyro gets home and takes my head clean off for letting you lie here in the cold. 

Tell him I dismissed you. 

You think that will matter to him? Because I don't think it will.

Doctor Sleep and First Contact.

Jumping back into grown-up Danny Torrance's life only to find he is still a predictable mess was sort of cathartic. I'd be a mess too, if I were him.

But honestly I think I like him that way. What I didn't like was the overly simplistic, predictable way the story unfolds after Danny realizes that a child with the shining is trying to contact him. I didn't like anything that happened after that and I certainly didn't like the ending, which was wrapped up so neatly it may as well have had a bow.

Those moments at the onset were fantastic but mostly it seemed as if Stephen King wrote this purely to make a screenplay writer's job easier down the road. I hate even saying this, but it was certainly no Joyride.

Joyride is a goddamned masterpiece. This was a good idea gone awry.

Onward and upward as Preacher says, who always said I should read more and I try. I've just started Not Dead and Not for Sale by Scott Weiland. It's very good so far. Surprisingly good and surprising too.

***

Ben walks down the hill to say hello after his morning meeting. New-Jake walks beside him. I don't think I like that all that much, it might have been better to have someone who isn't already a friend, because all this means is that Batman gets an update every time Ben and I have a conversation. When they reach me (on the porch, cleaning paint brushes), Jake heads inside for coffee at my urging so Ben and I can talk because I decided that's the way it's going to be. Within earshot if we're yelling but otherwise somewhere else.

And I'd like to yell but I can't. Ben is being great. He's accommodating and using his manners and being very respectful, hardworking and kind. Generous even. But he's not being Ben and I keeping waiting for Ben but I think he killed my Ben and left Borg-Ben in his place. Borg-Ben is not the sort to start a food fight or eat my lip gloss. Borg-Ben isn't quick to argue and is even quicker to forgive. Borg-Ben doesn't have any quirks at all. Borg-Ben is a hard worker and a neat freak and a doer of laundry and a solitary churchgoer and a perfectionist and I don't know where the fuck he came from.

I guess it's all profoundly reassuring to Lochlan and maybe to Caleb too. Caleb still won't let Ben come home so maybe the behaviour is an attempt to win his life back or maybe he's just numb. I hate it though. I want to throw a plate at his head and tell him to wake up. I want to take the front of his shirt and haul on it, swing on it, stretch it out and hang off it until he laughs and comes to his senses. I want to take his eyes and make a window in my brain where I show him all the hard parts, all the times where he could barely contain his emotions, whether it be sadness or exuberance or both but I really don't think Borg-Ben would understand so instead I walk over to the front door, stick my head into the house and call for New-Jake to take his alien back to their planet.

New-Jake looks confused but I can't explain. I just tearfully wave him away and go back to cleaning my brushes, wondering how this is happening when I wanted my Benjamin back, flaws and all. I don't think I care if he's straight or crooked but no one wants to hear that, trust me.

But honestly.

Batman shrugs when I ask him about the house. It's a good investment. It's worth a lot more than I paid, to be honest. I underbid heavily and now it's mine.

I am pleased for him but also confused. We've lived here for almost four years. Why now? 

I needed to be out of the city. I'm getting old, Bridget. And you need a few more allies with power, I think. He shrugs. He's never egotistical about his influence but he trusts it.

Forty-five isn't old. 

Sometimes it is. My bullshit tolerance is down. I want to have peace and quiet and be left alone. 

So you came here?

Yes. Your noise is sweet. It sounds good. There's a family dynamic here. The guys are my friends. I think I'll settle in. I'm too busy to join in much but I'd like to be around more. 

Are you-

I don't mean I'm going to make a grab for you, if that's what you're worried about. I don't think your affection for me is that strong and while I would like to have a companion at this point I think just having you and the rest nearby fits the bill.

What changed?

You aren't interested. I think if I had made a move earlier you might have considered me. Back when you were twenty-two. But I was too busy. We've had some fun though, haven't we?

He's trying so hard to make up for Cole. I let him off the hook so easily. Yeah, we did. 

Good.  

So you're just going to be around?

I'll be Caleb's conscience. 

That's a tall order. A man like that doesn't have a conscience. 

He does, Bridget, he just rarely invokes it. 

You're defending him?

Knowing what he fights against, yes. 

In runes.

Busy watching Jace and Valentine duke it out shadowhunter-style on the big screen. When it's done I'll watch it again. Come back tomorrow for big feels and big words because right now I'm busy being a teenager and no one at this age can put into words what happens inside their minds and hearts and make it comprehensible.

I know I never could and sometimes I regress.

Another debilitating argument and we're left stripped down and starting over, finding scratch from which to build a life on. Finding something that reminds us why the fighting is the least important part of us, and maybe is a painful way to grow and nothing more. Everything holds even when the words cut so deep I think I'll bleed out before I hit the ground and instead of having the courage to be cruel in return I fold like a birthday card, flat on the table.

Not a pushover, I'm just not a worthy adversary. Everything disappears and I can't focus and the world becomes a blank white void, cold and desolate. Then the fear rushes in like the wind and I can't catch my breath. The focus shifts to surviving it and then gradually the color floods in like ink in water, clouds of hues I haven't seen up close to know they were this beautiful before.

Loch caves in, regret washing over him in inky blacks and blues and red. He thinks he's being generous when I am stupid and selfish, I guess but really I'm just trying to breathe here for the fear, oh the fear. Make it stop because I think it might be killing me.

What are you afraid of, Bridget? It's Jake's voice in my head and it makes my eyes sting and burn. I can see his face, smiling gently, helpless and yet still trying to help because he didn't know what else to do but organize perpetual rescue and none of it was ever enough and I look up into Loch's green eyes and wonder if I'm going to destroy him too and I don't want to do that. I don't want him to end up like the rest and why can't I breathe?

His promises echo-bounce off the walls and around the room like a magic trick and I stare at him, gulping in lungfuls of oxygen while he wonders what the fuck he did that made me like this.

(It isn't you. It isn't you. It isn't you. I can't not be afraid. I can't find familiar things. I can't believe a word of this life. I can't manage at all right now please don't look at me like this but don't go anywhere either please. Pleasepleaseplease.)

He works around me, my hands clenched into the front of his shirt, bunching up flannel and t-shirt and pure heart. I can't let go but I've tried. He puts my headphones in my ears finally and finds a playlist and presses play and I let go when I realize I can grab the melody instead, hanging on for dear life. His arms go around me and they form a sort of full-body armor and then just for those few minutes the fear subsides. The promises hold. The fight is over.