Doomed from the get-go.

Look at us now
Are you happy with the way that things
Are going around here?
Are you happy now?
Opened my skin, made a claim of revolution
Then you let yourself back in
Look at us now, are you saddened with the way that
I am carelessly unbound and still happy now
Opened my skin, made a claim of resolution
Then you let yourself right back in

You are such a beautiful thing
When you're helplessly crying your eyes out
And I hope that there's a better man inside of me
But I'm starting to doubt that there is.

It doesn't matter that my thighs and arms ache, his fingers dig into my hips as he goes for broke, his teeth denting my skull, hands sliding, slipping. If we're not going for broke we're at least headed for home and abruptly he slows to a crawl and starts to talk. I cry out in protest. No. No no no. I don't want to have a discussion in the middle of this. I was having so much fun. He takes one hand up from where he has me trapped beneath him, tracing my eyelashes.

Please tell me you'll stop. I don't need that period of my life spilled all over the internet.

I need to work things out.

I'll buy you a notebook to write in. A diary. Something offline. He lets go of my face and kisses up my ear to the top of my head, picking up speed again. Unless you have good things to say too. You never say the good things.

I don't need to work out the good things.

Maybe we could focus on those instead. He isn't listening anymore. He does this. He works out his issues with me in the middle of this, a time when we should be focusing on talking less and there's nothing I can do about it.

I should have known from the first time when he slowed to a crawl, pulled me up into his arms so I was straddling his lap, looked me in the eyes and said, I shouldn't be doing this, you're too young.

It's okay, I said. I want this. 

You can't. You don't even know what you're doing. I'm going to hell. 

I threw my arms around him anyway and he tightened his hold. If you're going, I'm going with you, Locket.

On going too far and (almost) never looking back.

This took place after this but before this. I'm skipping all over the place, my apologies. It details the space between my big plans for reuniting with Lochlan properly and the darkness that swallowed us whole for a second time. Some things we can't get back, we have simply accepted this and forgiven each other anyway. I've grown up a lot. And weirdly I don't look back on it with sadness or anything for that matter. It happened. It was sort of a punctuation mark to that entire part of my life and now on to the next. We took a long break from each other after this. I started a family and a blog. And now here we are. The break is over, the past is history, the future was told (but no one believed her anyway) and it will take me the rest of my life to catch you up.

***

The music is loud and the club is dark when we are let in through the staff door. We are led through a small crowd. It's still early, the place is just beginning to fill up. As we walk I see different rooms with different stages. Burlesque dancers on one. Contortionists on another. We walk endlessly and I don't know how we'll find our way out when the evening is over. The room at the end opens up into a wraparound bar and several stages that reach out into the room, small semi-circles several feet off the ground. Everything is painted black and everything else is glass or silver. A curtain hangs in front of each stage. They are transparent but black. Okay. Okay.

Lochlan points to the ceiling. Listen, Bridget. I stop and pay attention. It's Echoes. Pink Floyd. Okay, focus on the music. My heartbeat slows and we're left backstage to get ready.

Loch is relieved. We're not the main event. I nod. I knew we wouldn't be, somehow. We're out of our league. We're children playing an adult game.

He takes the first half of the payment, all five one-hundred dollar bills and tucks them into the band of my bra. Then he kisses the top of my head, whispers showtime and the lights go out.

By the end of the night the entire place is jam-packed. Lochlan languidly rolls me in flames and licks them out. We don't actually go any further than that. We simulate a lot of things but we do it with such tension and chemistry that the crowd seems to like it more. They're holding their breath. The music pounds through me as Lochlan leans me back over his arm again, my hair brushing the floor before he pulls me up and I take the flame from him. His arms are strong but his eyes are unfocused and mildly apprehensive. He's not able to have much control, this is far too distracting and we're hanging on by a thread in reality, having giving up our plans to do the big tricks. The curtain precludes the big tricks even as we welcome the barrier it creates between us and them.

But the crowd doesn't care. The crowd just wants him to touch me. He looks handsome and evil and I look small and innocent. Every time he comes close the whole room pitches forward, tipping the balance and I wobble, afraid I'm going to slide into a darkness that never ends. His grip on me is the only thing I feel besides the fear and so I focus on that, just like I did when the world was bright and smiling and we got to be acrobats and it was oh so brief I blinked and the lights never came back on.

When we are packing up his tools at the end of the party the manager comes backstage. It isn't the man with the cane, it's a big young man, covered with tattoos. He looks like a caricature of a biker from a comic book. He hands Loch the rest of the money, five more big bills and asks if we will be a standing act. That we're good, people really liked it. Lochlan nods and pulls his ear twice which tells me to follow his lead so I smile wide and thank the man for the opportunity.

You, little lady, are amazing. He tells me and I grin stupidly but want to cry.

Loch shakes his hand and mumbles something about a taxi and off we go as fast as we can find the exit through a rabbit-warren of smokey rooms and lingering staff. I somehow don't expect us to make it out alive but then we do. Loch hails a cab and we jump in. The driver makes us pay up front. I don't blame him, we are covered in sweat, with matching smudged eyeliner and strange outfits. We go back to the rented room. Loch is keyed and manic, ecstatic. He shakes me and tells me how incredibly hot we were and we didn't even have to do what they thought we were going to do. I think they thought we were already there at one point. Even better. We can make so much cash this way, self-respect untouched. I'm so proud of you. He holds me at arms length. You are amazing. They couldn't take their eyes off you.

I just stand there, stupefied. I don't want to go back to that place. I don't want to watch them watch us and think we're doing things we aren't. That's sacred and precious. They don't get to see that. Why would they want to see that?

I break away from him and go and be sick all over the sink in the bathroom. He comes in and swears and then pulls my hair back. It's okay to be scared. Remember?

I remember those words because he said them at the bottom of the ladder too. That was the circus I wanted. Not this one.

You'll have to get someone else. I can't do this.

There is no one else. I can't just get a replacement. It's us. There's something about us. Besides, I couldn't do that with someone else.

It's not for sale. You sell us out for a thousand bucks? What's wrong with you?

We came here to make money. I found a way to double it!

The net profit isn't enough, Loch. Shut it down.

Net profit-what? This isn't costing us anything.

Think again! You may have something to prove but I don't!

And you're the only way that's going to happen.

Then I'm sorry but I can't help you. I can't do that in front of them.

Then don't do it for them. Do it for me. Do it so I can go back home with my bank account full of gold and I can shut Caleb up forever and punish him for what he did to you.

You're using me to ruin Caleb?

No! Jesus, no. I just want to be on even ground with him and his bullshit and the above-board shows pay nothing.

But the only way you can pull it off is through me?

Bridget. You're missing the point. With you by my side I OWN this town. They're going to remember me. I can get better gear with this money and have more time to hone my routines and apply to bigger shows and get back above ground and stay there once I'm established. We won't have to do it for long, just until I can get ahead of things. Okay? Come on baby. It's just like old times.

It isn't like anything else we've done. I don't like it Loch.

Tough. I did things your way but this is where the real money is, Peanut. Time to grow up. He grabs his jacket and leaves, slamming the door behind him but then locking it too. That part hurt the most, that he made sure the damn door was locked. By the time he came home I was packed, had shoved my bag under the bed so that he wouldn't see it and was pretending to be asleep. He crawled into bed, wrapped himself around me and fell asleep, thinking he'd convinced me somehow, in his absence.

He had not.

Bits + peaces.

(He knew before he forced me to admit it and then he took out my braids and cut my bangs. You looked too old like that, he said. He didn't say anything else after that for a long while, because he was too mad. Not at me, at himself. That was when he learned that my curiosity is a force to be reckoned with and reckon we have.)

I am directed to sit on a small wooden backless chair in front of a mirror while she braids my hair. Lochlan had to take a twenty-four-hour man shift and has gone ahead to the next town to put up flyers and distribute early-buyer discount tickets and so I am charged to remain with the fortune teller and will meet him there with the rest of the show.

Her real name is a closely-guarded secret. She's in her forties, single and makes really good tea. She said she wished for a daughter once but I have taught her children are nothing but worry. She doesn't like me all that much and I don't like her either but she is safe and Lochlan puts that before comfort.

I know this and so when she tells me to sit up straight because handsome young men like Lochlan don't like hunchback little girls, I do. I tell her the only things Lochlan doesn't like are when my bangs get too long and when my stomach growls really loud because he feels guilty.

She tsks and undoes all the braids and goes to work on braiding my currently too-long bangs right into to the braids so they aren't even there anymore. I look wide-awake and kind of surprised. Older. More mature. She puts a stack of graham crackers in my hands and stops talking for a while as I eat and she works on braiding all of my thigh-length heavy hair. When she gets to the bottom of each braid she secures them with three heavy elastic bands each and then wraps the braids around and around my head, pinning them together. Then she gives me a pretty scarf to wrap around my neck and asks if I want to try a lipstick.

No, thank you, I tell her.

You look better, anyway. Once you reach womanhood you are supposed to pin your braids up. 

Womanhood?

Sleeping with men. No longer virginal.

But I haven't-

Oh, I keep all secrets, darling don't worry about me. 

But we never-

Brigitta, darling-

It's BridGET-

It's so obvious. Young love, your tiny little camper, the fact that he never lets go of your hand. You should know your future though, it's important-

No, thank you. 

Did he tell you to say that? Because he told me not to read you. Men like Lochlan are practical and they will deal only in things that are easily proven. 

But he wants to be an entertainer! An illusionist! He does tricks and he believes!

She just laughed. You let me read your fortune, I could explain that for you too. She puts her hands on my shoulders as if there are things she needs to tell me but she needs permission and my guardian has expressly forbid it. But since I'm an adult now, with my braids pinned up I can give it.

Just once, okay? Don't tell him. 

You don't tell him. You're the one who will have to live with this, not me.

What do you mean?

Come and sit at my table and don't you ever breathe a word of what I say. Someone has to look out for you here, because he won't be able to when he must and because there are things I see from here, without even trying, that tell me things are going to become difficult and knowledge is power, my dear. I'd like to give you a fighting chance.

"Who cares about pretty?"

I saw this in a store window this afternoon and wish I had it at home on the wall. One light short of full power, they'd say and laugh but at the end of the day it's true and I'm not sure if that's all I can hope for or a grievous insult. I'll go with hope, since I'm learning how to use, it, wielding it as a heavy, awkward weapon against the usual crushing doubt. I'm working very hard at trying to be a capable human, because good is simply never good enough. Good is what default should be but I want to be extraordinary and unforgettable and...well, brighter.

I want to be brighter so that they have to shield their eyes and burn my image into their retinas and see nothing but me. Then and only then will I be content because oblivion is a frightening thought and I haven't had an impact yet in my young life, no, not at all.

We went to see Divergent this morning, as empty theaters are the best kind, you see. The popcorn was fresh, the fountain pop terrible and the movie fantastic. Just fantastic. They out-acted the screenplay, I almost sobbed out loud at one point and damn the heights, it was worth it. It was well-fleshed out compared to the book, tons of chemistry, the perfect teenager movie only none of us are teenagers except for the actual kids but they loved it too. I always get very nervous before a beloved book opens on the big screen but this time I was pleasantly surprised to see things appear the same as I pictured them in my head when I read the words.

So good I'd like to go see it again. Maybe tomorrow when my lights come back on.

(Also in movie news, a lot of people sent me this today. Thank you from the bottom of my twelve-year-old heart. Seriously.)

I see a never-ending weekend of beavertail* jokes coming up.

I knew today was the right day to put on actual clothes and so I am buttoned up to the chin in my most plainest black dress with ten thousand tiny black buttons, black tights giving me spider-legs and a black ribbon around my ponytail but the bow fell out and I can feel the tails hanging down over my shoulder. My black boots are by the door, with a hundred more buttons between them and the hook sitting on the floor but I probably won't be going anywhere because this week I am quarantined, pinned and otherwise unavailable.

But both my favorite boys are home. Sam and Daniel! Wait, I mean Ben and Loch. 

*(Damn it. The other ones bring me the aforementioned pastries I love so much.)

I have a vintage lace handkerchief in hand for full effect. Lochlan rolled his eyes when he saw me dab at my nose through breakfast and he asked if I was just about done mourning my own health and should he go build a coffin?

(Because Lochlan has no patience for this. He must be feeling better, he's so fucking cranky. He also doesn't like my usual day wardrobe all that much, honestly.)

Yes, please, build it for two, so I can kill you first and then we can be buried together. I snap at him because he knows I have issues with things like coffins and death and still he needles me.

No one gets a coffin. They get a box and get burned to ash and then I can eat the ashes. No burial. No cemeteries. No headstones. No engraving. No plots. No sticking someone you love so badly into the ground like they're a fucking tree that's going to grown and flower and thrive because that won't happen. They're not coming back. At least you can go to bed at night with your arms wrapped tightly around a little sealed (HA) box and that's better than nothing at all, or at least better than lying in the cold, six feet down, all alone.

They've tried to talk me out of things like cremation. Ah well. Everyone has their own opinions. Mine are just so loud. They're so loud I can't get past them and I get up and start to leave but he grabs my wrist.

Sorry, Peanut. I get ornery when I start feeling well enough to feel but not well enough to do anything. 

I know, Locket.

I let him off the hook as he lets go because he's right and I'm impossible and then Ben says Basically if she doesn't get outside soon 'nice' won't be a choice, it will be some long-forgotten memory of how Bridget used to be before she became the Fever Beaver from cabin three at Lake Echo Campground.

It sent both of us into sprawling laughter punctuated with harsh coughing.

From where? Loch recovers first but barely.

I don't know. I just made up a campground. 

Fever Beaver? 

If the shoe fits, Bridge, I mean water-logged microbeast. 

So sweet, with such a fantastic bedside manner, Benny.

What would you do without me? 

Be classified as a different species, at least.

Ha, you got a ways to go yet, Peanut. (Loch joins him because what is teasing someone if you can't get a whole tableful of meanies ganging up on you at once?)

Sam (whom I love unconditionally, take note everyone) brought me a beavertail an hour later. It made everything better. Especially the part where they all asked for a bite and I said no. 

:)     (<---still so sick it took me a good ten minutes to figure out why my smiley face was so lopsided. Italics for the win, because I refused to listen to my editor, who said to put conversations in quotes. No way.)

Social monsters.

I was granted a brief Skype-Cough session with Duncan this morning. He said he's doing a lot better, he's settled into a routine now that's working. On days off he plays tourist and visits antique stores. He says he'll be shipping a box of treasures home at the end of the month. He says I should be excited, that he found the creepiest, neatest little things for me and we'll have to figure out how to get around customs because half of it is probably banned for being things like dead creatures, black magic and/or simply offensive, like the vintage band t-shirts he found from a band Ben was in for three whole years but they were three wild, horrific years and so a closeup cartoon rendition of Ben's eye and his middle finger are on every goddamned t-shirt I've ever seen from them.

Ah, but these are different, Duncan says. They're in German!

Ben just rolls his eyes and heads to a meeting. While we were in bed for two days I introduced him to Instagram and he's become an unintentional senior citizen with his use of hashtags now because he missed my explanation on how to use them.

(Neither one of us have Instagram but some of the boys do and we can still look at their pictures. Yes I had one for a while but was convinced to shut it down.)

When I'm done on Skype I check my phone to see what time Ben will be home for lunch and this is what he sends me in lieu of actual words.

#sexbot #imissyou #thoselegs #youhavenoassthough

Hey Benny, just say the words. Those are search terms. They don't work in SMS. 

#sowhat #imcoollikethecoolkids #weshouldmakeasextapewhenyoufeelbetter #pervy #hot #2hot2handle #Bridget #hotwife #mineallmine #Tucker #polyawesome #filthylittlething #thighgap #belieber #lickitup #damniwishIwashomebecausethesetagsaremakingmehungry

Seriously. This is what I live with. 

(See the #belieber in there? He was paying attention. You put that on a picture you get more hits, according to those in the know. I don't know but that is fucking funny.)

Fever couture.

Today for breakfast I was served a heaping portion of Can't Breathe along with a side of Fuck My Life and a half-order of Near Death. Refills of Runny Nose were free.

Woo.

I saw the teaser for the Peanuts movie and I squealed. Snoopy was almost my first tattoo but then I bailed on the idea. Thank God. I can't imagine poor little snoopy surrounded by all of these skulls and wings and bottomless song lyrics. He would have felt scared, out of place.

I saw the trailer for The Maze Runner. I'm struggling to read the book. It looks so good. I can't wait. And we get to see Divergent in three more days. I ate those books in one sitting.

No music today. My ears aren't working at all. No, the hearing aids don't work, the congestion has completely obliterated just this one sense. I wish it would work on the sixth one instead of the second (I always list sight first, okay?). I may have to put a sign around my neck. Every time I've asked someone to repeat themselves, instead they make the suggestion of helping myself.

Sure. I'll help myself. Get me a a rag and a fresh bottle of chloroform.

In other news, Ben somehow magically didn't jump up and run out the damn door this morning to five meetings and three doctors and then lunch with his sponsor. He's still in bed, here with me. Arm around my hips, snoring into my shoulder. He needs a shave and a haircut. I won't let him get either. (I like him sort of wild-looking, truth be told.)

And now I'm going back to sleep and maybe I can find him in our dreams.

 I'll get up later, for dinner maybe. It's pizza night so that's a big draw, next door at Danny and Schuy's house. I will not get dressed because pajamas are the new look for spring. If they complain I will leave and bring the pizza with me. I've done it before.

Ben will probably threaten to show up naked. He's done that before too. 

Micrometal (married all the wrong guys).

Tell me that your final home is not a shot in the dark
Tell me that your hopes and dreams don’t end
In the heart of a graveyard

If you mix together Woods of Ypres and Breaking Benjamin you'll get Demon Hunter.

Just saying.

As hard as Jake and Loch have ever tried to sway me over to the lighter side (and I go willingly, you know this) PJ still rules my heart with his endless metal bands and this week it's all Demon Hunter because of the new album coming out tomorrow. It showed up a day early and he squealed.

No, literally. He did. I think he broke something. It looked painful.

The album has been on a loop ever since. I love it and won't let anyone turn it off so he's just hanging out beaming like a proud parent. I'm pretty sure it was a challenge back in the day. Make the little one a Metal Queen. Good luck, Pyro's got her started on that sappy shit already.

Okay, PJ said right goofily, because he really has no idea when someone is making fun of him and that's fine because over the years PJ has earned a lot of respect for doing the one thing no one else has figured out how to do yet.

Wrangle me.

I think I like this album better than he does. Who's hardcore now, Padraig?

Happy happy Saint Patrick's Day. Still sick, doing nothing. :(

(And yes, to those who've asked already, PJ was like this long before he met Ben. He was only starstruck for the first five minutes, like the rest of us.)

Proximity alarms.

An outsider would think us strange and somewhat wonderful and profoundly disturbing, but fully trustworthy too. Caleb walks into the kitchen while Sam and Ben are deciding whether or not I am well enough to go to church. Caleb crosses to me, putting his hand on my forehead and frowning before pulling me close for a good-morning hug.

No one bats an eye at that. His affection is like seeing a unicorn or the Aurora Borealis. I hang back in his arms and look at him. He looks well. A tweaked regimen of sleep, diet and exercise and some further tests have yielded a bit of a reprieve for his physical being but for some reason right now, looking into his eyes, I don't worry about what happens when he dies because I don't think it will mean his absence.

I know he's hypnotizing me and I let him. It's like a drug and for a single moment I'm not fluttering, tripping, hyperventilating.

But I'm not well enough for church either. Lochlan never goes so he's a little bit joyful that we get some time alone and so he asks Caleb about the horses. Warning him of the work involved. Telling him if it's a whim that's going to end too briefly then not to bother because both Bridget and the children will get attached and then to have them ripped away would be too much.

Horses are considered incredibly therapeutic. Caleb says without looking at Loch. He's still calming my soul while I have it. Staring into my eyes. Still rocking very slightly, back and forth and finally, reluctantly he lets go and it's like a trap snaps shut, my body stuck firmly in its jaws, my soul escaping but just barely, to remain with him. He smiles and turns to address Lochlan's concern.

They would be retired horses to have a good life in whatever time they have remaining. Of course I had no intentions of adding to the workload around here. We could hire someone to look after them or if the other Jacob or maybe John would want to take it on as formal employment I am..open to discussion. He shoots his cuffs. He's going to church so he's in a suit. He goes every few weeks with us. Henry likes that.

I giggle. I don't know if I can look at John and know he's the stableboy. 

Worst case scenario we recall Asher. That would probably please the mighty Batman to no end. 

He doesn't seem like a horse guy to be honest. What about Mike? It would be a good part-time thing. 

Bridget, this is how I know you're the smartest one of all. I'll give him a call later today and see if he's interested. 

Okay. 

I'm off. See you later. 

She's busy later.

Perhaps this evening then. We can go over the plans for March Break. 

Sur-

She's busy then too. 

Have a good morning, Loch. Caleb dismisses him coolly and gives my cheek a quick kiss on his way by. Get some rest, Princess. This is why you keep getting so ill. You know, all you have to do is say the word and you'd never have to suffer again. His eyes turn dark and hard, covetous. Obsessive. Longing. The un-charming parts of him that make me afraid. He leans way in close to wait for my acceptance but he isn't going to get it.

Gingerbread, I whisper in his face. Safe.

Just when Lochlan lulls me back to the safety of the good memories in my brain, Caleb throws a wrench into the works by appealing to the parts of me Loch can't reach because of the limitations of mere mortals.

He's decided to build a small stable, just behind the garage because the dead orchard is mostly a waste of space and runs from behind the garage and the east side of the boathouse all the way around and up to the main road.

Maybe enough room for two or three horses, he says. I point out that he sold my horses and besides, we really don't have room for them here.

Sure we do, he assures me. He's still smiling.

Did you know horses can't vomit? I ask him and he laughs and looks at his shoes. They're probably made of my old horses.

No, Bridget. I really didn't know that. 

Anyone who owns horses should know things like that. It's important. I tell him and go back to watching Lochlan try some new tricks from my vantage point on the porch because the rain is really coming down now but as usual he's still practicing.