PJ called them 'Yamahahahas' because he thinks they're a bit over the top. Like everything the Devil does, they are.

I can't find the secret to survive
To grow old safe and sound
Life is sifting through like the sands in the hourglass
There's not a moment to relive my time and space
There's not a moment to undo anything

I think Ben is forcing my hand here. He keeps delaying his return to prove to me that I don't need him.

He would be wrong but he would have to be here to see how wrong he is, and since he isn't here that means he's in the dark. Though here is the dark sometimes and I need him more than he realizes. He's my anchor. He's my living human.

He's not a ghost, he's not a memory, he's not an obstacle either.

My secrets are being opened all around me while I stomp my feet and yell that they're private, that it's not fair, that I didn't ask for this. That I have a right to keep things to myself. And even as I fight to hold onto that right, Joel carries his belongings to the truck. He's been moving the past few days and will finish on Saturday. Every day he asks me if I need an out, if I want to say the word and keep him here. Let him stay and sort out the tangles my mind gets itself into, if I need an objective eye kept on the Devil while he steamrolls over those secrets, flattened, embedded in the road I didn't plan to walk down but found myself on after every other way was blocked.

I snort. Joel is not objective. Joel is in love with someone he thought he could save.

I've seen it before. In Jacob. In Caleb.

Loch doesn't look at me like that. Neither does Ben. Do you get it now? I mean, do you? Does it make any sense? I don't want to be saved (because no one can do that but me) but neither do I want to drown, or sit here in the road forever, chipping away at the secrets I wanted to take with me while the other ones can stay where they are.

Ben comes back Saturday. Maybe Sunday. He didn't think one set of hands would be missed with getting Joel moved (because we're not monsters. I even packed dishes) and can get some extra things done in New York and this might eliminate a trip later in the spring.

Which would be good not to dread-forward to, as I call it. Who looks forward? Not I. Too busy keeping the present sorted, thank you.

In happier news, Duncan and Dalton went to bat for me in the big Waverunner Access vs. Padraig case. They have promised to teach me how to use them properly. I will never be out by myself or outside of the cove and if I stunt drive, I lose my privileges. And yes I will always have on a lifejacket. No string bikini either, this will be a wetsuit activity.  (That has nothing to do with safety for me, but for everyone else because a wet bikini is distracting, apparently. Even though it's February and maybe a little too early for that.)

Fine by me. Not sure how the lessons will go. Neither brother admitted they've never been on one before until PJ had left, satisfied that I will be in good hands.

Snort.

(If you never hear from me again, I drowned. But not on purpose this time.)

Oh, and Ben won't be home until Friday.

Fuck.

Emergency brightside.

Never want my hand cut off
Never want a hacking cough
Never need a cliffside push
Never turn my brain to mush

Always give me what I lack
Always take the best parts back
Always recognize your fate
Always just a moment late

Left is where I always turn
Left is how I'm forced to learn
Left the route my walking takes
Left alone with my mistakes

Up against a person who
Up 'til now I never knew
Up from hell the answer blew
Up and down it's up to you

My brain is swimming through the Phish catalogue today, drowning, resurrecting, doing the backstroke when it feels tired. I'm forcing contentment at all costs. I'm counting my blessings. I'm practicing gratitude. I swear I'm not rolling my eyes at Sam's orders. Nope, not at all.

Sam is spoiled these days. Matt's an easy lover. Up for anything. Leaves at eight, home at five. Loves Sam to within an inch of his life or perhaps beyond. He's incredibly open, level-headed and seemingly baggage-free.

I point this out and ask Sam if he really knows this guy, that everyone has magnificent heavy baggage, especially at our ages and how the hell did Matt emerge unscathed?

He had the broken engagement, remember?

Child's play. I've had ten of those. 

And as many husbands. Some people don't leap, they wait for safe passage. 

What if he's a spy? Or in the Witness Protection Program?

How do you think I should go about finding out?

Check his shoes for mileage! 

Anything else?

Check his skin to see if he's sanded off any old tattoos. So he can't be identified, right?

Okay. Is that it?

Ask him? Maybe hiding in plain sight is how it's done now and you win a prize if you connect the dots. 

What would the prize be?

A husband! Gosh, you're not very good at this game, Sam! 

Powersaver mode (Call me Budget, for lawyers are expensive.)

Rain will fall
Wash all the pain
It shields the soul
You turn the page
To face another day
Let me know that you will wait
And I will pay for my mistakes
To feel the sun again

Can you hold on?

Meetings since seven this morning. Lawyers are vampires.

I ate in the car, a croissant wedged between my teeth while I steered through rush hour traffic downtown. Then I saw the mediator. Then the counselor that I don't actually talk to at all (he works with the mediator. He's cold.) and then the bank. Now I'm home and the sugar in my blood has dissolved, leaving me with a decided lack of resolve or energy, for that matter.

I faceplant into the big chair by the fireplace and Ben calls. He's away and I hate it.

So?

I have a ton of information to go over.

You don't sound thrilled.

I don't know if I am.

Nothing will change.

Everything will change. I can pull the plug right up until the end of March if I need to though.

You won't need to. Merry Christmas, Happy Saint Patrick's Day and Happy Birthday to you both.

This could be a curse and you act like it's a present. You've seen what happens when you give someone absolute power, haven't you?

Yes, she puts on a business suit and gets all sexy-professional. It's a huge turn-on.

I didn't mean me.

He'll be fine. Actually, I think it will make things a lot better for him.

I know, that's the problem.

Since it doesn't involve me, it's ultimately your decision but I think it's one you should make. 

Ben, this is a can of worms so big I don't think you want to open it. And it involves you so stop saying it doesn't.

Nothing will change, Bumblebee. I have to go. Home tonight. Wait up for me?

You're asking a narcoleptic to wait up? Hahahahah. 

Okay don't. I'll wake you the traditional way, Bee.

Okay, that I'm looking forward to. 

Good to know. See you soon. I love you. 

I love you too. So much that I might not go any further with this. 

Bridget, everything is going to be fine. 

I've come to believe that means precisely the opposite of what it should. Oh! And the jetski thingies were delivered today. 

Are they neat? 

No, they're HUGE! And PJ already said I can't drive on one by myself. 

He's such a grandma. 

I'm going to tell him you said that. 

Do it. Then let me know what he says, okay? 

PJ has come to the rescue anyway and takes the phone from me. He says you listen hear, Sonny Boy! Those things are dangerous! But he says it in a high falsetto-waver that makes me laugh and I have no idea how Ben responds and then he's gone again and the connection is broken but the smile remains on my face. It's a guarded one, though. I think in Ben's quest to be as generous as humanly possible he's going to discover that no one's rushing in to match his gesture, and he's going to be left surprised and deeply disappointed.

Teenage daydream.

He was bluffing. I knew when I walked away. I counted around eight steps and he jumped in front of me.

Let's go get you some new things. 

What's the point? You'll just burn those too. 

Not if you stay put. But if his hands are on things, they're going up in smoke. I don't want him putting things on you. I don't want him touching you. I'd burn you if I could, just to reduce you to ash and start you over again without him ever having touched you. 

Baptism by fire. 

If that's what it takes. 

When are you just going to accept that this is the way things are?

NEVER. 

Well, okay then. I really loved those jeans. 

They weren't like French or something designer, were they?

No. They were from Walmart. 

Oh okay then. Maybe I can buy you a couple pairs. 

Great idea. So I'll have a backup pair when you burn the next outfit I wear. 

I have a better idea, how about you just stay the fuck away from danger, like I told you when you were ten, Bridget! 

Do I look like I'm still ten, Lochlan? 

YES! YES YOU FUCKING DO! SO JUST LISTEN ALREADY!

Samwise, patron saint of unintentional junkies.

I should have a medal with his likeness stamped into it, and wear it around my neck, the noose of my conscience as I am reminded again and again that the devil doesn't change. And neither does the carny though the carny keeps trying to pin me up by my word and I didn't have my word to go on, I was incapacitated and now I only hang by my flesh and it's burned. It's burned so badly and I went to church this morning flanked by Matt and Daniel, both angrier than they have the right to be, and when my hands started shaking Daniel held them in his and it felt like Ben and I stopped trembling but continued to only nod or shake my head in conversation because when I open my mouth the words come out slurred, wrapped in cotton, confusion and regret.

People keep trying to talk to me and after a while Daniel would step out and cut them off politely and finally Sam was done preaching his sermon to me, channeled straight from God and we could go home again where Lochlan waited still, only this time staring out over the backyard to the sea standing in front of the fire pit where my pretty cardigan chars into a tiny black rag, unrecognizable and my favourite jeans meet a similar fate. Everything I wore gone because it makes Lochlan feel better to conjure his flames, setting his problems alight and finding the answers he needs in the sparks that write on the sky.

You straight yet? He asks me without looking.

I stare back without answering. He held me in the spray of an ice cold shower last night until I stopped screaming. I'm straight but for my words. They're always the last to come back. My stomach hurts and my head aches and underneath the burns I have hives but I'm straight and he knows this. This isn't what he's asking. I know what he's asking.

He looks at me, breeze blowing his curls straight back off his face and I shake my head.

You need to get straight. Then come see me. Until then you can stay with him. You're both too fucked up for words anyway. 

Less friction.

He took all of my secrets and looked them over, turning them inside out and back again. He polished some to a shine and let me keep them and others he crushed in his hands, declaring them to be not secrets but known markers in history, shameful ties that bind, just like the velvet ones still looped around the posts of his big bed, stretched to nearly double their length at some point during the darkness, just like the lies that my history has told and the secrets that line the path toward the future.

Sleep, he orders. And I did. Hard, drugged, dreamless sleep, facedown in the cool french sheets until precisely four, when I woke up with a start to find the Devil removing my sage woolen underthings once more. I asked him what he's been giving me since Thursday, since the bottled water, that I can't feel my skin but he just said that he could feel it and so that's all that matters. I asked him what he wanted and and he said he has it now, and that matters too. That I should close my eyes.

I asked if I could go home and he said not yet. And then he tied me back up again, not as hard, he has a heart after all, and he was sweet but tough and I asked for my secrets back and I asked for Lochlan to come here if I couldn't go home and he finally covered my mouth too and sang into my ear. I don't know what it was, but I told him not to give me any more of the drugs because it isn't fair and I don't like the way they make me feel. He said I would be glad for them later, as he bent my arms back and burned my skin with his face. I couldn't feel any of it now and so he was right.

I called him Cole and he didn't react like he usually does. I think he possesses. I think he's possessed.

Just before his time ran out he asked if it was better this way, if it's nicer not to feel so profoundly all the time, if it's easier to navigate the night in a friendly stupor, if it makes a difference at all. I pushed his hands away and said no. It's not better, or easier or nicer. It's not me and I have to be me so I'm not his.

And then I slept some more. When I woke up the velvet was gone, the Devil was gone and I was fully dressed in my jeans and a pretty cardigan over a tiny baseball shirt. He took my underpants. I called it a loss and left, head still fuzzy, brain clouded with all the things he said that didn't make any sense. I gathered up all of the secrets I could find, stuffing them into my pockets and carrying the rest and I got the hell out of there while I could. I stumbled into the house and ran up to my room, dropping secrets on the floor, secrets rolling down the stairs and I slammed the door and turned around, letting go of all of it and Lochlan was there sitting on the bed, not doing anything, just waiting and he pointed out it wasn't sanctioned time and it isn't right and what are we going to do with you and I was angry by then and coming down so fast it was like being on a elevator with the cables cut and I snapped at him that he could do whatever he wanted with me, just like everyone else.

Benzobabied again.

I'll tell you about the movie but not today. This afternoon I spent a good twenty minutes watching the waves and realized I wasn't fluttering much if at all. Wasn't hungry in the least, Ben sent me a message about a trip he has to take and I didn't panic or anything, I just thought oh, at least he has enough clean shirts because I am caught up on the laundry and then I realized...

That this means they're probably putting drugs in my food again. They try this two or three times a year when I spin off my axis a little too far and I'm usually aware by the half or second day when they kick in hard and I realize I care about nothing.

Which is why I don't take them in the first place.

Stockholm cinema.

Caleb told me we had a thing today, but not a meeting, that I was to wear a pretty dress and heels and plan to spend the afternoon with him. He met me at the door, dressed in one of his nicest sport jackets, shirt unbuttoned at the neck. No tie.

Where are we going? To eat?

It's a surprise. 

So off we went in his car. To the movies. In the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday because I'm not sure I've ever been to a movie theatre with Caleb so the timing wasn't the surprising part.

Oh my Jesus. Fifty Shades of Grey.

It was us and then a small group of breathy, giggly women in the back, who stared at Caleb like he was meat and they were starving and he gave them exactly what they wanted by smiling tightly-politely and gripping my upper arm with his fist as he pulled me toward a seat many rows below them.

He got me settled, went out for popcorn and bottled water and just as he came back it was starting.

During the whole thing he kept leaning over, comparing things.

I should get a helicopter. Should I get a helicopter?

No, Diabhal. Shhh. Watch the movie. 

A glider, maybe?

No. Shhhhh. 

I need a playroom. That's what I need. 

I just glared at him and finally he elbowed me and said, Neamhchiontach. Watch the movie. 

Fifteen minutes later he says, Who the heck cuts her bangs?

Then he says to himself, Probably Lochlan.

Then he laughed.

And I glared some more.

Neamhchiontach. 

WHAT?

This is what I'm going to do to you later. 

Like hell you are. 

Grey's a lightweight. I don't need contracts.

He's a billionaire. Oh, and I don't know if you noticed, he's also FICTIONAL. 

Shhhh. Watch the movie.

When we returned home he pulled the car right around to the side door to let me out (it was raining) and I turned and said Don't even think about saying it-

What?

Laters, Baby. 

Naw, see, I was hoping you'd say it to me. As usual, you played right into my hands. And as usual, that's exactly where you'll be soon enough. 

Pro et Contra.

So What about you?
Yeah? What about me?
Quit playing on my insecurities
It's not about you, it's not about me
Reasoning with you is impossibility

I'll put up with this, for love
One more turn and twist, for love
Gimme one more kiss, for love
We're not through with this
I'm a sentimentalist

I'm feeling sentimental
I'm feeling sentimental
Cause you made me kind of mental
Yeah our love was monumental
So I'm feeling sentimental

Okay, so everyone's taxes are done and now I need a vacation. Even Caleb's are done and I swear to God if I had had to call one more place tracking down forms for him I might have given up again. He looked it over (because he had already done it and this was a test and also an attempt at transparency on his part) so I will be doubly rewarded. I prove my worth as his financial partner (bonus confidence boost) and I get to see how much money he made in the year (bonus confidence boost). He makes more than he relinquished. It's a bit hilarious. And I don't think that's all of it, frankly because as a good financier, he's hidden all of it (of course) and the taxman will never ever cometh because this is a great system for the nouveau rich. Write it all off, hide it away and then turn your pockets inside out and lie through your fucking teeth, every time.

I swear, you know everything, he says. The taxman nods and moves along and I stand there suspiciously, waiting for untenable proof. I'll wait forever.

Just like the Devil.

On a happier note, Lochlan introduced me to a record today. New Trews music from last spring. I must be like a tiger in a cage to which raw meat is introduced when a new album by a band I love comes out. Bring in the record and drop it twenty feet away and then back slowly out of the enclosure as I circle around slowly. Then run out and slam the door and watch from the relative safety of the other side of the fence as I approach cautiously, sniffing. Then wait as I play through the album once, noting my standout favourites. Then a second time. Then on the third go round I only play the ones I really love and then it's safe to come back in and be closer.

He described it this way to me and my despair was evident even as I tried not to laugh. If I'm this horrible why bother at all?

Because I love you, and I have my own bullshit that you have to put up with, he told me.

Maybe yours is even worse but it's sort of like trying to hold on to a fast moving spark of electricity as it arcs all over the damn place.

He smiled really wide and said I like that. That's a perfect description. And we're okay. For today.

(For today. He always used to say that when he made promises he couldn't keep and I hate it. It's an escape clause and it isn't fair.

We're safe, Peanut. You can sleep now. 

You promise?

Yeah, I promise. We're safe and everything's okay. For today.)

For the record his taxes were the easiest and most straightforward and therefore finished first. And for tax purposes in the future we may be changing things up a little because it would help exponentially. I'll explain more later. It wasn't my idea and I'm still working out the pros and cons here.

The protections and conversations, I mean.