Maybe, baby.

Will you ever learn, will you ever learn, will you ever learn, learn to listen?

Can you hear them calling?
You'll testify to justify, you have to find a way
Can you hear them calling?
With arcane eyes you're staring back at someone with no face
Can you hear them calling?

It's really hard when you need an impartial legal advocate in a fucking hurry and you can't find one because everyone is corrupt, opinionated or too well-paid to cross the line and give actual advice.

No one was going to bat for me here, they were too busy organizing my well-being, as if it were a record collection or a spice cabinet. This will work for now, they said.

What if it doesn't? Everyone's agreeable today. How do they feel when they're not agreeable? When they're mad about something. 

Loch tosses his papers on the table and gets up and walks out without a word.

He'll be fine.

He's posturing until it's done and then he's going to shut you out so fast your head will spin. 

He cares about me.

You're a means to an end. I'm the end. 

I thought you were the beginning. 

I'm the middle too. You're missing my point, Ben. 

So sort it out while I'm away. He smiles and when I blink he's on the other side of the country guaranteeing a lifetime of paycheques for himself while I founder around here in court.

Nice. Thank you, Benjamin.

I resorted to Batman. Do you have any attorneys that you trust that know nothing about me?

What kind of trouble are you in? 

I just need some advice. 

Caleb's a lawyer. 

This is very personal. 

Unless you killed someone, I can give you a list. If you killed someone all bets are off, Princess. 

(My inner mind laughs. He called me Princess. Only when he does it he sounds stilted. Like when Wolverine said it in the last movie and I laughed out loud in the theatre during a very quiet, very serious moment.)

I haven't directly killed anyone. I wait a beat. I feel like I'm responsible for death but it's like fourth degree. I drove them to die. I'm amazing, alright.

Bridget, talk to me. 

I can't talk to anyone except a lawyer who doesn't know me. Maybe a female just to make sure they stay impartial.

Maybe I'm just going to call an extended family meeting. 

Do that and I'll never speak to you again. If he was going to pull out the big threats then he twisted my arm and I was forced to do the same. His phone slid back in his pocket and he pointed at the chair.

Sit. Start talking.

The tears started before I even figured out how to begin.

The road to hell is paved in good intentions and apathy
What did you expect when common sense is your enemy?
I'd rather burn alive than drown inside your reality

Can you hear me?
Are you listening?

Spirit animals and hooky on Sundays.

This morning a bee flew into the collar of my hoodie and then down the front of my shirt underneath, hanging out in the hollow where my v-necked t-shirt met my skin. I tried to shoo it away but he wanted a ride, I guess. Loch came out to ask me something and I pulled out the front of my shirt wide, looked down and said go away and the bee flew out.

You didn't get stung? 

No, I think he just wanted a hug. 

That's fucking magical, right there. 

The bee proceeded to hang out around my shoulders and head the entire time I was weeding in the garden, for the rest of the morning. Sam said it was probably God, wondering why I missed church. I think it was probably Cole, wondering why I stuck Jake back in that room with him when he had the place all to himself for so long.

Cole started the whole Bee thing. Ben got it from him.

So yeah. It was Cole. Checking in. Making sure his brother didn't eat me whole, maybe.

They looked like superheroes in costume. I looked like a little piece of a vanilla bean.

Yesterday we put on wetsuits and tried out the wave runners. Jet skis? Whatever they are called, personal watercraft being too much of a mouthful. We stick in our own cove, to keep the peace with our neighbors around both corners (not part of our point but up the hill) and still there is enough room to have a lot of fun and that we did. It was freezing cold and horribly loud and miserable overall and yet still exhilarating. It took me almost forty-five minutes to peel myself out of the suit afterwards, though and when that didn't work, Ben picked me up and held me out straight and Loch took the top part of the suit and pulled and it hurt. A lot. Maybe it's a little too small and too thick and I need something a little more up to date but he said this was the warmest one possible and no.

I said he could wear it then. 

Ben said it would probably fit Lochlan anyway. 

That went over well. 

Original.

I question every part of who I am
I question every part of who I am
It's hard to tell which side of me is in the right
With these two different people inside of me
Fighting for my life
Fighting for my life

I'd like to say I had one drink and came back home after the game was off the air. I'd like to say that I was a good girl and didn't follow my mind down the rabbit hole I once saw Cole go down, where I've been looking for him ever since. I'd like to tell you I learn my lessons but I didn't, I'm not, and I can't.

Instead I tore into the devil as only a true disciple can and when the sun rose it found me standing in a ray of light still gnawing on his soul that I held with one hand, holding one broken wing in my other hand, dragging it behind me on the ground, face covered with figurative blood and a ridiculous look upon my face that took hours to scrub off. He was barely intact when I walked out the door and the light burned as I hissed in return to it.

Fuck off. I told it.

But it burned on, pressed hard against my flesh, fading right through my muscles into bones that ached with the leftover darkness. My eyes are translucent like a cat, my teeth sharpened, my brain switched off as my instinct kicks in to destroy what was given to me at his own request. Tear me down and make me whole again, he orders, and so I do.

One single Baby doll would have stopped it. One single gentle touch would have ended it on the spot but he knew better and kept everything twisted so high not once did I hear myself. Not once could I pick out the sounds from the roar of his desire, not once did I recognize the time or feel the pain when he tore my flesh with his own teeth, so much sharper than mine will ever be.

You're bleeding. I'm sorry. He whispered in a still moment and I read his lips because the noise. Oh, hell, the unholy noise.

I was already broken. It's fine this way. I dismiss his concern. Don't show me that you're human now or I'll lose my nerve.

But I didn't. I kept it clenched in my fists, white knuckles curled into claws to hold on as it slipped and scrambled for purchase against me. My resolve, now burned off, looks back on the way out and laughs. You're tougher than you look, it observes.

I know this. I whisper back and let go of everything to turn to dust.

Can you hear me?

If the rain comes they run and hide their heads
They might as well be dead

Down on the beach today I am careful, picking my way among the rocks. I am dressed in forbidden shoes and not enough layers by far in this almost-raining relentless wind. I miss the wind so I like to be in it when I can. Caleb is playing magnanimous hero today, affording me time for a leisurely walk on an average Thursday morning in spite of nothing. He continues past me and begins a wide eventual circle back as I stop on Watching Rock, a bigger rock than most with a flattish place to stand and look out to sea. Like Picnic Rock where Ben and I got married but here at home.

I'm facing the wrong way, forcing myself to look up at the cliffs instead of out at the beautiful ocean. Standing up on the platform between the end of the two backyards where we set up the telescope on clear nights is Lochlan. Arms crossed. Curls blowing straight. I can't see his expression but I know he disapproves. I wave and blow kisses but he doesn't move. Maybe he isn't looking at me. Maybe he's looking at the beautiful ocean. Maybe he's got his eyes closed just so he can feel the wind too.

Satisfied that I have figured him out I turn my face to look behind me, out to sea. Caleb is coming around and he'll take it personally that I turn away the moment he comes close but I need to seize the moment. I close my eyes and listen hard to the surf crashing against the shore. It's the most beautiful sound in the world, the best music, the heartbeat of a planet. My heartbeat matches in muffled cadence and I smile even though my eyes are still closed.

Caleb presses his head down against my temple and I smell vetiver and sage, mint and woodsy, heavy patchouli. My eyes fly open and he stands back slightly and asks if I had been hypnotized by the waves.

I shake my head and jump down off the rock, almost wiping out in my smooth-bottomed ballet flats. He grabs my arm and steadies me.

Okay?

I'm fine. Thanks for the help.

I don't want to see you lose any more teeth in this lifetime. He laughs, establishing provenance. I was famous as a child for demanding to try the boys' old Big Wheels/new ten-speed bikes/beloved skateboards and landing on the pavement on my face. I have no perfect, intact teeth in my head. They're all complicated composite reconstructions or simply chipped.  But it's endearing. I lucked out and unless you know you really can't tell except that they are pretty crooked straight on.

(I never smile with my mouth open unless there are no cameras present.)

He tucks past-me along with present-me into his arm, under his coat with him, away from the wind as we head back toward the steps. He's warm, it's nice. Future-me should run while she can.

Neamhchiontach.

Yes.

Come see me tonight for a nightcap. It's been a long time.

Lochlan-

I'll speak to him. 

I don't think that will help. 

You would be surprised what he would do for you. 

He took my hand and helped me up across the gap between the rocks and the platform at the bottom of the steps and then we climbed in silence. Him probably confident that his plans are set in stone, me wondering if he thinks I would be so foolish as to think he could ever talk Loch into anything. But when we get to the top Loch is gone and we're here in our beautiful little commune by the sea and I realize that he can or all of this would simply be a dream.

Fair (of face).

Wreckles. 

Frinkles! 

(Yes, we're arguing over which portmanteau is going to emerge victorious, to be used from here on out to describe the curious state of Bridget's face now that her freckles have come out of hibernation to fill some color into the wrinkles around her eyes because she squints in the sun on the water and also because she's a tiny vampire and hardly sleeps. If she isn't waking up to pee every three hours someone is molesting her and wakes her up anyway.)

Frinkles wins because it's mine and it's cute, though Loch's term of Wreckles is funnier and more logical. Wreckles indeed. My kingdom for a fountain of youth instead of concrete out there in the driveway.

***

PJ and Caleb replaced the barbed wire on the swing with new ropes. PJ did while Caleb...supervised but the ropes are strong and nice and white and Ben has been instructed to not do that anymore. He does the biting thing for kicks, don't worry. He doesn't have oral fetishes. Well, okay not like that anyway. Apparently he and Daniel were talking while he was cleaning up in the orchard and at one point he pretended to bite down on the rope to indicate how much he hated putting up with something (probably me) but bit the rope in half instead of letting go. He has jaws like a steel trap. Very strong.

He figured I would love the metal edge to the pretty swing. I did but you can't actually hold on to it. He said he expected me to write a story of a girl who lingered on a barbed wire swing so long she became part of it with blood dripping down her fingers, off her elbows but that she had to remain on it until she touched heaven.

I can't write that story. 

How come?

Because you just did. How does it end? Does she get there?

I don't know, Bee. She said she'd let me know when she's done scowling at her face in the mirror. What if it sticks like that?

Oh, God, you've been with Lochlan too long. That's what he says. 

You worry too much about the way you look. 

I don't, actually, but I don't think I'm going to attract anyone with my shining personality either. 

You'd be surprised. And you don't need to attract anyone because I'm right here.

Right. You married me because I'm sweet and pleasant?

Well...no, not really. I married you because you're my best friend. 

And he smiled with that polar-ice-melting shy smile that floors me and reached out to pull me in. I touched heaven when his arms closed around me. I didn't bleed. I expected him to say something x-rated and he didn't. Wonders never cease.

I tell him this and he laughs out loud and squeezes me tighter.

You won't have to wait long to hear something x-rated. Trust me, Bee.

Then he whispered something in my ear and I'll have to figure out how to work blushing into that portmaneau. My poor face is just a whirlwind of everything written all over it these days. Can't hide a thing and seriously, Ben's glorious imagination beats mine by miles and miles.

Flames in five, sadly but not surprisingly is the growing prediction.

I watched the clouds cover up the blue with purpose this morning. With decided vengeance they advanced. No more sunny days! was their battle cry. The birds listened and went indoors and I finished bringing in all of my non-waterproof things just in time for the first huge drops to strike the patio. Just in time to remember it's not summer yet even though I've been in bare legs and warm sunshine for a week now. Just in time to remember the weather is more like the endless fall of the concrete room than the smooth sailing I keep telling myself we've earned and are getting even though I haven't seen those fair winds up close, no sir.

Sam is keeping watch today. Boundaries are fine but we are still trying to be close from afar. He's driving me stark raving mad with his horrible rendition of Take me to Church. He changed all the lyrics. He's pretending to sing it quietly but he knows damn well I can hear him and I'd like to knock him off his chair but instead I'm busy placing my bets on tonight's game with the rest. The stakes are things like sexual favors that will never in a million years be fulfilled and large amounts of cold hard cash, which will be fulfilled, except I will pay out in five dollar bills because I have a purse full of them somehow. 

And since I know I'll lose the bets I wanted those favors to him to be doable. Ben just likes to up the ante in all aspects of his life. Because life is supposed to be fun and Ben saved mine so he could play with it, not keep it on a shelf. 

Taxed and pricked.

Dalton and Duncan didn't do their taxes even though they both swore up and down that they could manage their own shit and I was to stop momming them. I still didn't get an answer from Keith yet either so it's probably a trifecta of stupidity today as I order them all to produce me with receipts by three pm and then I'm handing the whole mess off to Jasper to take to Batman's accountant because he (Batman) said I shouldn't have to do it.

Jasper didn't want to come and said he would check with Batman at his usual time.

I threatened to staple his nuts to the forms if he wasn't here at 2:55 in my front hall. I called him a little bitch and he said I was a whore and yet we hung up on good terms.

Yeah, I don't understand my life either.

Ben also bit the rope on the swing in half for no reason other than he is weird. But he said it's okay because he fixed it with barbed wire. Now it's the Swing of Death.

*throws horns*

I think I'll go back to bed. It's Monday again isn't it? I can tell.

Nine: completion of the process.

The noise outside the concrete room startled me as I sat on the wet floor, close to Jake but far enough that I could retain just a little sanity where no sanity remains save for a bit if you get a butter knife and scrap up along the inside edge. Jake sat with his head on his arms, crossed on his knees. Lanky and faded now, he is where he will always be forever and ever until Bridget dies which sometimes I hope is in ten minutes and other times I'm ready to take the devil's offer and live forever.

I don't want to be here. I want to be closer.

No. Sorry.

But the noise. It drives me out into the hall. When I exit the room, I see Loch coming down the hall, flashlight beam bobbing, rope clinking. He's taken the climbing ropes and clipped them around his waist so he doesn't get lost in here. He's taken every precaution to get us both out safely. He's here. He's never here and he's here.

He looks so scared and angry though.

I try so hard to keep you in the light, my whole life, up above ground where the lights twinkle and they make you dizzy as they go around. Every color of the rainbow in the night and then I find you down here where there's no color. Just ghosts and black and white. Don't do this, Bridge. Don't be here anymore. Come back with me. 

***

Nine years ago today I left Cole.

For Jake.

Then Jake left me.

For God.

(Or the Devil.)

(I won't know which until the end.)

Even though the Devil offered me immortality in exchange for my soul back I refused.

You have that wrong. He offered to give me back my soul if I would agree to live forever and I told him to keep it.

And then Ben saved my life and I saved his and Lochlan came bursting out of my memories to be present again and this is Happily ever after, after all.

Who knew?

Good morning.

They want you to be Jesus
They'll go down on one knee
But they'll want their money back
If you're alive at thirty-three
And you're turning tricks
With your crucifix
You're a star

It's Saturday morning and I wake up perfectly. My eyes don't hurt. My feet are sticking out from the bottom of the sheet and the quilt and my pillow is comfortably under my neck instead of pressing against the top of my head but not supporting it. Loch and Ben are still sleeping and don't stir as I crawl up out of the covers and down the center of the bed to climb down to the floor. My skin is filthy with the long night behind us and I turn on the shower, waiting for the hot water to reach the top floor of the house. While I wait I poke around inside my brain. Testing doors, cleaning up a little, tidying errant thoughts scattered haphazardly around the cold concrete hallways. Jacob is sitting in the concrete room with the big metal door and I have propped the door open with the stick I found outside in the fall, above ground where the wind blows and it's always dark and just about to rain, brown and burgundy leaves twisting, trying to hang on as long as they can to avoid the winter that never comes. I keep it just so, you see.

The door used to be closed and I kept him in there but then he wanted to be closer but that wasn't good for me and since I'm the one who is alive I had to make the decision to put him back in the concrete room. It's a lot further for me to go if I want to see him but it's what I need, and I left the stick there so if he wants to he can come and go. He likes having that option, I think. I haven't heard a word.

Cole can't get out. He is still in that room. He'll never get out. He can just linger there until forever, perched up high against the ceiling the endless shadows. He can't get out because I won't let him out. His permissions are far different than for anyone else, as they always were.

When I am satisfied that the memory thief hasn't been back to see me I get in the shower. It feels so nice. Super hot. I use all of my fancy scrubs and soaps that I don't bother with when it's not just me. I shave my legs and deep condition my hair, grown out now from the gamine Jean Seberg pixie to a flippy little almost-bob, just as soon as it makes it past my ears again. The curls are pronounced at this stage and will disappear completely once the length pulls them out eventually as I make the slow return to my mermaid hair. It was fun to chop it off and now it's time to grow it back.

(Loch smiled when I came to that conclusion. My braid was his security blanket/leash/lifeline for years.)

When I get out of the shower my skin is raw and I'm fresh and brand new to greet such a beautiful day. I should do so formally, before the baggage takes over and pulls me back under.  I find a dress and a cardigan and skip the shoes completely. I put my lipgloss and my rabbit's foot in my pocket and I head downstairs to steal sips from everyone's coffee all the while denying that I drink it anymore.