Time travel while I sleep.

Last night I didn't even wait to see if he really was going to live out there in the driveway in the camper (because somehow if he makes his space smaller things become clearer) when it got very late. I just took my things and went out to join Lochlan. He wasn't there so I locked the door behind me and tucked myself in and had absolutely zero problems drifting off. He put a thicker blanket on the bed so I wasn't even cold.

When I woke up at six this morning, I was in the middle of the big bed, face jammed against Lochlan's neck, Ben clutching my back to his chest, and Lochlan's arm resting on the side of my head, his hand wrapped around Ben's neck, his other arm tight around my back. Ben's chin was on the top of Loch's head and Loch had his head bowed as if he fell asleep kissing the top of my head and forgot to move.

Or maybe they were just comfortable this way. I know I was. It made it very difficult to get up because I didn't want to. I didn't even need to. Sam took the dog with him to church and the kids have nothing on today and so it was nice to drift back off for a while.

I try to keep those moments in my mind when we sit in front of qualified folk who ask us to reaffirm our priorities for ourselves, as couples and as a trio. I try to keep those moments in my mind when I detect things like doubt and mistrust and resignation in voices I love so much. I try to remember how it felt to wake up to such tenderness when they rip each other apart with words that must be the truth but weren't deployed to hurt, just to clarify, that they're sorry for the collateral damage done but it's inevitable, unavoidable. A shame.

I try to remember why I locked myself in the camper in the first place and how I can do things right from now on but I always seem to be up against more than I can handle, as if fate is a game and I am the dice, rolled, cursed at and responsible for every move they make.

Deja too.

Father forgive me cause I know
Exactly how I spread my soul
My idolatry is in the pocket of my coat
I make promises
I could never keep

Ain't it a ghost machine
Ain't she a ghost machine
I'm still haunted by the faces on her screen
I swear she's gonna make a dead man out of me

By the time I made my way back across the driveway Lochlan had moved to the camper, now freshly painted and then painted again from red to white. Five coats, lots of swearing but I would have taken that any day over absolute silence.

The worst part was when I went to bed to read. Ben was in his studio, oblivious to the entire world but Lochlan never showed up. I finally figured out where he was and I took my pillow and went outside and knocked on the door of the camper waiting, my pillow in my arms.

I thought you were getting all your affection elsewhere these days.

Not all of it. Just a little and it's poor quality.

Didn't stop you though, did it?

I'm sorry, Locket.

But you aren't. Get in here before you get cold.

He holds the door and I duck under his arm. He wasn't sleeping but he sees my pajamas and my pillow so he turns the light off, pulls his shirt over his head and then pulls back the covers on the little bed. I crawl in and he strips to his boxers and gets in with me, wrapping me up tightly against him but facing me away. I can feel his tension, I can feel the frustration and I tell him again that I'm sorry.

Are you sorry for seeing him or for hurting me?

Hurting you.

Then you haven't learned anything.

I didn't sleep with him and he wasn't there when I slept.

Such a small comfort, Peanut. I feel like I'm going to implode. Why can't you listen to me? Too many years of being told what to do? I ruined this love because I had to be a parent first, is that it?

You're not at fault for any of this, Lochlan and he gets credit for nothing. This is all on me. 

Then change it, Bridget. This gets harder all the time. Not easier to accept. Not familiar. It's just hard and it hurts and I don't know what I can take over what's already been done. Caleb can't save you. He can't even comfort you properly so why bother? Why keep the past around only to be destroyed by it time and time again? You survived Cole's anniversary. You didn't have to write about it, it wasn't causing issues, let him go already. Let Caleb go too. Give me a chance here to get ahead of the ghosts and the devils alike.

Give a cuddle, get a nap (currency isn't what it used to be or maybe it's just my lucky day).

Watching the rain like it's a fifty-cent novelty show at the theatre during the daytime. It's hard to believe my world will ever be green again, for it's always nuclear-sun these days, blown out bright white causing us to squint constantly. It hurts. It induces headaches and sun dogs and hallucinations that we're all okay because the sun is out.

Well, it isn't out anymore.

And no one is ever okay, are they?

When the rain started I lifted up my head, looking up through the skylight from where I sat tucked into the arms of the devil. He followed my gaze and then smiled and said Finally. He could have meant anything but I nodded and said we needed it badly and again I could have meant anything and he nodded back as if we were having the same conversation but we weren't.

I couldn't concentrate anymore and eventually he put me down alone and went to make some drinks and I stretched out flat to watch the water run down the glass. It was still dark for half light even, for once and my eyes relaxed and opened wide before closing to listen carefully for the sound and there it comes, quietly pushing into the room, into my head until I can hear nothing else.

When he comes back I must have fallen asleep because this morning I wake up to the big black blanket tucked around me tightly and a watered-down whiskey at room-temperature, weighing down a condensation ring that will ruin the finish on the bedside table permanently.

I could have prevented this, he said more than once, like he had all the answers.

Turns out he has the same amount as anyone else.

None.

I take the glass and take a huge swallow and then decide to just finish it. My insides sting and rebel against the sudden watering of my blood and I lie back and close my eyes again just for a minute while the empty glass makes a new ring on the table to finish me off.

Fighting back up to where I was before I fell in the hole in the garage.

Will you stop - will you wait a minute - please remember
Can you stop - can you just give me one minute to explain
I will not cause a fuss, I will not rock the boat - believe me darling
Oh what is, what was, it's all the same

They always tell me to say something when it gets really bad. I do and then no one listens. They say to tell them when something isn't working and they'll change it. They say to speak up when I feel something and they'll recognize it and alter it, fix it or show me how to work it.

I told them Joel isn't good, that all he does is dredge it all back up like seaweed on a perfectly clean beach and yet they continue to believe his charade over my gut feelings. They continued to insist that he was right, that it was a phase and that I would eventually come to a grinding halt against my grief-brick wall and that they were ready and waiting and that look, he was right. He was right. Insisting on it like Joel is the fucking moon.

But Joel is the wall and I ran into him at a million miles an hour and goddammit, I was doing great and then he walks in and it's 2007 all over again. I told him to go, that I would see him next at Halloween because I need to see who is right, me or them.

Sam apologized for not seeing things more clearly. Joel is a manipulator. I see that now.

Caleb apologized for not pushing harder for an RSVP of his perpetual, open invitations. I could have prevented all of this.

And Lochlan apologized for yelling at me for ruining my dress. Just stay put, would you? Would you just stay right here with me and this wouldn't keep happening?

Ben was busy and I don't think he noticed a thing. Hey, Bee. Where have you been?

Right here, Benny. Drowning in the tides of my own making.

If I sit on my knees in a pool of cold oil from PJ's parts-Jeep and raise my face up to the ceiling I'm probably looking through the floor right into August's sanctuary, a place I don't go because he reminds me of Jake and when I'm alone with him if I defocus just slightly, he is Jake and that's unhealthy.

Snort.

But if I unfocus right now, head thrown back, Jacob is here. Just off to my left, standing in a beam of light blazing in from the high windows in the garage doors.

I can't do this, Pooh. 

Can't what?

I can't hold my head up anymore. I can't breathe. I can't wait. I can't sleep. 

You're doing just fine, Pig-a-let. 

I shake my head and when I stop the empty garage swims into focus and so I lean back until my head cracks the concrete, adding stars, adding Jake, making it less terrible again. Pain is easy. It's familiar. It's real. Onward and upward, faking-it-til-I-make-it is exhausting and artificial and relentless.

He leans over me and tears begin to pour freely across my temples and into my hair. You won't be able to explain the oil all over your dress, Princess. Go and change and suck it up and you'll get through this. These moments are real but you can't let them destroy you. You're supposed to work through them, survive them, learn from them and then the next time they're less bad. 

Never less bad-

Because you won't let go, Bridget. 

I put my hands over my eyes but I'm not getting up. I'm going to lie here where it's filthy, hard and cold because it feels better to suffer and then I don't feel like I've left him behind in an unforgiving past that I don't even want to stay in anymore, but can't seem to leave because of him.

I lift my head up and slam it into the floor again bcause I know that will bring me complete outer-space darkness and when I wake up my head is resting in Lochlan's lap and Jake has already given up and left.

I'd ask why you're covered with oil and knocked out on the floor but something tells me it's explainable and I won't like hearing it.

Definitely one to watch with your (former) psychoanalyst.

We watched The Babadook.

I purposefully avoid reading things about movies once I've seen a trailer and decide I want to see something, in order to avoid spoilers. We're careful with spoilers here as it can take a while for the entirety of the Collective to see everything. But no one else had wanted to see this in any big rush, and so only Joel agreed to watch it with me. Maybe that was for the best, because I didn't know going into it that it was about a widow, and that the monster would be personified grief. 

(It can never ever leave.)

Other than the unintentional, shocking heartbreak of that, it was very good. Incredibly tense and awesomely produced. Loved it. The triggers are my own and so I try not to let them color my reviews but as you know, they will. They do. 

I still miss Jake, every second of every minute of every single day.

Joel thought the movie was great, though he stared directly at me for half of it and for the other half he sat there and shook his head, as in Oh, what have I done?

Feels like a Saturday today.

No, I don't worry too much if Caleb puts things in my drinks. He can roofie me all he likes, for most of the time it will result in a truncated evening for him. I don't even think he uses any actual drugs (anymore). Gravol puts me on the floor handily so there's no need to sound alarms. Suitably I stuck close to Lochlan and Ben for most of the past couple of days as a result, passing tools as asked and listening quietly to new ideas, forged in the creativity of homesickness and determination.

Loch sold another camper and is on the verge of a waiting list only via word of mouth. I'm so excited for him, except that it leaves him little time to work on ours, which is tiny and made up of a twelve year old's dream list of everything one would want in a tiny camper, including a library, tiny window boxes full of forget-me-nots and an actual, usable bathroom. I'll post pictures when it's finished, hopefully before I'm too old to remember we have one. 

The colors I chose are turquoise, sage and cherry red for the inside. Loch says we'll go blind and we may have to negotiate on the red so I replaced that with navy blue. Better, he said. 

But then he bought the red paint, thinking I wouldn't notice. 

Right now I have a scotch and tonic water and I'm planning tonight's movie extravaganza. I think I want to watch The Babadook, since I still haven't seen it yet. I only ever pick one movie because I'll have to fight to stay awake through it once it's dark and I stop moving. PJ picks three movies on his night to choose. I only ever make it through one of those too so I'll give away my picks to the rest to figure out what they want to see and I'll come upstairs until I get to the top of the house and then head down the hall to the end of our wing and I'll close my eyes and probably have nightmares for weeks. 

I love horror movies in spite of what some of them do to me. That's how I know they're really, really good.

Can anybody fly this thing?

Confidence in you
Is confidence in me
Is confidence in high speed

I stopped at the patio and choreographed the rest of my evening handily, directing Caleb to go and fetch that perfect whiskey and I would meet him back here with my best glasses and the giant ice cubes that we only use for these occasions. He was surprised but refused to show it to give anyone the satisfaction as a witness. He nodded and strode toward the boathouse quickly while I went inside in search of a slip dress and a warmer wrap. When I returned with a tray with cheese and bread and fruit on it with the glasses prepped and ready he was already there, having dragged both of the big chairs right to the edge of the grass overlooking the cliff.

He smiled when he saw the food. You're either very thoughtful or completely ravenous. 

Both, of course. Always. 

He grins and pours our drinks. An inch for me and slightly less for himself. He shouldn't be drinking with all the pills he takes for his heart and he shouldn't be getting me drunk either. But we are teenagers and we break all the rules whether they are designed for us or not.

I hold up my glass in a toast.

Here's to that pool being the only thing saving my sanity these days. It was flip and insincere. We all know I have no sanity at all. But he grins and says he is still waiting for that midnight swim for two.

I remind him he'll be waiting a while unless he wants to have it with PJ. I'm narcoleptic. I'm rarely awake after eleven and if I am I'm sick to my stomach because of it. If I ever got a whole night's sleep I would be better but these days I awaken if someone else dreams and am bolt upright if I hear a toilet flush five neighborhoods away or if Dalton pets the cat. Dalton sleeps on a different floor.

All that besides being woken up constantly by Loch or Ben or both and then they argue about letting me get some sleep, for fucks sake.

Yeah. None of that circus leaves much room for being up late on purpose.

He changes the subject. He wants to know what Sam is up to these days. He's digging for information casually, offhand. He's being sneaky but it's late enough and I don't know why. I put my feet up on his knees to distract him and it works. He starts stroking my leg absently and sits back with some cheese and his glass and stares out to sea.

Sam is helping Ben with me, I tell him.

Interesting turn of phrase. 

Well, it's not like Ben has the issues, is it?

Oh, Ben has issues. He's the one who took off like he was on fire. 

I gaze at Caleb with open hostility. He was, though. 

Touché. I don't know how he manages, up against Lochlan. 

You admit Loch is a force to be reckoned with. 

No. Loch's a vagrant, for fucks sakes. I meant his hold over you. 

Same thing. 

No, it isn't. 

Well, it's getting late. I crunch a cracker into my face and stand up, mainlining the whiskey like it's water and throwing the ice cube out onto the grass. Thanks for the company and the drink.

Why don't you take a break from the drama for the rest of the evening and come stay with me.

Because mine is the bed I made and it's where I must lie.

Or you could shut it the fuck down already and go where you'll be cherished. 

That's the only thing I've never had to seek out. I laugh. The heat is creeping into my cheeks, across my chest. I'm drunk because this probably wasn't whiskey after all. Goodnight, Diabhal. Sweet dreams. I blow him a kiss and by the time I drunkenly spin around and hit the ground Loch is there to catch me.

Saboteur de memoire.

He offers a hand and I take it, rising up out of the water, droplets running in rivers down my back and legs. He smiles as he wraps me into a towel like a big cotton burrito and then leaves me to dry myself quickly before holding out my wrap. His arm comes around me once again and he squeezes with his hand and bicep only, planting a kiss against my temple. His skin is flushed and singing against my cold wet skin. 

Neamhchiontach, he says. His eyes are high-tide, deep-end, night-sky. My faded sage greens stare back evenly. 

No, Diabhal. 

How can you give a refusal to a question that's yet to be asked? 

I know what you're asking. 

Cole's been gone a long time.

The floor opens, a faulty hinge letting go, leaving me dangling over the abyss. He squeezes tighter still and I feel as if when he lets go I might fall and die. 

I won't let you fall, he tells me and I look up into his eyes. They're so earnest. Earnest and blue. No deception. No evil. Patience with a tinge of frustration, hopefulness with a pinch of despair. He's a recipe for certain disaster, this one, and I don't know whether to demand he stop reading my mind already or hope that he already has. 

Too late. 

Come for a whiskey, he says. Let's get you warmed up. 

There's a voice inside that keeps him
On the path of righteousness
You can't break his stride
Or change his mind
'cause he won't second guess

We lay in bed this morning plotting a secret flight back to Nova Scotia to attend the Big Ex and go see the Trews at the King's Corner pub in my hometown.

Don't tempt me. I'll go in a heartbeat and I'll be early.

Next time I head home please remind me to do it with that weekend in mind, please.

***

I went for a walk on the beach this morning by myself, the sun blinding me, the heat already creeping up the backs of my legs and underneath my nose and ears the way it does. I went through my Sam-lists in my head in which he taught me to prioritize and neatly order my past, present and future on invisible white note pages I keep filed in my brain, lists he will raid later as his alter-ego, the Memory Thief.

He disagrees greatly with August and Joel at this point. He thinks I'm doing well and that it's not a phase of any kind, that I seem to have found enough comfort to be able to ride out Ben's existential crisis without going down with the ship.

It's probably due to Lochlan, who yells at my unchecked OCD tendencies and drowns my abandonment fears and somehow manages to not be awful at doing either. He makes me sleep. Makes me eat. Makes me stop moving and let things go when I'm clinging to them with everything I have.

I was always better with him. He never exploited my weaknesses nor did he demand that I balance on my strengths. He would just point out the obvious quietly or obnoxiously loudly and we'd get on with our day. It's a rustic kind of unfinished love, rough around the edges but the engine runs good and it's dependable.

Sam said it's the healthiest relationship I have. I don't disagree with him but I find it ironic that it was once the relationship the whole world didn't want us to have thanks to some possessive friends, a significant age gap (at the time, doesn't seem so bad now) and Loch's wanderlust, a trait that turned out to be contagious and incurable.

When I have enough for the thief I leave my head and shut and lock the door on the way out. Sam has a key. I don't need to be there when he arrives. I turn to go back to the house and I see him sitting at the top of the stairs, coffee cup in hand, curls all over now. He says they weren't this prevalent before the last few years. Loch always says the same thing, that I'm tightening his brain so his hair has to fight to grow, taking winding routes and ending up curly on the outside of his head. It made me laugh even though it was technically an insult. I didn't mind. He looks weird without curls so we're even.