Triage.

Ben reminds me this morning that the last time he felt this way he dragged me off to Paris to put a halt to the perpetual tug of war and that when his ego takes a hit he tends to doubt life and everything in it. That leaving the tour due to the threat to his sobriety didn't feel like a milestone of comprehension, it felt like a failure and he came back expecting all the perks to be gone as well. Expecting it to the point where he still wakes up and figures he will see the unfamiliar walls of a cold hotel room and have no comforts whatsoever and he's amazed and humbled that we are here. That we waited and that we're not disappointed in him in the least.

I reminded him to get over himself and stop wingeing and let's get on with life. He laughed so gently I might have mistaken it for a sob but he agreed to find his way back before we all implode. The vultures are hovering, I tell him. 

I'll blow them right out of the sky, he whispers. 

Lochlan kisses the top of Ben's head as he goes by. He's on his way to negotiate a deal. Art for cash. Murals, this time in a big office lobby somewhere plain that should be pretty. Life imitates Cole. 

He gets to the door and then comes back and kisses my cheek for good measure and Ben and I wish him luck simultaneously without taking our eyes off each other. I feel like my gaze is a life raft and if I break it Ben will disappear under the surface again. I've almost got him back. Almost.

Pushing axioms off the cliff.

Close your eyes
Drive away the cloud that hides the light
And leave the pain behind
Dead alive
Find a way to bury all the lies
Escape the pain inside
‘Cause I don’t want to fall
Or let you go

Click. Boom. The moment when a record, like a person, crosses my guard and becomes familiar, anticipated. I still vividly remember when that happened with Ben. It was about an hour after I met him. Faster than Lochlan. Faster than Jake. Why can't I reach him now?

I've resorted to walking around the house behind him singing at the top of my lungs. I chose this album because it's a last-resort bitter-yet-hopeful, painful yet masterfully written account of how a heart breaks, precisely. Dark Before Dawn.

Indeed.

And he hates it because he can't hear the music (I have headphones), only the words and I'm singing them out as arrows, every one aiming for his heart but if you knew Ben he can block out an avalanche if he so chooses and today I'm the avalanche in his head.

Today? Lately. Since he came back. Probably since before he left but I didn't notice, I was busy having fun when I wasn't picking up the pieces of my heart. I keep tripping and I drop them or I smash into someone and they scatter everywhere. Under the jeep. Into the pool. Through the electric fence. Down into the shadows where I can't see them at all.

He is still sober. Not for long. Not at this rate, says everyone as if they know what's going through his head. But his head is thick. No one can see through it and I have faith that he hasn't reached that point and probably won't.

Oh good. A screaming, bitter song. They're punctuated with lovesongs and the timing is perfect.

He said yesterday that he wasn't prepared for the possibility that I would wait at all. I threw a book at him and yelled that he didn't know me, then. At all.

He said he did and that's why he's so surprised. And that he just doesn't know how to deal with it. I told him he could start by being Ben and that the rest would fall into place like it always does. He looked at me like I was crazy. I stood my ground until someone unhelpfully changed the subject to ease the tension. It didn't work.

It would have been easier. 

Unless you were waiting for an out, you mean. 

I wasn't though. I don't want one.  But I didn't think I would get a choice. 

But you did and it all worked out so what the fuck is this?

Dazed recognition?

Was I a stranger before?

Before? No. But you might be one now.

But I'm not. I'm me. 

My Bridget would have jumped. 

Well she didn't. But she still can if she has no other choice left. 

That's what keeps me paralyzed, Bee. That thought right there.

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.