"Oh, and stop listening to Joel", he said to me. "If he knew what he was talking about, he'd still have his credentials."

Lost all innocence
Infected and arrogant
You burn all your life
(There's no telling you)
No deliverance
Consumed by the pestilence
Of hate, you're denied
Deep in your heart does it still remain?
Do you think you can bring it
Back to life again?
Is it still in your soul?
(No saving you)
Where's the deviant
The unholy remnant
That has made you this way?
Made you fall for this hate

Tell me now, who taught you how to hate?
Because it isn't in your blood
Not a part of what you're made
So let this be understood
Somebody taught you how to hate
When you live this way you become
Dead to everyone

Deep breath. Closed eyes. Take it easy. Don't panic, Bridget. Don't show him how scared you are. Just be normal.

Wait. What? I don't know how to be normal. I don't even know how to put on a poker-face. It's always inside out or blank or I find out there's a huge hole in it from where it caught on my teeth. Same pep talk since 1983 and it hasn't worked once and how does this self-confidence thing work again? I'm supposed to lie to myself and then I'm expected to be believed? That doesn't make any sense. Besides, if I don't even believe me then no one else is going to believe me either. May as well stick to brutal honesty.

I'm too short. I wear too much black. I don't pay attention to much except music and cheese and sex and I'm more than a little confused that I can be in love with someone who frightens me so much, though if you ask me outwardly I will say I hate his guts and I'm only kind and accommodating because we share a son. But you won't believe me because I'm lying. I don't even know how my brain turned abject terror into sexual tension. Joel said it was an unconscious coping mechanism. I think it was an escape route. Same thing, he says casually as if this happens every day but it doesn't. Everyone else has their poker faces on straight. I see them. No rips, holes or stains. No crooked seams. No abnormal thoughts. No fucked up love hexagons, because let's face it. Triangles were left back in high school.

I try to keep my eyes from welling up as I turn but they're going to defy me. I'm so scared. So scared. So afraid I start to shake as I turn around to face him, a formidable, handsome enemy also dressed completely in black, also as far from normal as you can get, and in no need of a poker face because his black magic never required one.

He's looking down at his hands, which are holding the most beautiful bouquet of black and white roses. White roses with their edges painted in silvery blue dyes for a special wow.

For a special girl, he tells me, reading my mind. She's not too short. I don't care what she wears, and I never wanted normal but I do want to address the events that took place while I was gone. 

I wonder if this is the part where he kills me.

There would be no fun in that, he tells me.

Stop reading my mind, I tell myself without speaking.

Sorry. He says it out loud but he's laughing.

I stick my tongue out at him and he laughs more.

Bridget, why couldn't you manage a few days?

Six. It was six. 

Well, I'm home now and I brought you a dress if you would like to come and see it. 

My eyebrows go up. The poker face is shredded anyhow. You could see me right through it all along. I cut him off completely. He gives me my children. I sleep with one of his targets, he buys me a designer dress. Joel said this is how monsters work. They hurt you and then they tell you you're beautiful. They damage and change you and then buy you presents. They don't let you out of their sight for very long and then they come back and take over your space. They invade your brain, control your every move and rip your poker face right off your head so your hair gets static cling and you get a scratch from a rough seam along the bottom edge of your jaw.

You can wear it tonight. The reaffirmation of his own monster-status alleviates my panic completely. As long as he's mean I'm comfortable. I know what to expect. I know how to behave. Not like it matters. Just listen and then comply. Shut out everything good so the inside is as black as the outside. Ball it all up so that you are smaller than ever. But don't forget to breathe.

Wait, wear what? The poker face or the dress?

Both.

3-2.

I lost another two hundred dollars to Joel tonight when the Leafs lost to Columbus.

And Caleb is still in New York. He was supposed to be home yesterday and didn't show. And didn't call. And didn't message me. He messaged Henry so I know he's not in trouble. He's just extended his trip a bit. Or so he said.

(The cold reality of what we're thinking.)

Stop, look and listen
Maybe that's the way we'll know

Running this morning with PJ and Joel. I'm mostly trying to ignore them, listening to my headphones. Army of Anyone today and hey, I have a thought. If Richard Patrick isn't doing anything, since it's been a couple of years since the last Filter album, and I know Robert and Dean DeLeo aren't busy because Scott's dead and Chester left, and they can probably convince Ray Luzier that any supergroup is better than Korn and get back together and make their second album. Would you guys, pleeeeeeaaaaaase?

We've got a long way to go

Joel is adamant that I face my fears of being labelled and stop taking the label of monster or slut over victim. Fuck victim. I'm no one's victim. Payback is well underway to the perpetrator and it's been thirty years in the making. Joel says my behavior has also been thirty years in the making because of him and blaming myself and allowing others to blame me is just as dangerous and dysfunctional as seeking out a friend who lives three houses over and sleeping with him out of the blue.

Is it though? I like to think that I'm a cold, calculating seductress and I went and got what I wanted. When I tell Joel that he doubles over laughing, out of breath and patience.

Bridget, as soon as you admit the truth and stop sugarcoating everything in your life you'll be on your way. 

Sugar lubes everything I want to fuck. I'm already on my way, babe. 

I tell him this in my Gemma Teller voice and he just keeps laughing before PJ's face makes us stop fooling around and get serious with What To Do About Bridget This Time.

You gave everyone the Sparks notes on what happened. It's time they read the novel. 

I didn't write the novel. 

Bridget, stop twisting all the words and listen to me. Okay? 

He's right, Bridge. 

(PJ knows everything. I didn't sugarcoat it for him. That's why he made no moves when I showed up in his bed that night. He tried to save face and be all manly about it but really he saves my life on a regular basis.)

FINE. What should I do, master? Oh, and the worst idea of all is letting you run my show again.

Start by making sure Caleb is very clear on his role in this and how it has defined you. 

He doesn't define me. 

Bridget-

Fuck this. I pick up speed, jam the headphones back in and run far ahead of them. It's not slippery this morning so I can go as fast as I want. Of course the minute I do, my knees and ears begin to ache from the cold. I slow back down and the boys catch up, one on either side. PJ is content to let my brain outrun my legs but Joel is back with a fire I haven't seen from him in a while.

I'm going to talk to Caleb. And then I'm going to talk to everyone else in your life, Bridget. They'd rather help you than take advantage of you but you don't give them a choice. And yes, I know that from experience and I'd like to finally make things up to you for good. I can't stay here and babysit you forever. It's time to grow up now.

'Your history isn't so horrible' says the internet.

You can say that because as I remarked in my title from today,  I haven't told it to you. Idiots.

Neamhchiontach/Stories I won't tell on the internet.

Can you imagine a piece of the universe
More fit for princes and kings?
I'll trade you ten of your cities
For Marion Bridge and the pleasure it brings

Out on the Mira the people are kind
They'll treat you to home-brew and help you unwind
And if you come broken you'll see that you mend
I wish I was with them again

Batman returned this morning. He let Jasper go, he asked why I didn't go to someone (I was too far gone and wait, I did go to someone. It just wasn't someone I've gone to before) and he said that Joel had already talked to New-Jake, Ben, Loch and everyone else involved and if anyone got angry with me I was to let him know.

What are you going to do, fire them?

No, I'm going to educate them. They sometimes only see Functional-Bridget. I think sometimes they forget. Especially Caleb, who would love to forget except I don't plan to let him. 

I nod. He was always particularly horrified by my history. He's even more horrified at my behavior since. How much I love the wrong people. How easy it is to step to the side of what is supposed to be clearly defined boundaries and do whatever I want. How scarily aloof I become afterward, as if it isn't me and I don't know what you're talking about. Are you mad at me? You're not leaving, are you? 

And on and on, ad nauseum.

Joel and August once again explained it in detail, eliciting sympathy instead of rage for me, reminding everyone why I'm the way I am, how things manifest, how I cope, factors that hurt, factors that help. How I am brave in that I refuse to excuse myself and instead face it full-on, opting for honesty instead of appearances, grace in the presence of horror.

I smile weakly. This isn't graceful or honest or excusable. I see Lochlan's eyes and I know how awful all of it is and yet he is strong enough to stay. Strong enough to push it all aside and try that much harder. Almost as strong as me.

Needed proof.

(In the dark he looked a little like Jeff Buckley.)

Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew you
And it's not a cry that you hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

I woke up at seven in New-Jake's bed. Jasper was standing at the foot of the bed scowling beautifully at us, the cat that eats the canary, swallowing her bones whole while she screams. He asked if I wanted to eat some too, with a crowd to watch or if I preferred to buy his cooperation. He's an industrialist, he's a walking opportunity. He's a tight, burning asshole to me twenty-four seven and he figures he's finally hit the jackpot.

Batman is away so I went to check on New-Jake at four this morning (Because I'm up. Because I wander. Because I said I would try to stop it but I can't). I never came back. He was alone. He was lonely. Because I'm a sucker for a beautiful man and a magnet to a man with flaws, be they obvious or hidden, I stayed and we talked for a bit except Jake doesn't really talk, he smiles slowly and he watches and he listens well and he removes clothes with a finesse I would never have expected from a man who lives alone. He told me he doesn't like girls or boys better, he just likes certain things about certain people and he told me not to expect this to become anything more than a single dark rainy Monday in January but it was already too late. I fall in love so easily. I fall asleep more easily still. I let him touch me and I touched him back and then I curled up and wrapped him around me and the best part, the part Jasper will never get through his shriveled-up burnt little vainglorious brain is that I'm allowed to do what I want. As long as I initiate I don't need to apologize. I can take the advantage but no one is allowed to take it of me. The rules are easy. As long as I don't choose dangerously I don't need to come clean. I can come dirty, downcast my lashes, bite my lip and ride out any mild malcontention with eventual understanding.

Usually I don't capitalize on this because it's disrespectful, unfair and sometimes downright cruel. Sometimes it's payback. Sometimes I'm helpless. Sometimes I'm helpful, if someone needs to hurt out loud. Sometimes I can soothe without familiarity. Sometimes I have to pick the least of all the evils. Batman will be unimpressed with me for sure, but with Jasper he's going to be downright furious.

LEAFS.

What the hell??

Deep-fried, medium-hot with blue cheese on the side.

The relief in the end of this week is tangible, palpable and there's nary a hint of suspicion or alterior motives or even future-grief. We slept so hard last night Lochlan had to pull me out of my dreams by my fingertips, a tenuous grip on an imaginary girl. Reality-Bridget isn't me, I am fantastical-Bridget in the burgeoning light.

He kisses up my throat, arching my back up off the warm bed, into his arms. His fingers are in places I don't discuss and when I cry out, Ben lands a hard, lingering kiss on my forehead before leaving. I reach out for him to stay but he won't, though he won't be far.

He said one night in passing that trying to share me at once was akin to trying to eat the same chicken wing. Lochlan laughed out loud forever when he said that and now every time someone suggests we go for wings they elbow each other and laugh again.

Sigh.

(Fun fact: up until a couple of years ago the boys would remove the bones from chicken wings for me because I don't like meat with bones still attached. Thankfully I've become a savage since then.)

I truly wonder if I were six feet tall if things would be easier for them. But I'm not, I'm five feet tall and they get what they get and it's kind of funny that I'm game now and they're not, when it used to be the other way around.

And just like that Ben is gone and my focus shifts back to the red curls as Lochlan hooks his chin against my shoulder and takes me into his arms. I forget everything. My name. That I was cold a moment ago. That there ever was a life in between the Midway and now. I hope there wasn't. I hope it was just a dream and this is the reality I will fall back into, a whole-life fantasy hinging on a magician with a wide-open heart and a penchant for telling me to eat my chicken because I'll need the energy to stay up all night with him and make so much love we won't know what to do with it all.

Yeah we did. We gave the rest to Ben. He comes back and I am given to him like an offering and he takes me whole. When he eats a chicken wing he eats it bones and all. I never expect to come out of this bed in one piece but that is maybe why the magician sticks around. It's a trick. It's an illusion.

It's exactly where I want to be on a Saturday morning. This place between dreams and real.

On keeping his word.

You'll be loved you'll be loved
Like you never have known
The memories of me
Will seem more like bad dreams
Just a series of blurs
Like I never occurred
Someday you will be loved

Lochlan's parenting style is overly-emotional, death-defying and fraught with danger and second-guessing. For his ease when he's with Ruth, without her he feels the weight of the entire world balanced on his shoulders. He abhors the thought of making a mistake or somehow choosing wrong, a decision which would then clearly open a Pandora's box of change that would lead her down a road he isn't comfortable taking, or some such disaster in the making. Any concern he's ever had for me as I grew up on the amusement circuit is magnified by no less than a million. He parents like a trooper. He worries like the best dad you ever saw. And there's never enough time, money or love, it seems. Sometimes he gets so rattled by the efforts he puts in that I have to remind him to relax, that Ruth is half-me, and therefore very resourceful.

Great. Just what I need, he groans. And I am relaxed. Can't you see?

Caleb, in contrast, has a cool collectedness about him. Henry is the greatest asset in Caleb's portfolio and he is managed and disbursed as such, filed in the roster with a value of infinite. Caleb takes his disciplinary cues from Lochlan, figuring if Ruth can do x at y age, then Henry can too. He does not worry because he's well-insured and there is always enough money to buy time and love. For his ease when he's with Henry, sometimes he gets so wrapped up in being who he is and ruling the world that I worry that one day the time is going to come when I will have to remind him that Henry needs him, possibly more than Caleb's other assets and projects need him, also that Henry is human, and half-me, that he needs limits and direction and love without distraction.

Great. Just what I need, he laments. Also, you will never have to remind me.

But they were both reserved and honest with our parenting coordinators this morning, who officially signed off on us at Caleb's request, as a show of good faith to me that he plans to keep his promises. We're wasting their time at this point anyway. There weren't actually many hiccups once Caleb ceased trying to use Henry as a weapon. We've had separate court counseling as well to address our habit of using litigation to sort out our personal problems, Caleb because that's what he knows and me because it was the only way I could garner his full attention. It's been recognized that we don't put the children in the center of our personal conflicts. We're just high-conflict as humans, not as parents. But now that the money's in place, the schedule is in place and we have resources close to home that allow for in-house care anyway (Thank you August and Sam), we don't need to do this anymore. We're in agreement with each other and with Lochlan. And other people need these resources more.

It was just wonderful to hear that after five years we figured out how to maintain this, and that as thoroughly unorthodox as our environment is, they turned it upside-down and inside-out and finally admitted it's not unhealthy or detrimental to the upbringing of the children, something Caleb liked to capitalize on every chance he got, something I never believed for a second. This is Utopia, and now I have proof.

He's trying and now I have proof of that too.

One week in and it's tax season already.

I spent all day on the living room floor at the boathouse sorting last years receipts and now I'm semi-drunk and loving every second of it here at home on what is the final bottle (so proclaimed) of Lochlan's birthday scotch. He passed it around once and we get to keep the rest and now all ninety-eight pounds of me is beautifully lit from within and I can't feel my legs.

Or my eyes. My eyes are tired. I wore my glasses and still the bright white paper and tiny printing does me in faster than it used to. Thankfully I'm incredibly organized and Caleb follows my instructions to keep things that way. My taxes are going to be complicated this year. So are PJ's, frankly and New Jake's and Lochlan's now too. I like straightforward things. I like sober, easy fill-in-the-blank things.

I like this warmth. And I like the warmth from Lochlan too. He's not straying so far tonight. I'm not sure if it's a desire to keep me safe from the other wolves or if he just missed me today. I don't care which answer it is, I just like it. I'm spinning. I have to go be warm and content and not look at anything with numbers on it.