This is the kind of thing that happens when you wake up at five every morning.

Who else danced naked on the beach in the dark this morning to greet the full moon + Jupiter?

Just me?

Oh well! You snooze, you lose.

When Lochlan came back (from a trip to fix the equipment left behind on the site before this one) I was on the roof of the camper, wedged in between the pop-up vent and the lexan skylight, Archie comic in one hand, halfway through the hijinks of Riverdale, the other hand holding a fistful of red licorice, taking bites in between belting out the words to Say you Love Me along with Christine McVie on the tiny transistor that we usually kept on the counter for dinner music. I'm emulating Bailey and her friends, getting a tan since I have a few hours free. That's what girls do, I think. Though my bikini isn't as spare so much as it is sturdy, because I'm eleven and didn't grow again this year so I didn't get a new suit for the summer. This is the one from when I was ten.

Lochlan climbs the ladder and smiles at me. He has oil all over his hair, face, hands and shirt. We're never going to get that out. We hand wash all of our clothes in the kitchen sink and dry them on a line strung between the front passenger mirror and the nearest tree if we don't have to move on. This is the first day in the newest location and it's on the beach, prime real estate. A decadence rarely seen in a life such as this. Usually the campers are parked behind utility buildings on the edge of a deserted industrial park or beside a run-down strip mall. This is amazing.

You look like you found something to keep you occupied. Any problems? 

Only that I'm going to run out of licorice any second now and as usual Archie can't seem to choose between Veronica and Betty. Why doesn't he pick one of them and stay with her? 

Because human beings are complicated, Peanut.

That's dumb. I'm glad I'm not complicated. 

He raises his eyebrows and descends back to the ground. He's going to change and my song is over so I scramble to collect everything in my tote bag that I then drop down over the side of the camper to the grass because I am not permitted to carry anything while climbing ladders as per Loch's rules. We have to work tonight so I need to change anyway in my midway shirt and shorts. I leave my bikini on underneath and maybe we'll be able to go for a midnight swim after work. I blow a kiss toward the water and head inside. I would love to quit and just spend the whole day down on the sand where the shore meets the sea but then we would starve and also we can't crew camp if we're not crew so Lochlan tells me to lose myself in the happiness of the fair goers and that will tide me over until we're finished for the night.

That and the ache in my stomach from eating half a bag of Twizzlers, that is. So good but not all at once and I keep making this mistake again and again. Lochlan says it's because I'm complicated after all. I smack him with a wayward licorice stick and he grabs it and eats it right out of my hand, pretending to start in on my fingers once the candy is gone, making me shriek so loud his eyes get wide for a second and then he starts to laugh.

Dumbass.

Oh, Internet. Just because I post two sentences from a week-long argument does not mean I am giving you permission to judge, advise or condemn. I do realize you'll do it anyway. Everyone I know picked a side. Most of them were with me, because as we have already covered in previous postings, Ben has made a concentrated effort to reassure me that and the others that he is essentially unemployed/retired/home for good only to pick up and run out of the blue, turning what was supposed to be a one week business trip into a years' worth of scheduling. A comeback, if you will. A favor extended. A really really stupid idea in the first place. He isn't all that strong right now, it would have been bad for his recovery, bad for his health, bad for his marriage and ridiculously awful for his friendships.

When Sam asked him what he wanted more, he didn't even hesitate before pointing to me and saying her. 

So he isn't going.

He'll have to look after the loose ends quickly then. It's the perfect time to do it, before the press, before the rumblings. before anyone puts his name on Wikipedia. I think life with these boys before the internet was easier by far but then we wouldn't have Sam and we need Sam. Sam is glue. Sam is a calm force in a roiling sea. Sam is keeping Ben to his word when not even Daniel seemed to be able to, because Daniel also picked a side and Ben felt betrayed by that for a brief moment before realizing that his brother has come along behind him picking up the slack from me for a long time now. If anything we should give Daniel a medal for honor, for bravery or for utter foolishness. Pick one, because like sides in the end it isn't important. The plans, details and drama aren't as significant as family. Daniel is blood family and the rest of us are Ben's family by choice.

I didn't even have to say a word. I stood there courageously defending my own sudden stupidity at any cost, which Lochlan later told me was somewhat terrifying to witness. Cold, apparently and more like Cole and Caleb than anything he's ever seen before. Calmly promising heartbreak and carnage quietly, on a grand scale and without remorse. He said they must have taught me well. Only they didn't teach me, I was the recipient and I know what makes the scary feelings come out best.

But I didn't do it to make Ben change his mind and stay home with us. If anything I did it to remind him, myself and everyone around us that if you stay here you will get your heart broken, there will be drama and carnage and bloodshed and tearshed and reasonshed too. I made sure to give him every reason for him to go, to get out of here so that he would have no regrets whatsoever if he didn't. That weighing the odds, if he stayed in spite of the way I am that his reasons to do so must be pretty darn good in their own right.

They are, he told me. You and Danny and Loch and PJ, everyone. You're my reasons. I'm sorry, Bee. I get caught up and then I can't escape. 

I know. 

I wasn't going to get away from you. 

Then you're stupid, because you should. 

No, you're stupid because you think I'm stupid for being here. 

Well you are stupid for thinking I'm stupid because I think you're stupid for being here. 

I don't know how to respond to that. 

I don't either. 

Love you, Little bee. 

Love you too, Benny.

Spontaneous perdition.

People say I'm lazy dreaming my life away
Well they give me all kinds of advice designed to enlighten me
When I tell that I'm doing Fine watching shadows on the wall
Don't you miss the big time boy you're no longer on the ball?

I'm just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go

It's snowing, I am having sunomono and black tea for breakfast and Ben is home early with one of his ridiculous ultimatums. If you don't want me to do this, I won't. Just say the word.

What is the word, exactly, Ben? Quit? Submit? Defeat? Kowtow? Bend? Surrender? Pick one, I have time. I drain the vinegar out of the noodles. My stomach hurts. This isn't so much salad as it is a cold soup and my body likes starchy warm things like bread. I'm cold too. Forgot to bring my sweater downstairs. I would borrow his hoodie, since it's on the back of one of the kitchen chairs but it smells like airplane fuel. It's very strong after someone flies but everyone else swears they smell nothing. I'm sure it has something to do with my brain, and how it picks up weird things like invisible scents and very intense, cloaked but controlled emotion. I can feel rainbows and see gasoline fumes. When someone walks into a room, they could be acting perfectly normal but if they're under duress I will feel it so hard I hit the floor. Explain? Sorry, that part of life isn't my job. I'm no brain surgeon but I will be leaving my entire being to science and they can report back to you when the time comes. In the meantime I just shrug. Lochlan dismisses it as indigo child/freak magic. But then he'll grin at the inside joke and I laugh because his grin is leprechaun-maniacal level in nature and no one witnessing it emerges unscathed. He resumes singing and playing at the table but quietly because half the house is still asleep.

We've got Ben's itinerary spread out all over the table. It doesn't look so bad, in all honesty. It's three months here and two there kind of thing but the dates are grouped in such a way that he could be home in between if they were going to be closer. But they aren't going to be close enough to make it worthwhile.

When is it not worthwhile?

When it's more hours of travel-time than home-time. 

Then they can manage without me, Bee. Just say the word.

 When I don't say anything Ben tries on some harshness. It fits, but barely. It's not as if you aren't full up of people to affect.

Another inside joke at the expense of his bitterness. We fight when he tours. It's as sure as a sunset, as predictable as clockwork and we can't seem to avoid it, hard as we try. His guilt puts him on the defensive. His defensiveness also makes my stomach hurt. No amount of insistence that he's fine to do this can dismiss the fact that it's chewing him up inside because he wants to be Ben the Walking Ego just as badly as he wants to revel in the routine of being home with no time limit or itinerary in sight. In on the joke, as it were, instead of on the outside looking in while someone else takes his place. And I would pick him in a heartbeat but if he isn't here then what do I do? I use his brother as a stand in and get all the goddamn affection I want, thank you. Or, you now, someone else.

Yes, that's right, I suppose I am pretty busy.  

He closes his eyes and escapes from me because I'm wearing my Second Best t-shirt and no one likes to have their shit called down front for all to see. But instead of remaining there he leans very far forward so his head is close to mine. He points to the shirt and says Now you know how it feels.

I would have high-fived him for such an exquisite, magnificent insult but I was too busy burning alive.

Freaks in the corner.

He slides his hands up my ribcage, thumbs tracing the bones, fingers wrapped around my flesh, a harsh touch that thrills me like nothing else from a man who generally isn't rough or anything less than gentle except for when he is tired, like tonight.

I don't know if this whole thing doesn't feel temporary but I think we need to stick with it and see how it plays out. He says this even as earlier tonight he caught me packing to run and as I took things out of drawers to put them in the suitcase he was taking them out and putting them back while we spoke in angry low tones to each other to keep it between us instead of declaring war with the entire household, or worse, the entire population of Point Despair here, where wayward bandmates go to languish and die. It's a hospice for the romantically doomed. It's a curse. It's a bleak rainy well-appointed prison. It's all mine.

It isn't his, as he points out far too regularly and I'm sorry but I used up all of my nervous energy in deciding to run. I don't have anything left with which to fight.

He was too quick to give up information. That isn't how he does things. 

He said it himself. He's getting old. 

So are we! But I gave up decades ago thinking time would make any difference. 

I know but disappearing doesn't help. 

Sure it does. It gives space and time and absence that either brings relief or brings us all to our knees. There is no happy medium here. You get extreme fulfilled joy or the most excruciating grief ever felt with no in-between and I wouldn't have it any other way.

But he isn't listening any more. He's unbuttoning my dress. He's kissing along my temple and jaw. He's delicate and rough all at the same time and involuntarily I shiver, goosebumps breaking out all over, eyes zeroing out, unfocused, breathing quick and heavy. My hands can't get purchase, can't gather him in, can't feel anything but his warm skin when my hands make contact.

I know what he means by temporary. We were supposed to play house. Just for a few years and then I would untangle myself and return to the show full time. Return to him full time. Return to my life out of a suitcase, always with a growly stomach and a wary trust. Always with a backup plan, an escape route and a stolen pair of brass knuckles hidden in the lining of my sweater though I can't throw a punch to save my soul, or I would have had it back long ago. Always a paycheck or three behind, always thrilled beyond belief with a sunrise, a book finished or a warm meal after days without one. A bubble bath or a glass of champagne were things on a movie screen and never once did I choose a bracelet in this imaginary gilded life without having a firm idea of what it will be worth when it comes time to trade it for goods on the run.

I want to see all the places I haven't seen but we're currently having a freak time-out, pretending to be people we're not in a world we don't understand or appreciate but never take for granted.

I unbutton his shirt, running my hands across his smooth chest, tracing tattoos, as many or possibly more words than the number that etch into my own flesh. We match perfectly. I start passages, he finishes them. A song finds its way into my skull and within moments he's sorting it out on guitar or piano. When he isn't here I can't find my way around, it's like my directions are gone. When he is here I want to be awake all the time so I don't miss out on a single breath that he takes, a thought that he thinks, a movement, a gesture. All the arguments in the world don't change this. They never change this.

I'm always asked if I would go back. The answer is always yes.

As you can imagine, it's been quite an adjustment but I have lots of help. My hearing aids are being replaced on Tuesday, Ben will be home by Sunday and my daydreams seem intact in spite of the rain.

Joel is suitably unreachable and August is more than a little rankled up at Lochlan, who is only doing his best to protect me in the best ways he knows how to, to shut out the real world because who needs it, first of all, and secondly it will be right where we left it when we open up again, right?

(He hasn't been wrong yet.)

And I'm not good with reality. It's a smack in the face, a slog through mud, an obstacle course when I am out of breath with broken limbs, expected to keep up always. Expected to finish just like everybody else.

Hmmph. I'm not everyone else but I'm not special either and I would much prefer if I could keep this mask on so that you can be entertained without me having to give up everything in return. Is that too much to ask? I don't think so but then again, I'm not one of you so I wouldn't know.

Beast.

I come to you this afternoon defeated, having given over control of the day very early on to Padraig, who mostly has control of me anyway, except in wardrobe considerations, after he suggested I wear his Totoro onesie for the rest of the afternoon. When I complained that it would be too warm, he said You're not supposed to wear anything underneath it, Bridget.

I checked the neck for a handling tag. When was the last time you washed it? 

It can be washed? 

We're not going to go there. Or rather, go back there. I threw it down the basement steps. Next person going can take it the rest of the way to the laundry room.

My hands are covered with eczema. There's a little patch of it under one of my eyes and behind each ear too. They say it's stress. Ha. Lochlan threw my hearing aids out of the truck yesterday so I'm muted and still. But BUT BUT BUT I strangely don't have a headache today so boy is that ever nice. PJ hands me a big cold glass of water every hour or two and I've done nothing but listen to music and follow him around all week so far trying not to be stressed out.

They won't let Ben talk to me on the phone. That's helping. Or maybe it's not helping. I don't know.

We finished the spring cleaning. We don't seem to need groceries for once and I put the kibosh on things like dental checkups and needless appointments for a little while because I really thought for sure that I would spend all of February doing taxes. Then I finished early and now what? It's too rainy out to paint the walls so I paint pictures. It's too warm and muddy for winter hiking and it's too ridiculous to shop here anymore so we're housebound and down and not saddened by it in the least.

I may walk the Duncan later if he seems restless but last I checked he was holed up in the movie theatre alone having an X-men marathon and wearing a strangely familiar onesie. I don't think I'll go there. Maybe I'll summon the headache and give Ben a call. Maybe I'll summon the ghosts and call Jake instead. Maybe the sky will fall and I'll chicken little or chicken lots. Maybe doesn't get me very far lately, does it?

You don't even know what death is, you fuckhead.

So tired this morning I dipped my paintbrush into Caleb's orange juice. He frowned and opened his mouth to say something but then thought the better of it and simply got up and took everything out to the kitchen, brush and all. He was back a few minutes later with a clean brush for me and a suggestion that I head home to see how Duncan is faring without his favorite meeting buddy to help him remember to actually attend those meetings, whether Ben is in town or not.

(Dylan has flown out to meet them. He's been recruited but I'm not allowed to talk about his life here so you didn't hear it from me.)

I'm painting with Caleb's blood today as when I arrived, sketchbooks in hand because I don't actually do any work on work-days, he laid on his relief so thickly I may mix it with the paint for a keen viscosity.

He says to me, and I quote to you now: I die when you leave, and I come back to life when you return. 

Ten years ago that would have ruined me.Thoroughly.

Today I rolled my eyes.

Why? I haven't slept. Lochlan wanted to fight instead of dream and so we waged through the night. All of our fears for inventory. All of our observations for effect. All of our insults for good measure. I came up short. Not going to kick a man while he's down but also loathe to point out his endless promise that my needs truly are not a dealbreaker for him. Because if we're going to fight and he sharpens his desire to leave then I'm running for cover while he's left threatening air.

It's not a fair fight. I can't be expected. I have no return threats, nothing I want to use that would be harmless enough. I'm not a good fighter. I'm a caver. I don't actually want to hurt him back and so I don't return what he sends across. I can't. I won't. I refuse to.

At least I have stubbornness going for me, as if that ever helped anyone at all.

This is karma, isn't it?

The only time I ever openly, purposefully defied Lochlan was the day they were short a clown, and so they asked me to fill in. The only thing I had to do is run in circles during introductions, cue the audience around me to laugh or clap when appropriate and get shot out of a cannon at the end of the clown show itself, just like the others.

I was in full costume and makeup. Lochlan was on labour/vehicle duty that day (fixing trucks, hooking up trailers and such). I didn't think he would even find out. No one had any reason to share it with him but on a break he came in and stood in the back of the big tent just as the spring platform shoved me out of the cannon at a hundred miles an hour. I shrieked as I flew through the air, hitting the net (which hurt a lot more than I would admit at the time) and fell into the horizontal net. Lochlan came around and pulled the net down, pulled me out by my ankles and told me to change and wait for him at the camper. Someone asked how he knew it was me and he said the scream was distinct. That he knows what I sound like when I fly like that, having made me fall (via LETTING GO a hundred times from the aerial bars so that I would trust the nets and now suddenly he doesn't trust the nets at all.

That's because there's force in this. Falling doesn't have the same danger.

Death is the same result. 

What kind of show shoots teenagers? Jesus Christ. I ought to call them in but we need this job. You ever keep secrets that could get you hurt again and I'll...I'll...

You'll what?

He never answered.

This morning Matt was eating breakfast in the kitchen when I came down.

No food downstairs?

Sorry. Sam doesn't shop much, does he?

No need. He eats with us most of the time now. Nice to see you home. 

It's not....

My eyebrows go up while I wait for him to trivialize his own presence here.

...not permanent. We talked late and he asked me to stay the night. 

And?

I accepted. 

BOOM. Matt flies through the air and Sam catches him in his heart and the relief sets them both back a hundred years in therapy over splitting up. Some cannon this is.

Lochlan comes down. We have a Skype with Ben in five. Oh, hey, Matt. You back?

No. Well, Maybe, I don't know yet. 

They're...talking, I tell Lochlan.

Mmmmm. I see. He lifts his eyebrows at me and says, ready? 

Yes. 

I didn't last long in the call, I'm afraid. Ben's trip extends another week and after that he's accepted a job offer to work a run with Dalton close by and he took it before he ran it by us because as he said, it was a time-sensitive thing and it's good money and better exposure and who am I to get in the way of Ben's....uh..networking? You know, that same Ben who said he was 'retired' now who suddenly is dusting off his CV and pressing flesh, playing notes, getting invites and becoming some kind of hot commodity in a genre he has zero use for anyway. One he says he hates but of course it pays better than most.

It's for less than a year, Bee.

I only hung up on him..four? Maybe five times. Tops. Okay it was eight times but no one's counting.

I climbed into the cannon since Matt was through with it and was told to hang tight. They're inspecting the net before any more runs.

I said not to bother. I'm so good I don't even need the net. Just fling me into oblivion and hopefully by the time I've found my way back here they will have learned what it means to keep their words to me and to each other. Not like I don't keep all of mine, here for the world to see.

The beautiful storm (Witness me even as I offer you this bouquet of forgeries. Believe me even as I drown in your lies.).

He's awake. Hair in flames. Fingers tracing the tip of my nose. His mouth still tastes of chocolate. Chocolate and sleep and yet his eyes are still full of dreams in the instant he opened them, before closing them again. The rainy morning persists beyond the glass but we are warm and alone and safe with the door locked, a fire blazing and the favorite (though threadbare) quilts pulled up high.

The last thing I remember is the whiskey chasing the chocolate with a clarified burn down my throat, my own eyes heavy, listening to him read aloud from a journal he kept in 1994. All of his hopes and plans and daily routines mixed with his observations of me, of us. Of the rest of the world as seen through the eyes of a man on the verge of thirty, a man with the persistent grand plan to run away and join the circus, something he did every summer without fail up until he realized, somewhat abruptly that he would have to choose eventually, between coming home for good and never coming home again.

Within a few years he was no longer coming home, keeping a small apartment in the centre of North America and seeing us at Christmas or Easter. Then he got injured and got a job as a graphic artist/web developer and bought a bed and a table for the apartment with only a couch up until that point. Then he got a fiancee too and a new baby and then that imploded because it wasn't real life, it wasn't his life because his life was here with me, waiting for him and we've been punishing each other for the past in between epic bouts of making up for lost time ever since.

We played truth or dare with the Devil last night and smartly packed it in early as it escalated far too quickly, even for a trio so bent on self-destruction as we are. They admitted that they miss each others' friendships but also that we can't go back from here, only forward. Caleb dared us to stay, we called time on the game and walked home. His face alone would have sent me running back, if not for the literal hold Lochlan had me in, aware of how easy it is for me to cave in when it comes to Caleb and how easy it is for Lochlan to cave in when it comes to me.

If behaving correctly is so wonderful then why do we feel so raw this morning, as if we are weighed down by the keen awareness of a feeling of loneliness so overwhelming it escapes the confines of the boathouse only to seep in through almost-shut windows and underneath the solid doors of where we are? Like a thick smoke only in emotional form it threatens to choke off our collective breath.

Not my problem, Lochlan mutters, landing another kiss against my top lip, right on the checkmark scar. Approved, my skin screams while the skin underneath me that I am wrapped in fades and stings from the healing burn of an effort to change history.

I know, I tell him. It isn't. But my mind has no regard for things like locks or rules or propriety or plans and it wanders back across the drive to drift outside the glass watching loneliness in Devil-form. My heart is having none of it, firmly clutching Lochlan's heart like a life preserver or a four-year-old with a favorite toy that is about to be sent to the washing machine. My heart is stubborn and stamps its feet and I give in to the tantrum, weary and warm.

It never seems to stop raining here anymore. It's as if it's a metaphor too, like us. Or a cautionary tale. Depends on the day, the genre and the audience, as usual. I close my eyes and I'm back. In a filthy leotard with my eyes on the clock, fist closed over a handful of tattered bills, Lochlan's voice against my ear telling me to give it everything so we can find a better offer from a better show than this. This isn't what we were meant for, it's just a stepping stone, a rung up overhand and hanging on for dear life before we can find safer purchase, the sort of rock and hard place we always find ourselves in.

When I wake up later the fire is out and the room is empty and it doesn't seem as if danger could lurk in a place as beautiful as this but it does and I've seen it and yet I can't tear my eyes away.