Freak pizza.

The shame is all mine as the jokes began around dinner last evening. Both kids were out, we were making homemade pizzas, and Caleb finally came downstairs. A few softhearted shoves as he ran the gauntlet and they have decided that I wore him out, that I'm like Sleeping Beauty except if you touch me, you're the one who falls asleep for a thousand years, or until there is food nearby.

Sure enough, he ate like five slices of pizza while Dalton made gentle jokes about working up an appetite and being hungry because Bridget's not enough, no meat on her bones. I made a mental note to show him otherwise, but not today because today my bones are worn out and we're in a good place. Everyone is in love, everyone is content. Ben is super good and content and finds life funny again. Sam is a little detached, his usual hesitance, though this time it's not borne out of self-consciousness but out of a need to feel useful and I don't know if he does right now. Too much of any good thing and I get into a headspace where I get blinded by touch and then I'm no good at all and he loses every ounce of his perfect objectivity and we're useless.

Useless.

Lochlan took back his easy ownership, his alpha-male role, finding a second piece of pizza, eating it folded with one hand, the other looped around my neck. I was already finished my piece. Gorgonzola with ham, pineapple, mushrooms and black olives, washed down with a glass of white wine. I also eat one of PJ's left over crusts, which he hands to me with a wink. I pretend to glare at him before Caleb makes his goodbyes and heads back across the drive. Once he's gone, Lochlan physically relaxes in a way that still bothers me since it's so much different than what he says out loud. He turns me in close so I am standing between his knees. He threads both arms around my back and kisses me on the nose.

Okay? He whispers so no one can hear him. They're all talking about cars anyway. The food is almost gone and everyone is scattering back to their long weekend comfort zones.

I nod and he kisses my forehead, rubbing my back with one thumb as he holds on tightly.

What about you? 

I'm okay. I don't think he sounds convinced. Forgiving the Devil is a tough road to walk but we're still walking it. He pulls me until I am resting against him, head over his shoulder, arms around his neck and he just stays like that forever.

Good place.

I swear to God. A long weekend even peeks around the corner and there's Sophie, arriving like a queen without a court because she has nothing better to do than hunt for her perfect future in my front fucking yard.

God, I don't hate many people outright but I hate her. I don't know what Jacob saw in her. He was never shallow enough to settle for perfect. I wonder if she's maybe only a shell now being run by an alien life form here to detail how we do polyamory, how we do communes.

How we do life after Jacob.

Maybe she turned cold, bitchy and singularly-focused because he died. Maybe she has regrets too.

But she can't have Caleb. And once again he leaves me to deal with her. He isn't home. Later he will message her with his excuses, whatever lets himself off the hook. So she rings my bell to ask if I can let her into his house.

Why would I do that? He's home. Maybe he doesn't want to see you. That's what he gets for not protecting me from her.

I heard through the grapevine that you're together now.

I shrug. What grapevine is that? 

People talk about you, Bridget. I know you like to pretend you can get away with anything you like here but people still talk. Supposedly you have two husbands and a boyfriend now? 

I have, like, five boyfriends. Your grapevine blows. 

I thought she was choking and I was going to watch her die but then she found her verbal footing again and asked me if I could have Caleb call her when he was free, that she's only in town until early Monday morning.

Did you leave a voicemail for him? 

Yes, but-

Then if he wants to call you back, he will. 

You can't have them all, Bridget. 

I don't 'have' anyone. They're not toys, Sophie. They're grown men. And I don't know why you keep showing up on my property since Caleb has a phone and he has email too. I'll suggest now that on Labour Day, you stay the fuck away because next time you come around harassing my family I'm calling the police. 

He's not your fami-

Oh yes he is. 

The door slammed in my face right then, and in hers too I supposed. I looked to the right and there's Lochlan with his arm out, standing just behind me in the front hall.

I wasn't going to wait for teeth and claws. 

Well, you're no fun. 

But boy, you sure are! I think she thought you were still going to be tiny helpless Miss Mess and instead you were a snarling ball of...of....protective awesome. 

Protective awesome? 

I don't know what else to call it, but it's long overdue and I am proud of you. You stood your ground.

I hear a car door slam and the engine roar to life and she's gone again. I'll find out who keeps leaving the gate open later.

I grin at him. I'm proud of me too. 

Though your boundaries are completely misguided and fucked up. 

But I'm getting better at it, right? 

Don't get ahead of yourself, Bridget.

Because I have no boundaries. Caleb is upstairs in my bed, sleeping in today. Because it's Friday and it's a long weekend and I can be tiny helpless Miss Mess whenever I damn well please.

First half for the lovers, second for the haters.

So what gives me the right
To think that I could throw away a life?
Even mine
And what makes you believe
That you could get away with getting old?
Overlapping me
Maybe to lose or to save your soul
Is a choice of how you fill the hole

And the rain got in

I post today in honour of the memory of one of my favourite singers of all time. You wonder why we coddle Ben so badly and keep him up and moving when he gets down? You think I'm the one with demons? My demons are 6'4" and 5'10" respectively. One has white blonde hair, one chestnut. Both are blue-eyed and mostly harmless now. They have names and nicknames too, Cole (Trey) and Jacob (Preacher)

Ben's demons are forty stories tall, he doesn't know their names or what they look like because when they're coming for him he turns and runs, and I don't want them to catch up to him alone in the bathroom of a hotel far from home because the thought of that is the saddest thing in the world to me. Rest peacefully, Chris Cornell. Your demons can't find you now.

[Technical details for the gatekeepers, which I rarely stoop to. There's a search bar at the top, to your left, assholes but here. I hate reading old posts. Fuck you. 

March 2007 (This is the oldest one and also features the worst sex 'accident' I've ever had.)

July 2010  (news that Soundgarden is reuniting.)

July 2011 (Bought Soundgarden tickets. So Excited.)

July 2011 again (Live Soundgarden show review)

March 2016 (Solo album Higher Truth came out and I LOVED it.)

There's more but now I'm even sadder. Happy now? Do I get to be a fan today by your standards? Hey, thanks.]

Meta Spaghetta.

The sea is a dark smoky teal today. I'm watching it as I finish spaghetti with my homemade meat sauce. It's lukewarm but it's still warmer than being outside. Outside is twelve degrees and windy, almost-rainy and cold. I've got Cole's sweater on. I wash the spaghetti down with a glass of whiskey and drop my fork into the bowl. I'm finished. Dinner was a free for all. Ruth is working, Henry is out with Caleb (doing hey-you're-not-actually-my-father-after-all and son things and getting dinner at the end and Lochlan's putting the camper back together after a last-minute decision to put fireproof insulation between the outer shell and the inside walls. I don't know what code is for that but he knows how quickly a camper can go up and he worries about me falling asleep in it. I sleep so lightly it's not an issue but he has decided it is the issue du jour. I should point out that yes, campers go up fast when you deliberately burn them to the ground but he might not appreciate that.

Sleeping dogs and all that.

Ben offered me a swim with a laugh. It's too cold and once I have Cole's sweater on I'm loathe to take it off. This sweater is the opposite of Cole. It's warm and soft and comfortable. It doesn't make demands or take out anger or jealousy on me. It doesn't hand me off and then demand that I feel nothing. It hasn't left or died or hurt me. It's the good parts of Cole. I've tried to get rid of it. I've destroyed it and it keeps finding its way back to me. Kind of like Ben and his cat-burglar heart, sneaking in and taking all the good stuff if you fall asleep with your windows open, when the night is a dark smoky teal and the spaghetti is long cold and left on the table beside a half-asleep princess, who still marvels that she is the one that got away.

Bluesday.

Today I planted peas, beans, carrots, sweet peppers, chives and cucumbers in the little greenhouse. It's cold at night but not too cold and they're safe. I didn't have any tomato seeds at all or I would have done some of those. I may wait and get seedlings so they have a better footing. Last year the tomatoes drove me crazy. Maybe I'll do cherry tomatoes in pots. Maybe I'll skip them altogether. We'll see.

I have garlic, rosemary, sage, basil and lavender to do in the smaller gardens. Plus pumpkins, corn and sunflowers which go straight into the ground as seeds in another two weeks or so. No rush. I don't need to have a barren yard September first. The growing season will extend beyond that in this zone so-

You didn't come here for my gardening? Figures.

Ben is doing a lot better. He's back to himself. The tender, doubtful expression is gone and he seems good. The thief of hearts returns, just as I left him.

I left him..

Oh, there's an expression I won't use again, up there now with stupid inconsequential but devastating ones like dead tired and falling for you.

Bossy

Ben smells like soap and cedar. He had a blisteringly hot shower right before bed, arriving under the quilts still warm and slightly pink to the touch. By the time he finishes with me I was also warm and pink to the touch. He tells me to stop holding my breath so I ask him if he'd hold it for a while, that I'm tired. He laughs, asking me point-blank if I want sleep.

I shake my head. No. I want you. 

More? 

Please.

I'll get crucified tomorrow when you fall asleep in your rice krispies. 

We'll deal with that tomorrow. 

***

Bridge! The fuck. There's milk dripping on the floor. 

I was leaning on one elbow over my bowl. I closed my eyes for just a second and my arm slipped and my chin hit the rim, sending a waterfall of milk and rice krispies cascading to the tile floor. PJ is impressed. He mopped the main level floors yesterday.

Ooh. Sorry! I sit up and scoop the bowl back up but it's too late. Sam smiles at me, taking the bowl from me. Duncan puts some toast in for me instead while PJ comes around with the sponge to clean up the mess I'm perfectly capable of cleaning up. I'm just so tired.

When the toast is ready, Duncan slathers it with honey and brings it to the table. He pulls out a chair for me and sits next to me to keep me talking, chewing with my mouth open, while I eat.

Maybe you should go back on your meds for this. PJ has no patience today either. Who needs sleep again? Me or him?

Once upon a time I took some really awful amphetamines for this, but they took my anxiety and cranked it through the roof. It's better to be sleepy than crazy, Peej, I remind him.

Til you crash while you're driving. 

If I'm sleepy I don't drive. It's only when I can let myself relax that it happens anyway. 

He puts the stools back under the island ledge. For now. 

Rice krispies are just boring, that's all. My defence fails to spare any pity from them at all.

I'll talk to Ben, Sam says and abruptly runs his hand down my head. It's an uncharacteristically affectionate move from him and everything starts shutting down. I choke on my toast and Duncan slaps my back. PJ puts a glass of juice in front of me.

Drink. I think you should go back up and sleep. You're not doing well today. 

I'm fine. It wasn't- I turn to look at Sam and he has no idea he just pulled a Jake-move. I'll make sure I get to sleep early tonight. Ben will understand. They all do. Sam sits down and I lean against him, putting my head against his shoulder. I was about to say something when I jerk awake again.

Not fine, Bridget. I'm taking you up so you can go back to bed for a bit. Now. Finish your juice. Good girl. Now say goodnight. 

I had plans-

Cancel them.

Backwards masking.

What would you like to do this afternoon, Neamhchiontach?

Paint our faces like butterflies, blow bubbles and dance on the beach. Maybe go get some pho. 

With the face paint still on?

Of course. We're not savages. 

He frowns. No way in his hell am I getting any of that. He marvels that I didn't just make up something civilized for his ease of saying he could grant all my wishes. I mean, I'd like to go roller-blading too or kayaking but I'm also scared shitless of both of those things and those feel more like things I should do than things I want to do. And what I want to do is paint my face like a butterfly.

He's wrestling with his response and it's winning. I can see it pushing him right out of the circle.

How about lunch? 

Pho would be good. I mentioned it already. They HATE pho. Hate it. I like it. It's weird. But I'll concede on the pho if I can paint your face. 

His head drops and he wishes the ground would cough up a normal person, no doubt. A trophy-girlfriend. Someone predictable.

(Ha. That's dumb. Who likes normal?)

But we still have to go out fully painted. 

Bridget-

I get it. You're not ready for full-on weird. 

Oh, I am. 

So I can paint your face?

No. 

Drat. You know who will let me paint their faces without complaining? 

Who? 

Anyone but you. Just sayin'. 

We don't have a round table but I think I might fix that.

We went to see King Arthur: Legend of the Sword this afternoon. It was so very clever, so metal, so fast and so beautiful done. I would go back and see it again tomorrow, maybe. I loved it. I hope it does well. Then I came out blind into the cold sun and we made our way home, my head stuffed full of swordfights, giant rats and incredibly witty storytelling, all tied neatly into some of the most stunning visuals I've ever seen onscreen. It's a keeper, and I'm very picky when it comes to knights and medieval films.

It was a distraction in a day that sees some improvement over all. Ben is Lochlan's phoenix, resurrected in flames over and over again. Perpetual lives, while I watch from the sidelines, all the effort I have on what is a magnificently limited physical budget these days. I am getting better but still coughing too much, still low on energy and high on short-temperedness. It will get better. Ben will get better. He did that thing where he got cocky and dialed back on a lot of his support mechanisms, quickly finding out it was too soon.

It's always too soon and rarely a good move. So everything was brought back to where it was, only he dropped a bit and has to climb back up to where he was. His frustration and embarrassment is evident in spite of reassurance that he's out there doing the work to protect himself, that he should be damn proud. Fuck embarrassment. No one's laughing at him. Everyone loves him beyond measure. That's what helps him fall asleep at night, one arm around me, one hand on Lochlan. Safe. Protected. Sober. Okay for the moment.

The sword in the stone for him is clear-headedness and no one's going to take it from him. I'll be his knight. While I'm bumping along in armor that's too big dragging a shield that's too heavy, they can laugh at me all they want. But no one would. That's the best thing about the Collective. Instead, someone will step in and take the shield from me to carry, and the rest of them will stand in front of and behind Ben. Protecting him, holding him up, pushing him forward, having his back.

Smart as a Saturniid.

Who is this?

Ne Obliviscaris. It's their acoustic arrangement of Painters of the Tempest Part II, Movement III: Curator.

It's beautiful.

You should hear the original.

But Caleb isn't really paying attention, standing here on the front porch in the near dark, gazing at me with that truncated half-smile,  moreso with his eyes than his mouth. His hand comes up to touch my face and I flinch automatically and the smile is gone. A soft kiss lands on my lips. He doesn't close his eyes. I don't close mine. He steps back out of my personal space and asks for my evening in return. So he can apologize properly, profoundly, for what was a tense and unwelcome week solely due to his jealousy. Not the birthday week I was hoping for (because oh, I envision so many things and the anticipation paralyzes me regardless), instead a tough navigate through conflictingly-charted waters ending on an island with no name.

It has a name, he says without turning. Point Perdition. You named it.

I did. I go back inside without answering his request and Lochlan asks if I want the music off.

Maybe. Not like I can hear it when I move. If we can talk over it it may as well be off, because I can't strain hard enough to catch a note.

Hey. He says as he comes back (the remote is in the kitchen for the sound).

Losing my grip, Locket.

You're not going anywhere, Peanut. I gotcha. We're going to go up and have a nap with Ben. He's feeling similar. Looks like I have my hands full tonight.

I can get Sam, if you-

I can handle this. 

We bundled in with popcorn and watched documentaries on Netflix until I was asleep and Ben was calm enough to try to close his eyes. We locked the door. We left two very dim lights on. We boarded up access to the outside world but the impending storm never came. When we emerged, somewhat pale and shaken, worn through for holding on, we realized Lochlan was right.

He did great. No one lost their shit or fell in a hole on his watch and now I know all sorts of things about the world's worst prisons, the Ganges river in India, and the secret lives of bodyguards, one of which I seem to have right now.

Bird on a hill.

(Oh but from such a young age you told me I couldn't trust anyone.)

You think they're not just like me, Bridget? You think they don't think the same way? We're wolves. We eat our young. We take you out into the night and devour you alive. The same ones you run to when you're scared want to hurt you the same way I do. Just enough.

I am breathless, hitching gasps for air mixed with sobs. Sweat sticks my hair to my face and fear keeps me paralyzed in place.

I lie underneath them and I understand what he means. My currency is myself. My debts are never paid. My safety a tightrope I can't seem to balance on because terror makes it twang against the pulleys. Fear is quicksand, gravity, a weighted anchor in a churning sea and I'm drowning but I'm still alive.

Liar. But my accusation bounces off him like a errant bee. Lochlan isn't like the rest of you.

You'll understand it better when you're older. He's already turning. It's only a matter of time.

Turning into what?

A werewolf.

No he isn't!

Watch him and see. Watch him when no one's watching him.

And I did and he never turned. He marched right up to the dark and put on yet another show, a pretense at being all the things he thought he had to be and then he shed that skin like a snake and went back to being himself. And I was never so relieved.

***

Crow came for everyone for supper, delivered in the form of a gift for August, from Caleb mostly with the others chipping in. A Breville. Daniel and Sam taught him how to use it, while Caleb swore to me he won't engage in petty fights any longer, that he'll save his hills for bigger stakes, that he'll make sure it's worth it instead of kicking the dirt out from underneath where they stand in hopes that they'll fall.

No one here is beneath you, I told him as I sipped what had to be the ninth espresso made tonight, as August gets the hang of it and takes over from Sam's directions.

Understood.

(All these espressos are the equivalent of a Mountain Dew, which is the second thing you'll discover upon meeting me. No one is permitted to give me Mountain Dew. I react badly and begin to paint the house. I stayed up for three days once. I learned to do cartwheels starting with my left hand. I was holding a drink in my right. I still have the scar. And they don't give me Mountain Dew anymore.)

Put it down, Peanut. Ah. Here's someone who remembers Bridget doing the Dew.

Hi, Lochlan! 

Want some? August is enjoying this.

It's nine o'clock at night, Aug. 

Oh shit. Sorry man. She seemed to like it. 

How many, Bridge?

Like, seven? 

Oh Jesus. Lochlan gives me a withering gaze. August says goodbyes and reminds us to come back for breakfast or if we can't sleep. Caleb shoots him the most terrible look while I nod at lightning speed, a hummingbird-girl.