August burns red.

And if the sun grows cold for you along the way
And if the stars don't line to light the way
And when you fall away and crash back down below
I'll search the skies for you and I'll follow
I'll be in your afterglow
And I'll bring you home

Lochlan is burning down the world as he goes. Outwardly clipped and formal, inwardly afraid as the dark sees him holding me clutched against him, securing my place in his dreams, loathe to let go in case I leave him in the night. He says he's fine. We're fine. Everything's fine.

But he's not telling the truth.

I tuck his hair behind his ears. He's sitting so patiently, just staring at me. Loathe to open Pandora's box. Loathe to give a name to that fear. Loathe to let it consume him, unable to see that it already has, even as I dismiss it as shallow, unfounded, unreasonable. Trite.

That's not a fear. THIS is a fear. And I reach up, opening first my skull, wide enough for everything to see the light of day. And this too, I pull my ribcage apart and my heart does a flip-flop out of my chest onto the floor, a caught fish landing in a boat, still hoping against hope for escape. The dark rushes in, putting out the flames, protecting our eyes from the volume of blood, softening the horror of all that I am in his eyes, or so I can only hope.

It seems like nothing to you but it consumes me. It's so easy for you to say your pain hurts more but it can't hurt more than this, Bridge. The fear that you might fall in love again and it still won't be me. 

But it is you, and I fall in love with you all over again, every single day. 

Jesus Snap (crackle and pop).

Be still, my love
I will return to you
However far you feel from me
You are not alone

I will always be waiting
And I'll always be watching you

I may or may not have recorded Lochlan while he was running through his nightly piano exercises. I did it in my free time, ostensibly while he presumed I was off being a jerk to him through no fault of my own. Instead I was tucked around the corner from the living room, in the little no-man's land between the kitchen and the dining room, a place that affords a good view of the piano but doesn't alarm the player.

And I taped him because I love it when he sings to me, even as he doesn't want or mean to. I have precious few memories of him commited to permanence. They're in my unreliable head, a format I don't trust for a second. What if it changes the content? Or brings it out of context? What if it forgets? What if it wipes itself completely?

That's probably the part I fear most, that I'll wake up a blank slate one day, alone and unable to recall. It's a weird new kind of fear newly sprouted, just poking up above the surface, a hint of green. A promise of a whole new thing to worry about. An invasive weed.

Just what I need.

So I've begun to keep things, now able to listen to them on demand instead of having to beg him to sing. He's a performer at heart but so stubborn at will. This is unabashed belting out of the high notes and it makes my heart soar.

Even better is using Ben's big headphones just to listen, without the visual of watching Lochlan's shoulders move ever so slightly as he finds the keys, watching his curls crest his shoulders, leaving the back of his neck exposed as he bends his head to get those notes, watching them sail back as he flips his hair away from his face again. Watching him turn and check for an unwelcome audience and finding none, singing louder still. I have that saved now. I just want to hear him forever.

But Ben's headphones crackle and pop, distracting from the sound of Lochlan's falsetto on those notes and I'm forced to abandon my secret errand. This is why he gave me these ones. They're almost worn and it takes me far longer than it takes Ben to hear these defects. It's like listening to a vinyl record, popping and hissing through the vocals, enveloping the sound in a staticky fog cover.

Daniel comes through. He's coming to church with us and is making sure I'm ready in time instead of lying in bed in my slip listening to music.

That's what you're wearing. 

Just to be difficult, yes. 

Well grab a sweater. It's time to leave. 

Listen to this first. I pass him the headphones.

Ah, Bridge, these are blown. 

Listen.

He closes his eyes and listens for several minutes before taking the headphones off and passing them back. Is that Lochlan? 

Yeah, I smile.

I see why the busking worked so well. 

I put the headphones back on and indicate to Daniel that I'm not coming with them. I changed my mind. I want to stay here and listen a while longer.

Emotional centenarians.

August stayed for dinner (just like always) and we joked around a lot and then after dinner I walked him to his loft and stopped at the bottom of the steps.

This isn't working. I know you through and through. 

It was worth a chance. I was hoping we could reset somehow. 

I don't think we can but I don't want you to resent me either. 

I don't want to be used or to use you but I don't like it when you avoid me. 

So what do we do?

We keep working at it. 

What if you need him? 

That's grief. I try and do something else until the feelings pass. 

What about me?

Being lonely isn't a solution to anything, August, but I can't take a permanent place in your life though. 

I don't want to use you, Bridge. I've done that enough. 

Maybe we just need to work on our shared headspace when we're together. Make it about us, and not him. (I want to capitalize the H on him so badly but you'll be offended.)

How do you get better? 

Time. 

How much time do we need? 

Another hundred years, I think. 

He laughs, gives me a kiss on the forehead and then a ridiculously long hug and I am spun away back toward my own side door.

Inside the door Caleb loiters, most likely pleased with the conversation he overheard.

I have something you might like. And he puts his arms out wide.

Back-up, secondary hugs. Sometimes some of the best ones start out that way.

He'll be fine. So will you, he says, and I get another forehead kiss.

Hope so. I hope none of it takes a hundred years. 

Compare this to eight years ago. Or even two. 

Yeah. 

Things are getting better, Neamhchiontach. 

I nod. I don't know if I believe him though.

Come up and watch a movie tonight. We'll have a quick nightcap. 

Okay. Ten? 

Yes. 

I didn't make it through the movie, falling asleep tucked against Caleb while he watched the citizens of Berk decide to give up their dragons, sending them back to the hidden world. I'm sad I missed it. I was looking forward to it.

This morning as I went back to my room to try and wake up, hoping Lochlan didn't find fault with anything specific. I was out of luck though.

How long is it going to take, Bridget?

A hundred years, I told him, because that's the party line.

Fuck that, he says. God loves Lochlan. He puts up with nothing and yet he gives me the world. Caleb took a weak moment and took advantage. And you're worried about August using you? 

I think about correcting him since it's not me worried about August but everyone else worrying about August but I realize that's a pre-formed argument just waiting for it's time in the light.

I nod in agreement. Just to keep the peace. Sorry. We were only going to watch a movie but I fell asleep. He's never going to wake me up to send me home when he can just have more time. 

He doesn't get more time, Bridget. He's had enough.

Tell him that then! I'm tired!

(So much) At stake.

Our library seems to be neutral ground. It's the place where Talks happen, where things get worked out. It's a calming, restful room with floor to ceiling windows overlooking the woods and a fluffy white rug on the floor. The standing shelves on the two walls that aren't all windows are white, the chairs are white, the couch is white, the walls themselves are white and the floor under the carpet is bleached hardwood, unfinished except for a regular coat of wax.

I love this room. It holds the books of our entire Collective, save for personal favorites that are kept in our respective rooms. So everything else, in other words. It's large but the conversational seating arrangement in the centre makes for a cozy vibe. It's hard to describe but so simple. It has been in a magazine online, just for kicks but I'm not going to tell you which. I don't sell things on my blog. Except maybe desperation but that's not really for you to buy, is it? If I like a product (like my shorts from the other day) I'll point that out but I'm not going to become an affiliate for everything. It was never my intention to write my words and then sell them out from under myself for the sake of a few dollars. I don't need the money, you don't need yet another sponsored post in your life, nor another ad.

Maybe that's why I'm still going, when I've seen some of my own favorite blogs write an entire post on a new toothpaste only to have a link with a discount code at the end. That's not content, that's shilling for a toothpaste company. Is it not? Within a year or two said blogger moves on. They weren't in it for the words, they were in it for the money.

I'm still here. Never in it for the money or I would have married Caleb.

And it's in this room that I meet August.

Not Jake's surrogate brother August. Not August of the past. Not August of the sometimes-difficult present.  Not August the struggle.

This man is new. He's wearing a button-down and a nice jacket. He's carrying flowers. When I open the library door after he knocks and refuses to just walk in, he thrusts the flowers at me and sticks his hand out. He says his name is August, and that I must be Bridget, and he's happy to meet me.

These are beautiful! I stick my face in them. Lilies. What are you doing? 

Starting over. He takes a deep breath. Something we should have done a long time ago but we can do it right now. 

What does this mean? 

We go forward as friends with no baggage. And no pain between us. 

Is that even possible? 

Let's find out. Are you going to invite me in? 

Depends. Are you a vampire?

Last time I checked, no, but you're going to have to trust me. 

Unsure of hardly anything, except him.

I was singing along with Elton John at the top of my lungs at the edge of the pool. Elton wasn't there, proper, he was in the stereo but I was having such a good time that I must have missed the look that passed over my head between August (minding his own business, sadly. As always) and Duncan, who never misses an opportunity to wade into whatever's going on on any given day.

Into whoever, I mean.

I sat up with a gasp, quilt in my fists an hour later in Duncan's room, as Duncan finally let go of me. Chlorine and incense fills my throat. His hands leave almost-bruises everywhere he touches me, Elton still sings in the background and I no longer what August is up to because he doesn't seem to want me to know.

I should spend more time at the pool, Duncan says softly. I wasn't sure if I was interrupting anything between you and August. I mean, I guess it's clear I wasn't. 

I shake my head. There's a lot going on with him. 

Interesting. That's not what he said. 

Please tell me so I don't act like a fool around him, Dunk. 

I could make my own case here and yet I'm trying to show you the virtue of someone else. That's the kind of man I am, I guess. He laughs.  He actually asked if you said anything about him. He said you've been avoiding him for months, that you two had a misunderstanding. 

A misunderstanding. That's what he called it?

Yeah. What happened? 

We had a...misunderstanding. 

Maybe you should go talk to him. Though I'd love to keep you. 

Okay. Sorry, Duncan. 

Short and sickly sweet are my favorite kinds of visits from you, Bridge. 

But I didn't go across the drive to August's loft. I went upstairs alone and hid out on my balcony with a book until August sent me a text.

Busy?

No. 

Come over? 

Can you come here?

Alright. Give me a minute.

I feel like I don't know what he's going to say but I know exactly what he's going to say.

12:8 (Intermittent Benning).

When you were falling from my tree,
I was not scared.
I thought you'd meet me back up there.
It never dawned on me you were home free.
It never dawned on me, no.
Benjamin, no
Benjamin, no
Where did you go?

(A freakishly good song off an even better album, if you want a listen. It's called Benjamin by Veruca Salt and it's on Eight Arms to Hold You).

I took today off, unexpectedly as Ben came upstairs around twelve forty-five and pulled me underneath him instead of going to sleep and since I still smelled of jasmine bubbles I think he was a wee bit hungry for me and that's okay, because I was for him as well.

I've become his drug, I think. Most of the time he can go without but then things reach a fever-pitch and what do you know, I'm currently running on a whole ninety minutes of sleep here.

Ben is not a take-his-time, it'll last an hour kind of guy. Ben is a six-or-nine-hour kind of guy. Sometimes more. Had I known that once upon a time I would have...

...done nothing differently at all.

(Snort.)

But we come to midweek (literally) and I am not in any shape to be moving quickly and that's wonderful today, and even more wonderful is the fact that both Lochlan and Ben are sleeping soundly right now. I'm up, of course because it's Wednesday and I've already completed three loads of laundry and done the budget. I messaged with Caleb who is relaxing still in bed but awake. I turned down repeated requests that I join him (yeah, no. All touched out and fucked to death but thank you) and plan to maybe just do some light gardening today and get the house pulled back together, because Monday and Tuesday were nuts.

Maybe later, after dinner I'll take a glass of prosecco and hang out in the tub for another hour with Lochlan and sleep, finally. That would be good.

But other than that, for Sam's requested barometer it feels like a calm day. A quiet day where everything is okay for the moment. A gift of a day to try and catch my breath. I did my mental gratitude dance for all things for which I remain profoundly grateful (tangible and intangible) and I'd like to get caught up on my music now, I think. And my Benjamin.

Când trebuie într-adevăr să decomprimați.

Lochlan came home later that I from work. I was already upstairs in a shoulder-deep tub full of broiling-hot water and mountains of bubbles when he came in, dressed in his tan cargo pants and a button-down flannel shirt, buttoned all the way up to his neck with only the top button undone.

Well, look at this handsome man. I reach my arms up and he leans down for a kiss. When he does I hang my entire weight from around his neck and catching him off balance, he almost falls into the tub.

Just a minute, he protests, but he barely lets go of the kiss. Within seconds he has stripped down and joins me in the tub where the water is now around his shoulders and up to my neck. He sits back in the deep end of the tub, extending his legs, pulling me onto his lap where I give him a million steamy kisses and zero time to breathe.

How was the day? He asks.

Poured a lot of coffee. People really wanted to vent, I said. You?

Put out a lot of fires. Schuyler asked for a favor so I went-

It's fine. I smile at him.

It is now that I'm back home. I got lonely without you. 

You should come in for lunch then. 

I don't like to see you like that. It's hard. Watching you pander to a bunch of ungrateful-

It's breakfast and lunch. They don't care who serves them, they just want food. No one sees their waitress as a three-dimensional soul. 

They should. 

It's better if they don't. 

No more work talk. He squeezes me hard against him and the bubbles that were between us are forced up past my chin, covering my face. He starts laughing so hard he cries and I wipe my face off on the towel that's on the stand near the tub and then return to his embrace, pressing my wet head against his.

He tilts his head back, closing his eyes as I watch him. This is the life. Fuck everything else. 

Agreed. I paint a bubble-beard on him and he grins so wildly I laugh and add eyebrows. There. Now you're perfect. 

I thought I was before.

Well you thought wrong.

Slowest fashion ever.

'Tis official. It's summer. 

I pulled my Cousin Smoothy reversible shorts off the shelf when I got home from work. This will be year thirty-four for them, having bought them in a tiny clothing shop just off Spring Garden Road in Halifax. They have fruits on one side and surfer comic strips on the other. I always wear them surfer-side out since I prefer the pastel pattern to the primary-colored fruits but the fabric is still flawless, the stitching is perfect and tight and the pockets are deep and huge enough for iphones, something that didn't exist when I bought them in 1985. At fifteen I still wore pastels in the summer. Now I have to because they're The Shorts That Won't Die.

I wore them downstairs. I have to water my new poppies, peonies and larkspur, all recent transplant additions to the English garden side of things. I want to do it before helping with dinner. 

Oh my God. Lochlan says. Every year when you haul those out I can't believe you still have them. 

I'll have them forever, I think. It just seems inevitable. They're not even wearing at all. 

Is it weird that you're the exact same size that you were when you were fifteen though? PJ is incredulous. 

I can't do anything about that. I shrug. I just never grew. Failure to thrive or something. 

It's all the cotton candy Lochlan fed you instead of fruits and vegetables. 

Lochlan tried to get her to eat her vegetables. Lochlan laughs as he talks about himself as if he's not right here. Lochlan did his best.

He did. 

Is the company still around? Maybe I should get some lifetime shorts.

Yeah, I think you should. The problem is they won't be in their thirties til you're in your eighties and by then you'll have forgotten them. 

Yes but you'll still be hauling out your shorts and marvelling that this year they're seventy years old or something because you forget nothing. It's a gift. 

It's a curse, by far. 

Maybe you can remember the shorts and forget the other stuff. 

That's what I'm aiming for.

Blackened + brined.

True to their nature, Ben and Lochlan took another no-good very bad week and set it on fire before putting it out in the sea. I was covered in salt and ashes and darkness and I wouldn't have it any other way. I came out the other side relatively unscathed, put myself through a long boiling-hot bubble bath, and then put on a pretty dress and the ever-present sweater and went to church.

Sam winked at me when I met him at the door, since he left super-early to turn the fucking heat on because it's supposed to be almost June and yet it feels like February. No Jesus beach today, people would bitch him out until lunchtime.

Better? 

Much. I kiss his cheek and head inside to find a place while he chats with Ben and Lochlan, as if he didn't just do that two hours ago at home. At least their feelings for each other are still soft and the brotherly affection runs deeper than Bridget's momentarily existential crises brought on by the Devil's pointed barbs of questions, meant to wound lightly. Death by a thousand cuts, or maybe it's just a new and different tactic. Or maybe it's the same old tactic. I don't know, I'm just here for some Jesus to set me right before a new and very busy month begins.

That's how it's done, right? 

Glitter in a rain puddle (acting normal when she's nervous).

And in between the moon and you
The angels get a better view
Of the crumbling difference between wrong and right.
I walk in the air, between the rain,
Through myself and back again

He pushes his thumb against the cross in the hollow of my throat, whispering a prayer followed by an oath. Darkness in the darkness. Save our souls, indeed. My soul is contagious, poisonous, and his is too naive to notice.

Bridget-

Don't talk. I slide his jacket off his shoulders, fighting with his tie next. He takes over, pulling it off easily, unbuttoning his shirt before beginning to work on sliding my sweater from my shoulders, followed by my dress. I'm down to my slip and it's cold. It's so cold and yet my skin is flushed warm, pink and electric, static when he touches it directly.

He bends his head down for a brief kiss and halfway into it, I check out. It's so sudden, I catch my breath and he does too.

I shake my head, just enough and he lets out a deep breath that he's been holding. Instead he turns, picks up his shirt and wraps me in it. Maybe we should talk.

The tears drown me so fast I never even see it coming and I can't get the words to float.

Did something happen you haven't told me?

I shake my head, fighting for air. It was a sudden crushing fear and I hate this. I hate this feeling. I hate myself. I can't even breathe and he wants to minister me, naked and raw. God bless Sam, he's so goddamned adaptable it hurts. He never stops working, even when he should be doing everything BUT working. If only Jake had-

(No.)

(Don't.)

This is it, isn't it?

What is? I'm not going anywhere. I'm here anytime you need-

No, I mean my life. This is it. Trying to find what's going to make it hurt the least, trying to figure it out.

Yes.

What? I look up at him with my tear-stained red face, quivering lip, runny nose, wild bedhead. So beautiful indeed. Wanted. Why on earth is it me?

This is it. This is your life. You're one of God's children and we get one chance to live a life, one time around to figure it out and make it hurt as little as possible so that we can thrive.

This isn't what I wanted, Sam. This isn't the way it was supposed to be.

I know, honey. But this is the way it is and we're going to help bring you through it.

Like this?

Whatever way it works. And what will work right now is for you to go home. 

I am home, Sam-

Lochlan is home now, Bridget. You tell me this all the time and then you run from him like you're on fire. 

I choke on a laugh. I usually am-

Go to him, Bridget. I'll find you in the morning and we can talk. It's a better plan than this one, for both of us.

I know. 

Goodnight, beautiful. 

Don't say that. It's a lie.