Presence.

(I hate today and it's been so long. Four hundred and ten hours at least. So far.)

Eat, Princess, he reminds me from the chair that looked empty a moment ago.

I push the plate away. Cold pancakes hold no appeal. I get up and walk outside onto the patio and all the way down to the sea.

You should have finished your breakfast, he scolds from the rock wall.

I take a deep breath with me on my running start, launching myself off the overhang, doing a magnificent front flip that no one's going to witness, plunging into the cold November sea. When my head breaks the surface on the way back up, Jacob treads water beside me.  

You should wait a half hour before swimming, he instructs and I roll my eyes and duck back under. I open my eyes into the brine and he is there, pointing up. I shake my head and I am suddenly, violently pulled back up regardless.

The emotions that funnelled through me like water through the holes in my sweater were as follows: anticipation at the thought of going to heaven to be with him forever, shock that he's come to life and is saving me and dismay that it's Lochlan, now in the water (bye, iPhone) and angry that PJ turned his back for just long enough for me to do it again.

PJ is on the beach by the time we come around the corner, me actually being pushed and shoved and dragged along while Lochlan hollers and shouts at all three of us, Jacob included.

WHAT THE FUCK. 

I was taking a fucking piss, man. 

SO GET A REPLACEMENT. 

PJ looks at me as if I betrayed him too and I keep staring at Jake. Why don't they see him? Was he trying to save me or kill me? Didn't ANYONE see my front flip? Why am I still so insane? How long is this going to go on?

Forever- Jacob says, a subject he is an expert on and Lochlan cuts him off.

One of these days, Bridget, I'm not coming. And then I can become you, and maybe that will make you happy, since nothing else does. And he pushes past me, heading back up to the house, leaving PJ and I standing on the beach in the early morning sunrise of a day I wish had never ever happened but it did and I can't live with this pain.

***

I wasn't going to post it but it happened and I was so so proud of doing that front flip, something I wasn't allowed to do on the highwire, though near the end of the run he relented and I did several front walkovers. They're not the same, though. And this was off a cliff, no less. No net. No witnesses.

Figures.

Maybe you can show me in the spring. Lochlan lingers near the door. PJ dragged me back to the house, kicking and screaming and promptly got me day-drunk so I was able to deflect Lochlan's frustration just enough to see it through. PJ was a saint. Honestly after this week he should have been the one to turn his back on me but as he said once I persuaded him to drink with me,

My allegiance is to my queen and no one else. 

Who is your queen? I ask him, genuinely concerned that I've been replaced by one of the boys.

You, idiot. 

Oh, I get it. 

We finished a bottle and opened a second forty before we were rudely cut off and then once I stopped spinning in place Lochlan had dinner ready and made sure I ate (something Jacob wasn't able to pull off this morning) and then made me help clean up and then sent me to sit by the fire with a cup of tea.

He comes over and kisses the top of my head before sliding in beside me on the couch.

I'll show you tomorrow. 

Tomorrow of all days, Bridget, you won't be jumping off that cliff. 

I need something to do instead. Some plans. Something to keep busy-

Tomorrow when you wake up, I'll be there. And I'll have my arms around you and my heart against yours and you won't be afraid or alone or in the past. We'll be in the day that it is, and it's our day. And we'll pour out a drink to mark his birthday but then we're going to do something else, something for us. And we're going to go on. And we'll do it together. And I feel really sorry for PJ's week but today is the only day that should have mattered enough for him to not risk it, and there has to be recourse for that-

Don't be hard on him. I promised I'd stay put. 

He should know better than to believe you, for the only tales you tell are lies, Bridget. And I love you for it. 

I love you too. 

God, I hope that's the truth, but I think I can believe you. He pulls me in close, pressing his lips against my shoulder, arms around my back, just below where Jacob's hand remains flat between my shoulder blades to brace me against this endless goddamn storm. Jacob's face holds no jealousy towards Lochlan. Not anymore. I can see him in the reflection of the glass doors, clear as day.

I love you cause I need to.

To the open arms of the sea
lonely rivers sigh
Wait for me
Wait for me

I've decided the opening shot of the movie of my life will be a helicopter or drone long zoom in from far across the water, toward the houses on the point, all the way in to the main house through the windows. U2's cover of Unchained Melody will be the opening track, Bono screaming the lyrics as you have nary a breathless minute to register everything that's about to go down. The whole thing will have a shattered lens over the top of it to represent the fractured brokenness of my life, but still mostly visible. My favorite part of that is that Unchained Melody flows seemlessly into the spoken-word intro of Walk To The Water, which is a beautiful song, frankly. It works for me, anyway.

As I talk Lochlan is frozen in surprise, staring at me in one of those moments where I'm not really sure if he's going to be blown off his feet by my creative day-dreamed revelations or burned off them by his desire to flat-out run, screaming, away to anywhere but here.

I have lists and lists of the soundtrack in my head. If you haven't heard Walk To The Water it's the absolute best example of Bono's voice and the emotion he can cram into every single note. A beautiful, imagery-filled slide through the notes and into the void, especially the fade at the end. For years I tried to use it to time falling asleep to music and I don't know if I ever succeeded.

Both of these songs are followed by Luminous Times, a song which remains one of the biggest betrayal of my young life and one I can't play the whole way through still, which is a tragedy in itself. It's a beautiful song but it just makes everything flare up fresh and new, hurting so bad I just can't do it. Lochlan won't allow it anyway. His efforts to let me navigate this anniversary at my own speed with my own ideas does not extend to watching me peel my skin off slowly while I scream, beginning with my skull and ending with my heart, ripping out the valves, blood pumping all over the floor. No. Just no. Sorry, Bridget.

 This is where we switch records to something else because the tempo changes and it's not time for that yet.

***

That was interesting. 

What do you mean? 

It was fascinating to meet everyone officially-officially. Formally.

I'm glad you finally did. The gallery shows are so dry. I pack them with friends and it's easier for Cole. He doesn't like strangers. 

I'm a stranger. 

Not now, you're not. So you like everyone? 

They're all great. Do you think they like me? I find they all watch you very closely. Are they not used to having new people at the shows? 

The shows are full of new faces. My friends keep an eye on me. They always have. We've been together since I was about eight years old. 

That's a long time. How fortunate to keep the same hearts close. 

It is. I am. 

Are any of them...new friends? 

Ben and Duncan we met as adults. I've known Andrew since I was in diapers. Lochlan and I were childhood sweethearts. This you know already.

What happened? 

A lot happened. 

Off limits?

Maybe. For now. 

I feel like you're a history book and I haven't even opened the cover yet, but I've been carrying the book around my whole life. 

That's a beautiful analogy. 

Is it? Sometimes you just meet a kindred spirit and I think you are the closest I've seen. I'm a little intimidated by that wall of big brothers who follow your every breath, though. Will they allow for a new friendship? 

He looks so hopeful. I want to die for the fact that somehow I became so sacred to the boys I became untouchable, exempt. Revered. Worshipped. But only touched by Cole and Caleb, and not even Caleb much anymore. Cole has become possessive and closed. I'm grateful but at the same time he was never as affectionate as Lochlan, something I absolutely need to breathe.

Jacob takes my hand in his, rubbing the backs of my fingers with his thumb. His hand is huge. Mine is so small. He's warm and solid and he can't take his eyes off me.

I think they will. I smile at him while my now-voice is screaming that I should have flipped the chair in my haste to get away.

Noted with interest, both books came out while he was still alive, and that's where I remain mired forever.

So come pull a sheet over my eyes
So I can sleep tonight
Despite, what I've seen today
I find you guilty of a crime
Of sleeping at a time
When you should have been wide awake

I walked in on a conversation I didn't even know was taking place, hot cider in hand, book in hand, hoping for a whole hour of Daniel's Famous Self-Care ideas that don't extend to extensive beauty routines that leaving me wishing I was a boy. I'm struggling to finish Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, the only reason being that both Ruth and Loch read it and said it's incredible. I love books that end leaving me breathless and in tears for someone else's situation as it takes me out of mine. But I'm struggling to get into it. Struggling to like it, even. So I persist. On the other hand, Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, the book I read before this, saw me going to bed at eight at night just so I could have more time to read.

Maybe it's a serial killer thing. I always love them too.

Maybe I'm just a masochist.

Okay, all of the above. So I stepped out onto the front porch and registered a whole new dynamic but all the old faces I remember. Caleb, Lochlan, Ben, PJ and they seem squared off with Sam. And August is behind Sam, just to his right, not that the placement of all the men matter but the names do. PJ is so done with Sam. So, so done. I can see it all over his face. He's annoyed. He already told me earlier. If I had done anything besides pull you in close I could see his spite, but this is ridiculous. At least next time make it count, Bridge.

I get that, but this is also something I don't entertain. Jealousy has very little place here anymore. Be content or get the fuck out. I don't waste my time with anyone who isn't at least half in love with me, and they shouldn't either. If they're posturing, climbing ladders or paying each other back, I don't want to be the object they use to do it with.

Not like the rules are all that stringent. The house isn't uptight and we don't play games. I don't think a poly household could endure that kind of immaturity for long and yet we are legendary for our sophomoric relationships, because that's what happens when you form such deep relationships at such tender ages. Who you were then follows you. That's how they see you. That's how they treat you, know you and love you.

That's why I'm forever eight or twelve and not included in conversations about me, like this one.

And God Bless August, who in my soap opera has taken over the role of Jacob, who managed to suss out Sam's issues (which surprisingly I'm not going to spell out this morning) without blowing it up further, who managed to get PJ and Sam to mend their splintered fences before my very eyes to the point where I forgot my teacup, cider dripping onto the boards. Lochlan saw it a mile away, as ever. Careful, Baby, he says quietly and I righten my cup almost automatically.

Caleb looks out into the woods. He's not a nurturer, and oh how I wish he was. He's only here to make sure his stock doesn't wind up further divided. It won't. If we indulge the pun, he has a controlling interest.

This is my life now. I look around and just on the periphery, where the night blends in with those woods that hold Caleb's interest so succinctly this evening, I see August's features blur into Jake's, to go with his hair. I watch him fix my life on my behalf so I can continue to fuck it up. I watch him put himself out on the very edge, making sure they're all in a safer place. Making sure no one's going to fall. Putting them all between us to keep me safe from him and him from me. As if I am dangerous somehow. To him and not just me. To them, to everything. To all of this. He has an much of a vested interest in keeping it going, and the way he does that is to pretend he has none.

I surrender my cup (and my life, I fear) to Lochlan and turn and leave. I don't think it matters what they think. I know different.

Matthew 18:5. Hebrews 12:15? I don't fucking know (Now updated, with the whole thing).

Sam was thoroughly unimpressed with the fact that I randomly crawl in bed with PJ when I really can't sleep, frustrated and angry that I didn't visit him, at least or even Caleb.

This isn't your place to-

I was right there! I'm right here. His hands are underneath my t-shirt, pajama pants low over my hipbones. He is dark and bothered and flustered and it's late and we have to get up early for church. I try to push him away so he pushes me down, turns me over onto my face and pulls everything off, breath hot against the back of my head, words gone. He puts his hand over my mouth, pulling my head up against his chest as he finds his way into me, pinning me against him, his word against mine. He's rough, it's dark and cool and I fight him only because I hate it when we're like this. I like him soft and gentle, more like the Sam I know and love, less like the monster who comes out when his needs overtake his good sense.

He never does turn me back over, never takes me with him, never makes sure I'm okay, he just slows back to an agonizing crawl, presses his face painfully against the back of my skull as he whispers I'm sorry and he's gone because Lochlan told him to go.

I went to first service this morning, walked right past him to crank the heat on the thermostat on the wall by the hall door and sat down in the front row. I left enough space and PJ came in a few minutes later, a tray of coffees in hand, holding one out for Sam, an offering in already-established peace time, made the way he likes it. He took it and PJ clapped him on the shoulder. Not a Hey Bro clap but an I was here first, don't forget that clap. Sam nods and takes a sip, burning his tongue the way he burned my resolve last night.

We're three days away and it's all going to shit now. What the fuck is this.

***

What I didn't tell you was that Sam thanked PJ publically for the coffee and then reminded the whole congregation that one small gesture can sometimes do worlds toward beginning to repair the damage caused by colossal, deliberate mistakes. That you can take something that belongs to someone else and finally begin to repay them. That you don't have to share everything, and you shouldn't take what doesn't belong to you.

Which is rich considering Sam isn't exactly my husband either. I think at one point Lochlan laughed out loud, as he has the right to be annoyed where no one else does, for Sam's jealousy and then his selfishness and violence. And PJ had enough of the whole thing finally and when Sam handed him the collection plate he fucking flipped it and left, yelling Thanks for the coffee?That's what you say?

He didn't look back, I didn't look behind our pew and Lochlan scooped up the few envelopes that fell when PJ lost it, putting them back in the plate and passing it on. I think PJ is banned now, but he won't care. He does care about Sam's misappropriated anger but he also only answers to me.

On the way out Lochlan shook Sam's hand at the doorway (having come in behind PJ and yes he's here and home and aware) and told Sam to fucking cool it. In front of people. Sam let go and moved right along to the next people out the door, wishing them a great week, not even missing a beat. I watched as the red flush of embarrassment flooded from underneath his collar and up his neck onto his cheeks but he didn't look at me again. He's not like this, he doesn't become uncharacteristically jealous and absolutely nobody picks a fight with PJ (and lives to tell about it) so I will go see him later and find out what's happening. Maybe he'll apologize for it. Maybe he'll stand his ground. Should be interesting, anyway. I will be sure to thank him for the incredible distraction from the ghosts.

Up all night.

Let me touch on all of the pertinent parts of the night here.

-The Linguine alle Vongole, the endless white wine and champagne (Caleb did indeed squire an extra case away for me, as promised), the chocolate cake for dessert and the toasts (and roasts!) to Schuyler and Daniel, now eight years married after what seems like a hundred before that.

We're very proud of their loyalty to each other, their deep appreciation and respect for each other and their efforts to continue to keep things happy, fresh and deep so many years in, when a lot of people become complacent or neglectful.

(I wish I could write their complete and fully-detailed lovestory here for you but I feel that action might dilute it or spoil it somehow.)

-The airplane fuel smell that I find cloying that no one else even notices, still present in my nose long after Lochlan washed his hair, had two separate showers and put his travel bag outside. He and Schuyler got in from meetings in California (still burning) at two the previous morning, which was why he came to bed at four and got up at ten to get ready for the party because everyone has jobs when we entertain and they aren't for nothing. He is good at hard work but I still had a haze of fumes in my brain late last night heading to bed and eventually left to go downstairs and crawl in with PJ, who never smells like planes because I swear some entire months he doesn't leave the house. He is the biggest homebody alive and he's so comfortable he's never going to find a woman.

That isn't the problem, he tells me. The problem is finding one that's okay with you doing this. He laughs but it's only half-strength as he falls back asleep almost midword. He is warm and solid and I am asleep again in minutes but then awake again when my phone goes off. Someone is pinging me for location and I begrudgingly kiss PJ's cheek for the snuggle and he doesn't stir so I take my phone and a stray glass and leave him to sleep.

-The leftovers. As long as everyone's content to eat seafood, champagne and chocolate we're gold. We're going to spend the remainder of the weekend recuperating and eating those things because they have a short half-life and are easy to make because they're already made, as such. No one has a single plan until at least Monday and this, THIS is what I've been waiting for.
 

It's alright.

Show me how defenseless you really are

It's a really good day for a ferocious new recording of So Cold. Eight times over, my brain registering one of the most familiar songs it knows (PROOF twelve years on) and at the same time noticing every new sound. Ben's big headphones are on eleven but I'm still in bed and they're cobbled from one plug into four different jacks to make it into my phone. I can't leave this bed, Lochlan's in it and that's a new rule from four this morning or so, when he came home with Schuyler, barely making it in time to get ready for the huge party they're throwing tonight next door for Schuyler and Dan's anniversary. Schuyler asked me at least four times already if I was okay to attend, that I could come and go at will, as if I will meltdown and fall apart right in the middle of hanging back by Batman and pretending I'm good at social situations or something, while eyes bore into my skin.

Sure, I'll be fine, I lie. After all, if shit goes south, plan Bee is to run and jump off the cliff in my cocktail dress, glass still in hand. Perfect, I reassure him to his doubtful expression.

He knows. Lord, they all know. Just let me listen to this song five more times, at least. Each rotation is a wheelbarrow full of dirt on top of my cold lifeless bones. As soon as you can't tell where I'm even buried, maybe I'll turn it off.

I said maybe.

Lochlan's arms are so tight around me I kind of want to scream or fall asleep. Maybe both. Maybe neither. So far I'm just lying here in the familiarity of his form that I needed so badly last night and the night before but he wasn't here. I tried not to fall in love with Caleb (that doesn't do anyone any favours) and he tried not to consume me alive and I was able to reassure Lochlan that I'm fine. Physically I'm peachy. The cold is gone. The aches from raking leaves are finally abating and I haven't cried in, oh, at least three minutes. Okay, two.

Must be great.

He sleeps like a log, as he does when I am finally back in his arms, safe. We are predictable. An hour ago he kisses the back of my head and almost cries with relief. I should have brought you but I didn't want you to be alone in a strange place. 

(No, far better to be alone here.)

He pulls the headphones off my head when I thought he was asleep at last and I swim out of my mind when the music ends to see what's happening. My brain is screaming to PUT THAT BACK because that's what it does.

Peanut. It's so loud. 

It's So Cold, I correct him, take the headphones back and close my eyes. It's so early. Go back to sleep.

Nicknames and necromancers (Daylight time).

Baby Mac. He greets me at the door with a warm smile, holding his arm up slightly, though I can walk underneath it easy to enter his rooms. He can be the Hades to my Orpheus. I just want that one shot, no looking back.

Only Caleb has other plans and the freshly-minted nickname makes me laugh, if only because it isn't one he would voluntarily choose and it took me a moment to understand he didn't say Babydoll.

Who came up with that?

Duncan, actually. 

Amazing. 

He nods his approval, a rare event when it places Lochlan first. I like your dress. He changes tactics and it's bullshit. I'm wearing a faded sage cotton slip dress he hates, with a long smoke-coloured cardigan because it's surprisingly cool, bare feet and my gold cross necklace. I look like anything but what he likes. I roll my eyes and his hands tighten around my arms ever so slightly. Then he looks down and takes a big breath. He lets go of me, dropping to his knees. His head remains bowed to look at the floor, if only his eyes were open.

Caleb-

At your service, he says quietly.

Oh, wow. If I were only a queen instead of a high-tied broken-crowned princess from the worst nickname I ever earned. What is this?

You need to be in charge. Tell me what you want.

So I did. I told him everything, as if he were Santa Claus but in black, who could give me everything on my list as long as I'm a very bad girl instead of very good.

We can do all of this. He looks fierce and reassuring all at once and I exhale violently, making him laugh. Now, Neamhchiontach, tell me what you want from me. 

Forty-eight hours later I am returned to my real life, away from the cool steady heartbeat of the one silently wondering how he can buy my affection when there's no price on my head but at the same time happy to dash my dreams. No Halloween party this year, the times clash with Schuyler and Daniel's big anniversary party tomorrow. My Eurydice isn't getting a second chance and neither am I so I need to learn to be content flush against the unforgiving night, restless in the fur blankets against the second love of my life, if not the first actual, painful crush of my childhood that still surprises me when I think back.

When the darkness lifts and I stir he is grief-stricken but grateful. We'll get everything done. You'll have the life you want. Hades comes around with the sun. Eurydice rises with me and I am victorious. It's a brief faith that will be shattered within moments but in the meantime it makes it all worthwhile. Go back to Lochlan. Tell him I was kind, since I was. 

For once, I remind him.

Cancel whatever I was going to post today.

Because THIS happened.

After playing this dumb game for three years and three months I *finally* caught the only Pokemon I ever wanted.

A Snorlax!!

He's now my buddy but honestly, I'm done. I live in the middle of precisely nowhere and we don't have a blue thingie for balls anywhere nearby let alone any good characters around. This was caught on the way home from the dentist, but not really. I drove eight blocks out of my way and Henry helped keep it busy until I could pull over and take over actually catching it.

He's MASSIVE.

Now I can get on with my life! Thank fucking Jesus says PJ.

5101.

The Devil is concerned, as I went and crawled in with him at five this morning for an extra hour of snoozles and I passed out hard against his neck and if you listen to him tell it, he basically lay there and panicked as I would stop breathing for ridiculously long periods in the dark, gasp for air out of the blue and then do it all over again three minutes later.

It's just a cold, Diabhal. I've been fighting it all fall. 

That's not a cold, Neamhchiontach, but it's usually not this bad. 

Time of year, that's all. 

(I've found my solid gold excuse for everything, as of late. Bad day? Time of year. Feeling not up to doing something? Time of year, I tell them. Didn't laugh at a joke? Time of year, for sure.)

That doesn't work on me.

What doesn't? I play dumb, batting my eyelashes just once so he catches me.

You're adorable, he smiles. I'm very grateful you brought your snoozles to me this morning. It's been quiet in my wing.

Sam's free.

Not that quiet, he corrects with a chuckle. I am concerned about you though.

I know. I say it quietly.

He plants a rather violent kiss on the top of my head, taking my hands in his and pulling me right up to his face. Tonight you spend with me, okay? I just want to see if it is a lot worse or if it's just been a while and I'm misremembering-

You can just ask, you don't need to find an excuse, Diabhal-

Time of year, Bridget, he says and I get it.

Whitman Mondays.

A sharp intake of breath and I'm awake, tense and suspicious of the light. The dust motes dance in the sun shining through the curtains, opened as a way to wake me when the dawn breaks instead of by force.

My first thought, as ever:

He's gone.

I reach out with both hands for my redheaded life raft instead. The tangible. The waking dream. The saviour in a strange land, this place of profound grief. It's so bright and clear. White sheets. Blue skies. Yellow and red leaves up to our ankles, crunching as we walk toward our inevitable demise.

A detour, Lochlan smiles, pulling me toward the lights instead. Toward the happy screams of people who don't know that hungry, unrespected, lowly-compensated people are putting their rides together under the duress of a ticking clock. That your life goes into their hands the moment the bars are lowered.

Do you care? No. That's the thrill part. And when you survive you'll come back for more, until we've turned your pockets inside out and all that's left are three nickels and a single corner-bent ride ticket.

I've been resurrected by those lights so many times and it's devastating that they only work for me.

Not only just for you, Lochlan corrects as he pulls the quilts up to our necks, turning me away, pulling me into his arms against his heart, closing his eyes to sleep a few moments longer, his breath exhaling against my hair.

Sleep a little longer. The rescue boat has high sides, warm lights and capable captains.

I nod against his head. Sleep. Sleep is that elusive shoreline I can never seem to reach, floating just offshore as if a giant anchor is keeping us from getting anywhere, but no one is strong enough to lift it.

He is, though. Oh captain. My captain. Steer me from the endless elegies and drowning grief.

Come take a ride then. I fall into my forever dream where he's standing in his jeans and a green Atari t-shirt at the operator box for the Ferris wheel, a smile on his face, curls sticking to his neck and forehead in the hot summer evening and I run in his direction, knowing I'll get the last ride of the night whether it's on this trip or the next.

I suddenly am keenly aware that it's not only Jake I'm missing, but that heck of a life we lived before everything got so sad, when I was so little Lochlan would whisper some of the lines from Walt Whitman's Spontaneous Me into my ear until I would blush, overheating and scramble to get away from his warm lips against my skin, wondering how dirty the words were going to get and he would laugh and pull me back in close and God I wish for that again so hard it hurts.

He pulls me ever closer. I can't remember any of the words but we're still here being wild-bees, he says and we start to laugh until we shake.