Permission to rival the nearest airport.

I still woke up every hour on the hour, or so it seemed but every time I did, Caleb had his arm locked around my shoulder, holding me close against his chest, his chin against the top of my head. I would jolt, he would tighten his hold and eventually my heartbeat would slow to match him once again and I would drift off in the quiet dark.

When I got up this morning I still lamented the lack of meaningful sleep but he noted rest counts, at least for my body if not my mind, and that today will be better and I'll probably sleep tonight. Then he took the spoils of daybreak and I was left wanting nothing as I stepped out of his room and made my way back to my own rooms to start my day.

A hot shower, a different choice of perfume, my cross back around my neck from where it was in a little dish on the shelf and I let my hair dry by itself so it will go wavy and crazy instead of straight today. Straight feels heavy. I don't like the way anything feels. My skin is so sensitive you can breathe on it from two provinces away and I'll get hives or a rash. It's dumb but that's life.

(It's not the perfume, I promise. I put one drop of that in my bellybutton and one drop behind each knee. Otherwise I...get hives and rashes.)

Lochlan is downstairs reading. Home today. Tired, more than a little. Drinking his second cup of coffee of the day, which he hands over to me like it's ransom paid to achieve morning.

You okay, Peanut?

Restless night. I keep waking up. 

We'll fix it tonight. But you good? 

I'm fine. Better than usual, even. 

Satisfied I won't turn sideways revealing massive bite marks where my intact profile once was he goes back to reading. I give him back his coffee and make my own.

Is it time to decorate for Christmas? He says it out of the blue.

Oooh! Can we turn the lights on tonight? 

He nods. They've been up all year anyway, no point in taking them down but every night when it gets dark my hand hovers over the switch and so so badly do I want to fire them up but I don't.

YES. 

Then will you sleep, Neamhchiontach?

The nickname startles me slightly but I don't react so that he notices. I hope so. 

I think you will. The lights are like a comfort to you. 

Then why don't we leave them on all year around?

Then it wouldn't be special. 

Clockwork.

I didn't sleep last night, waking up constantly, Lochlan's elbow in my face, Ben's cold hands around my shoulder, the blankets ripped down to the floor, mostly. So cold. So uncomfortable. They sleep so easily. I'm sick with envy. My mind races ahead from one sunset to the next sunrise, afraid of the dark, afraid of everything.

Everyone is up and off early. Lochlan and Schuyler have meetings. Duncan has a meeting (still sober!) Sam has work to do. Dalton is still asleep. PJ is up and ready to get the day underway. We ran out of milk and cookies yesterday so there's a push to grocery shop and yet I am quicksand. I can't seem to get going. I feel like the world is caving in but everything is bright and fine. I wonder if it's a sign. I wonder if it's just me. I can't picture doing anything save for running back to bed, jumping in and yanking the covers up over my head, letting them find me later.

But I don't. I send Christian a text instead.

Why are mornings hard?

Just because it's dark. Get ready, get moving and you'll be OK. 

He's right. I know he's right. I leave my phone on the dresser and go have a shower, taking extra time to shave my legs (I never do this), underarms (okay, a little more often but not enough), stand underneath the hot spray for a few moments and gather my thoughts toward a different direction. I dry my hair out straight and choose a perfume. I spray my tongue with Rescue Remedy. I brush my teeth and leave the bathroom, getting dressed. All my jewelry hurts today. I don't like any of my clothes. I find something black, leggings and a long shirt. Passable. Add an enamel ring and my favorite bracelet. Lipstick. Okay. So far so good. I can turn my brain down just a little.

I can do this.

I manage to get outside and get all of my errands run even though my mind seems to scream the entire time. Distracting. Too many people. The lights are too bright. The traffic is too heavy. People are in my way. Lochlan isn't here. He makes things so easy.

And then I'm home again. It's okay. Everything's ok. I put away my purchases and finish up some chores. I find Henry and see what he has planned. I talk to Ruth who is already at school and I get a message from Sam asking if I can help plan a little Christmas dinner for the church staff. I take a deep breath, make a coffee and get busy.

A kiss lands on my shoulder as I make notes after hanging up my phone.

You okay, Bridget? I turn my head, looking up into Caleb's blue eyes. My safe space became a dangerous one years ago but I still even out my heartbeats without thinking when he's around.

I lose my thread of composure completely. No, not really. 

He sits down on the floor beside my chair, pulling me into his arms. It would be comical if it wasn't so kind. Tell me what's wrong and I'll fix it. 

I just feel awful. 

Last week was a tough one and you worked hard. You're probably exhausted. 

I nod and the tears just start to roll. Soon we're up to our necks and he finally stands up, bringing me with him. I'll take something tonight so I can sleep, I promise but I don't know if I'm making it to him or myself.

Come and stay with me for a night, I'll fight off your demons so you can sleep for a while. Before he's finished talking I'm nodding eagerly. He smiles. I'll let Lochlan know so there are no surprises.

Okay. 

It'll be okay, Bridget. 

Hope you're right because this is almost worse.

Oh my heck. WHY.

In a completely unexpected twist this Remembrance day Monday, I received a random dick photo in my email. I don't believe I like surprises like that. It wasn't from anyone I know. I guess a reader? The boys don't do that sort of thing so it was dismaying to say what is...wait, is that? What the fuck..and go through all of the stages of surprise to discover yes, it's someone's penis right there on my screen.

I don't even know what I'm supposed to do. Can I report this? Unwanted nude photos? Is it spam? I mean, it looks like spam. Pink and...compact and not very good. I forwarded it to Schuyler for advice with all caps warnings and he passed it around the point, collating a fine and hilarious list of unkind reviews. If whoever owns that was here in person they might have burst into flames for the level of humiliation in absentia the boys have levelled on someone they don't even know.

Before you decide we're mean, remember I didn't ask for that photo. I don't want your intimate pictures. I don't know you. And as I said, we don't do that kind of thing. We're not twelve or even twenty and sending nude pictures on the internet is asking for trouble.  Just ask the guy who sent me this one.

My policy was always if I wanted and deserved to see someone without their clothes on I can just go and ask. No one's turned me down yet.

Christ. This is why I don't like the internet.

Spiritual frost.

This Sunday morning in particular, Sam took PJ and Ben out for an early breakfast and then straight to church, where we joined them for a quiet memorial-type service, everyone in black, everyone with poppies. No one with coffee today, as we had church on the beach and really the only caveat is that you bring a warm coat, an umbrella and boots because the sand is messy. PJ led the hymns, an honor Sam rarely deploys to anyone but used to follow Jacob's lead in picking the person who seemed to need the most God that week from his observation. PJ didn't mind and did it with enthusiasm. Especially ending with Amazing Grace, a number Ben brought his bagpipes out for, a sound that reverberates right through my bones and into my brain in the best way possible.

I was impressed, anyway. I may also never be warm again, antsy as I held both the hands of Lochlan and Caleb, bounced on my toes, leaned against one and then the other, wishing I had worn the proper gear but opted for waterproofness over warmth.

I was not a distraction though.

Now we're home and I have Ben's hoodie on over my church clothes and we are plotting Japanese food for lunch which is fine by me, I'm excited. I did the laundry quickly and I'm ready and somehow I'm stuck waiting for everyone else. I feel good right now. I had eight hours sleep. I didn't wake up, didn't leave the bed, didn't wish for ghosts or see them anyway and I want to get on with the day before I fall in the hole I can see from here.

If monsters are real then the ghosts are too.

We've gone over Lochlan's Christmas list for what he would like to see me fix and as it turns out the only really significant things are less love for the Devil and less pedestrian, every-day ghost sightings.

Those are the only times he worries that I might have truly lost it, when he remembers that I am still indulging in a fucked-up romantic and sexual relationship with the person who abused me throughout my childhood (and beyond) and I talk to Jacob like he's still here (because he is) and let's face it, even that one makes me worry just a little bit, as I always feel like I'm one short conversation with him away from returning to that stupid place where I sat in a room that contained nothing I could use to end my days and spoke very little until I realized if I talked maybe they'd let me come home and so I did and here I am. Also a huge memory is that the sheets were so rough they gave me hives and no one seemed interested in my sensitive skin issues at all. I recall being the source of amusement when I asked for organic sheets and sensitive skin bandaids but when the hives came they just added benadryl to my cocktail of drugs and then I talked even less because all I wanted to do was sleep and-

*deep breath*

Why the FUCK am I telling you this? It's just a memory, just a thought. I can put the ghost away but he is stubborn and stuck, just like the rest of us.

Joel wants me to address other things, and not with him. He is subjective. I don't listen to him. But he has connections.

So do I, says the Devil, as he lifts my dress over my head. He plays his own advocate for brownie points here in the dark. Lochlan just wants you to be strong, he reminds me. These are things I know.

I'm not fixing it if it ain't broken, I whisper into his mouth.

I think he'd like things to be less intense with everyone else and more intense with him-

If we get any more intense we'll just burst into flames-

He wants the kind of love you had with Jake. The usage of past tense makes me cold.

We DO-

No, you don't. He's worked his whole life for this and you didn't mourn him as he left you, you simply moved on. 

He's alive, Diabhal. Jake isn't coming back. If he had just left it would have been the same. I would have been happy for his happiness. He had moved on and I would as well. And that's what Lochlan and I did. 

Then how does having Dalton, Duncan and PJ in your bed make you feel better?

That was Lochlan's idea- (Caleb forgot Ben, Sam and August, which I found so interesting but also none of your you-know-what).


Grand gestures to keep you happy, Neamhchiontach. Like roomfuls of roses or hot air balloons-

DON'T. 

See what I mean? His hand is warm against my back but I am stiff and cold now. The moment has passed and it's not going to come back around. The love isn't the same incredible crushing romance you and Jacob shared. This is more like routine-

That isn't fair. Lochlan is the one constant of my entire life. I would die for him. 

Maybe he needs to know that. Then as an aside, please tell him it was my idea and perhaps he'll resent me less. If the worst thing I represent in your life is a clean, safe, financially sound way to indulge your issues then he should be grateful. 

Since when are you safe? I smile at him in the dark, into his soul, through his lips, apart only a little. I love these conversations with him when we are nose to nose.

He returns my smile, eyes flashing dark blue. As long as you keep a little of that stubborn, twisted streak for me, Bridget, I'll be whatever you want.

Turn black, drop off.

Is that my post today? I don't know. Maybe. Does it matter? Do you want to know that my hair grew last night while I slept? Or that I cut my finger rather badly chopping onions (it's always onions, and no, I don't cry when I cut them -onions, not fingers, I mean) and the bleeding didn't stop for like two hours and finally Sam took over and sat on me for twenty minutes holding a towel around my finger and finally it stopped but only when I stopped. I made a joke about my blood stopping and then my heart and all I had to do was not move and I could finally die and earned myself a trip to the library to talk to Joel about my gallows humor and how I'm not allowed to indulge in it forever and ever, amen.

Joel's being a total asshole. Just thought I'd mention that. Can he leave now?  

No, Lochlan says. I indulged you. Now it's your turn to indulge me. 

(God, give this one WHATEVER HE WANTS.)

I wait with a smile and a bandaid, wrapped far too tightly around my finger.

He takes me in close, lips against my forehead, hands on my face and tells me we have to do more. That we need to make this easier, somehow. That it's time I resume the hard work and leave the play for a bit. It hurts worse than the knife and each word slows my heartbeat down until I'm standing there dead.

We tried that-

There are some things we could do, Peanut. He says it so gently. So hopefully.

It's broken-

I know-

Not my heart, well, my heart too, but my head-

Bridget, don't say that. 

It's true. Maybe you should move on. Go back to the living and leave me with the dead. 

I made that mistake once already, Peanut. I'm not making it again. Go talk to the asshole. I'll be in with you in a bit. He turns me around and gives me a gentle shove in Joel's direction. Fine. But I may just listen and not talk. Talking rarely gets me anywhere.

Yeah, right, Jake says from his place leaning against the wall, laughing.

Hush, you.

It's appropriate behavior if I drown Joel out with Christmas music, right?

Schismatic.

Brought a knife to hell and saw
What was left down there and more
Hide and seeked for far too long
Kept my treasures with my bones
Lived for lies, lived for tales
Lived for good and hit the rails
Love you, boy, with what I know
Hid that love up with my bones

Instead of letting me linger in my grief, hanging back in the dark, tripping over my own regrets, failing to keep up, Lochlan ripped out a single page from our history book, folded it neatly, secured it in his back pocket and unceremoniously tossed the rest of the book into the fire. We watched it burn and I wanted to ask which page he kept but I have a feeling I know.

When I woke up drowning he was there, in the dim light of the overnight, still quiet but newly crowded. Each way I turned there were limbs and skin. Everywhere my mind tried to hide there was a form to chase it back into the light. Every time I tried to catch my breath a new set of hands or a mouth would take it away again. The minute I touched earth I'd be pulled back up away into the night by my hair or my neck or my hands. Every time the cold rushed in it was blocked, replaced by warmth and intensity. Each time I tried to pinch myself my fingers were taken into someone else's, each word I tried to speak swallowed by a long lingering kiss. Each attempt to front flip into a hole met with a practiced recovery to keep me out. Each knife I sharpened to protect myself from my own mind wrestled out of my grasp like taking candy from a child.

Each time I tried to wake up I was brought back into dreams. Nightdreams. Different from daydreams in that they come true, eventually.

I woke up with the sun, sitting up abruptly, taking a deep breath into Jacob's birthday, the only one left behind to mark it. Forty-nine. On the cusp of what we thought might be greatness but turned out to be nothing instead.

At least I thought I would be the only one but as I look around at sleeping men, most of whom have at least one hand on me, I realize I'm not alone anymore. It isn't me against the world, me against the dark. My eyes light on one face after another and I can place touches and sounds from the darkness before. It wasn't a dream but it feels like it.

Lochlan climbs to the top of the hill in this new day and drives a stake deeply into the ground. He's claiming this day back from what it once was. The wind unfurls the design on the flag at the top of the post. Freaks, to be sure. Just so everyone knows, in case it wasn't very clear. I watch from the edge of the patio.

Happy birthday, Jacob. I pour out a morning whiskey I'm not going to be allowed to drink anyway and watch as it soaks into the earth. I told you who I was and you never wanted to believe me but here we are. And you're nowhere to be seen.

How many was it? Joel is so curious. He came out first thing to check on me and is taken aback.

Seven. At least. I'm not entirely sure. It never stopped. Not even for a moment.

Jesus, Bridge.

Well, it worked, so that's all that matters, isn't it? I snap at him. I don't mean to. I just didn't get any sleep.

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.