Production princess.

I lay in bed with the pillows over my head while Lochlan performed the mother of all pep-talks this morning. He was determined to make sure that I got up today since I didn't really on Monday or Tuesday for that matter. Well, I went and had my shot on Monday morning but since then it's been a fog, a benign February malaise and a struggle to get moving. 

But I can't resist a reaction to his performance any more than he can ever resist giving one and so, lured by the promise of good coffee and some hot eggs and toast, I went and took a long shower. The rash is mostly gone. My arm is itchy. It's still sore and I have a headache stupidly swollen lymph nodes but I'm up now, with clean hair, dressed in warm leggings and a hoodie and a knitted hat, because my ears are cold and I can't make it stop. 

I went out with him and loaded up the kiln. First glaze firing at home. I'm so excited. He hates the setup and wants to see and easier, more permanent setup than wheeling it out of the studio, but for now it still works and on rainy days I will build while on sunny days I will fire. The worst weather will see me rest and while all of this goes down my mind floats a mutiny through to the open sea, easily passing through the rapids to where the fresh water meets the salt and wind, sails tattered, boards battered, nerves shot to hell. 

You made it! He exclaims triumphantly when I return to the house after heading back to the studio solo,  checking to make sure the cycle is complete and the kiln is now beginning the long impatient cooldown cycle before I can open it. The rule is a hundred and fifty degrees, no sooner. A rule I agree to because it's a time saver in the long run, and because any hotter and you risk ruining the whole load. 

I did. I get a kiss on the hat (forehead-adjacent) and a huge smile from him. First one all week.

Today the arm is more sore and now decorated with a pinprick rash, and my throat and head hurt so bad I've drunk a whole container of grapefruit juice in a day. Ben is telling me to sleep, Lochlan wants me to stay awake, Caleb just wants to see the meds keep coming so I don't bolt or hide or turn myself inside out. I wanted to sew some things and I wanted to watch a movie but I don't have the energy for either. I feel like I've lost control of my life and the only way to quell the panic comes in the form of a fistful of pills from Lochlan (or PJ or Caleb) every eight to twelve hours and then I have a little respite.

Or I'm allergic and the rash is from that and not the booster shot and I feel kind of dumb, as we seem to be a few short weeks away from dropping all the mandates, all the passports, all the requirements and I still think I want to be a recluse but then I also want to go to a concert or hell, eat a Monte Cristo in the booth at my favourite spot that makes them, since they add turkey and it's real turkey, not lunchmeat-turkey but I also liked grocery shopping at seven in the morning and I liked the excuse of just staying in. 

Maybe I should live in my bed. The hermit-starlet. The reckless recluse. The grieving little monster, always. 

Someone asked where I was and I suppose I should answer but I wasn't sure if they meant physically, emotionally or spiritually so maybe I shouldn't answer at all? 

Physically I'm lying in bed watching Vogue's 73 questions (every now and then I catch up) and the Olympic figure skating and playing Christmas Mansion 3, still hoping that by next Christmas my village is ready at long last. I should have started this game last April instead of after Halloween but I persevere. 

I'm so jacked out on pills I can't feel a thing. It's good, this. The alternative is feeling too much, too deep, too hard and I can't. Not strong enough. Will never be strong enough and I hate that things change. Just when you get comfortable. Just when you think you can take a breath some part of your life, your comfort-mechanism gets yanked out of your heart and there's a huge hole. A huge one, so big you fall in every time you take a step forward and you climb out and try again and the sunsets hurt and the sunrise is so hopeful until you remember and death is a horrible thing but it's the only certainty, ever and here it is again because I got too comfortable, I guess. 

I'll be okay, I just might not post or I might post all the time. The only promises I make are to those around me, as always. I was already in a hole of sorts. This fashioned a lid for the hole and I was already inside and it took days to crawl out. I pulled my sweater around me and went for my booster shot and they played Lady and The Tramp in the waiting room for fifteen minutes afterward but I couldn't think about it. They gave me another sticker and now my arm is sore. I've lost five pounds from ignoring everything Lochlan tries to get me to eat and I just want to know when this won't feel so awful. 

Don't worry. It wasn't one of my precious boys.

They said it was a phase.

(I used to call him Trey but that seems too familiar any more.)

Cole and I are lying on our backs in the gazebo, watching the clouds rolls in, bringing the wind and the rain post haste. My coffee cup is near my left hand, forgotten and cold. Bitter, like me. Bitter, like my bones pressed against the damp boards in an ache of February the likes of which I've never seen. 

Cole is quiet. I took away his mouth. Left some of the good parts so I could still see that his face was trying to break into a smile when he read my shirt this morning. 

It's pink with holographic pastel rainbow balloon letters. It says I LICKED IT SO IT'S MINE. I only wear it as a pajama shirt thanks to my hard rebound back to black and so it's paired with navy fleece joggers from Gap that shrunk somehow so Dalton gave them to me to wear and they fit perfectly.

Cole reaches over to me and touches my face as I close my eyes against the brightening sky. I don't flinch anymore when he does that. Right now I think if I could go back I would have met him eye to eye, hurt him right back, made sure he knew how it felt to be treated the way he treated me and taught me that was love. The way he let his brother continue to terrorize me even as I asked him if we could move away, if we could start over, if we could somehow get away from him and yet he followed and then they all did too, just to keep an eye. New cities every ten years, new streets to remember, new lives to fill and here he is, lying next to me on a cold hard floor touching me while I fight to make something hurt so I don't cave in. 

Bridge!

A voice from the right and I lift my head, looking through Cole to see Lochlan on the patio. His face. Can he see him too? Do I have to explain why Cole doesn't have a mouth? 

Come inside. No one's with you? Fucking hell. Come now. 

(Like a dog. Here, Bridget. Good girl.)

Cole laughs silently (I can tell by his eyes) and I push him off the cliff. He leaves the grey sweater behind and I stand up, pulling it up around me in the sudden chill, hit the button on the heater that still doesn't work to turn it off and obediently go inside, making sure that the rain soaks up my pants from the grass. Hitting every puddle, taking my sweet time, making him wait while I try to remember what I did with Jake. I think he's in the freezer. That or in the loft above the garage.

 Here, typing my little worn, split fingers around the edge of a gaping black hole, and trying not to fall in.

Bad men.

I still don't know what PJ's retaliation was because Batman decided to kidnap me and is pacing and texting Caleb nonstop all afternoon so that I cannot overhear (ha) his threats or maybe they're promises, I don't know. Batman is prone to some scary, violent tendencies in a way that never really touches me, and every now and then he'll stare lovingly at me or pull my hair back and look at my ear. Sometimes he squeezes my hand. Sometimes my shoulder. Other times he quickly walks out of the room. In any case, he's going for a world record, as Caleb will put his phone down and pretend he doesn't see messages when pressed, so the threats must be right frightening at this point. They've been typing furiously for hours. 

New Jake thinks it's amusing. He thinks I play them. He thinks this is the long con and I already told him he was right, though I have no need to con Batman. Batman is just lonely. Well, I mean they all are, but I have no reason to con Batman. He's been nothing but wonderful to me my whole life and while he tries to be hands off, he knows I have a ridiculous penchant, no, rather, a kink maybe, for downright intense men and that I don't always understand my own boundaries and I have a terrible understanding of love and affection and a horrible addiction besides the axe to grind that I drag behind me because it's so heavy. 

Finally he hangs it up.

What would it take, Bridget? He says it softly. I think I misheard. 

I think you all have scolded him lots, I return. 

What if I took over the finances for you and you banish him?

I'm not going to do that. It's a whisper directly into his face and I flinch when his expression shifts so fast from kindness to rage and he turns and fires his phone into the french doors and yells, at last. 

Why the hell not?! Does he have something over you? Now is the time to tell me. Something has to be done. 

Leave him alone. Please. For me. 

Reaching a point where that's not going to be an option for much longer, Princess. He invokes the P-word and I shut down. They've weaponized the most treasured term of endearment I have ever had, twisting my fairy tale into the dark legend it's now become. 

He hurts people, Bridget. He hurt you. Multiple times. Thousands of times, probably. He hurt Ben. He's hurt all of us by what he's done and the only reason he exists is because you've built him a guilded candy cage in your mind and we can't break through it. 

Right so mind your own. 

That's it. You just going to let him chip away. A little piece of Bridge every time until there's nothing left. 

What a way to go. I head to the door, stop to pick up his phone which I bring back to him, and then pause with my hand on the knob. I'm going home. Touch him and I banish all of you, instead. 

This isn't going to be up to you, honey. 

Yes, it is.

Fun Monday facts.

I weirdly easily and annoyingly learned all of the words to Fancy Like and have been wandering around the house singing it at the top of my lungs all morning. Every time someone asks me to stop I suggest they pay the lady. I made four hundred and twelve dollars inside of half an hour. 

PJ and Lochlan had a major disagreement and Lochlan tried to follow PJ into his wing to talk about it and PJ slammed the door in his face and locked it. So Lochlan went and got a few sheets of wood and the drill and screwed the door shut (don't worry, PJ lives on the ground floor so if there's a fire he can get out) and then ordered PJ's favourite meal for lunch and ate it right outside the door (a toasted roast beef sandwich and sprouts on rye and steak fries from a local place) while PJ threatened extreme bodily harm from the other side of the door. Lochlan was taking a risk. PJ usually climbs out the window and storms back into the house. I think he's building the drama. Should be fun later. I feel another glitter bomb is coming. I just wonder from where. 

Caleb bit through the top of my ear last night. I did not feel it until I realized my hair was sticky (with BLOOD you gross fucks). I'm sure next Lochlan will shut him in a box, screw it shut and light it on fire as he sends it out to sea. Monster funeral. Ben cleaned my ear for me because Lochlan's hand was shaking too much. 

Schuyler came out of retirement officially. Says he was never really in it, as people still needed him. He's going to try again in a couple of years once he downsizes his project list. You would think that would have been the first thing he did. These boys are so good at fighting and working and so bad at relaxing. 

I watched Finch. The Tom Hanks movie? It was so good. I thought it was going to be Chappie 2. Luckily it was not. I also watched the Candyman remake. Sequel? Whatever. It was also really good save for the fact that they kept trying to paint the candyman as a misunderstood neighbor one minute and a demon the next. Like which is it? Also levitating in broad daylight is never a good horror trope. It just looks fucking dumb. But other than that the movie was high quality. I am most excited for the next Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which will be a direct sequel to the one that came out when I was two but I saw it when I was nine or ten and it was part of a long succession of now beloved slasher favourites. 

Halloween still tops the list but I also haven't seen Halloween Kills yet. Ruth told me it was bad so I'm waiting a bit just to soften the blow. I will still love it I bet. I'm terrible with that. But my ear doesn't hurt, at least. Duncan has some good painkillers. Or whatever it was. Mixed messages all the time, as always.

Absent Jesus, present Devil.

Coffee, cats and rain alone this morning. It's dark. No one got up early. I might not have slept more than a minute, as I tried tucking in against Ben and couldn't get warm or comfortable enough and so I got up at six. Jesus isn't getting a visit today, it's cold, rainy and miserable and the only thing I'm leaving the house for is a quick visit to Ruth before lunch. The boys staggered in one at a time and the coffee flowed, seemingly from one cup into the next and so on until a river of sweet caffeine opened everyone's eyes wide enough to greet the day. 

Hard to believe this is the downslide into a dozen years here. So much longer than I thought we'd stay. Lunar New Year, Groundhog Day, my booster shot and The Olympics are all up next. I can't breathe, and everything that goes wrong feels like the last straw. The days are growing longer minute by agonizing minute and I know damn well things will be better soon. It just doesn't feel like it today. 

Caleb rubs his thumb across the space between my eyes and smiles gently, as if to reassure. He fails but I let him have it anyway.

Ticket to ride.

Snowblind Friend is playing through the speakers. Lochlan taps one foot against the hard-packed ground while we wait in the blazing sun. He lifts one skinny arm up to shield his face as he squints at me. The hem of his green and white striped t-shirt rises up above his jeans when he does it and I see freckled skin along his hip. If he tucked his t-shirt in like I do it probably wouldn't do that, I think and sweat rolls down my forehead, pressing my bangs to my own freckled skin.

He said he wanted heaven but praying was too slow, so he bought a ticket to an airline made of snowwwwwwww-

What does that even mean? Like he wants to go somewhere to cold, to church?

No, Bridget. I'll tell you when you're older.

Why can't I know today? 

Remember that guy sitting in the doorway a month ago? The one that didn't know where he was? And you said he had flour all over his nose holes? It means that. Doing drugs that are bad. 

Not like from the doctor? 

No, like from the shaman. 

Oh.

(The shaman was someone who lurked around the fringe and supplied people on the tour with their own brand of heaven for their day off. Or maybe for every day, I don't know.)

Stars on 45 comes on, the Beatles medley. My favourite. I shake my butt and Lochlan frowns and shakes his head once. It means stop.  

Why don't you go and get some lemonade and wait for me over by Melody? Melody was the lady on this tour who oversees the food trucks. She's very nice. She told me she killed her husband and hit the road. I asked her how she did it and she told me I was too young to hear those kinds of horror stories but that I would grown up in a world with one less monster. I told Lochlan this and he laughed and said he wouldn't be surprised. 

I want to wait with you though. 

You'll burn. Go. 

I don't argue with him. I take the five dollar bill and go get two lemonades. Melody won't take my money so I stuff it in the tip jar and she winks at me. She'll give it back to Lochlan tonight I bet. Everyone spoils us as we are the youngest people on the tour and what they know is that Lochlan is old enough to be emancipated and he has guardianship of me, that I am his little sister and we're escaping bad, drunk parents. For some reason everyone here is also escaping something so they accept it as gospel and give us free food and easier jobs. They look out for us.

And some of them prey on us, and so Lochlan waits patiently outside the office for the rest of his paycheck, as only half of it was in the envelope when he was handed it earlier at circle meeting. 

He says he always keeps track of his hours and this isn't the kind of advantage he worries about people trying to take. That money problems will always be fixed if you ask people to be straight up with you. 

I shake my butt a little under the awning while I sip my lemonade and hold Lochlan's in my left hand. His ice is melting and I finally see him disappearing into the office. He comes out three minutes later with another envelope and holds it up. Victory. Maybe the boss thought he wouldn't count every last dollar but he always taught me to do that and said it's up to me to see that it's right, no one else and to never assume. 

I hold up his lemonade in return and some of it sloshes down my arm, dripping off my elbow onto my Nikes. He smiles really big and heads over, just as the Beatles medley ends. I don't hear what's next. I get a kiss on the cheek and a showman's flourish in his Thank you, Miss as he takes the cup and drinks it in one go, shaking his hair off his face, grimacing at the sour-sweetness of the drink.

The reluctant storyteller.

I threw a chair off the front porch this morning in a rage-panic. Went down and picked it up and wrestled it back up the steps while Lochlan watched but did not help, even as I scratched the dark green paint on the floor of the porch because the chair is wooden, large and heavy. I scream again as I finally shove it back into place and wonder how I managed to get it over the rail in the first place. 

Feel better? He says, looking out across the drive toward the woods. 

Nope, I admit. 

Want to go for a walk?

Too cold. 

Everything's fine, Bridget. In a while this will be another tale, down the road.

I know he's right but I really hate this feeling. Panic is only marginally better than outright fear and I don't want to feel either one.