Tuesday 21 September 2010

You insult me in my home, you're forgiven this time
Things go well, your eyes dilate, you shake, and I'm high
Look in my eyes deep and watch the clouds change with time
Twenty hours won't print my picture milk-carton size
Oblivion was an impossible brass ring, hooked on the other side of the track to provide the faith in remaining on the carousel. I reached for it over and over again and came up short. Maybe I need a stretching machine. Or a second piece of cake, or perhaps a little more wine. The wine was taken away when I wasted it, however, letting the sticky dry liquid seep down between the keys of Caleb's beloved Macbook Pro. An uncharacteristic display of property damage. Gee, sort of like the damage Caleb does to me.

Are we even? Not on your life. And certainly not on mine.

I think I will have a second piece of cake. Ben usually declines his because the only sweet thing he likes is me. And I am still sweet in spite of the efforts of the devil to turn me into poison.

Up against the glass until the noise took over and that was as far as I could reach toward that ring. I had help. He braced my wrists together high above my head to the point where in my pain I was sadly grateful I might finally be tall now. He pulled all of my hairpins out from my carefully constructed low knot (barely held together now since my hair was cut) and let them fall to the floor. He turned the music up so loud I wondered if my ears would bleed and I paid for my insolence and my spilled wine and my inability to fulfill the loyalty he thinks he deserves. I paid for his obsession like I always do. The fuel for his fire, I am poison already and I tarnish the brass rings I do get, a caustic, gentle vengeance all my own.

Love me like you love him.

I am confused. Standing there pressed between the devil and the ice-cold plate glass I am struck by a sudden fit of giggles and tears. Pinned, shaking. The purgatory between laughing and crying. It was such a convicted whisper, one of those deep, guttural ones conveying nothing but pure want and I've reacted poorly.

He drops my hands and wraps his hand around my neck, squeezing it until the air is gone. My head hits the glass and the answer is in the stars now circulating behind my eyes.

Say his name, Bridget.

Cole.

Tighter now and the edges of my world are framed in black and all the lights in the sky through the window across the room are swimming into a bokeh fold. I chose wrong. If I make that mistake again I'm dead. Oh, look, a fifty-fifty split. Just what I always wanted.

Try again, princess.

(Cole. Of course. Jesus, Bridget, you can't even keep them straight anymore. Forgive me but Caleb is no longer jealous of Cole now is he? So with that reasoning it can't be Jacob either. So does he mean Lochlan or Ben? Shouldn't they be interchangeable? Wait a minute. Would they be interchangeable?)

Caleb presses his forehead against the glass beside me. Breathing heavily and I don't understand this at all. I just know I need air. I throw my caution out the window and it joins the grudge I have carried here, perched on the ledge together now, swinging their bare toes while I die on the other side of this shatterproof glass.

Loch.

I can't even get out his full name. Air comes rushing down my throat and fills my lungs and I'm sure Caleb is wrong but he looks almost relieved. The right answer, the obstacle for everyone. The constant that stands like a pillar blocking the smooth passage of time between the past, present and future. It occurs to me that the devil who can read my mind has no idea of the true direction of my heart and for once I have a secret from him instead of so many secrets with him, wrapped and tied with shiny cheap red foil ribbon in twisted bows, loops bent and dented from being crushed together in his hands. Holding my fate over me in the forms of my children. Making me do this. Making me be this.

What a monster. This is what I have become. All because I did something so incredibly selfish in leaving Cole to save my life, taking his instead. And now I am forced to my knees before ones who have been selfish their entire lives. HE CUT MY HAIR. I'm still angry about that. I'm angry about being here at all. This tears Ben apart. I'm shutting down and I want to go home. I want to see Ben, I want to be safe in a place where there are no wrong answers and he loves me because I am there and because I am awesome, in his eyes. Not because I owe him and not because he saw me a hundred years ago and decided he would deify himself to have what he wanted.

So everyone wins?

It doesn't work like that.

Caleb kisses me. Hard. My head is wedged against the glass and my precious breath is his again. My lips sting and my lungs ache for air and I can feel every last drop of what Caleb feels now. His arms block me from moving and then one hand drops and it takes my wrist, takes my pulse, feels my life. It is the single most frightening moment of my life because it's an emotional mirror to the way I felt when Jacob left and I wanted nothing but him back. I wanted him back so badly I sold my soul five times over even though it hasn't been mine to offer for a very long time. Awake for five days straight. But my soul is here with this man. All of this is his fault. He is responsible. He is to blame. I lay the blame upon him like a blanket. It is burning but he'll never notice.

Use what you have. Cole's voice. I duck out from under Caleb's arms and I take the long way around, grabbing my handbag and then the doorknob and I am almost on the floor, wobbling quickly in my little shoes, holding the handle to stay on my feet and then I am gone, pulling my dress down.

He is screaming my name but I don't really care. Fuck you too, monster man.
Now the body of one soul I adore wants to die
You have always told me you'd not live past twenty-five
I say stay long enough to repay all who cause strife
When I get outside I hail a taxi and throw myself into it, blubbering my address to the driver, who asks me something I can't catch because he is facing the wrong way and I just say that I'm fine and ask him to drive quickly, guessing at the question based on my demeanor and I repeat my address to make sure I got it right. Only then do I open my hands and see that I am holding the ring. It's not brass. It's platinum and Ben gave it to me the day we got married.