Part III: Change not change.

(He put the wheels in place the day he ambushed me after Daniel and Schuyler's wedding. Backup in case something goes wrong with me, Bridget. I'm not known for my reliability, he said and I fought him. I argued and I warned him and I entered into this against my will. I should have realized he was building an escape hatch but I was blind.)

When Ben came home from his program I was so excited but he's different. I tried to wait. I tried to manage him. I tried to just keep living and have patience but he kept widening the gap between us until it became a chasm and I don't think we can build a bridge big enough at this point to reach each other.

Besides, every time I get near the edge trying to see him he yells at me to get back, that he has too many problems to fix so I should just go on ahead.

That this probably won't change and he's sorry. That he knows I tried so hard but he's doing this anyway. That someday if he ever has his shit together maybe things will be different but for now he's not going to tether me to him when he is a sinking ship.

I told him I'll shift allegiance when I'm good and ready and he said I was stubborn and amazing and that he feels bad now that he put me in such a strange position where I could divide my time so readily and without apology. He feels awful for the times he handed me to the devil on a silver platter and commoditized and objectified me.

I defended him but he had none of it and he told me to stop taking orders and go and be where I belong.

Well, that's ironic. Stop doing this, and do this instead. Oh and listen to no one.

Okay...? Wait, what?

He's going to continue to stay at Batman's new place and work for him again/still, ramping up as he feels able/inclined. He's still a part of this family and that's not going to change. He's still a part of me and that's not going to change. I'm doing what he's asking me to do but I refuse to abandon him so no big legal shifts will take place. Like everything else this is a trial, subject to change.

So I guess it's a non-explanation but it's better than nothing. No, we don't know what we're doing. I think they're trading places, forcing Lochlan to grow up, forcing me to be a little more independent (HA) and taking the pressure off Ben just a little longer so he can continue to focus on getting well. I can't argue with any of it, even though I'd like to.

Part II: Goodbye Princess.

(Part I is here. Part III is coming. )

No. You've got most of it. Isn't that enough?

I rocked him. He didn't expect that and the look on his face hurt so much I started to cry. Not sure he was all that far behind me. He put his hands up, thumbs blocking my ears, fingers behind them spread out so I can't look away. He mashed his forehead against mine and asked me what he needed to do.

I gave Lochlan a verbal list while tears dripped off my chin. This is something I've thought about long and hard and have decided to not give an inch ever for the rest of my life.

I told him everything on that list, pretty sure he couldn't pull it off and I'd save myself the heartache of ruining anyone else in this lifetime but he sniffled gruffly, wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve and nodded like he had work to do.

When we went to sleep he didn't let go all night. Not even when I got warm and had a hard time breathing, my nose mashed hard against his chest. When I woke up Friday morning I was still clutched against him and my phone was going off perpetually, the messages from Caleb piling up. Lochlan told me not to go spend the day near the devil but I went anyway. I need to be busier. It helps. It helps because this is Jacob's week and it's been unseated by something I didn't expect right now, though I think it's been inevitable for a while now.

I got on a plane to New York, almost grateful for the larger space I could put between us and I never thought another thing about it. Lochlan isn't good with the follow through, it's not like anything is going to change, ever. We're going to ride this carousel until we die.

When I came back I felt accomplished. I fixed things. I saved the day and I am learning about Caleb and why he throws himself into these things so readily. It's easier than trying to exist in the here and now. Busy is an excuse to disappear and not have to deal with anything except work. It's escapism of a different sort.

I'm such a bleeding heart, I don't think I'd be good at it for long but it was worth the price and isn't it amazing how suddenly all my major players have game plans for the week when the last six years they've let me slide naked down razor blades over and over again during this week until I ran in rivers and blood and surgically-precise patterns of misery.

But when I stepped into the airport lobby, Lochlan was there. Right by the door. In the way, actually, but he wouldn't budge until he saw me. Caleb saw him at the same time and let out an indignant teenage protest (Oh, come on!) when he saw Loch and I wanted to laugh but the surprise had swallowed everything else.

He had my bag already and he gave me a huge hug. We need to talk. He took my hand and turned to greet Caleb. See you at the house. Then he turned and pulled me with him. That's why I forgot my computer. Caleb was carrying both mine and his off the plane.

When we got into Loch's truck he just sat there for a few minutes and then he put out his hand. Close your eyes and take this and tell me what it is. 

I closed my eyes and put out both hands. The moment it touched me I knew what he had given me and my eyes flew open. The brass ring from Coney. The first good luck charm. You asked for it back when I married Cole. I could have used it in my life since then. Can we go home now?

Soon, Peanut.

Next he handed me a crumpled piece of paper. On it was written everything I asked him for. Every single one was there and they all had a line drawn through them, crossing them off as completed.

You got a job! 

Yeah. Computers. It's nothing much. 

Same thing as before?

Mostly. Negotiated a better rate than last time. And benefits. 

He looked sheepish but happy as I went through the whole list. Oh my God. He did this in three days flat.

Turn the page over. There's one I didn't do. It might be a dealbreaker. 

It said Let her keep the nickname.

I can't do that one. You're not their princess, you never were. You're my freak. You got freak blood and freak brains and a freaky sense of everything and I think the princess part was the anomaly here. 

But..every girl wants to be a princess.

Not my girl. My girl's a freak. A little circus peanut. A spark. A million other names but not that one.

I nod. So many years and time is suddenly caving in all around us and soon we're swimming again in a faceless clock, a manmade lake left when the trappings of proper society fell out from under us once more and sent us under the surface.

Conventional? Never.

I can treat you like a princess, I'm just not going to use nicknames that other people had for you, you know? I just can't do it. I was here first and I'm going to be here last and I have my own ways, okay? Tell me this is okay because you're so quiet it's really freaking me out and I don't know if I've gone to far or you have no intentions of being with me I just know when you got on that plane I decided it was going to be the last time forever that you leave me behind for someone else. The last time. I hope it was a good trip because there won't be any more and oh Jesus, Peanut, please say something before I burst into flames. 

(I think that was what he said. His accent fires up strong when he gets going and boy, was he going right then.)

No more princess?

Fuck no. Jake's gone, Bridge. Let's leave his habits with him and start over. You need to start over with me. I got it all wrong and if I got one more shot I'm going to do it right. 

What's right? 

Whatever works for you and me, Peanut. And he winked as I caught my breath. The last time he said that we were arguing over what to do to make more money than we were making with him busking and both of us on sideshow. It wasn't enough and I said what are we going to do?

We'll do whatever works for you and me, Peanut, he said and his pragmatism gave me comfort. He even had flying by the seat of his pants figured out. Figuratively AND literally and almost thirty-five years have gone by since I imprinted on him and refused to let go, even as I had my heart broken five times over in the meantime. Slow to learn, I said but you never believed me.

So now what do we do? I asked him as he started the truck and pulled out of the parking lot. He smiled and kissed my hand.

I really have no fucking idea, Bridget. I guess we try and pick up where we left off. 

Maybe we should start over. Start fresh. 

No, I kind of like the idea of people asking how long we've been together and being able to say thirty-five years without blinking an eye. That'll roll heads. 

But it's not true. 

Yes, it is and you know it just as well as I do. 

Then all of this was for nothing. We never broke up so we can't get back together. 

Fine. Give me that ring back. I can sell it for nostalgic purposes. 

I'm going to sell you for nostalgic purposes. 

You won't get much for me, though with the new job I am worth a little more than I was a week ago. 

But we didn't get very far. Fifty yards down the road the weight of our decisions overtook him and he pulled over and turned off the truck and just wept.

Back.

(Every post is not a declaration of intent so stop doing that thing where you freak at me.)

Friday's incredibly obvious attempt to lure me away from Lochlan turned into a bonafide crisis before mid-afternoon and before dinner we were on a goddamn plane to New York. Long story. To simplify he merged some stuff and people got spooked.

What Caleb thought was a concern turned into an almost-defection but by the time our late dinner was over I had his biggest investors eating out of the palm of my hand.

Well, not literally. But once that fire was out shit got weird.

On the morning of day two I wound up being painted with the same brush as a row of 'companions' to Caleb's investors, dismissed as nothing more than a sugar baby. While it's fine for me to paint myself with that brush, it isn't fine for anyone else to speak to the head of their company that way.

Besides, all of the so-called ladies were breast-implanted, bleached and sucked dry. None of them had a single opinion that didn't swing like a loose shutter off their 'daddy' and I took one look at Caleb and he rolled his eyes and said fine, take off. Then he had the grace to stand and announce that the director of the company (me) had another engagement but we all thank her for her time and for coming on short notice.

I'm pretty sure I would have tripped over their duck-face injected pouts and jaws on the fucking floor had I moved any faster walking out of that room but I knew what I wanted to spend the rest of the day doing, because I've done it a few times before.

(You're thinking Coney Island! Which is a great guess but no, sadly. It would have taken me almost an hour to get there from Midtown in traffic and I didn't have that kind of time.)

I called Ben and he called ahead to his old stomping grounds and so they were waiting for me when I got to the studio in a taxi. I was given headphones and a cord and I entered the dark soundproof room, stretched out on my back on the carpeted floor and turned the music up all the way. A voice cut in at the beginning asking me if I wanted a wake-up call.

Sure. Four forty-five? 

No worries. Enjoy your time, Bridget. 

Then the music swelled back up and I closed my eyes. Never will you hear music more pure than right where I was, no hearing aids or ear pressed against a speaker required. I know what ninety minutes of studio time costs and I knew I could cover it so it was better than staying where I was and worth it by far.

By far.

But I will say one thing. The breakneck pace and change in scenery and obligations actually did wonders after a very long week and kept me from focusing too hard on Jake or on Loch or on anything other than growth and capital and projections and all the other stupid things Caleb has taught me over the years that are important if you want to make money, important if you have an eye toward the future in the way that he always does. Maybe his expertise extends past financial concerns and into a painful attempt to continue to do what is best for me even when I fight him on that only to later find out he was right all along.

I went over this afternoon to fetch my laptop and he had a cheque waiting for me.

A job well done, Princess. We make a good team.

I took the cheque. It's more than I expected by half. Hey! Now I have enough to get implants! Yessssss!

Bridget-

I'M KIDDING.

(Part II tomorrow! Finally!)

This is not part two because I'm at work. *rolls eyes*

Little offhand life rules from a seventeen-year-old boy have annoyingly stuck in my brain, against his very best wishes now that he has grown up and knows better.

Never turn down a show, Peanut. The money will always come in handy.

So of course the Devil had an 'emergency' today and he kept adding to my executive assistant rate until I said I'd be there by eight. He said seven thirty and I said I was still in my pajamas.

That's fine, he said. Then he added another zero if I took them off and didn't replace them with actual clothes.

Fuck off, Diab. 

I'll make it up to you with some KFC for lunch. 

I'll take two more zeroes instead. 

Does that word have that second e?

I don't know. It's seven in the morning, Caleb. Look it up. 

You can do it when you get here. And don't eat. I'll make cheese toast and coffee. Oh and tell Pyro to have a nice day for me, would you? 

I'll bring him with me. He can help me work. 

Bring him and I take four zereos away. 

Are those like Oreos but for losers?

I don't know. Ask Pyro. 

Part I: A pre-dawn show.

The world was on fire and no one could save me but you.

I held the lighter up high over the bed in my left hand and spun it until it flickered with a steady burn and hiss, blinding me from the dark.

Happy forty-three, Preacher.

I said it quietly and I felt the cool trail of tears sliding down my face into my ears from my eyes. Flat on my back I kept the lighter wavering tall above me. Lochlan took it out of my hand and pulled me up.

Get dressed.

Sure. Not like I'm sleeping. I look at the clock and it's 3:42 in the morning. Everything is quiet. He pulls on his yesterday-clothes and I do the same and he takes my hand. Let's go.

When we get outside to the backyard he drops my hand and heads down to the patio, dragging an Adirondack chair out, away from the others. He then motions for me to take a seat in it so I do. He says to wait there and I do as he disappears.

There's the ocean and the sky and a place Jake won't ever see because he never made it to his birthday and is forever locked at thirty-six even though my mind tries to future-age him every chance it gets. It tries to keep him in the picture. It tries to never let him go.

The rain is coming steadily now and I wonder if I've been banished from my own bed for my perpetual insolence and reverse-loyalty. But then Lochlan is back with his fire.

His precious fire.

In between eating the fire and doing tricks for me, he tells a story. Sometimes the fire is in the story, and sometimes it's a distraction from the story. Sometimes I am astounded and afraid for him and sometimes I feel proud that he works hard to keep such a singular set of skills so fresh.

But more than that the story is one I have heard before, but never told quite like this. It's about a princess and an angel that comes down from heaven to help her but only briefly because he must go back. She doesn't listen. She thinks it's forever and then can't understand where he went so she spends the rest of her life looking for him until a helpful court jester in the kingdom tells her kindly that he isn't coming back. When she cries he distracts her with a poem and some magic and then invites her to a dance. She accepts, surprised she didn't really see him before even though he has been there all along. She remembers him from long ago and she remembers her fondness for him too.

They lived happily ever after in Lochlan's story as the rain weighed down his flames and threatened to rob him of heat and light, as it crushed his curls to his head and flooded my heart and made the ocean and the house invisible as he shouted out the lines as he wrote them in his head.

And I listened as hard as I could.

When he was finished he put down his tools, taking a few minutes to clean up the gear and then he came over to my chair. He took my hands and pulled me to my feet, kissing the top of my head, now with plastered-down hair as well, leading me back inside, up the steps in the dark and we stripped off our wet clothes and got back into bed, the smell of white gas permeating everything, where he said he's only got one thing left that he needs to steal in his life and if I'd help him with it then we could have our Happily Ever After without further delay.

He pointed to my heart. He pushed right through flesh and bone and emotional trip wire and psychological electric fence and he said he would take it. He said maybe he has already. He looked for confirmation, hints or maybe just promises dissolved by rain. And then he waited for my response.

(Oh God. I HATE cliffhangers too. I'm sorry but it has to be done.)

Year Six.

There are few more impressive sights in the world than a Scotsman on the make.  ~J. M. Barrie

Two thousand, one hundred and ninety days in and things are evolving again. I would say maybe I'm slow to notice or plodding in my acceptance or so stubborn if you stood in front of a midnight blue sky in proof I would face you with clenched fists and an angry red face and insist that you're wrong, it's inky black.

Because that's how it's supposed to be in my head but every now and again the outside world proves me wrong and I need to step out of my brain and take note.

Lochlan has settled back into his alpha role in my heart, I think. He runs a tight ship, but he's unconventional too and he's somehow able to come up with his share without fretting, he just digs in. I know he worries but not outwardly so, the way I do. Ask me How are you? and I tip forward and drown you in emotional tea, without a lid or an acknowledgement when you say enough. I will pour until I'm empty and then turn around and do it again. He takes it. He's fashioned a snorkel in order to breathe, drawing in air from that navy-blue atmosphere and keeping us alive when some days I'm so determined to follow Jacob over that edge you would still be so surprised and most likely disappointed in me.

But I didn't and I won't and I keep writing to try and figure it all out and sometimes it's fun, sometimes it's comforting, sometimes it's maddening too and sometimes it's downright surprising.

And sometimes I wake up feeling numb and slightly removed and uncaring and that's usually the day after I've lost my mind and someone, and I think I know who, doles out one magical tablet but doesn't tell me, just stirs it into the juice he offers without actually seeming like he's monitoring me so closely and I drink it because I'm always thirsty and then I realize what he's done and I'm grateful. Grateful for the escape from a day that isn't ever easier to manage, not even six years later.

I know there are supposed to be timelines on grief and shock and improvements and fading of memories and moving on and I'm here to tell you that all of that is purely guesswork and BULLSHIT and it's a-okay if you're still in that moment that changed you forever because you're you and you do what you need to do, not what some expert tells you to do, chosen as an appropriate answer based on an average taken from people who are not you.

It's okay and I'll back you up on that forever. I didn't think I would still be able to generate as much complete and total hysteria as I did yesterday but PJ said he could have bottled it and run the whole point for years on the energy I put out for ghosts.

It very inappropriately made me laugh. That's okay too.

***

When I went out to the rock wall, Jake was there but he was so faded I could hardly see him. Maybe it was the weather or maybe he's eroding from my brain with time just like they said he would. He is disappointed that I have turned him into the holy trinity especially seeing as how he is was a Unitarian minister and sad that I am so miserable but also heartened that we have not self-destructed in his absence. What absence? I ask him and he laughs and shakes his head. Aw, Pig-a-let, you're so willful. I'm not sure I'm worth that energy you expend on me. 

You are. 

What would they say? He nods toward the houses, gesturing like he's in front of an imaginary pulpit. There's a reason you have to move on, if you don't you get stuck forever. 

So what?

So, you didn't die, I did and you need to live. 

Fuck right off, Jacob Thomas. 

Mad is better than sad, Princess, but neither is better than glad. I return to my clenched fists and red face because I'm about to get into it with a ghost. I hated that saying. It made me feel immature and ungrateful. Which is exactly his point and so he grins faintly. I have to go. I'm not supposed to be here anymore, Pig-a-let, remember? I'm the anchor wrapped around your ankle and if you don't free yourself you're going to drown. 

You're speaking my language now aren't you?

Yes, can you hear me?

Loud and clear, Pooh. 

Go find your Peter Pan and plot the future. It's time to pick up that other fairy tale where you left off. The fucker.

It's not a fairy tale. It's more like a reject paperback from a sale table that no one wants to buy. Pulp fiction. Everyone picks it up but no one has ever finished it.

Bridget. (Oh there's the stern, serious face I loved so much. His eyes are narrowed, mouth turned down and set tightly, just waiting. He looks just like the Sundance Kid.)

I know. Anchor. Fairies. Books. Live. Future. I squint my eyes to focus but he fades completely. Before I turn to walk up to the house I know that if Lochlan is standing just at the edge of the patio, hands in his pockets, flicking the dry empty lighter over and over and over again that my future will be less obscure than I feel like it is sometimes.

I turn and he grins at me in relief because sometimes I think he thinks I'm still going to bolt when I walk all the way down to the end of the wall and stand there talking to the flowers that persist in growing out from between the rocks, appearing to be as crazy as I feel most days. I start the long walk across the wet grass to get back to him and I get the feeling that between now and Year Seven I probably won't see Jake at all. He's beginning to repeat himself, looking for different ways to get through to me. He's beginning to find his end.

That would be something. If I don't get to pick when grief ends but he does instead.

It’s a fragile thing, this life we lead
If I think too much I can get overwhelmed
by the grace by which we live our lives
with death over our shoulders

Want you to know
That should I go
I always loved you
Held you high above, too
I studied your face
And the fear goes away
The fear goes away
The fear goes away

This might be a placeholder for a post or it might just be part of a cool Pearl Jam song. Who knows? Let's see what the afternoon brings. I have issues and can't post more than this. Only some of my issues are technical though, I'm pretty certain the rest are mental.

Jake frost.

Winter arrived this morning without herald, and we scraped off all the trucks and the Cayman too. The 370z was temporary, like all good things and Caleb is having fun driving ridiculous two-seater coupes up and down the mountain highways without a care in the world. When I grow up I'd like to worry about as much as he seems to. Thanks to me the other trucks are already outfitted with better tires for winter and each one has a kit with safety gear, food, water and first aid supplies plus we have roadside assistance cards for each driver because shit happens and only the devil could melt his way out of a bad situation, I guess.

Which seems fitting.

(The boys don't need roadside assistance, but I do because sometimes I get to go out alone! They would call each other in a time of need, not CAA. I would just cry and call CAA because I want to be independent, dammit.)

I spent the day trying to breathe (still 30% sick I am), trying not to cry at the sweetness of Ben and some of the others with regards to babying me with how difficult it is for me to breathe when it's cold. I spent the day trying not to scratch as I bought what's supposed to be the most fantastic lotion on the planet for my eczema, dry skin and itchies and guess what? It gave me a rash all over.

I spent the day switching health care plans and wishing someone would take me to KFC for one of those Doritos tacos because DAMN those are so good but no one did and so I made myself toast for lunch and I organized a lot of things toward Christmas and I shivered and scratched and bit my tongue and took the hugs whenever they were offered and I helped Henry with his homework and I looked at the calendar, dreading the next seventy-two hours and I helped Lochlan work on a drawing like we used to when I was young and he was professional and logical about it and not the least bit comforting, saying things like, you'll get through it. I'll be here. and you really need to go back to the doctor, I think you're allergic to damn near everything and then he threw in stupid things like You should eat better (from the man who raised me mostly on corn dogs and french fries and candy apples with cotton candy for dessert and why do I still have teeth?) and It'll be a cold day before Ben comes back here and I looked up abruptly because it is a cold day and Ben is back here. Well, sort of back here. Close enough but not even close enough.

Or maybe Lochlan already forgot because he's comfortable or he wants to reiterate that Ben snoozed and lost and it's all recent history and Jake still doesn't deserve the extent to which this week destroys me and I want to describe to Lochlan just how yes, Jake does deserve it. How he was firm and not the least bit waffle-y and how he stuck to his guns and he refused to parent me but he never trusted me either and how he was a safety net in and of himself right up until the moment that he wasn't.

And I was not a safety net for him but a gaping hole of a life with a danger sign flashing but he jumped anyway.

I can find trouble before trouble finds me.

In the beginning it was the Ferris wheel. I thought we would stand underneath it, in t-shirts and jeans. I would have a borrowed veil and a bouquet of daisies picked from the parking lot and I would still be in the employee group that had chaperones and curfews, but it would be dusk and a minister would read important, solemn words to us. We would nod, the available carnies who witnessed would loiter and smoke cigarettes and tear up sightly. Then we would repeat the words and share a kiss and then climb into a bucket and go for a spin just as the lights came on for the evening. At the top when the wheel stops we would have a longer kiss and then Lochlan would hold my hand for the rest of his life when I fall asleep and when I'm awake too. I would do what he tells me and be the best wife ever, making him pies in the camper by the sea while he sang love songs in so many languages I stopped trying to keep up with him when I turned ten.

It changed briefly in Atlantic City when I had this rocketing vision of us exchanging hurried vows behind the circus tent that weren't touching or legal but functioned as a permanent escape from the paths we'd chosen by mistake, in haste. It would be witnessed by the dwarves and the strongman and the snake charmer and the fortune teller too (though she never liked me either, none of them ever liked me and I never found out why) and then we would come home and somehow find a way to make it legal. I'd wear my satin assistant costume and Loch would wear his top hat and tails or maybe his skintight black fire-breather tank or his athletic gear from the ropes, depending on where in the day it was, and I wouldn't have a bouquet but I have tattooed wildflowers so good enough and a ring would be from a client's cigar from a private show and we would go dancing in the empty bar down the street to the same eighties jukebox selection we've always danced to. Maybe we'd spend a day's pay on a dinner at the steakhouse first. Maybe I would change my name. Maybe we'd get better billing and could quit with the fucking freakshow if we rebranded as a team inside the tent. Maybe someone will take us seriously now, because we're salt and pepper, yin and yang, thunder and lightning.

It shifted once more two years ago when they took a collective chance the morning after Daniel and Schuyler tied the knot so tight it happily chokes them into submission. Suddenly the moment has been orchestrated for me and I have no choices at all. The dress, packed without my knowing is a simple form fitting lace shift. Palest pink to be almost white, sleeveless and square-necked and freezing cold standing on a beach on a foggy October morning with the seagulls wailing quietly and the waves lapping against the rocks. The hemlocks close in around me and I look for the garish decorations, the lights, the noise that makes me feel at home but there isn't any of that, everything is slate, muted and refined. So far beyond what I am that I feel out of place and costumed. Sam stands just in front of the water. The tide is going out. He holds Jacob's bible in one hand and smooths his curls down around his ears with his other hand. His tie knot is backwards. He's barely got a hold on his composure. I watch their faces and I try and focus on the sound of the water and I try to pay attention. I try to be present for this because this is important but also because I feel like I am marking the beginning of the end of something else. I just don't know what yet. I don't even know if it's good or bad. I don't know what it feels like to want something and get it but not on my own terms. I want to run this show and I'm not qualified to do so.

But neither are they.

Fluttering hands.

In the middle
Under a cold black sky

Halloween was very low key this year, so much so that we almost missed it in a sugary coma. I lost the toss and wound up giving out candy. We left the gates open and lit up the point like fireworks and all of the children seemed to think big house=big treat but no, small handfuls of treats were given out, as per always. Some kids were so cute! SO cute. Some were shy. One very bold Ninja Turtle turned the knob and walked into the foyer unannounced and alone, leaving his surprised parents down on the front walk.

He's lucky he was cute. And he said Thank you.

Eventually I moved out to the front yard to spare the kids in their awkward costumes the walk up two flights of steps. Caleb was across the driveway, sitting on his steps with a bowl of candy beside him. He was dressed as Doctor Strange and I laughed out loud when I saw that because other than the usual nonsense around here that we indulge in every day (top hats and fairy wings, mostly) no one had planned to formally dress up this year. Even Ruth and Henry had to be convinced to go out. Henry's still under the weather too, and Ruth went to a friend's house. So a costume was a surprise to see.

We pooled our candy, sharing the duty until the steady stream of Trick or Treaters slowed to a non-existent trickle and then Caleb invited me in for an Irish coffee.

I took the offer. I figured we were being civilized. I figured I would drink it and come home before Lochlan noticed I was gone and I'd be able to fall asleep easily instead of spending my nights wide awake and haunted and I completely forgot it was Halloween and that means, like on most holidays, that Caleb starts out great and spirals into ruthless evil the moment I blink.

He never disappoints, glancing a solid kiss off my forehead before speaking softly into my ear.

Should I call Ben to join us?

Ben and I are taking a short break while he focuses on recovery. You know this because you pretty much singlehandedly engineered it. So I don't think that would be good idea. But you can call Lochlan. I bet he'd like a drink. 

Caleb's face changes to confusion.

Oh, you meant something else, did you? I play dumb. It's not hard. 

I'm not calling Pyro. 

No, that wouldn't work, would it. You know something? I think I'd like a raincheck. 

For tomorrow?

For never. 

What are you doing, Bridget? Are you shutting me out? 

He comes over and looks down into my eyes, waiting for whatever it is I have no idea, I don't know what to say. Yes? Yes would make sense but what if I need him? What about Henry? What about everything we've done? What about my unspeakable future, shrouded in a swirling circuit of snow under glass? No? No makes sense until I change my mind. But this is not a competition. It never was. As amazing as Caleb is, he was always too old, too composed, too perfect, too serious. And now here we are standing in his kitchen and he's in a superhero costume and he's trying to dip the earth in solid gold if that's what I want and all I can think of is my very own Ferris Wheel. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He could buy me one. He could buy me a hundred.

(Stopreadingmymind.)

Stop making it so easy.

The shock of his answer propelled me off the edge of the counter and I pushed into him so he would move and I went to the door.

If that's all it would take, consider it done, Princess. 

You know what it would take. A ride isn't part of the request. 

I wonder if Loch knows he will always come in second to Jake. 

He doesn't come in second. I just want to say goodbye properly. 

That isn't true, Bridget. I thought he taught you not to lie. 

Who?

Lochlan. 

On the contrary. He taught me how to be convincing so we...so I would never get caught.

I think that means I just caught you. 

That's only wishful thinking. Goodnight, Doctor Strange. 

I was almost home free until he called from the top of the steps. I'll hold on to that raincheck for you, Princess, you never know when you're going to want to cash it in.