There's a voice inside that keeps himWe lay in bed this morning plotting a secret flight back to Nova Scotia to attend the Big Ex and go see the Trews at the King's Corner pub in my hometown.
On the path of righteousness
You can't break his stride
Or change his mind
'cause he won't second guess
Don't tempt me. I'll go in a heartbeat and I'll be early.
Next time I head home please remind me to do it with that weekend in mind, please.
***
I went for a walk on the beach this morning by myself, the sun blinding me, the heat already creeping up the backs of my legs and underneath my nose and ears the way it does. I went through my Sam-lists in my head in which he taught me to prioritize and neatly order my past, present and future on invisible white note pages I keep filed in my brain, lists he will raid later as his alter-ego, the Memory Thief.
He disagrees greatly with August and Joel at this point. He thinks I'm doing well and that it's not a phase of any kind, that I seem to have found enough comfort to be able to ride out Ben's existential crisis without going down with the ship.
It's probably due to Lochlan, who yells at my unchecked OCD tendencies and drowns my abandonment fears and somehow manages to not be awful at doing either. He makes me sleep. Makes me eat. Makes me stop moving and let things go when I'm clinging to them with everything I have.
I was always better with him. He never exploited my weaknesses nor did he demand that I balance on my strengths. He would just point out the obvious quietly or obnoxiously loudly and we'd get on with our day. It's a rustic kind of unfinished love, rough around the edges but the engine runs good and it's dependable.
Sam said it's the healthiest relationship I have. I don't disagree with him but I find it ironic that it was once the relationship the whole world didn't want us to have thanks to some possessive friends, a significant age gap (at the time, doesn't seem so bad now) and Loch's wanderlust, a trait that turned out to be contagious and incurable.
When I have enough for the thief I leave my head and shut and lock the door on the way out. Sam has a key. I don't need to be there when he arrives. I turn to go back to the house and I see him sitting at the top of the stairs, coffee cup in hand, curls all over now. He says they weren't this prevalent before the last few years. Loch always says the same thing, that I'm tightening his brain so his hair has to fight to grow, taking winding routes and ending up curly on the outside of his head. It made me laugh even though it was technically an insult. I didn't mind. He looks weird without curls so we're even.