I can't believe I let myself break downEvery morning now at four I get up, turn on the fireplace and bring my phone and headphones back to the middle of the big bed. I burrow back down between the sleepers and put on music. Mostly I just play Run Free/Moving On/The Road on repeat until I fall asleep again and then when Loch's alarm goes off at six he will quietly lament the need to tether me to him so I'm not wandering around in the dark. It was so easy once with a tiny fifty-six-square-foot space. Not so easy now. Fifty-six hundred feet and then some.
He'll wrap his hand around the back of my head and pull me back in. So warm. Perfect. He'll promise me we'll get new headphones because these ones are broken from waking up lying on them and after snoozing for twenty minutes or so he'll leave me here and go get ready for the day.
I put the headphones back in and press my forehead against Ben's arm until he shifts and spoons with me. He says turn it down and I ignore the request because I can pretend I'm asleep and he doesn't know what a lifetime of sleeping with music on has done to soothe my brain and how much I missed it recently.
He is back to full sleep in seconds anyway. I press repeat another fifty times until my batteries run out and then I get up too.