(Nothing here is new.)
I'm trying to deep-breath it, trying to find the way back when my mind takes off running down any road that leads to Jake. Trying to separate the man who is here (August) from the man who is not (Jacob) and the extent of what pretending has done for my mental health thus far.
I've been absolved of what they thought was some sort of attempt to drown myself. I just wanted to feel the cold, feel the rain, be near the sea but there's in or out and I screwed up.
And no, Andrew and Christian's little surface love affair (or so they make it out to be) didn't set me off. Something else did. And that's okay. That's going to happen sometimes. I'm going to reel and yaw from things I can't control, things I find, things people say and do. It's how I react that makes the difference.
And I'm a runner.
Flight. I turn and take off. That's the plan. That's been the plan since I was young and it was drilled into my head:
If you get caught, Peanut, break free and run.
If you feel scared, run and find me.
If you need me, run and fetch me.
And then later:
If you feel overwhelmed, running is good to clear your mind.
And on and on. Now there's only so many places to run, and I am housebound and mostly feverish with cabins and claustrophobia and the general weirdness of being packed into the side of this hill with the parking lot out front and the houses peppered across the hills like afterthoughts and most of the time the beach, the ocean is the only release from that but it's not enough here. I can go down when I need to and survey my flat watery kingdom for miles and then I turn and everything catches up with me.
I made August into a clone of Jacob. I put him up on a pedestal and I demanded things of him he shouldn't have had to deal with and yet he keeps me in check. He pushes me away. He leaves in perfectly healthy intervals and it somehow destroys me, dredging up all of the heavy weight I'm always trying to shrug off so I can just keep running.
