It's a chilly, frozen-over morning today, bright light streaming in to warm our reluctant faces. It's a mental-health kind of Monday and everyone is moving slow like molasses on ice. The steps were slick, I am banned from the beach but I head down anyway, gripping the slippery rails like in death if only to prevent my predicted death from doing so, and quickly found myself crunching through the cold sand toward my favourite spot, way at the end where I can't hear you calling my name from the stairs.
I am not alone and I get a chance to introduce Everett to the shore, which is where I think, decompress, heal and draw energy from all at the same time. He wants to know what it means to me, the good and the bad and I am honest, talkative and open-minded, probably a first since he arrived, I am ashamed to say.
But the chip remains and I ask him a few questions too. Like if he is really here to make another stab at getting rid of Caleb, or if Ben is up front about worrying that I talk to ghosts instead of the living when things get too difficult.
Everett wonders if I trust Ben and how that works, as I seemingly trust the Devil far beyond what he ever earned and that doesn't make any sense. But I don't trust anyone when they say the Devil is here to stay and I don't trust anyone when they say the ghosts are fine. Those are two truths and a lie and it doesn't matter which is which anymore.
We go over the lists, written by others, checked off and triple-checked ten times over. Does he think they are valid opinions? Do I? What would I change? What would he amend?
The book of Everett is now open to a single page and we're all on it. Ben is right. He is oddly good at this and I feel like I'm getting to know a friend suddenly. Everett knows when to stop though, which is new. He does not push and instead asks if he can take me out for lunch in the Jeep and we will eat burgers on our laps and listen to the radio. He's going to creep into the locked room quietly through a window in order to pick through the charred remains of my scorch-earth memory. He's going to see everything and he said it's okay if I want to skip parts (for now) or come back to things (for later) and I pointed out that I know, that's how it works and he jokingly said that I should maybe enter the field as I might have more experience than he does and I don't doubt that but I also said that the chip remains. It's just eroded a bit.
Do I want help? Yes. I want the ghosts to show up when I want them to and not when I don't. I want Lochlan to not know jealousy or fear but be perfectly fine with Caleb. I want Caleb not to be randomly, surprisingly scary. I want to be strong but still feel things. I will not be medicated. Crazy-light is just fine. I am high-functioning. I know how to manipulate but save it for important moments. They think I am helpless and little still. I would like that to stop.
They think I am incapable of fixing this. And unwilling. And they are probably right.
Everett disagrees and says I can have whatever I want, that the resources are there and the want is there and the work is manageable and let's just spend a few weeks talking. He manages to eek out another whole hour of conversation before I ever notice what he did, and I taught him to collect sea glass more efficiently than most, what is the most valuable colour, what to throw back and how to clean and display the best pieces in order to fulfill a metaphor for who I am. Broken but beautiful. Rare but also garbage.
I'm just kidding on that last part. Well, maybe but the glass is technically garbage and yet it's so beautiful so what does that make me?