The Anyway Clause

While You Sleep

Scott

This is how the world breaks you; by making you believe that you are feeble enough to be broken and not recover. You're the one that has to believe it because you break yourself; the world can't do it. We have power within us that can only be strengthened or diminished by the turmoil we survive or allow to break us. I learned that from Ghost. He told me that a while back when I was at a point in life where I wasn't convinced of my own desire to live. I behaved recklessly because I lost hope. I don't know why I believed him but I did. He looked me in my eyes like he was examining my soul and he spoke like a haggard old man that survived a lifetime of pain and suffering. He said war made an old man of his soul but he didn't regret it because it gave him the things he needed to help others survive the storm. I was never sure if he was talking about the war overseas he fought while bearing the American flag or when he came home. Something about the Lucias that I was never able to fully comprehend was the way that, when they spoke, I not only listened to them, but I believed them. Only other people who'd always captured my attention like that were Eva and Jane; they all looked at me and spoke with that same old soul conviction.

I had to keep reminding myself of that conversation every time I woke up and realized I wasn't in my old home. Every single time my new reality set in I had to remind myself that it wouldn't break me if I didn't give it permission. I wished it was easy to just let it go but it wasn't. Parents aren't supposed to throw their kids away. I guess technically I threw Sam away this time but really I just took myself out of contention; I wasn't allowing him the chance to toss me to the side again. I learned my lesson from the last time. So, I left and spent every single day trying to be stronger than the breaking that was occurring inside of me. I needed to be stronger than it because the alternative was out of the question. And in my quest to prove to myself I was stronger I agreed to dinner with him and Lauren. She and I kept in touch on my terms. I'd call her from random numbers and we would talk. I never told her where I was but she always insisted on telling me how Sam was doing. He was healthy but sad. He missed his son. He was forlorn. She was crafty and snuck those bits of information into our conversation. She would litter them amongst talk about the weather and motorcycles. I never saw them coming. I wanted to admit I felt the same but I never did. I didn't want to have that conversation. But when she invited me to dinner I accepted because deep down I think I was just waiting for a reason to see him. I was used to seeing him every day no matter his schedule and it had been twenty-two days since I left. Roughly 537 hours had passed since I'd seen him. But that wasn't what made it hurt so bad.

It hurt because I had Eva's words in my head. She knew what I went through with Bridget's drinking much better than I did because she was there for it. And so, when she fell down a similar rabbit hole after Tommy senior's death, she felt an extra load of guilt. Somewhere in the middle of her apologizing to me for her drinking she decided to shed some light on why I should consider being a little more forgiving towards Bridget. I'd long since tossed the notion to the side but Eva was always far more compassionate than me.

"She was never bad, just lost. Sometimes it gets so dark and scary you just close your eyes and just keep swinging. Because you have to swing to survive. But the people closest to us get hit; collateral damage. And then the guilt creates demons you can't seem to escape. I hope you never have those demons," she said as I found myself getting lost in the sadness in her eyes.

"That's not how it feels," I replied quietly.

We were sitting on the swings in the backyard. I began to fidget and started swinging again but she reached out and stopped me, pulling me closer to her by the chain on my swing. When we were practically nose to nose she kissed my forehead.

"It never does. When you don't know how to talk or what to say you say nothing. Silence speaks but, in times like these, it often says the wrong things," she tried to explain.