It was warm, but not the kind of sultry warmth that one dreams of when they're shivering inside a wool coat in winter. It was a balmy, sweaty heat that stuck to your skin. Sam was growing moodier the longer she took to pack up her last boxes and carry them from the railed porch to her car. The sun on her skin was beginning to summon sweat along her brow. The stairs creaked under her weight as she made her final descent and strode across the dry yard, her sneakers crunching through the grass.
Sam was a fresh high school graduate, determined not to let her university experience be the same as school had been.
High school had not been a forgiving or charitable time for Sam and so, when she finally packed all of her poetry books, novels and plays into the flimsy cardboard box to be shoved into her old Volkswagen, she had decided that the only thing different between university and high school would be her attitude. The car was loaded up past all of the windows except the windscreen and smelled of potting soil from her indoor plants which had undoubtedly become unpotted in the packing process. Sam wasn't about to unpack all of her work to find them. She lazily pushed against the car door with her hip to be sure it was properly closed and looked up at her childhood home. The typical white washed beach-side cottage that every kid thinks is the perfect gig... until seagulls move into your chimney and salt air peels all your paint off the shingles. Sam rolled her eyes and tried to sigh the sentimentality out of her anxious body. She had loved growing up with the ocean a few feet away, and had delighted in her sleepy neighbours and the small town that had nurtured a love of reading and hiking and soft jazz...
But she was so sure that the change of scenery would open her up to more, that she wanted desperately not to miss her small town. Her parents had already said their goodbyes and were off at her brother's hockey match; so there were no teary, whining partings and cloying demands to read her bible. Sam's family, the Haddingers', were a fiercely religious collective with strict doctrine... which is what Sam's psychologist suggested drove her to extreme anxiety and a borderline eating disorder. They would be missed, but only in theory. The tall young girl eventually plucked the courage to straighten up, wave her old house goodbye and climb in her car. She sat down heavily behind the wheel and clipped herself in. "Okay, this is... Okay. We're going to be fine." she looked at herself in the rear-view mirror and smiled forcibly. She looked away grumpily, not even fooling herself.
About a half hour into the trip, the sounds of a soft, lilting saxophone drifted up from inside Sam's handbag, which had been tossed on the floor of the passenger side. She reached blindly for the suede bag without moving her left hand from the steering wheel and answered the ringing without looking at who it was. "Hey there care bear! " buzzed the voice across the line. Sam bit her lip and frowned, desperately wishing that she hadn't answered. "Uh... hi there Devon."
It took about twenty minutes, but eventually Sam and Devon fell into the routine that she was accustomed to, whereby Devon absorbed her anxieties by becoming a living version of her journal. She began to talk without even thinking about what she was saying, forgetting that he was on the other line at times. He never interrupted, and NEVER remembered what she had said afterwards. So Sam suspected that he was as focused on her as she was in him, during these times. She found it therapeutic and felt that it was one of Devon's most useful attributes of his limited uses to her.
She began to monologue about becoming more present in her body and attempting to live outside of herself in the new world of university. She heard a slight murmur of "Whaaaa'?" from Devon and so switched to a more superficial, applicable mode of explanation. "I'll... wear make up every day and tie up my hair..." she jabbered, the cell phone between her cheek and denim-covered shoulder. "I don't know, Samantha, I don't like the sound of that." he drawled, clearly displeased that she was cleaning up her act. Sam gritted her teeth upon hearing her full name and nearly hung up but frightened herself at the thought of the back-lash that action might have. She didn't feel that she identified with her given name at all, and Devon insisted on using it whenever he was displeased with her. One of the other things Sam was happy not to have to fake missing was Devon. While on the phone with him, she could get away with pulling faces at his idiotically transparent comments or simply not listening to him at all. Sam was waiting for the right moment during her first semester to split with him... seeing as she hadn't had the courage over the break. "Listen Devon, I just want to fit in... you wouldn't understand. It's not about what I like or what I want, it's about potential. True potential lies beyond what you know about yourself. True self is so separate from who I am now that I guarantee I haven't even caught a glimpse of it."
"Are you saying that you don't know who you are? Who you are is lovely. I love the you that you are."
"Well, your opinions aren't the be-all and end-all Dev." she snapped, growling as the traffic light ahead of her turned red. He was dumb struck at first and then began to disjointedly state his case, his voice pitching as he grew more aggravated. Sam dismissed his offence fairly quickly and hung up as soon as she was able without further upsetting him. She threw her slim silver phone onto the vinyl seat next to her and turned her radio up. She had been driving for some time now and desperately needed a reprieve, music would do just fine.
As she allowed herself to relax and listen, she pondered her discontent with Devon and how it was that she came to be in a relationship with him. The HOW was fairly simple and she was unperturbed by the mechanics... it was the sustainability and the lying to herself that she was unhappy about. When it came down to it, Sam didn't even like Devon. They had met at a mutual friend's 21st birthday and had unfortunately been intoxicated enough to have a short and disappointing stint in the upstairs bathroom which ended with Devon's first orgasm and Sam realising her first huge, honest-to-god fuck up. When she thought about it afterwards she couldn't recall what had inspired her to even venture so far as to show him any interest to begin with, but not much can be said for the soundness of the intoxicated mind. Nevertheless, she had made the mistake. As soon as he had finished she slipped away from the large, muscular man while he panted against the shower door and quickly picked up her clothes. Once she was dressed she turned back around to see Devon, dark hair and thick beard not all that unappealing, still slumped halfway up in the shower. She rolled her eyes internally and brought her fingers together in front of her nervously. He wasn't looking at her. "So, I'm going... downstairs."
This soft statement seemed to revitalise him and he surged out of the shower and grabbed her hand, stark naked and looking much too eager to be respectable.
"Wait! Wait, wait please. Can I have your... your number?"
Sam should have said no then and been done with it. But she was far too drunk and far too empathetic to refuse him. She internally vowed not to call him or to speak of the event to anyone. However, after roughly a month of him badgering her, she had agreed to go out with him and had fooled herself into thinking that she might actually like him... but the longer they were together the more irritating, desperate and controlling he was becoming. Sam was at a point where she couldn't stand to look at him, let alone allow him to touch her. She hadn't had sex with him more than once after the first time and it had been a painful experience for her; emotionally and physically. And orgasms weren't even on the table for her. Devon wasn't a small guy, he was bulky and muscular with thin dusty hair all over his body. But he was brutish and insensitive towards the world, and valued his own comfort above all else. One cane imagine how the 'romantic love making' played out for *her*.
The longer Sam thought about it, the angrier she became and so, as she reached her first pit stop promised herself that she would put him out of her mind until the time came for him to be cut loose.
It was another two hour drive to the university campus and Sam had run through all of the options about how best to deal with her room mate. She had received confirmation of her spot in the co-ed dormitories months previous but hadn't been told who her room mate was. She was desperately hoping it would be someone in a similar course to her. Once she arrived at the campus she checked in at the gate and drove straight towards the three story brick-face building labelled on her map. She leaned forward and scanned the signs to be sure, driving much slower than before. She squinted up at the building and sped up to a more agreeable pace when she realised that she was in the right place. As she put her foot down on the accelerator she dropped her eyes from the building to the road and yelped, as a skateboarder slid directly in front of her car. She slammed in her breaks and tried to pull towards the curb to miss him.
