My heart rate trips over itself, stumbles on my astigmatism, and goes tumbling down a flight of stairs in my chest. Face blistering, I focus on my coring, wondering with some amount of anxiety how hard it is to lose a finger to a spoon.
If anyone could do it, I could.
I’m skilled in particularly niche ways.
Doing mundane household tasks together, in Samson’s homey kitchen, while animals mill about outside the window and create a peaceful symphony of gentle country noises…is making it really hard to not be in love with him. Even though I still barely know therealhim.
I wish I’d kept my stupid journal shut the other day.
Being insecure about yet another thing I’m doing wrong is the last thing I needed.
As it stands, I left the womb as a wadded up ball of insecurities.
And, right now, the only thing bringing me confidence is something that has nothing to do with me. Ahem. I’m talking about my cuteness. I look completely different now than I did…before, and I have found security in that disconnect, because—for as long as I can remember—everything I associate with myself is bad.
Thinking of thebefore timesis surreal, like an age past that continues to haunt me. Those were lonely, empty days where most of my social connections occurred virtually, with people who didn’t really exist.
Or who Ithoughtdidn’t really exist.
Thinking about it makes my head hurt a little bit, and the pain swiftly travels down into my chest, aching with renewed intensity.
I’m so glad I’mhere.
With a neighbor who checks in on me and sighs when I almost cut myself with a paring knife.
In a town full of people who care about each other.
So much of what I’ve experienced so far never happened in the game.
So, at the very least, the warmth and kindness I’m feeling right now isn’t manufactured around residual infatuation.
I never so much as knew the neighbors in my apartment building. Even though I lived there since I graduated high school. Six years of neighbors and I never knew their names. Six years and the most thought I gave them was to hope they weren’t secretly murderers.
People are hard.
I’ve never once learned how to reach out to them.
I would never have expected game Samson to reach out to me.
To the very end of his character arc, the player prompts every last one of his cutscenes by going to him. He never shows up on the farmhouse doorstep. He never sends letters, not even the ultra generic ones with recipes. Every interaction must be petitioned through the player’s efforts.
It’s all part of his character maintaining consistency in the label “recluse.”
Even when you stumble upon the lore of his past and the reasons behind his sequestered choices, it doesn’t change.
He prefers to be alone.
Tolerating the player after a while doesn’t mean heprefersthe company.
Maybe…maybe that’s why I clung to him.
I recognized something inside him that called to something inside me.
Our…sameness.
Even though Samson is surrounded by caring, wonderful people, he still chooses to be alone. Because safety matters more. And loneliness matters less.
We both cater to our fears.
