AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Give your all to me, I'll give my all to you
You're my end and my beginning
Even when I lose, I'm winning
-John Legend
Yours,
Sam
“I think Travis needs some pointers from Mister Smoothe over here,” Sarah swoons at the message in my hands. I murmur something unintelligible as I think about what the hell is going with Sam. I don’t have the heart to tell her this is a copout. Nervously I shove the note in my pocket as I turn back to gathering my things. Staying here isn’t going to solve anything. I don’t know what's going on with him but I intend to find out.
“I’m taking the rest of the day, Nora. Call me if you need me!” I grunt as I try to pick up this new monstrosity of flowers.
“No problem, boss ma’am. Have fun,” she chuckles as she wiggles her fingers goodbye like she knows something sweet is coming, but fear tugs at my heart as a bitter taste of uncertainty creeps in. I couldn’t take it if Sam let me down again. My mind takes me back to my parent’s funeral.
It’s sunny out, which is the total opposite of how I feel inside. My mind is a storm threatening to spill out at any moment. Here I am again, in the same cemetery where my brother was buried. I was forced to come back here because some drunk driver had to cross lanes one rainy night and slam into my parents’ car, killing them instantly. Never in my life have I felt more alone. No family. Barely any friends. I’ve isolated myself since Matthew’s death and my friends gave up on me. So now it’s just me.
I sit alone in the front row but I save the seat next to me by placing a card in the seat. I know it’s silly to think he would come. Who knows if he even knows about their deaths? I haven’t heard from him since he kissed me then ran. I thought he would have called or sent a message but of course he didn't. I held out hope that by some miracle he would be here for me. But he isn’t.
Once the ceremony is over, I am forced to stand up front for people to come by to give their condolences. This is the worst kind of torture. These people don’t know a thing about me or what I am going through.
I close my eyes, wishing I could slip off my heels and run as far and as fast as I could from this place. The weight of everything suddenly overwhelms me and I can’t take it any longer. The only person I yearned to see was Sam but he let me down. I am utterly alone in the world now.
I feel like pieces of my soul are drifting through the wind like the universe blew my dandelion, leaving me with only fragments of myself.
The wind brings dark clouds over our heads. A sense of peace rises in my chest as the rain begins to fall. I take the sign from the universe and take off through the cemetery. People call my name but their voices drift off into the storm. I am on and run, my heels digging into the mud as I go. I slip out of them, leaving them behind. The rain pelts against my face, freeing me from the confines of my mind. I don’t slow until I’m standing in front of Sam’s family home. No one seems to be home so I go around back to the tire swing he used to push me in. The rain makes it easy to slip inside then I dig my feet in pushing myself higher and higher.
“Sam, where are you? Why aren’t you here for me?” I yell through the rain, weeping as I swing along.
“You p-promised you would always be here for me. YOU PROMISED!” I scream. The swing comes to a stop after I give up pushing. I lay my head on the tire swing as I cry. Cry for Matthew. Cry for my parents. And cry for me. Rain always washes away some of the pain, even if it returns later. I can always count on rain to cleanse my soul for a time.
The drive to Sam’s penthouse is filled with anxiety. He had a meeting across town this afternoon and expects me to be at work which will give me time to see if I can find out what he’s been hiding from me. I wish with all my heart that there is nothing to find but I trust my gut and know something is amiss.
My keys clank into the bowl beside the door as I step in. The door closes behind, making me jump. Okay, I definitely don’t like the idea of snooping but I’ve asked several times if everything was okay and he always responds that it is without looking me in the eyes. Enough is enough. He is supposed to be my partner in all things and that doesn’t mean keeping secrets from me. He has to know that I could see through his fake facade.
I don’t even know where to start until I pass his office on the way to the bedroom. A room that I have never been in before. He never gave me a tour of his office when he showed me the rest of the apartment, making this room a beacon for me to follow.
Before I enter, I look down the hall even though I know I’m here alone. My hand trembles as I open the door, as if expecting something to jump out at me. To my relief, this room looks like any typical home office. I pad over to the bookcase that spans an entire wall. The shelves are filled with countless books and sporadic framed photographs. One sticks out to me and I immediately pick it up, swiping away the dust that's gathered. My finger skims over Matthew and my mind instantly goes back to when this was taken. They had just graduated high school and I squeezed between them to make sure I was in the picture, even when my mom insisted she wanted just the graduates. Sam was the one to tell her it was alright then leaned down to let me hold his diploma as we smiled for the picture. It makes me smile that he kept this and makes me wonder why there are no pictures in the rest of the apartment. A question for another time, I suppose. Turning from the bookshelf puts me directly in front of the computer. He does most of his business here but there is a nagging feeling inside me to click the mouse.
Just as I assumed it’s password protected. Lifting my foot to leave, I turn back to the screen. What would Sam’s password be? I make several attempts until my birthdate pops into my head. That’s not it, right? I type out 1-1-0-1-8-7 then press enter expecting to be declined access again but the screen changes to his home page. My heart accelerates as I take a seat in his chair to get a closer look.
The background is a picture of me in black and white that I can’t recall where it was taken. Strange. I look at all the titles of his folders and am about to give up when I find one called ‘sunshine’. My stomach plummets as I click open the folder, seeing thousands of black and white pictures of me from a distance just like the one on his background. They couldn’t have been from Sam because he was still in the military until a few months ago. Someone was following me and Sam has the proof on his computer. Did he orchestrate this or did he find someone stalking me? Neither thought offers reprieve from the pit in my stomach. As I scroll though the pictures, I come across a folder entitled ‘Big Apple PR’.
“What the hell, Sam,” I mutter to myself.
Clicking on the folder opens documents and receipts. I’m not sure what I’m looking at until I pull them up one by one. The first is a proposal from years ago sent to Miles and Sebastian Knight asking them a favor. Sam recommended my “new and up and coming PR firm” to them requesting to give me a try as a favor to him. He prefaced it by saying their ‘playboy lifestyles’ needed to be handled and he had the perfect person to represent them.
It wasn’t my hard work that landed them as clients, it was Sam. All the clients that followed suit after them had nothing to do with me but everything to do with Sam. Tears fall from my cheeks as I go through every single document as my heart breaks into a million tiny fragments on the floor around me. He was an anonymous donor that helped move my in-home business into a full blown empire with multiple employees.
My hand comes to my mouth as the things I thought I built were molded by someone else’s hands. Samuel’s hands. I never achieved anything. I’ve been a puppet in some sick twisted game he was playing.
I hear the front door open but I have no energy to move or respond when I hear him call out for me. The sound of his feet echo through the hall until he’s standing at the open doorway. I don’t look up right away. I can’t.
“Fuck, Marcy, I can explain,” he utters, taking large steps until he’s quickly by my side. I pull away from his embrace as he leans over me. “Please don’t do this,” he pleads.
“I-um, I don’t understand. What the hell are you doing with all this?” I gesture to the computer frantically.
