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She dropped her hands and looked up at me, the look in her eyes filled with hurt and pain. “I don’t…I don’t know if I can handle a boyfriend who doesn’t keep me in the loop, or can’t confide in me. It makes me feel. . .” she faltered for a second, breathing deeply as she seemed to search for the right words. “Insignificant, I guess. Insignificant and not very important.”

Just as her own parents had made her feel.

The words landed like a slap, and something congealed in my stomach at the realization of how badly I’d fucked up. “You are important to me. Really important, Sam, and if I could take back—”

“I think you should go.” Her firm tone left no room for any further argument.

It was almost a relief, that interruption, even though the words stung terribly. There was no fixing what I had said, or what I had done—not that evening, anyway, with her walls erected so high I wasn’t sure I could break them down right now, no matter what assurances I gave her.

And if Sam—who had rapidly become the center of my life even if she didn’t quite believe it—wanted space from me, from us, then I would give it to her.

“Can I call you?” I asked.

She blinked, and another fat tear rolled down her cheek. With one dye-stained hand, she scrubbed it away. “I don’t know.”

I murmured one last apology, and with a final scratch behind Marge’s ears, I walked away, leaving Sam alone on the couch to softly sob into her hands. Each creaking floorboard felt like the breaking of my heart. And I realized, once I got back to my car, that she hadn’t said goodbye.