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“Then tell me what happened.” I beg. “Please.”
“I CAN’T.” He yells it, and I see on his face that he regrets it. “Believe it or not, Fiona, you’re not the only person affected by this. And I can’t tell you. I can’t. I wish I could. It would make all this so much easier.”
There’s silence in the kitchen, and nothing to say. I don’t know what I would even if I had the ability to speak. Slowly, Sam comes around the counter and stands next to me. He reaches for me, gently gathering me into his arms, and I don’t have the strength not to let him. His lips press against my hair and I close my eyes, tears flowing out even though I don’t want them to. “Please, Fiona.” Sam says softly. His voice is close to breaking. “Please. We found each other again. Let us have this chance.”
I lean into him, giving in to a final weakness. “I want to. And if I’d been mature enough to have this conversation then, things might have been different. But it’s been too long, Sam. It eats at me every day. Everything you do is deliberate. Every single thing. I need to know why.” I pull back, and look him in the eye. The emotion simmering there almost makes me change my mind. Almost. “Until I do, I can’t. I’m sorry.”
He lets me go when I move away, and that adds one more little crack in my heart. Because even though I’m choosing to leave, I really wish that he would fight to make me stay.
I can’t seem to stop crying. I mean, I knew it was coming, but I hate it. And on top of crying, my body is sore, which the crying makes worse. And I can’t stop thinking about the way in which I got sore, which makes the crying worse still. I had to pull over on the side of Sam’s rural road and just let it all out. Because if feels like my heart is breaking all over again. I remember this feeling, this painful ache in my chest, like a knife was lodged there. I woke up with that feeling in my chest for years.
My mind plays it back, and I have it memorized at this point. Even though I don’t want to see it, I know it’ll be faster to relive it. To purge it and move on. God knows that I’ve done that hundreds of times before.
I can still remember the way it felt to put on my dress—a gorgeous princess ball gown in a burgundy. I searched through what felt like every store in Hawthorne—and some in Boston—to find Sam a tie that perfectly matched my dress. It seemed so important at the time, that we match exactly. And we did. He in turn brought me a corsage with a rose that color. I still have that corsage, dried. Even though it’s a painful reminder, I’ve never been quite willing to get rid of it.
Sam had come to the door and I remember the way my heart felt full. Full of life and possibility and love. We’d only just told each other that we love each other a few weeks before, and the sensation of being able to say it was still new and exciting. My father and Rose took pictures of us. I don’t know which one sent him the picture that’s in his parents’ house. It doesn’t matter now. After we’d taken pictures for what felt like hours, we left for the dance. Sam’s father had just given him a car, and even though I could tell my father was nervous about two teenagers alone in a new car, he let us go.
It was just as glamorous as I’d dreamed. We made a perfect entrance, stared at by both our friends and our enemies, took cliché pictures in the photo booth, and danced until we were both breathless and laughing, ready for a slow song. Sam and I had made plans to leave early and spend some time together alone. My father would have had a fit if I’d spent the night out, and so we needed to make time before I had to be home for curfew. I remember that Sam’s parents didn’t seem to care whether he stayed out or not.
We were getting ready to leave, to go to the hotel room that Sam had reserved for the two of us at the fanciest hotel in Hawthorne, when he excused himself to go to the bathroom. I was having some punch, laughing with some of my friends when it all came crashing down. Another of my friends came rushing up to me, out of breath like she’d been running, telling me I needed to get behind the school. She’d just seen Sam go back there with one of the cheerleaders—Lacy Davis. I told her that was ridiculous, that we were about to go to our hotel. She wouldn’t listen, dragging me with her across the dance floor and through the halls of the school to the quad out back.
