Chapter 19
Marcy
Weeks pass, weaving threads of connection into a tapestry of shared moments. Sam’s laughter becomes a familiar melody. It dances through the rooms of his penthouse, echoing off walls. I often find myself laughing as well from the silly and completely lame dad jokes that Sam seems to have saved up just for me. Words spill forth—dreams, fears, childhood memories. Sam tells me stories about the military and shows the accompanying scars written across his skin. Mentions of Matt and the military become easier and easier to bear, even though I haven’t gone to therapy yet. Maybe the night in the cemetery was enough to get everything off my chest. I’ve felt lighter since that night, even if I have slipped back into the habit of putting on the brave face everyone has come to expect. Sam sees the truth but he hasn’t pressed the issue again.
We spend our nights either at Sam’s or mine, although it”s mostly his. He plans dates that blow any others I’ve had out of the water. I think that’s his goal, he wants to wipe away any thoughts I have of other men. He doesn”t realize they were just placeholders until my real prince came along. Nevertheless, he’s making up for lost time, planning starry rooftop picnics, midnight rides with his top down and the heater on to keep from freezing. We”ve even taken to finding small second hand bookstores throughout the city.
But lately he’s gone overboard with the flowers sent to my office, surprise lunch dates and even romantic dinners at fancy restaurants. Not that I’m ungrateful but he knows money doesn”t impress me.
“You really hit the jackpot with this one, Marce,” Sarah gushes as the newest bouquet arrives at the office. I try to smile at her as she plucks the card from the vase. The flowers seem to be getting more and more extravagant, bordering on insanity. Something doesn”t seem right. This isn’t the Sam I knew when I was younger. It’s like he’s forgotten the things that made him unique, instead turning into someone that tries too hard. I guess people change, sometimes imperceptibly, until one day, we look at them and wonder where the familiar contours went. Sam, once a constellation of quirks and idiosyncrasies, now seems to wear a different skin—a borrowed one, perhaps. The essence that made him unique—the way he laughed at obscure jokes, the freckles on his hands, the way he hummed while cooking—has faded like an old photograph left in sunlight.
Sarah hands me the card and I hesitate to even open it. I have this overwhelming feeling in my mind that he is doing all of this to hide a part of himself that he doesn”t want to be seen. Or more specifically doesn”t want me to see.
“Well, what are you waiting for? Open it! Let”s see what Mr. Knight has to say today,” Nora chimes in. I nod meanwhile wishing I didn’t have to do this with an audience.
Sunshine,
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.
“Did you have me followed? No, actually, why did you have me followed, Samuel?” I yell.
“Sunshine, calm down. I-“ I cut him off before he can even finish whatever bullshit explanation he has.
“No. Don’t you dare call me that! You don’t have that right!” I scream as I jump from the chair, rounding the other side of the desk to put distance between us. My tears continue to fall from anger and sadness, mixing together until they drop to the floor.
“Marcy, I’m sorry. I fucked up. I was going to tell you everything.” Sam runs his hands through his hair as he rocks back and forth in place, probably trying to decide what to say next.
“When exactly? When were you going to tell me, Sam? I’ve told you everything,” I sob. “I’ve told you things I’ve never told anyone and all this time you’ve been hiding this! When did you think was the best time to tell me that you basically built my firm and had me followed for how long exactly?” I grip my hair in desperate frustration, needing the pain but already feeling it deep inside.
“Listen, I needed to tell you something and I never knew how.” Sam looks at me with pain in his eyes. He runs his hands down his face then tries to step toward me, making me back away.
“There’s something I didn’t tell you about when Matthew died.” My breath hitches in my chest at the mention of my brother. He hesitates but looks over to me with every emotion playing across his face.
“He, um, was lying there in my arms and I couldn’t stop the bleeding,” he laments as tears form in his eyes.
“I tried! Fuck, I tried to save him but I couldn’t, Marcy! I couldn’t save your brother but before he passed he made me promise that I would take care of you,” he sobs, squeezing his eyes closed with his fingers.
A huge lump forms in my throat at the image.
“So, is that what you are doing now? ‘Taking care’ of me?” I scream. I can’t hear anything over the pounding in my ears from my own heartbeat.
Samuel steps over to me trying to grasp my hands in his but I slap them away. I just can’t. Before it was just the shit on his computer and now with everything he’s said about Matthew, I can’t touch him. I don’t want to.
“Is that why you had me followed? Is that why you pushed clients into my lap? Has that been what all this has been about?” I gesture between the two of us, barely able to hang on to my emotions any longer. “You decided once you got back into town a couple months ago that you would, what? Insert yourself into my life?” I wail, wrapping my arms around myself.
“I’ve been in the states for two years,” he confesses but I don’t believe the words I’m hearing. He couldn”t have been here that long. Could he? Has he just been watching me this whole fucking time?
“I don’t think I heard you correctly. Did you just say that you have been in the states for two years?” I whimper feeling a surge of desperate emotions needing to wreak havoc on anything in their path.
“I didn’t know what to say to you. I wasn’t sure Matthew would want me with you no matter how desperately I needed you. A battle waged a war in my mind over what to do.”
“You didn’t know what to say,” I repeat with an ominous chuckle. Sam doesn’t say anything, just waits for my response. I leap toward his desk dragging my arms along until everything falls to the floor. Papers fly then land on the mess at my feet.
“So you were here when I needed you most. You were hiding behind your fucking computer when I was alone in the world. You were just sitting here building this security empire and never came for me.”
He tries to speak but I hold up my hand immediately. I’m not done yet.
“You sent out a minion to follow me while you were in here safe from the real world,” I huff incredulously. “You made a promise to my brother but did the bare minimum.”
“I did this for you. Everything has always been for you, Marcy,” he pleads. “You have to see that. I couldn’t be there but I made sure you were taken care of.”
“No, you could have been there, but you weren’t. Why didn”t you come for me?” I whisper. “I’ve been waiting on my prince just like you said, but you didn’t come.”
“I fucked up. I’m sorr–” I scoff.
“No! You can’t undo what’s been done. You got what you wanted from me, right? You wanted to fuck me, manipulate me, then bury me along with my brother.” I tried to shove him but he doesn’t budge.
“I can’t undo it but forgiveness is a choice, Marcy!” I scoff as I continue to fight my way past.
“Stop!” he commands but it doesn”t do anything to me anymore.
“You’re wrong about us and you fucking know it. You’re just running like you always do, dammit.” The slap rings through the room before I realize what I’ve done. The pain radiates up my wrist, making my arm tremble.
“Get out of my way, Samuel!” I hit him repeatedly in the chest until he finally relents, allowing me to pass. Regret paints his face, but the only thing I can think of is getting as far from Samuel Knight as I can.
I run from the office grabbing my things. As I leave, it feels like a death. The words circle back in my mind, haunting me. Then all of the good memories flood in—the laughter, the tears, the late-night conversations. All of it now wrapped in a shroud of finality.
The words hang heavy in the air, a weight that presses against my chest. The penthouse, once familiar and comforting, now holds a different kind of silence—a void where laughter and shared moments used to reside.
I slam the front door, leaving a part of me behind. My once beating heart becomes sharp shards ground into the carpet. My blood probably accompanied the shredded organ.
Why did I leave? The question echoes louder now. Regret gnaws at the edges of my thoughts. Maybe it was necessary, maybe it was inevitable, but that doesn’t make it any easier. The ache settles in, a dull throb that feels like mourning.
Outside, the world continues its usual dance. People hurry past, lost in their own lives. The sun dips lower, casting long shadows. I wonder if anyone else feels this way—like leaving was a little death, a part of themselves severed. A part of me was severed.
Maybe it was for the best, I tell myself. Maybe I needed this closure. But the ache persists, a phantom limb that reminds me of what is lost. I glance up at the sky, seeking solace in the vastness above. The stars blink, indifferent witnesses to my departure.
The adrenaline courses through my veins as I grip the steering wheel, the engine roaring in response to my desperate plea for escape. The world outside blurs into a chaotic mix of colors and shapes. Sam’s face, etched with surprise and fear, lingers in my mind—a fleeting connection before darkness envelops me.