Chapter 19
Now
I wake up in Sam’s bed with a pounding headache.
There’s a faint bluish-pink light coming in the window.
How long was I asleep for? I push the sheet back, hot.
I’m still wearing his T-shirt and sweatpants, the knees covered in dirt.
I lie there listening, but the house is quiet.
On the nightstand are a glass of water and a bottle of Advil. Sam must have put them there.
After popping two pills and drinking all the water, I sit on the edge of his bed, my feet on the carpet, and my head in my hands, taking inventory of the wreckage I’ve caused.
I bulldozed Sam with the truth at the worst possible moment.
On the day of his mother’s funeral. I didn’t think about him; I only thought about getting the ugliness off my chest. And he knew.
He knew, and he hadn’t wanted to talk about it, at least not then.
Sam has put my purse on the floor beside the bed. I dig around for my phone. Determined not to push anyone else out of my life, I call Chantal.
“P?” she says, groggy with sleep.
“I still love him,” I whisper. “I screwed everything up. And I love him. And I’m worried that even if I can get him to forgive me, I’m still not good enough for him.”
“You’re good enough,” Chantal says.
“But I’m such a mess. And he’s a doctor.”
“You’re good enough,” she says again.
“What if he doesn’t think so?”
“Then you come home, P. And I’ll tell you why he’s wrong.”
I close my eyes and let out a shaky breath.
“Okay. I can do that.”
“I know you can.”
When we hang up, I cross the dark hallway to the bathroom.
I turn on the light and grimace at my reflection.
Underneath the streaks of mascara, my skin is blotchy and my eyes bloodshot and puffy.
I splash some cold water on my face and scrub at the black makeup stains until my cheeks are red and raw.
The smell of coffee hits my nose as I tiptoe down the stairs.
There’s a light on in the kitchen. I take a deep breath before I have to face Sam again.
But it’s not Sam. It’s Charlie. He’s at the table in the same spot where Sue used to sit.
He has a mug in his hand, and he’s looking right at me like he was waiting for me.
“Good morning,” he says, lifting his coffee my way.
“You took my car,” I say, standing in the doorway.
“I took your car,” he replies, then takes a sip. “Sorry about that. I didn’t realize you would be needing to leave in such a hurry.” Clearly Sam has filled him in on a couple of details. “He’s down at the water,” he says before I ask.
I look in the direction of the lake and then back to Charlie. “He hates me.”
He gets up and walks over to me, smiling kindly as he tucks a strand of hair behind my ear.
“You’re wrong,” he says. “I think his feelings for you are basically the exact opposite.” His eyes move over my face and his smile fades. “Do you hate me?” he asks quietly.
It takes me a moment to figure out why he would ask me that, but then I realize: Charlie’s the only other person who would have told Sam about what happened between us.
“Never,” I say, my voice cracking, and he pulls me into a tight hug. “I didn’t hate you then, either. After what happened. You were good to me that summer.”
“I had ulterior motives, but I didn’t ever plan to make a move,” he whispers. “Until that night.”
“That night was my fault,” I tell him. Charlie squeezes me and then lets go.
“Can I ask you something?” I say when we separate.
“Sure,” he rasps. “Ask me anything.”
“Did your mom know?” His face wilts a little, and I close my eyes, swallowing back the lump in my throat.
“If it makes you feel better, she was mostly mad at me.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better,” I croak.
He nods, his eyes flickering like fireflies. “I tried to tell her how you seduced me with candy and hairy legs, but she wasn’t convinced.”
I huff out a laugh, and a little of the heaviness lifts.
“She told me to call you,” he says, serious again. I stop breathing. “Before she died. She said he’d need you after.”
I hug him again. “Thank you,” I whisper.
SAM IS SITTING at the edge of the dock, his feet in the water. The sun hasn’t risen above the hills yet, but its light casts a halo around the far shore that promises it will soon. My footsteps shake the wooden planks as I walk toward him, but he doesn’t turn around.
I sit beside him, putting two steaming cups of coffee down, then roll my pants up over my knees so I can dip my legs into the lake.
I pass him one of the mugs, and we drink in silence.
There aren’t any boats out yet, and the only sound is the distant, mournful call of a loon.
I’m half-finished with my coffee—trying to figure out where to begin—when Sam starts talking.
“Charlie told me about the two of you over Christmas break when we came home from school,” he says, looking out over the calm water.
I want to cut in and apologize, but I can tell he’s got more to say.
And, at the very least, I owe him the chance to tell his side despite how afraid I am to hear it—to hear about what it was like for him to know what I’d done all this time, to hear him get to the part where he never wants to see me again.
His voice is husky, like he hasn’t spoken yet this morning.
“I was in rough shape after we broke up. I didn’t understand what had gone wrong and why you would shut down like that.
Even if you weren’t ready for marriage or to even talk about getting married, breaking up didn’t make sense to me.
I felt like maybe I had experienced our entire relationship completely differently from how you had. I felt like I was going crazy.”
He pauses and looks at me from the corner of his eye. I can feel the shame tighten its grip on my throat and my heart beating harder, but instead of fighting it, I accept that this is going to be uncomfortable and focus instead on Sam and what he needs to say.
“I think Charlie thought if I knew what had really happened, it might somehow make it better, explain why you pushed me away.” He shakes his head like he still can’t believe it. “He told me that you did still love me, that you had immediately regretted it and completely freaked out.”
“I had a panic attack,” I whisper.
“Yeah, I kind of figured that part out at the wake,” he says, looking at me straight on. He’s so much calmer than he was yesterday, but his voice sounds hollow.
“I did regret it,” I tell him, hesitating before putting my hand on his thigh. He doesn’t move away or tense up under my touch, so I keep it there. “It’s the biggest regret of my life. I wish it hadn’t happened, but it did, and I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” he says, looking back at the lake, his shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry I lost it yesterday. I thought I had moved past it years ago, but hearing you say the words, it felt like hearing it for the first time all over again.”
I take his hand in mine and shake it. “Hey,” I say so he looks at me, and when he does, I squeeze his hand tighter and look him in the eye. “You don’t have anything to apologize for. Me, on the other hand . . .”
He smiles sadly and runs his hand through his hair.
“The thing is, Percy, I do.” I can feel my face scrunch in confusion. He brings one leg on the dock, twisting so he can face me. I take my feet out of the water and tuck them under me so I can do the same.
“You always thought I was perfect.”
“Sam, you were perfect,” I reply, stating the obvious.
“I wasn’t!” he says, adamant. “I was obsessed with getting out of here, and then when I went away to school, I was so terrified I was going to mess it up, that I had only seemed smart because I’d grown up in such a small town.
It felt like any day they’d figure out I was a fraud.
I was paralyzed with fear. I was homesick, too.
I missed you like crazy. I didn’t want you to know how bad it was, to think less of me, so I didn’t call. ”
“You were eighteen, and it was totally normal to feel that way. I was too immature to realize that.”
He shakes his head. “I was always jealous of Charlie. I think you knew that. He barely studied in high school and would just kill every test. Girls loved him. Everything seemed to happen so easily for him. And then you did, too.” My stomach feels like it just dropped forty stories.
“I felt like my future exploded when you said you couldn’t marry me,” he goes on.
“But I thought one day you would change your mind. I thought we both needed a bit of time. But then . . . I didn’t take it well, hearing about you and Charlie.
” He rubs his face. “I was angry. With you. With Charlie. And with myself. The way I felt about you was always so clear to me—even when we were young I knew you and I were meant for each other. Two halves of a whole. I loved you so much that the word ‘love’ didn’t seem big enough for how I felt.
But I realize now that you didn’t know that.
You wouldn’t have turned to Charlie if you knew that.
And for that I’m sorry.” He reaches toward me, pulling my bottom lip out from under my teeth with his thumb. I hadn’t realized I’d been biting it.
I start to reply, to tell him he doesn’t need to apologize, that I’m the one who should be explaining herself, but he stops me.
“When I went back to school after Christmas, I just wanted to forget you and us and everything that happened,” he says.
“I wanted to get you out of my system, but I think I also wanted to hurt you the way you hurt me. I studied like crazy, but I also drank a lot. I’d go to these big house parties—there was always a keg, and there were always girls.
” He pauses. The muscles in my stomach seize at the mention of the other girls.
He squints, as if he’s asking my permission to continue, and I take a deep breath and wait.