Chapter 19
SAMUEL
The gallery smelled like cheap wine and expensive pretension.
I shouldn't have come. I belonged in the library, or at my shift at the bookstore, or asleep. But my roommate Jordan had insisted. He’d dragged me out of our shared apartment with promises that I needed to do something other than study and work until my eyes bled.
"You're turning into a hermit," he'd said, throwing a blazer at my head. "And not even an interesting, mysterious one. Just a sad one."
So here I stood, plastic cup of red wine warming in my hand, surrounded by sophomores discussing composition and negative space like they'd invented both concepts.
I'd learned to exist in spaces like this. Learned to smile at strangers, make small talk, pretend the last two years hadn't carved out everything I used to be and left something unrecognizable in its place.
Sam Price. Not Samuel. Not Elder. Just Sam.
Economics major at the University of Washington. Barista on weekends. Excommunicated Mormon. Estranged son. A man who had traded his eternal salvation for three weeks of honesty and had spent every day since trying to figure out how to live in the wreckage.
I took a sip of wine. It tasted bitter. I still couldn't drink without feeling a phantom twinge of guilt, a reflex from a life that didn't belong to me anymore.
Jordan appeared at my elbow, grinning. "See? Not terrible, right?"
"It's fine."
"You're lying. You hate it." He gestured around the gallery. "But you're here, which means you're trying, which makes me an excellent influence."
"You're exhausting."
"That's part of my charm." He squeezed my shoulder. "I'm going to go talk to that guy by the sculptures. The one with the nose ring. Do not leave without telling me."
I nodded. Watched him disappear into the crowd.
Jordan didn't know about Barcelona. About Eli.
About any of it. He knew I was ex-Mormon and that my family had cut me off.
That was enough. He filled in the blanks with assumptions—that I'd lost my faith, come out, gotten kicked out.
He wasn't wrong. He just didn't know that the faith crisis had a name, a face, and a sketchbook I hadn't seen in two years.
I drained the wine. Dropped the cup in a recycling bin. I needed air.
I started toward the exit, weaving through the clusters of students. My gaze dragged over the walls—abstract splashes of colour, angry charcoals, political statements I was too tired to parse.
And then I froze.
The sketches hung on the far wall, partially obscured by a couple holding hands. Black ink on cream paper, matted in simple black frames. I couldn't see them clearly from here, but the breath caught in my throat.
I knew those lines.
I knew the way the artist captured light with negative space. I knew the confident, quick stroke of the pen, the slight roughness where the nib caught the paper.
My feet moved without permission.
The couple shifted. The sketches came into focus.
Sagrada Família at dawn, cranes silhouetted against a rising sun.
Parc de la Ciutadella, the fountain frozen in ink.
A narrow street in Gràcia, laundry strung between balconies like prayer flags.
The Mediterranean from the beach at Barceloneta, waves rendered in quick, violent strokes.
Barcelona.
I stopped breathing.
A small placard beside the collection read: Urban Landscapes: Barcelona Series by Elias Vance.
The world tilted on its axis. The noise of the gallery rushed away, leaving a roaring silence in my ears. I gripped the edge of a nearby pedestal to stay upright.
Eli was here.
In Seattle. At this gallery. At this university.
After two years of searching. Two years of dead ends and blocked numbers and his mother's voice on the phone, cold and final: "Elias has moved on. I suggest you do the same."
After two years of convincing myself I'd never see him again.
He was here.
"You good, man?"
I turned. A student in a flannel shirt was watching me with concern.
"The artist," I managed, my voice sounding rusty. "Elias Vance. Is he—"
"Oh, yeah. Eli's around. Probably outside. He hates the reception part." The guy grinned. "Talented, though. You should check out his capstone project in the main hall. It's incredible."
I didn't wait for more.
I pushed through the crowd, out the gallery doors, into the hallway. Students milled around, laughing, drinking. I scanned faces, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
Then I saw him.
Leaning against the wall near the building's entrance, hands shoved in the pockets of a canvas jacket I didn't recognize.
His hair was longer than I remembered, curling slightly at the nape of his neck, free of the mission-approved gel.
Same sharp cheekbones. Same mouth that had whispered me to sleep in a dark apartment.
Eli.
He was talking to someone—a girl with purple hair who gestured enthusiastically. He nodded, smiled faintly. The smile didn't reach his eyes. It was his polite missionary smile, the one he used when he wanted to be anywhere else.
I'd forgotten how to move.
Two years. Two years of carrying the weight of what we'd done, what we'd lost, what I'd failed to say when it mattered.
As if he felt the weight of my stare, his gaze lifted.
Our eyes met.
The girl kept talking. Eli went completely still.
I watched recognition hit him like a physical blow. I saw the shock, the raw, unguarded pain, and then the immediate slam of emotional shutters. His face went blank. Guarded.
He said something to the girl. She looked confused but nodded and walked away.
Eli didn't move. Neither did I.
The hallway noise faded. The crowd disappeared. The world narrowed to the space between us.
He looked different. Thinner. Harder. The softness I remembered from our apartment—those rare moments when he'd let his guard down—had been calcified into something sharper.
But his eyes were the same. Dark and guarded and looking at me like I was a ghost he'd stopped believing in.
I made myself move. One step. Another. I closed the distance until only a few feet separated us.
"Hi," I said.
Stupid. Inadequate. The first word I'd spoken to him in two years, and it was hi.
Eli's jaw worked. "Sam."
Not Samuel. Not Elder Price.
Sam.
Hearing my name in his voice cracked something open in my chest that I hadn't realized was calcified shut.
"I didn't know you were in Seattle," I said.
"Yeah. Well." His voice was rough. "Small world."
"I looked for you. After I got home. I tried—"
"I know."
"Your mother—"
"I know." He pushed off the wall, putting a little more distance between us. "How did you find me?"
"I didn't. I came with my roommate. Saw the sketches." I gestured back toward the gallery. "Barcelona."
Something flickered in his expression. A wince, maybe. "Right."
Silence stretched between us, thick with everything we weren't saying.
"Can we—" I stopped. Swallowed the lump in my throat. "Can we go somewhere? Talk?"
Eli studied me for a long moment. I couldn't read his expression. Couldn't tell if he wanted to walk away or pull me closer.
"There's a coffee shop on 45th," he said finally. "The one with the terrible murals."
"I know it."
"Twenty minutes. I need to finish up here."
I nodded.
Eli turned to go, then paused. Looked back. "Don't disappear."
"I won't."
He held my gaze. "Promise."
"I promise."
He disappeared back into the gallery.
I leaned against the wall where he'd been standing and tried to remember how to breathe.
The coffee shop was exactly as terrible as advertised. Someone had painted a floor-to-ceiling mural of an octopus drinking espresso while reading Sartre. The furniture was mismatched. The lighting was dim. It smelled like burnt coffee and patchouli.
I ordered a black coffee I didn't want and claimed a table in the corner.
Eli arrived exactly twenty minutes later.
He'd changed into a different jacket—this one worn leather—and carried a messenger bag slung across his chest. He ordered something complicated, paid, then joined me at the table.
We sat in silence while we waited for his drink.
"Economics," Eli said finally.
I blinked. "What?"
"Your roommate. The guy in the flannel." Eli took a sip of his drink. "I ran into him on my way out. He asked if I'd managed to find 'his roommate Sam' yet. He mentioned you're studying economics."
My stomach dropped. "You talked to Jordan?"
"Briefly." Eli set his cup down. He looked at me, his brow furrowed. "It doesn't fit."
"What?"
"Economics. That wasn't the plan. The plan was BYU, Business Management, whatever your dad had lined up. Or... honestly, I always thought you'd end up doing something with literature. You used to read the Isaiah chapters like they were poetry."
I stared at my coffee. "There is no plan. Not anymore."
"Then why economics?"
"Because it's safe," I said, the truth spilling out before I could check it.
"Because when I got home, my father cut me off.
Completely. No tuition. No housing. No support.
I was living in my car for three months.
" I looked up at him. "I chose economics because I need a degree that guarantees I can get a job.
I need to know I'll never be that helpless again. It's not a passion. It's survival."
Eli’s expression softened. The cynicism slipped, revealing a flash of the compassion I remembered. "I didn't know."
"You couldn't have."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't." I shook my head. "Don't apologize. You don't get to apologize for what happened."
"Why not?"
"Because you sacrificed yourself to protect me.
You lied to President Dalton. Took full responsibility.
Let them send you home and excommunicate you just so I'd have a chance to stay.
" I stopped, my throat aching. "And I wasted it.
I let you believe I'd chosen the church.
I let weeks go by before I told the truth.
You don't get to apologize when I'm the one who failed you. "
Eli leaned back in his chair. "You didn't fail me, Sam."
"I stayed silent."