19. Sam
Chapter nineteen
Sam
I barely knew anything about JP.
That wasn’t supposed to bother me. At all. It was part of why I’d decided he was the one I wanted to lose my virginity to three years earlier. I knew enough about him that he wasn’t anonymous, but not so much that he meant something to me.
That’s what I told myself, at least. Because as cold as it sounded, it was what I’d needed.
And it wasn’t all that cold. It wasn’t supposed to make me feel like an asshole. JP didn’t seem to think I was an asshole for it because that was what we’d agreed to.
Somehow, though, that made it bother me more.
Whatever it was, it didn’t change the fact that I stared at JP and wondered how I didn’t know that about him. Because yeah, I knew how his cum tasted and he knew what the inside of my butthole felt like—with his finger, anyway—but I didn’t know he’d apparently killed someone. And even if we didn’t know all that much about each other on a personal level, Anne-Marie was my best friend. I would’ve thought she’d mention that at some point.
And then he started telling me what happened and I realized two things: JP should probably go to therapy and I had known this about him.
Sort of.
“His name was Sam,” JP said as he pulled his boxers on, though it seemed like he was doing it more for something to do than because he felt the need to dress.
“Sam,” I repeated. I hadn’t exactly expected the name, but I wasn’t surprised by it, either. “The same one you had on your T-shirt at the run?”
He nodded. “We met in CEGEP. The very first day. We hit it off, ended up going to law school together, decided to try taking the same classes as much as we could, that sort of thing.”
“You were close,” I said.
He nodded, not looking at me. “Yeah.”
I bent my knees, pulling his bedspread up to my chest and settling against the headboard. “What happened?”
“There was a car accident.”
I tried not to show it, but I was confused. I would’ve definitely remembered Anne-Marie telling me if her brother got into a car accident bad enough to kill someone.
“We were at this party,” JP said. “While we were there, he sort of, like…” He gestured vaguely. “We had a fight. I’d told him some personal stuff and he told someone else and I was pissed. Hurt that he’d do that, you know? So I was petty and left the party even though I was supposed to be DDing for him. I told him he could find his own way home and went back to my dorm.”
I stayed quiet, watching him. JP still wasn’t looking at me, instead staring at the wall across from his bed like there were a thousand miles between it and him.
“When I got home, he’d already texted to apologize. I just texted back that it was fine, we’d talk about it in the morning, and went to bed. I didn’t ask if he still needed a ride or… When I went down to grab breakfast the next day, someone told me—” He stopped, swallowing hard. “He’d gotten a ride with this other guy. And that guy was high. I don’t think Sam knew when he got in the car.”
He went silent, not saying the rest because he didn’t need to. I stared at him, trying to figure out the right thing to do.
“That’s not your fault, JP,” I finally said. “You couldn’t know—”
He held up a hand. “I know. Trust me. I’ve been down all the roads here and I know, logically, I wasn’t driving that car. But that doesn’t make the fact that he wouldn’t have gotten into that car if it wasn’t for me go away. It doesn’t make any of this… you know.” He sighed. “It doesn’t make it stop .”
I nodded, looking down at my hands. “What happened to the guy who was driving?”
JP scoffed, a snarl of anger flashing across his face. “When he finally went to court to get sentenced for the whole thing, he said he understands if ‘Sam’s loved ones can’t forgive him’ and that he ‘wishes they could trade his life for Sam’s if it would help.’” He snorted. “His life isn’t worth a half-melted Iced Capp. But I’d trade it even just to find out if Sam saw the message I sent.”
“There were no read receipts or anything?”
He shook his head and laughed. “Sam had the cheapest, oldest, busted-ass phone you can imagine because he constantly lost or broke his phone. He… he’s the one I said earlier was brilliant. He had ADHD and that made him insanely good at some things, but he’d misplace his own dick if it wasn’t attached. And he could remember the stupidest little details about obscure cases from decades ago, but after he spent months planning Illumi-Nite, he forgot his shoes for the run. Did the whole thing barefoot.” JP grinned. “Luckily we had a bunch of Jello shots so he didn’t seem to realize how bad his feet hurt.”
“So he was the originator of the Start Line Jello Shot?” I asked.
“And the Holi powder cannons,” JP said, still smiling. “And also the first one to get pelted with powder at the finish line. He was super passionate about the run and organized it the first year. We’ve kept it going because it was important and he would’ve loved how big it’s gotten. And, you know, knowing how many kids it’s helped. Like, he was just a good guy. Here, let me show you what he…”
He trailed off, twisting to grab his phone off the nightstand, and tapped the screen a few times before turning it towards me to show me the picture he’d pulled up on his social media account of him and a man with reddish-brown skin, thick black hair, and dark, sparkling eyes.
“Oh!” I said. “Him.”
JP looked at me, startled. “You know him?”
I didn’t know him, but I’d seen him before. And I’d thought he was cute. Not that I was going to tell JP that, or the fact that I’d seen this same photo because Anne-Marie had showed it to me when she was trying to convince me to let her brother pop my cherry.
“No,” I said. “But I saw a picture of him at… must have been at the run, maybe?”
JP shrugged. “Maybe. I’m sure someone had one somewhere. This was taken after a fundraiser he helped with for immigration legal services. He put in a sixteen-hour day during finals to do that because he said it was more important to make sure people who needed help got it. And that’s more the way I want to remember him. Because his funeral was just… shit.”
“Why?”
His jaw twitched and he hesitated before responding, like he was trying to decide if he actually wanted to tell me how all of this led to him not going to Arthur Kroft’s funeral.
“He would’ve hated it,” JP finally said. “There were all these people there who didn’t know him. All our friends and profs and his family, of course, but like… it turned into something that wasn’t about him. My parents came, despite never having met him. Your dad might’ve been there too, actually. Because Sam’s dad was in politics, so people knew who he was.
“And funerals are just a day that drills in that the person is fucking dead . It hits you again and again and again and it’s supposed to help you, what, get closure? I don’t even know. I showed up with my friends and we were… you know. Upset. And after I hugged Sam’s sister and things were a little, um… emotional, my dad came up to pull me to the side and gave me shit for acting like that because there were all these people watching.”
My mouth fell open. “He what?”
“There were a lot of ‘stakeholders’ and ‘important names’ there, according to my dad, and he didn’t want me to ‘hurt my reputation’ because I couldn’t hold it together in public.” JP sighed. “And I listened to my dad for everything. So I went back and sat there, holding it all together while everyone told stories about Sam and broke down around me, pretending I was totally unaffected burying my friend.” His voice caught and he cleared his throat. "So I just… I don’t do funerals. If I can help it.” He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “Sorry.”
“For what?”
“I, uh, haven’t really… talked about this much before.”
I studied him, not sure if I was stunned or horrified or devastated on his behalf. The Marchands were involved in a lot of the same social circles as my dad, but I’d always thought they were at least marginally better than he was about being semi-decent human beings.
And JP was just… fuck . At Illumi-Nite, their shirts had said they’d been running for Sam for six years. Which meant he’d been my age when this all happened. When he’d lost his best friend and had to sit there pretending because his dad —
I didn’t fully decide to reach out and touch JP’s hand. It just sort of happened. He didn’t look at me and I didn’t look at him, even after he flipped his palm over so I could weave my fingers through his.
“JP,” I said. “I’m sor—”
“Don’t."
“What?”
“Don’t say you’re sorry.” His voice was sad, but there was a hint of teasing behind it. “You never say you’re sorry.”
“I do too!”
He laughed, his eyes on where our hands met. “You do not, babe. Not unless it’s big. It’s one of the things I—” He stopped, laughing again. “—I, and everybody else, knows about you.”
I huffed, almost but not quite offended. “Fine. I’m not sorry, then. I—” I thought for a moment. “I’m sad.”
He tilted his head to the side. “Why are you sad?”
“I’m sad you had to go through that.” I bit my lip as JP’s thumb rubbed along mine. “Thinking about losing someone like that… like… like if that was Sydney or Anne-Marie and it was me… it just hurts. And I’m sor—sa…ddy. I’m saddy you went through that.”
He chuckled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Thanks.”
“Will you tell me more about him?”
He looked up, a confused line appearing between his eyebrows. Which was fair, because I was a little confused, too. The question had just slipped out and it wasn’t until I heard myself say it that I understood why.
“I just thought you might want to talk about him,” I continued. “You were close and you said you haven’t talked about it much and he sounds… you know. Important to you.”
He held my gaze, something swirling behind his eyes. I thought it was more confusion, but there was something else storming there, something so heavy I wasn’t sure how he could hold it all up. It was so big and so encompassing that I felt it walk up my spine, ringing and prickling and sparking as the moment locked around us. My heartbeat was in my ears, silent and thundering all at once.
And I was scared, but in that way where I couldn’t look away. Where I didn’t want to look away.
JP’s lips parted. The air was so thick, it seemed to move around us as he took a breath. The heartbeat in my ears got louder, the thundering turning into a thumping, a pounding, something that was more like footsteps running up a set of stairs, like a—
Wait.
Those…
Those were footsteps running up a set of stairs.
“Jean- Pa -aul!” screeched Anne-Marie from far closer than I would have liked.
I yanked my hand away like his skin had been getting hotter and hotter and was suddenly boiling. “I thought you said she wasn’t supposed to be home tonight!”
JP’s eyes were wide with panic. “She wasn’t!”
“It sure fucking sounds like she is!”
“Nell, I swear to God, I—”
“What do I do?” I asked desperately. “I have to… I have to—”
“ Chérie , you have a lot of explaining to do,” Anne-Marie said, and three loud knocks landed on the door before the handle twisted.
And I didn’t wait for an answer.
I didn’t think.
I just dove.