Chapter Four #2
Sam was mildly shocked and a bit taken aback by Alex’s boldness.
In high school, Alex had been relatively non-confrontational.
This was something else. Maybe she had changed.
She took a moment to think about how to approach the question.
Of course she was avoiding her, and now she had been called out on it.
But was she ready to tell Alex why? She fiddled with the lid of the coffee cup and slowly raised it to take another sip.
She looked around the kitchen, taking time to gather herself, then finally met Alex’s probing look.
“A bit, I guess.” She looked down at her hands when Alex’s scrutiny became too much. “I mean, I do have a lot to do with the house. And settling my mother’s affairs.” She felt a sudden wave of defensiveness that she couldn’t explain.
Alex, for her part, looked relieved. She took a deep breath and then swiveled back to her coffee. “I’m your friend, Sam. If you had asked, I would have helped you with any of that.”
Sam couldn’t help the sharp burst of feeling that rushed to the surface, and she let it get the best of her.
Now it was her turn to face Alex full-on.
“If we’re cutting to the chase, I guess I’ll have to be honest with you.
I haven’t been avoiding you, Alex. I don’t have any reason to need to see you.
And, in case you don’t remember, we haven’t been friends for years. We haven’t been anything in years.”
Outburst over, Sam pushed herself off the stool and walked to the other side of the counter, needing to put distance between them.
She took the long way around to avoid passing behind Alex, whose physical presence was distracting to her.
She didn’t need those feelings getting in the way right now.
She was suddenly shaking with anger and couldn’t handle the proximity.
She grabbed the dirty plates and began loading them into the dishwasher, turning her back to Alex in the process.
When she was finished, she stood with her arms braced on the counter, looking out the window, her back still turned.
“I know that.” Alex’s voice came faintly over Sam’s shoulder. “And I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” Sam whirled around so quickly that Alex flinched. “You’re sorry?” Her voice rose slightly.
“Yes, Sam, I…” Alex’s voice trailed off when she saw the look on Sam’s face.
“No.” Sam’s voice was firm. She held up her hand in a stop motion.
“Just don’t. Just because two people happen to be in the same place again doesn’t mean they can pick back up where they left off.
” Sam paused and regarded her for a long moment before laughing harshly.
“Because if I’m being honest, where we left off was pretty fucking terrible. ”
“I know that, Sam.” Alex pushed herself off her stool and put both hands on the counter before her. “Do you think this all was easy on me? That I just left you and went about my business? That my heart didn’t break in half that day, too?” Her voice caught slightly. “If you only knew…”
“Knew what?” Sam’s voice was much higher than she could control. She threw up her hands. “All I know is that you let your mother say those things to me. You let her throw me out of her house. And then you never spoke to me again.” Her voice grew quiet. “Until now.”
Alex’s chin trembled slightly and her eyes filled with unshed tears.
Despite the tension between them, Sam found that the only thing she wanted to do was to comfort her.
She hated seeing Alex cry. Instead, she planted her hands on the counter before her, mimicking Alex’s defensive pose.
Whatever was going to come next, it was not up to her.
Alex took several minutes to compose herself, breathing deeply as she formed the words in her head.
Finally, in a soft voice, she began to speak.
“When my mother asked you to leave that night, a part of me broke and died.” She didn’t look at Sam as she spoke.
“The things she said to you. Those names she called you. She didn’t direct them only at you.
She meant them for me, too.” She shrugged helplessly.
“I couldn’t live with her knowing that that was how she felt about me.
That, in her eyes, I was dirty, irredeemable, and a sinner.
My mother thought those things of me, her daughter. ”
Tears were flowing freely now, wetting her cheeks and making her eyes more impossibly blue. At that moment, Sam’s heart ached for her. But she couldn’t—no, wouldn’t back down.
“After that, I had no choice.” Alex scoffed and shrugged helplessly. “I left, too.”
Sam looked sharply up. “But…”
Alex just shook her head. “No, I didn’t follow you.
I couldn’t. I know now it wasn’t the right thing to do.
I’ve known that for a while. But I was young, Sam.
You’d had a glimpse of what life was like beyond Hicksville, but this place was all I knew.
My whole life was here. I wasn’t strong like you. ”
Sam felt herself softening. She had been so wrapped up in her hurt that she had never stopped to think about what Alex was going through.
She felt ashamed of her younger self. But, as usual, her stubbornness won out.
Her face burned with shame even as she heard herself say the words.
She still couldn’t let it go. “Did you even try?” she whispered. “I would have done anything for you.”
“I think that deep down, I knew that, Sam. I do.” Alex came around the counter and sat next to her.
She reached an arm out toward Sam, seemed to think better of it, and pulled it back again.
“But I couldn’t let you. Don’t you get it?
I watched my mother say what she said to you.
I saw how it hurt you, and I thought that the best thing I could do was to save you from that…
from her, from me, and what she made me believe about myself.
And the only way I could do that was to let you go. ”
“No.” Sam vigorously shook her head. “That’s not how it works.
Did you ever stop to think that I didn’t want you to let me go, that I wanted you to fight for us?
” She got up and walked across the room again to put some distance between the two of them.
When Alex was close to her, she just couldn’t think straight.
She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to protect herself.
“You don’t get it. You don’t get to decide that. We should have decided together.”
“I know, Sam. But I was young. What the hell did I know back then? For that matter, what did you know?” Alex was visibly frustrated.
“All I knew was that I needed them to pay for college. But that didn’t mean I had to live with them.
After that night, I only returned to get a few of my things.
I spent the rest of the summer with my grandparents in Maryland.
In the fall, I went to school down there.
” She shrugged and laughed bitterly. “In the end, I didn’t take a cent from them.
I decided that I didn’t want their money. ”
Sam turned away from Alex and looked out the window to the backyard.
She wasn’t sure what to do with any of the words she was hearing.
Over a decade had passed, and she had believed one story: that Alex had just turned her back on her when she needed her most. However, it seemed they had both been trying to do what was best for the other.
“Well,” she said finally, spinning around. “Where do we go from here?”
In the span of a few seconds, Alex’s facial expression went from sad to surprise to absolutely radiant. Sam felt her heart tug slightly as she watched the emotions play out. Alex turned a mild shade of pink before timidly asking, “How about dinner?”
Sam regarded her for a long moment, biting her lip. She quickly stopped herself when Alex’s eyes glanced down at them. Sam felt her face heat again. No, she definitely could not survive a whole dinner with Alex. “How about a drink?” she asked instead.