Chapter 26 #2
The chocolatey depths of Angel’s eyes softened as she relaxed her shoulders. “I know you didn’t. And don’t get mad at me, but I told Peter about it, and I think he might have told his parents and Tyler, just to make sure everyone is safe.”
“Angel—”
“Don’t—let other people worry about you for a change, okay? My point is just that—on top of the fact that you have this insatiable desire to never ask for help when you need it, which I’ll never fucking understand—you tend to have a hard time when relationships change.”
Ouch. That one stung.
“Admitting that you’re in love with him,” Angel continued when Sam remained silent, “and that he is definitely in love with you—don’t you dare try to tell me otherwise—would mean that your relationship together might change, and I think that’s what actually scares you.”
Tears pricked in Sam’s eyes, but she grunted in an effort to fight them off. “Okay, Dr. Phil, chill out.”
“What I don’t understand,” Angel went on as if she hadn’t heard Sam, “is why? Why would a change in your relationship with Charlie, or hell even with me, scare you so much?”
A sob tore through to the surface. “Because I can’t bear the thought of either of you leaving me!”
Sam couldn’t see the expression on Angel’s face through the haze of tears, but she could hear the delicate change in her voice. “Sam, sweetie… why would you think we’re going to leave?”
“Everyone always does!” she squeaked out, desperately rubbing her eyes in hopes it would make the tears stop. “My parents died and left me here. My family leaves me any time I’m not fucking useful to them…”
“Hey,” Angel snapped. “Don’t put me and that witch even remotely in the same category.”
“So, yes,” Sam continued, “I’m terrified that if things change between us too much, and between me and Charlie, that you’ll both leave! It’s what everyone does when they don’t need me anymore, and I can’t stand knowing it would’ve been my fault if it did.”
Sam didn’t stop the sobs as they tore through her. Her body doubled over as she wrapped her arms around herself, hoping that it would be enough to help keep the broken pieces of her together.
“Sam, I know I’m not gonna be able to talk decades worth of therapy into your head with all of that, but what I do know is that neither myself, nor Charlie, are going anywhere.
We both love you. Just, in a different way for Charlie that probably includes a lot of naked time,” Angel said, a hint of humor in her voice at the end.
Despite herself, despite the tears as they continued to stream down her cheeks, and despite all the conflicting emotions and feelings still raging inside of her—Sam laughed.
“I don’t know about all that,” Sam sputtered back.
Angel rolled her eyes. “Sam, you have this gorgeous man who proposed a whole fucking experiment just to help you do research for your book. Please open your eyes.”
“I—”
Angel shook her head. “Talk to him, at least. Tell him how you feel.”
“I’ll… think about it,” Sam said slowly.
“You better,” Angel scolded as she pointed her finger at the screen, “because I’ll kick your ass from here to Timbuktu if you don’t.”
Sam leaned back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. Processing her conversation with Angel.
Everything she’d said was right. She was afraid of things changing too much.
When Angel had become her agent, she’d overcompensated and leaned so heavily into Angel’s new role that it had affected their friendship. Even if she hadn’t meant for it to. And Charlie was no different.
Sam and I are just friends. I don’t see her like that.
It had been so many years since she’d overheard that stupid conversation between him and Peter.
They were still teenagers, and it hadn’t been but a few months after Erica had died.
He’d finally started acting more like himself, but with the trial going on at the same time, she’d known even then that he was overwhelmed.
If she were in his shoes, she could see herself saying something similar just to get people off her back.
Right now, however, she didn’t want to think about any of that.
Right now, all she wanted was to focus on writing. If she was on a deadline now to get that scene to her publishers, she would need to get started as soon as possible. Even if she had no fucking clue what she was going to write for it.
Already settled into her spot on the floor, she snagged a pillow from the couch and shoved it beneath her.
She then began to click through the files on her laptop until she came to the open manuscript and hovered her fingers over the keys.
The last she’d left her characters and story, she was no where near the start of where the spicy scenes would begin.
Though well into the story, she’d gone for a slow-burn kind of romance between her characters—meaning that writing a spicy scene now would be a bit out of left field.
In order to satisfy her publishers, she’d probably just have to write something smutty and see if it actually would work in the story when she got to that point. Otherwise, she could toss it. Simple enough.
That said, she’d need a few minutes before she could work up to trying to write it. She wasn’t exactly in the head space for that kind of thing at the moment, so she simply picked up where she’d last left off.
She was heavily invested in the current scene when her phone started ringing.
Thinking it might be Angel following up, she picked it up without looking.
“You made your point the first time, you—” she started before being interrupted by a surprising voice.
“Come again?” Aunt Emily asked on the other end. Sam winced, regret setting in immediately. It felt like a lifetime ago since she’d last talked to her, but she was fairly certain the conversation would take a similar track.
“Sorry,” she said, losing any enthusiasm she might’ve had in her voice. “I thought you were someone else. What’s up?”
Aunt Emily cleared her throat. “I was following up to see whether you had talked to your little friend about Tommy’s book.”
Yep, exact same trajectory as last time. The unwelcome tension stretched between Sam’s shoulders as she squirmed uncomfortably on the pillow beneath her.
“I’ve been a bit busy, Aunt Emily,” she said.
Aunt Emily scoffed. “You can’t possibly be that busy that you can’t just put in a good word for him. He’s your only cousin, after all.”
She was in no mood for Aunt Emily’s antics today. “Let me ask you this, has Tommy actually even written a word of this supposed book yet?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Then there’s nothing for me to tell anyone. But besides that—I’ve been busy,” Sam said, trying to tamper down the anger slowly rising up in her throat and heating her cheeks and ears.
“We’re all busy, dear, but I can’t see what would be taking up so much of your time that you can’t even pick up the phone. It’ll take five minutes, and it’ll really help Tommy out a great deal.”
Nothing about this conversation was surprising to Sam.
It was how her aunt had always been—and would likely always be.
She’d pester her until she got her way and then disappear into the ether until she needed something else.
It made Sam wonder why the hell she even put up with any of it.
The number of times she’d run, crying, to Charlie’s house, just to escape them, was too many to count.
But for some reason, she always found herself picking up the phone anyway.
In fact… why was she putting up with any of it? They’d essentially stopped all contact with her after she went to college. She had no obligation to speak to any of them, especially how they’d treated her growing up.
When the silence dragged on for too long for Aunt Emily’s taste, she scoffed. “What on earth could be more important than helping your family out?”
“I’ve been dealing with a stalker,” she snapped, “so I’m sorry Tommy’s book has been a bit low on my fucking priority list.” She’d had no intention of telling her family anything about the situation with Paul, but the words slipped out before she could quell the anger rising in her throat.
“A stalker? Who on earth is stalking you?” Aunt Emily asked, and—unless Sam was hearing incorrectly—it almost sounded like concern in her voice.
It softened Sam enough to continue. “Some guy I met earlier this year. He broke into my apartment and tore everything apart.”
“Oh my… Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “I’m staying with Charlie until they find the guy.”
A rustling sound echoed in the background on Aunt Emily’s side. “I’m grabbing a pen and some paper, hold on a second.”
Sam raised her eyebrows. “What for?”
“You can just give me your friend’s number, and I’ll call her for you,” Aunt Emily said quickly. “I already know what to tell her, so I won’t have to trouble you again about this.”
Un-fucking-believable.
Laughter bubbled out of Sam before she could stop it. Literally nothing changes.
“No.”
“N-no?” Aunt Emily sputtered.
“No,” Sam repeated. “None of you give a shit about me. Didn’t when I lived with you, and it’s very clear you still don’t.
I don’t understand why, as I’m literally your only niece, but that’s neither here nor there.
Be honest… Do you even like me? Like, if you never got another single thing from me, would you even still bother talking to me? ”
She could hear Aunt Emily flustering on the other end of the phone, starting and stopping a million times before one word finally came through. “No.”
It was odd how one word could feel like a knife straight to the chest, even if she knew it was coming. Sure, it hurt like hell, but at the same time, she felt like a weight was lifted. It was the strangest sensation, but it felt freeing.
“Then let me make this simple, so we don’t waste each other’s time going forward. Do not call me ever again. I’m done. I don’t want anything to do with you or your family,” she said firmly, ending the call immediately after before any objections could come through.
Sam grinned, prouder than she’d ever been of herself in a moment like this, going through her contacts before her aunt recovered enough to try to call her again, and blocked each and every contact of her family.
It was probably something she should’ve done years ago, but better late than never. Almost giddy now with the newfound freedom she had, she turned back to her laptop to pick up where she’d left off.