Chapter Eighteen
Sam and I meet Chip in the hotel
restaurant for dinner around seven. We spent the last hour sitting
on Sam's hotel room balcony just decompressing from the day. Sam
had a lot of questions about Chip even though I'd told him a bit
about him before. Eventually he seemed satisfied that Chip’s and my
friendship was more like brother and sister than anything else,
complete with a healthy sibling-like rivalry.
He also wanted to hear
details of how Chip reacted to what went down in Linton after Cam's
death. Like he wanted assurances of his loyalty. He was satisfied
to hear that Chip essentially bullied me into making my statement
against Robin. That if it weren't for him, I may have never done it
at all.
Chip looks more like
himself at dinner in faded jeans and a golf shirt, which is still
pretty dressed up for him. When Sam excuses himself after
appetizers, murmuring something about letting Chip and me catch up,
I realize that through all his earlier questioning he was looking
for reassurances about leaving me alone with him. I don't know his
real reason for excusing himself. Not for certain. Because Chip and
I could just as soon catch up with Sam here, and I
want him here, but I
suspect he needs some alone time after a long day of testimony, and
I don't want to make him feel guilty for it. So I say
nothing.
I let spending time with
Chip distract me. It turns out he's going to college in New York as
well—the John Jay College of Criminal Justice—and with the
knowledge that I really may get my friend back, we relax and just
enjoy each other's company. We both pretend like it's the only
reason we're here, in this restaurant in this hotel in Miami. We
ignore the real reason.
We talk about memories. We
talk about Cam. It feels good to talk about him with someone who
was there, someone who remembers. Someone who loves Cam as much as
I do. We don't discuss his death, we only discuss his life, and we
do something I never thought I'd do again while thinking about
Cam—we laugh.
But there are things I'm
not ready to talk about. That I'll probably never be ready to talk
about. Mostly because there is nothing to say. No answers. Because
when Chip suddenly gets serious, an uncharacteristic look for him,
and tells me how much Cam loved me, I have a striking suspicion he
means more than the obvious. It's only a moment later that he
confirms my suspicion.
"Did he ever tell you,
Rory?" Chip's voice is soft and hesitant, and he seems oddly
invested in the answer.
I can't meet his eyes, so
I train them on my raspberry sorbet instead.
Chip sighs. "Well I guess
he must've. Or you wouldn't even know what I was talkin' about,
would you?" he says more to himself than to me.
It's minutes before I
speak again, and in those minutes I'm desperately conflicted, as I
always am when I think about that night, about our kiss. But even
more so when I try to guess what would have happened if he hadn't
vanished from my world—from the
world—the very next morning.
Sometimes I play out an
alternate life. One where my plans weren't thwarted by my own
naivety. Where Cam never read Robin's texts, where I woke up before
him and had Robin arrested before Cam could try to confront him.
Would we have ended up together? I don't see how we wouldn't
have.
I loved Cam, I know that.
But it wasn't what I feel for Sam. It wasn't less than, but it was different. But
knowing how deeply in love I am with Sam doesn't change the fact
that if Cam lived, I would be his. And I could have been happy. I
may never have known the all-consuming passion, the borderline
obsession and desperation for another person that I do
now.
But that's just it, isn't
it? I never would have known. Do you miss something you don't know
exists? Particularly when you have a different, safer kind of love?
A life-long companionship that means the world to you? I don't know
the answer, and that's the problem. I'll never know the answer.
But I can't seem to stop
asking myself the question.
"I love Sam," I say
finally. It's the wrong thing to say, but then, anything I say
right now is the wrong thing. There is no right thing when there's
no right answer.
"I can see that," Chip
murmurs, not even the smallest ounce of judgment coloring his
words. It helps me meet his eyes again.
"But I did love Cam," I
tell him. He knows that of course. "It could have been more. It
might have already." My eyes well up, but I don't let a single tear
fall. "What if in some alternate universe, I'm with Cam? Or at
least, I'm supposed to be…"
I feel like I'm betraying
Sam somehow. Like I do when I go through my Cam box. I know it
isn't based in logic. Or maybe that's exactly what it is. If P then
Q. If I hadn't lost Cam, I'd never have met Sam. I'd undo Cam's
death in a microsecond…
"Rory—"
"I never thought I'd have
this," I breathe. "I didn't even know it existed. It's not what I
felt for Cam," I admit.
Chip looks at me with sad,
compassionate, infinitely familiar brown eyes. He's aged more than
the year we've been apart. Tragically losing your best friend will
do that to you.
"But I'd give it up to
bring him back. Not to be with him. Just… for him to be
alive."
It's my darkest
confession.
Guilt. It isn't rational,
but it's there, consuming me every time I let myself really
consider the reality of my life. Of the seemingly small choices,
the oversights that change everything, forever.
"Of course you would, Rory
girl. That doesn't mean you don't love your man," Chip says
soothingly.
I shrug. I know it doesn't
mean I don't love him. Because I do love him—I love him more than
words can adequately explain. But it does mean I probably don't
deserve him.
"He tell you? Sam, I mean.
That he loves you? 'Cause he does," Chip says
confidently.
I chew the inside of my
cheek. Sam hasn't said those words since the last time we were here
in Miami.
Chip narrows his eyes. "He
should tell you," he says, again, almost to himself. Something in
his tone, in his mannerisms is different. It's almost as if he's
taken over Cam's protective streak for him. Like he fancies himself
my big brother, even though I'm two months older than he
is.
It's both refreshing and
overwhelming having Chip here to talk to. But this particular day
has been far too emotionally draining, and I change the subject
before it gets to be too much for me.
"So what about you, Chip?
You datin' anyone?" I always thought he and Emmers would get
together. She certainly hoped so.
Chip shakes his head. "Not
anymore. I was seein' this girl Tully Winters. You remember
her?"
"That Bill Winter's
daughter?" I ask. "Isn't she kinda young?"
Chip smirks. "Old enough.
She was a sophomore this year."
"Didn't work
out?"
Chip shrugs. "I'm gonna be
in New York in a couple months. She wanted a commitment. Wasn't
really up for all that."
"I thought you'd end up
with Emmers," I admit.
For the second time
tonight Chips features set into a strangely serious
expression.
"What?" I ask.
Chip shakes his head
incredulously. "Really, Rory girl? After what those bitches pulled
with you? You think I was just gonna pretend what? All is forgiven just because
you left town?"
I blink at him.
"We don't speak to them.
We got your back. Whether you're there or not."
I try not to show my
surprise but I'm sure I fail. "We?"
"Uh... Nick, Perry…" he says our childhood
friends' names like he can't believe I didn't know who he'd meant.
He shakes his head again, but this time it's reproachful. "Did you
really think we wouldn't have your back?" He doesn't bother hiding
his offense.
And he's right. I shrug. "I
guess… I guess I was so desperate to escape that I didn't really
think at all. And then, I just figured life went on without me,
like before."
I wince at my own words.
Of course nothing was like before, not without Cam.
"I didn't mean—I mean I
know everything changed, once Cam died." It still feels like a
knife to my chest every time I vocalize it. Cam. Dead. Words that should never
have gone together, but are now inseverable.
Chip's brow furrows like
he's trying to work something out, and then lands back on
incredulity as he shakes his head again. "Yeah, Rory. Once Cam
died, and then we lost our other best friend, too, remember? We had
the rug pulled out from under us—findin' out what he'd been doin'
to you. You have any idea what it was like for me that day in the
hospital? When you unzipped your hoodie…" He takes a deep breath,
his features set as if he's in actual physical pain.
"And then… Look, I get you
were going through serious shit. I get that it wasn't about me, but
like, we've been friends since we were little, and then suddenly
you couldn't even be in the same room with me without
hyperventilatin'. Like you were scared of me. We both just lost Cam
and—" He swallows his pain and I'm flooded with guilt.
Not for my anxiety; I know
I wasn't to blame for that. But I never really considered how much
it all affected Chip.
"Shit, Rory. You act like…
like you thought your own friends just up and forgot about you. And
I don't mean Lacey and those hags. I mean your real friends. The
guys you'd known since kindergarten. Us."
"I'm sorry," I
murmur.
"No, Rory girl.
I'm sorry. I thought you
needed distance, so I gave it to you. I thought you'd call me when
you were ready. But I never should've let it drag on so long. I
should have found a way to get in touch."
"I should have called
you." I know I wasn't ready before, but at least since I started
talking to Michelle again, I should have tried to call Chip. And
Nick and Perry too.
Chip sighs. "Well, we're
talkin' now. That's what matters, I guess. But just know, we were
always thinkin' of you. We never forgave the people who hurt you."
His lip twists up into a small, wry smile. "Not even when Emmers
put her hand on my crotch out by the lake and whispered that her
mouth would feel even better."
My eyes widen and my last
sip of soda spits out with my laughter. "You didn't cave for a
blowjob? Well that's real loyalty right there."
His smirk grows. "My will
power has gotten much stronger I'll have you know."
"God I'd have loved to see
her face," I admit.
"Well, it looked a little
somethin' like this." He drops his mouth open and sets his features
into indignant shock, batting his eyelashes
dramatically.
I giggle
uncontrollably.
"Then she told me I didn't
know what I was missin'."
"And what'd you
say?"
He sighs, his face growing
somber once again. "I told her I did. That I was missin' my two
best friends. Not head from some skank who helped run one of 'em
off."
I blink at him for a full
minute before I get up from my chair and wrap my arms around his
surprisingly broad shoulders. Chip hugs me back
fiercely.
****
The rest of the evening is
exponentially lighter. With all of the unsaid between us now
finally said, I actually feel like I have my old friend
back.
Eventually we call it a
night and make plans to meet outside the courthouse at 8:45 the
next morning.
Sam isn't in his suite
when I get upstairs. He isn't in my room either. My heart plummets.
I try calling him, but his cell goes straight to voicemail. But I'm
not worried, just disappointed. Because I know he's probably
walking the beach clearing his head. And I know it's because of
me.
I'm the reason he's here
right now, testifying and lying on a witness stand. Listening to me
testify about the horrors of that night.
All of his friends are back
home, partying, celebrating. Yesterday was the last day of school,
Monday is his Athletics Awards dinner, Saturday is our senior Prom,
and next Tuesday graduation. These are the things that should be on
his mind. Not this.
But there's no help for
it. We fell in love. And good or bad, Sam is going to be there for
me, I know it, even if he wasn't a witness himself.
I take a long shower,
trying to wash away the day, trying to remove the image of Robin's
glare, the memory of my father's accusations.
I slip on a camisole and
the boxers I stole from Sam on our first night of spring break, and
go lay down on the balcony in a chaise lounge. Even though Sam
isn't here with me, it feels like he is. I can feel his support,
his love.
I'm tired from the long
day and from not sleeping last night, and so I let my eyes close
for a little while as I wait for him to return from his
walk.
I must fall asleep because
my hair is dry by the time I become aware of his scent, of his
strong arms slipping beneath my knees and back and carrying me to
his bed. I don't even open my tired eyes, I just cling to him as he
slips into bed beside me, and let myself drift off. In my barely
conscious state I'm only vaguely aware of his whispered
reassurances, promising me everything is going to be okay. I don't
know if it's because I'm half asleep, or if seeing my old friend
has affected me, or even if it's just Sam's love finally caressing
its way into my psyche, but for the first time, I'm actually
starting to believe him.