Adrian
Chapter thirty-two
Sam’s eyes go wide when she sees me. She glances over her shoulder, but her parents are gone from view. Still, she steps out onto the porch and closes the door behind her.
It’s a miracle I made it to this porch in one piece, as distraught and distracted as I was driving down.
When she wasn’t at her apartment when I stopped by after the game, I called Griffin, thinking she might have gone to his house.
He let me know that Sam had driven home to Oklahoma when he realized she hadn’t told me.
I spent the past three hours speeding down the highway, terrified that I had lost my person right when I finally found her.
That my hesitation to clearly tell her how I feel had ruined her trust in me.
I’m relieved to see her looking a little less hollow than she did this morning, grateful that she found some solace with her parents.
But there’s also an excruciating ache in my heart that I didn’t give her that solace.
That she didn’t feel safe with me, that I couldn’t respond the right way to her emotions.
Yearning to touch her, I reach out a hand but hesitate. I’m afraid that she’s still afraid.
But she watches my hand. Something in her splinters at the sight of my hesitation, instant tears filling her eyes before she hangs her head.
So I stop hesitating.
“Sam, I love you,” I say.
Her head snaps back up, eyes meeting mine. I raise my arm again, slowly, stepping toward her to softly cup her cheek. “I love you. I’m sorry I haven’t told you that already. I’m sorry that I haven’t done the right things to make you feel safe with me. Please give me another chance. I’m sorry.”
“No, Adrian!” she exclaims, then throws her arms around my torso.
I wrap mine around her, holding her against me, cradling her head to my chest. She mumbles, “You didn’t do anything wrong.
I should have told you earlier about today.
” She pulls away, dropping her arms to her sides and looking me in the eye.
Her chin quivers as she says, “I should have told you about everything earlier. I should have explained what being with me would mean so you could decide if—”
I don’t let her finish the doubting statement. Taking her face in my hands, I cover her lips with mine, stealing the doubt away. Tears slip between the press of my thumbs against her soft skin, and I draw back so I can wipe them away.
“I love you, cielo. It’s already decided.
There’s nothing you could explain that would change that.
This morning doesn’t change that. Not for me,” I say, sliding my hands from her cheeks to her neck.
“The whole drive here I was terrified that you wouldn’t want to be with me after I screwed up so bad this morning.
But I’ve already decided. I love you. I want you. You, Sam. All of you.”
She places her hands over mine, pulling them down, holding them between us even as she inches her feet backward.
Her fingers tremble in mine as she says, “But you don’t understand.
You don’t know everything that . . . all the reasons why this morning happened.
The reasons why this morning will keep happening.
Because apparently I still can’t get over them.
” Her voice cracks, and she drops her eyes.
“Then tell me,” I say, stepping closer to erase the distance she wedged between us. “Please, cielo, please tell me. Let me understand. Let me love you.”
I barely hear her whisper. “You might not want to love me still. You might realize you want more.”
Shaking my head, I keep my voice steady. “Impossible. You’re all I’ve wanted for a very long time. Nothing will change that.” She silently searches my face, and I beg, “Please.”
Something changes in Sam—resigned resolve settling over her features.
She takes my hand and leads me around the side of the house through a gate to the backyard.
There’s a stone patio at the back of the house, but the yard itself is probably close to a half acre with several sprawling trees.
Sam walks to the farthest one from the house and looks up.
There’s a tree house built into the massive oak tree.
“My dad built this for Griffin when they first moved into this house. But I stole it,” she explains as she starts to climb up the ladder.
I follow her up, barely squeezing through the hole in the floor.
There’s a covered house around the trunk of the tree, but there’s a roofless platform built out across several sturdy branches, which is where Sam heads.
I sit down next to her at the edge of the platform, our feet dangling over the side.
Because the Wests live on the outskirts of the city where houses aren’t on top of each other, a lot more of the stars are visible in the night sky.
Sam leans back on her hands, staring at the sky above us, so I mimic her pose, trying to be patient.
Trying not to push her to start talking.
“I can’t tell you the number of hours I spent up here,” Sam says, voice quiet. “When I had a hard day at school, or uncomfortable meetings with social workers, or court appointments, difficult therapy sessions, bad dreams, bad waking thoughts—all of it. I’d come out here.”
She blows out a long breath and finally glances over at me.
“My world—my life, my brain—felt so big and so overwhelming for such a long time. It honestly still does sometimes.” She returns her gaze to the stars, and I shift so I can place my fingertips over hers against the smooth wooden planks.
She explains, “Sitting out here under the stars, seeing how huge the sky and universe are, it helped me feel small. In a good way. It helped me feel like there was more out there, outside my life. Outside the crushing weight of my thoughts.”
Sam pauses, and I sense a shift in her mood as she shifts her weight forward.
I hear the dread in her swallow, so I move closer, putting my left arm around her back, resting my hand on the dip of her waist. I’m grateful when she doesn’t pull away from the touch, when she places her right hand on my thigh, and I cover it with mine.
“You saw the results of how I struggled in romantic relationships. But you didn’t know how I drowned myself in them, lost myself in the need to feel loved, then fell apart when they were over. And you have to know about my childhood to understand where that unhealthy attachment style started.”
She takes a deep breath, then takes us back in time.
“My biological dad died in a car accident a few months after Ian was born. I was only four at the time, so I don’t remember very much about him.
I learned later that he had a gambling addiction, and my biological mom was left with two little kids and a mountain of debt after he passed.
Long story short, she didn’t handle it well,” Sam says.
“My memories of those first years are sketchy. Stretches of sleeping in our car when my mom was between jobs. Being hungry a lot. Ian crying a lot. Me comforting him. My mom sometimes caring for us and sometimes completely checked out because she couldn’t deal with everything.”
Beneath my arm, Sam’s body starts to shake, and I tighten my grip on her waist, pressing her into my side.
“When I was seven, my mom got remarried. She was so desperate for help. Help paying the bills. Help with us. She didn’t care who the help came from,” Sam says, her voice beginning to quiver. “My stepfather, Charles, never even tried to be nice to me or Ian. He didn’t have to. My mom didn’t care.”
She breaks off talking, and my chest tightens with sickening dread.
“I never saw him hit my mom. Maybe he didn’t, or maybe it was always behind closed doors.
Maybe she didn’t make him as angry as I did.
I tried everything to keep him happy—being on my best behavior, helping around the house, anticipating what he might want and getting it for him, literally hiding.
I even started going by Sam instead of Samantha because he said my name was a mouthful.
But none of it mattered—I always managed to do something wrong. He was always angry.”
She’s quiet again, tensing in my arms like she’s struggling to continue talking.
Stroking her hand with my thumb, I offer the words for her. “He hit you?”
“For two years,” Sam whispers, and my muscles go rigid with rage. I make a conscious effort to loosen my hold on her waist and her hand, not wanting to transfer my agitation to her.
“I never told anyone. I mean, my mom knew, but she didn’t care.
But at school, around other adults, I was good at hiding, at staying under the radar.
I didn’t want to cause problems for anyone.
Until one afternoon the first week of school, Ian and I walked home from the bus stop, and Charles was home early from work.
Ian was whining about being hungry, like he did every day after school.
Charles heard him complaining, and first he hit me for not getting Ian a snack fast enough.
Then . . . he hit Ian for the very first time.
” She closes her eyes against the memory.
“I can still hear the sound. It was different from when he’d hit me. I don’t know how to explain it.”
Shaking her head, she continues, “That was it for me. When Charles and my mom went out later that evening, I took Ian and walked to the police station. They brought special social workers in to interview us and took so many photos. I was embarrassed because I had to show them all the bruises I was used to hiding. It was late, so they took us to the DCF office to spend the night while they looked for a foster care placement for us.”
“Today. On August twelfth,” I state.
Sam nods.
Understanding fits the pieces together in my mind, and I say, “This morning when I pulled you out of the way of the bike, it reminded you of Charles hurting you.”
She won’t make eye contact with me as she murmurs, “Yeah.”
Tipping her chin to look at me, I say, “I’ll never hurt you, Sam. Never.”
Pain scrunches her face as she brings both hands to her temples.
“I know, Adrian. I know that. I promise you—I know that. But my brain, it’s .
. . it’s broken. There are things that trigger trauma responses that I can’t control.
It’s gotten better, but I think I’ve clearly proven that it’s never gonna go away completely.
” Her chest heaves with panicked breaths as she continues, “I know it wasn’t my fault, that it was my mom’s fault and Charles’ fault, but I’m messed up.
Probably forever. It’s not fair to you to—”
“Stop,” I murmur as I pull her head against my chest. I give her a second to slow her breathing, feeling her relax as she matches her breaths to mine. “I love you, cielo. I want you. Your whole heart. Your whole brain. Definitely forever. I’ve already decided.”
“But Adrian,” Sam moans against my chest, “I’ll weigh you down. You live at the top of the world. Your whole life is a highlight reel. Once-in-a-lifetime opportunities one after another. I’ll only—”
“You are my once in a lifetime, cielo,” I emphasize, gently nudging her shoulders back so I can look in her eyes.
“Why do you think I nicknamed you ‘heaven’? Because I’m walking through heaven on earth every time I’m near you.
Sure, I’ve had more unique experiences than the average person”—Sam spears me with a sarcastic look that I ignore—“but being with you is going to be the one highlight of my entire life. I don’t care about anything else.
I’m going to love you every day I’m alive, whether you love me back or not. ”
“I do—of course I love you back,” she says, placing one hand on my chest. “That’s not the issue. I love you so much, Adrian.”
Holding her hand tightly against my chest, I say, “Then there’s no issue. We love each other. It’s already decided.”
Sam launches toward me, clasping her arms around my neck as she kisses me. I’m thrown off-balance and have to catch our momentum with one hand behind me. Once I straighten, I wrap both arms around Sam, pulling her onto my lap, letting her take the lead with this kiss.
It’s thoughtful, almost tentative at first, like she’s testing for reassurance from my lips against hers. Whatever she’s testing for, she finds it. Gently breaking away, she holds my face in her hands. Her silhouette is framed by the midnight-blue sky sprinkled with stars—my heaven on earth.
“I love you, Adrian,” she repeats.
“And I love you, Sam,” I say, but something flares in the back of my mind—a comment she made while sharing her story.
“Hang on . . .” I start, and worry pulls her lips into a frown.
I quickly continue, “Did you say you started going by the name Sam because your stepfather said Samantha was too long?”
Sam’s hands drop from my face to rest on my shoulders as she shrugs. “I mean, yeah, that’s when it started. But now it’s been most of my life that people have called me Sam. Or Sammi. I’m not picky.”
Gears turn in my mind. “Danae calls you Samantha,” I say. “Why?”
Another shrug. “When we first met, she asked me what I preferred to go by. I told her I didn’t care. That I didn’t want my name to be a mouthful, so I didn’t have a preference.”
Narrowing my eyes, I cock my head. “But she calls you Samantha.”
Shrug.
“And you like her calling you that?”
Shrug.
“Cielo, I want you to tell me straight—do you like being called Samantha?” I can see her getting ready to downplay an answer, so I cup a hand behind her head and stare hard into her eyes. “Samantha. Do you like being called Samantha?”
Her expression melts, and she whispers, “I really like the way you say Samantha.”
A light smile curves the edges of my mouth, and I murmur “Samantha” in a low voice before kissing her jaw, right along her neck. I allow my Venezuelan accent to slip to the forefront as I whisper “Samantha” in her ear.
Her responding kiss isn’t tentative at all.