by Elle Casey
“Are you going with him?”
“What?” Her question throws me for a loop.
“I said, are you going with him? On the flight plan, the pilot needs to indicate how many passengers there will be.”
I hadn’t even thought of going with Sam, but the idea is nuts, so the answer is simple: no, I am not going to LA with Sam. Yes, we had a connection today, but that doesn’t equate to me suddenly being thrust into the middle of his life.
“Of course I’m not going with him. It’s just Sam.”
“Are you sure? Because if this is a life-or-death situation, if it’s that bad, maybe you should go with him. Remember what I asked you to do, Em. Nothing has changed. I need your help with him and Ty. I can’t have Sam falling apart on me. He means a lot to the band right now. There’s a lot riding on this.” She drops her voice. “And Sam and Ty are on the edge of fixing their relationship, and I need that to continue forward, not move backward. They need to mend their fences.”
I can’t believe she’s trying to recruit me into this nonsense. Yes, I care about Sam, but I cannot get involved in all his problems. And even if I wanted to, I’m sure he wouldn’t want me there. That would be crazy. We’re still practically strangers.
“No, he doesn’t want me to go with him to LA; that’s nuts.”
“You can if you want,” says a deep voice from behind me.
I spin around to find Sam standing in the entrance of the foyer with his fully loaded backpack in hand. He doesn’t have either guitar I saw him come in with this afternoon.
“But . . .” I look first at him and then at the phone in my hand. “But I don’t know anybody in LA,” I say lamely.
“You don’t need to know anybody in LA besides me.”
I can’t believe how scared he looks. This is not the Sam I’ve seen over the past twelve hours. His skin is as pale as paper, and he looks physically ill. Drained. Hopeless.
I don’t know what to think about his statement. We’re practically strangers. The only thing I do know about him is that he’s a standup guy and that he stepped in to take care of a little girl who needed him because her mother was a mess. And I guess I know too that he’s the brother of my sister’s boyfriend. Maybe he’s not as much of a stranger as I thought.
I feel my resolve weakening, my reasons for not going evaporating over this sense that we are somehow connected and fated to see this thing through . . . whatever this thing is. Friendship, probably. But friends aren’t anything to discount. I don’t have so many that I couldn’t use one more.
Besides . . . do I need to know anything else about him? I’m sure he’s got skeletons in his closet just like I do. Does any of that matter? He looks so vulnerable. Scared. And I know what that feels like, to know that you’re alone in the world and that no one understands. Somebody he loves could be dying—the mother of his child, no less. The only thing is . . . I’m sure he’s got a million friends back in LA, so why does he need me?
He stares at me, waiting for me to respond.
The risk seems huge. What we started together here in New York City is nice, but it could so easily go sideways in the wrong environment. LA? What could be more opposite from New York than LA?
“Do you need me to go with you?” I finally ask. Regardless of how I feel, I know one thing: Sam was there for a little girl who needed him, so I can be there for him when he needs somebody. If he needs somebody. I don’t think it’s in him to admit that he does. I’ve only known him for half a day, but I can see that the chip on his shoulder is the size of a boulder.
He gives me a brief shrug. “It might be nice to have some company.”
I nod, knowing that’s the best I’m going to get from him. But the small amount of vulnerability he lets slip through is all I have to see. “Okay, fine. I’ll go.” I change my focus to the telephone. “Put me on the flight plan. I’m going to LA with Sam.”
“Wow. I never thought I would see the day,” Amber says.
“What’s that supposed to mean? What day?”
“The day that you would drop everything and take a spontaneous trip across the country for a guy you just met. New York sure has had an effect on you.”
My heart plummets as Amber puts what I’m doing into perfect perspective. I’m such a rube. “Shut up. I have to go.”
“It’s only going to take you fifteen seconds to pack,” she says, a smile in her voice. “We still have time to chat if you want.”
“No, we don’t. Gotta go.” I hang up the phone before she can say anything else. I take a deep breath and let it out. Sam stares at me and I stare back.
“So . . . we’re doing this?” he asks. “Together?”
“I guess we are.” My heart is pounding to beat the band.
“Is this too freaky? Is it too much?” He looks almost pained asking his questions.
I think about it for a couple seconds before I shake my head. “No. It felt like it at first, but not now. But maybe it hasn’t sunk in yet either.” I stop trying to explain my feelings because they’re too screwed up in my head to make sense of anyway. “I need to go pack.”
“I’ll be here,” he says. He’s staring at the floor when I walk out of the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
So,” Sam says, standing in the foyer at the elevator doors. He’s looking straight ahead and we have our bags next to us on the floor. “You’re going to LA with me.”
“I guess I am.” Things were so easy with him just thirty minutes ago, but now they’re complicated again. We need an escape hatch; the pressure is getting to be too much. Maybe he regrets asking me to go.
“But I don’t have to,” I say. “If you don’t want me to go . . . if it makes you uncomfortable, all you have to do is say so. You don’t have to worry about hurting my feelings or anything. The most important thing is that you get where you need to be with the least amount of hassle.”
His mouth is set in a grim line. I wish I could read the emotions on his face, but I’m having no luck. I wait for his response with my heart pounding.
“I’m glad you’re going.” That’s all he says as he presses the button to summon the elevator again.
“I’m going to call downstairs really quick and see if they’ll get us a cab.” I don’t think my sister was serious when she said she was going to wake Mr. Blake up to take us.
Sam nods once as I turn around and walk as quickly as I can to the kitchen. Picking up the intercom, I chew on my lip. I still don’t know if I’m doing the right thing by going. I don’t want Sam to think I’ve glommed on to him like some kind of leech. And what the heck . . . LA? At this point, I’m pretty much jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. I’m not only going to a city that’s completely different, I’m also going to the opposite corner of the country, three thousand miles away. I couldn’t be farther away from my comfort zone—literally and figuratively—than LA.
Someone at the front desk answers—a young male voice. “Hi, this is George.”
“Hi, George. This is Emerald, Amber’s sister.”
“Hello, Ms. Collins. We have your car ready for you down here.”
“My car?”
“Yes. Your sister called ahead to make sure your driver would be here. He’s waiting for you at the curb. Do you need one of us to come up and get your bags for you?”
“No. We’ll be fine. We’ll be right down.” Thank goodness Amber thinks of everything.
I join Sam in the open elevator, and we ride down in silence. When the doors open, George is standing there gesturing toward my bag. “Let me help you.”
I allow him to take over, even though my suitcase is as light as a feather. Like Amber predicted, it only took me fifteen seconds to pack. She must have told George how much of a rush we’d be in because he speeds ahead of me to get to the door and hold it open for us. We’re loaded up in no time, Sam riding in the backseat with me.
Mr. Blake looks at us in the rearview mirror. “JFK?”
“Yes, sir,” I say. Sam is too
lost in thought to answer. “You sure got here fast. Thank you for that.”
“I was just around the corner. You’re welcome.”
I wish I knew what to say to Sam. I want to reassure him that everything is going to be okay, but I really don’t think it is. He said that Madison is a heroin addict and that she overdosed. I don’t know much about drug addiction, but I’m pretty sure her chances of survival are very slim, which means he could very well soon become the sole caregiver of their child. He probably sees his career crumbling before his eyes, assuming he’s even capable of thinking about that stuff right now.
“Amber and Ty will support you, no matter what,” I say, hoping to be reassuring.
He nods once. I don’t know if he’s feeling too emotional to discuss it or he wants me to stop talking, so I leave it alone. We ride all the way to the airport without another word spoken between us. By the time we arrive at the curb, I’m pretty sure coming along was a mistake, but I can’t very well abandon him at the airport, can I? That would be unforgivable. Here I am promising him, reassuring him that my sister and her boyfriend will support him, and I’m going to just leave him out in the cold? No. I can’t do that, even though ninety-nine percent of me wants to leave in this car, go back to the apartment, and stay there until my trip is over.
I was right about myself and so was Sam: I am afraid. I’m afraid of change, I’m afraid of conflict, and I’m afraid of things I don’t understand. And I definitely do not understand the kind of life that Sam has obviously led, where he hangs out with drug addicts and plays music with strangers and takes on the responsibilities of raising another man’s child. It’s all so foreign.
“Do you know where we go from here?” he asks as we arrive at the airport.
I shake my head, panic settling deep into my chest. Great. I got us tickets to a plane that’s parked who knows where.
“I’ll show you where to go,” Mr. Blake says. He hangs a big plastic card on his rearview mirror and receives a nod from a police officer standing nearby. He gets us and our luggage out and quickly hustles us over to a special ticket counter that doesn’t have a sign on it. Soon, we’re whisked away in an electric cart and delivered to the steps of a small jet airplane.
Sam looks up at it and then at me. “Pretty nice.”
“Yeah. I flew commercial into JFK.”
“Me too,” he says.
Without another word, we mount the steps. Inside the door, two pilots are waiting. One of them holds out her hand. “Hello. I’m sorry to say we don’t have a flight attendant on board with us tonight, but once we do our takeoff, we can help you get settled.”
I shake her hand first. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll probably just sleep the whole way.”
Sam shakes her hand next and nods. “Thanks.”
We bring our bags inside, and they’re stowed in a couple of closets near the front of the plane. Sam and I sit across from each other, a small table between us. The seats are heavily cushioned and covered in soft leather, more like recliners than actual plane seats.
“Are you tired?” he asks.
The engines whine, and there’s a bumping on the outside of the plane that makes my heart skip a beat. I buckle my seat belt, tightening it. “Yes.” That’s a lie, actually. I am so keyed up right now, I have no idea how I’m going to sleep. But I think a nap at the very least is the best option for Sam, and I don’t want him staying awake just to be polite.
“I probably should sleep, but I doubt I’ll be able to.” He looks out the window. There’s nothing to see out there other than runway lights.
“If you want to talk, just talk. I’m here.” I shrug, at a loss for what else to say.
“Thanks.” He sighs and looks down at his interlaced fingers. He seems nervous. “I’m just glad you’re here. I really didn’t want to do this alone. I think I knew this day would come, but imagining it and living through it are two different things.”
I nod, feeling so sad for him. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I’m sorry, Sam. I wish I could make things easier for you.”
He nods, his lips pressing together. He’s trying really hard not to cry.
“It sounds like she’s in the hospital, right?”
He nods again.
“Then that means she’s getting the best care she can get. We’ll just have to pray that everything works out okay.”
He takes a long breath and lets out a trembling sigh. “See, that’s the thing . . .” He hesitates. “I don’t know what the best thing is for her. I mean, if I pray, what do I pray for?”
“What do you mean?”
He looks up at me, his eyes shining with unshed tears. “She’s miserably unhappy. Everyone who cares about her has done everything they could to help her, and she just doesn’t want the help.”
“It sounds like she’s depressed.”
“She’s more than depressed. She’s completely addicted. She hits the bottom of the barrel over and over, and she doesn’t try to pull herself back up. It’s like she’s trying to kill herself in the slowest, most painful way. She doesn’t even care . . .” His voice hitches on the last words. “. . . about Sadie.”
“We should talk about this with her doctor when we get to the hospital. They should treat her psychiatrically, too.”
“Yeah. We’ve done that before . . . so many times I’ve lost count.”
“I know it’s tempting, Sam, but don’t give up on her. She’s going to need you to hang in there for her.”
He nods more enthusiastically than he did before, his nostrils flaring a little. “Yeah, I know. You’re right. I can do that.” He takes a deep breath and seems to expand before my eyes. He was slumping before, but now he’s sitting up straighter. “I can definitely do that for Madison.”
I don’t know Sam that well, but I’m really proud of him. He’s got the weight of the world on his shoulders, but here he is thinking about how he’s going to hang in there for this girl who sounds like a hopeless case. I’m sure he’s panicking about what’s going to happen with their child. He’s probably worried about his music and the business agreement he has going with the band, too. I wish I could assure him with one-hundred-percent certainty that the band will hang in there with him and stand by him through these difficult times, but I can’t do that. I don’t have a lot of faith in those men, even though my sister does.
The plane starts moving and I grip the armrests of my seat, suddenly realizing that we’re about to fly through the air in a machine that’s smaller than my sister’s apartment. This thing is tiny! What if it runs into a storm and gets hit by lightning? We’ll fall out of the sky!
“Are you afraid to fly?” he asks, glancing down at my hands.
I follow his gaze and check out my white knuckles. “Not usually.” I try to laugh, but the terror I’m feeling seeps in and makes me sound like a crazy witch, cackling over a spell’s brew. Double, double, toil and trouble . . .
“Do you want to come and sit next to me?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. I’m okay. Really. I’m great. Cool as a cucumber. Cooler than that. Like ice.” Here I am acting like a damsel in distress when I’m supposed to be supporting him while he goes to the hospital to deal with his friend’s heroin overdose. I just took a flight to New York this morning and I was fine, but now I’m freaking about the plane simply taking off? Wow, I’m going to be a lot of help.
He takes off his seat belt and gets up, walking around the table to stand next to me. “Scoot over.”
I look up at him and around me. “What?”
“Scoot over.” He points at the seat to my left. “Quick, before I get thrown on the floor.”
I scramble to unbuckle my seat belt and take the other seat. As he settles into the one I was just occupying, I finally realize what this musical chairs business is all about: the guy’s world is falling down around his ears, but he still manages to be concerned about me.
To say this man is charming would be the understatement of
the year. Talk about a knight in shining armor. He’s galloping off to save not just one but two damsels in distress . . . Three, if you include his daughter.
“That’s better,” he says, securing his seat belt. “I don’t like these little planes. Not that sitting next to you is going to change anything, but I feel better about not dropping out of the sky having you close.” He reaches over and squeezes my hand once before folding his arms over his chest.
I smile, charmed to the core. The spot where he touched me remains warm and tingly. “I was thinking the same thing. What holds this thing up in the air, anyway?”
“I think it’s called a wing and a prayer.”
I clasp my hands together and close my eyes. “Dear God, please keep this plane in the air until it’s ready to land in LA.” I pause, wondering if God would be so cruel as to use loopholes to get around my request. I decide it’s worth being a little more detailed, just in case God is also a lawyer in his spare time. “And please don’t let any lightning hit us. Or hail. Or wind. Or a hurricane. Or a tornado. Or a tidal wave. Or any weather that’s dangerous. Or another plane. Or an alien ship.” There. That should cover it.
“Good one,” he says lazily. When I look over at him, he’s leaning against his headrest and smiling with his eyes closed.
I decide to use his method and lay my head back too. I’m just going to close my eyes during the takeoff, and then once we’re up in the air, we can have a conversation. What we’ll talk about, I don’t know, but I’m sure it’ll be interesting, mysterious, and stimulating, because every conversation I’ve had with him since the moment I met him has been at least one of these things. A smile plays along my lips as I drift away and the plane points its nose toward the darkened sky.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Los Angeles is nothing like New York City. First of all, it’s warmer. Much warmer. And the people here look really different. On the drive from the airport to the hospital, I see a bunch of luxury vehicles and convertibles. They’re everywhere, even though it’s super early. The people inside them are sparkling with jewelry, mostly blond, and stacked with cleavage. And Sam was right . . . nobody is walking around outside.