And when he speaks, he does so through barely moving lips. “Give me my fucking ball.”
Heart racing, mouth dry, I tuck the ball behind my back as I face him, holding it with both hands. Shake my head.
If possible, his expression gets darker. His eyes colder as they flick to mine then away. “What do you want?”
This is so much worse than I thought it’d be—and I’d imagined it was going to be completely awful. But I hadn’t counted on how I’d feel, being this close to him and not being able to touch him. Having him look right through me as if I’m not even here.
Barely worth his notice.
“Can we--” I stop. Lick my lips and try again. “Can we talk?”
“We have nothing to talk about.”
“Please,” I say, swallowing the tiny bit of pride I have left, shoring up my courage. “Please, Sam. Just give me five minutes.”
He flicks a quick, cool glance over me, from the top of my ballcap to the tips of my sneakers. “I don’t want to talk to you.”
And he walks away.
It trips something inside of me, that dismissive look. His flat, frigid tone.
Him turning away. Leaving me yet again.
Heat fills me—not from the sun but from somewhere inside me. It builds and builds, like a volcano ready to erupt, flowing through my veins like lava. My skin feels too tight. Itchy. There’s a pressure in my head, beating like a pulse at the base of my skull, insistent. Unrelenting.
How dare he act so indifferent? How dare he stand there and look down on me? How dare he act like I’m nothing to him? Like I was never anything to him? Like he’s a king handing down a royal decree—I don’t want to talk to you.
How dare he walk away from me again.
Except, the whole reason he’s on that invisible throne is because I put him there.
I put him there, I realize and let the ball drop behind me. It bounces, hits the backs of my calves then rolls into the fencing. I pushed and pushed Sam to the top of a golden pedestal, high above me, where I could always look up to him.
Where he could stay untouchable and perfect.
“It’s all about what you want,” I call, voice trembling, but loud enough to stop him in his tracks at mid-court. Strong enough to have his spine going ramrod straight. “You never cared about what I wanted. Not as long as you got your way.”
He’s breathing heavier, his shoulders rising and falling rapidly, his hands flexing and clenching at his sides. But he doesn’t respond.
Doesn’t look at me.
Stubborn, stubborn boy.
Except I’m discovering that I can be stubborn, too.
I march over to him, grab his arm and whirl him around. “Damn it, Sam. Look at me!”
“I can’t!” His anger and bitterness hit me like a tornado, swirling and whirling around me, stealing my breath, sucking my courage, my own anger into its vortex. I rear back, my hand going to my throat, the erratic, hard thump of my pulse beating against my fingertips.
“Don’t you get it?” he says, his voice breaking. “I can’t look at you. Every time I do, I imagine you with him and--” He presses his lips together and grabs the back of his neck with both hands. Shakes his head. “I just…I can’t.”
Max’s words from that awful night come back to me.
I want him to think about it. Every time he’s with you, I want him to remember I was there first.
Max got what he wanted.
The Constable brothers usually do.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Sam, I’m so, so sorry. I’d do anything to take it back.”
He lowers his arms. “You can’t take it back and you can’t fix this. Nothing you do can change what you did. You need to leave. Now. There’s nothing, not one goddamn thing, that you have to say that I want to hear.”
I reach for him. “Sam…”
Only to slowly draw my hand back when he gives me a look frigid enough to have my fingertips turning blue with frostbite, his lips curling in disgust.
Like he never used to look at me like I was something precious. Something special.
Like he never told me he loved me.
Like I’m nothing.
“It’s never enough, is it?” I ask quietly, having to push the words through the constriction in my throat, because even though I’ve cried at least three times a day since Zoe and Taylor left, I’m obviously not done with the tears yet. “No matter what I do, what I say, how I act…it’s never enough.”
The look he gives me is so condescending, so freaking arrogant, it takes all I have not to kick him in the shin. “I don’t want anything from you.”
“Please. You want everything from me. I give you everything I have but you still want more. You want it all. You demand it.”
“That is such bullshit,” he snarls. “You always held back from me. Always. And you never gave me anything. I had to beg and fight and pull every measly scrap from you!”
“At least I listened to you,” I remind him hotly. “When you came back, I listened to you and I gave you a second chance. I forgave you and this is how you’re going to treat me now?”
“Forgave me? I didn’t do anything that needed forgiving.”
“You. Changed. Everything! You decided you were in love with me and that was it. I was just to go along with it. You showed up at my house drunk and issued an ultimatum, and when I didn’t give in, you ran off like a spoiled brat throwing a temper tantrum.” My voice is shaking but I can’t stop the words, hadn’t realized they’d been inside of me this whole time. How badly I need to let them loose. “You took the choice from me. Then you left me. And when I came to see you at Christmas, you treated me like shit. Just…brushed me off like so much dirt on your shoe. But you never said you were sorry. Never apologized. Not for any of it.”
“Don’t,” he says, a low warning as he towers over me, arms crossed, shutting himself off from me. From accepting any blame in what’s become of us. “Don’t even try and turn around what happened Christmas night on me. Don’t blame me for what you did.”
“I’m not. I made a mistake. I made a million of them. But so did you. See, the thing I’m just now getting is that you’re not perfect. But you want me to be.”
“What I want is for you to not fuck my brother,” he grinds out and I go light-headed, like all the blood has drained from my head. “Guess that’s too much to ask for, huh?”
My stomach roils and I take long, slow breaths through my mouth until the sick feeling passes. I study Sam’s face, searching for the boy I’ve known since I was ten. The boy who’s had my heart for so many years.
But that’s not the Sam Constable standing in front of me. This Sam is mean. Unforgiving.
This Sam doesn’t care about me. Doesn’t respect me.
After everything we’ve been through, after everything we’ve both done, I deserve better than that.
For the first time, I think I just might deserve better than Sam Constable.
“When I came here Christmas,” I say softly, “it was to tell you that I changed my mind. That I was ready to be with you. That I wanted to be with you.” He flinches and makes a low sound, like he’s been hit in the stomach, but I keep going. “You wouldn’t even hear me out. Tell me, Sam, did you and Abby hook up that night? Huh?” I prod when he remains silent, mouth a thin line. “If I look at your phone right now, how many texts from her am I going to see? How many texts to her are on there? How many times did you text her, talk to her in private after you told me you wouldn’t?”
He turns a dull red, the blush creeping up his throat. But it’s the only admission of guilt he’ll give me. The only confession Sam is willing to make. “Is that why you hooked up with my brother? Revenge?”
My first instinct is to deny it, but one of us should be completely honest here.
“I don’t know,” I say quietly. “Maybe. But I didn’t plan it. When I saw you were with Abby, when you chose her over me...it tore me apart. So, when Max pulled in as I was leavin
g and offered me a ride, I accepted. The rest” –I lift my hands, let them fall— “just happened. I wish it hadn’t, but it did. And I’m sorry. I really am. But that doesn’t give you any right to treat me this way. To talk to me like that.”
“You did it on purpose,” he insists. “To get back at me. You could have been with anyone, any other guy, and you picked him because you knew it would kill me.”
“It wasn’t like that! Why can’t you see that? Why can’t you see that what you did ripped me apart, too?”
He swipes a hand through the air as if erasing my words. My feelings. “You’ve been fucking around with me all summer. You knew how I felt about you.” His voice cracks and he stops. “You knew and you kept stringing me along. Why? Why couldn’t you just let me go?”
My shoulders tighten and I gape at him, fury skimming along my skin, prickling the nape of my neck. “Are you kidding me right now? I wouldn’t let you go?”
Pure rage pushes me forward and I take the two steps needed to bring us toe to toe, but the brim of my hat blocks my view of him so I rip it from my head. Shake it at his stupid, too-handsome face. “I tried to keep my distance but you wouldn’t let me. I knew this would happen. I knew we’d both end up getting hurt, but that didn’t matter. What I wanted didn’t matter. It’s about you. It’s always been about you. Your wants. Your feelings. From the beginning, you made all the choices and I was just to go along with them. You made me trust you. You became the most important person in my life and then, when you didn’t get your own way, you left me. You. Left. Me.”
“I left you,” he agrees, gaze flat, tone cold. “But that wasn’t my mistake. My mistake was coming back.” He steps up to my side, keeps his head down. “We’re done. Don’t come here again. Don’t talk to me in school. Don’t look at me. Don’t even think about me. Because I am through thinking about you.”
This time, it’s me who turns away. Who walks away, but I’m blinded by my tears and I only make it two stumbling steps before stopping.
There’s one more thing I have to do. One thing I need to give him.
The whole truth.
“You were right,” I say, forcing myself to face him. “I did hold back from you.”
Admitting that is next to the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
Telling him the rest is going to be the hardest.
But I don’t do it for him.
I do it for me.
“June twenty-first.”
He scowls. “What?”
“June twenty-first. That’s the day you caught me about to go swimming in your pool when we were ten. That was the day I decided to give you a chance. That’s the day,” I continue, my voice hoarse, unsteady, “I fell in love with you.”
He inhales sharply, his body twitching as if it wants to move—either toward or away from me—but his brain won’t let it. “It doesn’t mat--”
“I love you, Sam.” And saying it isn’t nearly as hard as I thought it’d be. Not nearly as scary. The truth really does set you free.
Or maybe it’s because he won’t look at me, his head down, his hands on his hips.
But he hears me. I know he does.
And that’s all that matters.
“I should have told you that on Valentine’s Day when we were sophomores,” I continue, my hands twisting my ballcap so hard the brim bends, “when I was so jealous of Abby I could have screamed. I should have told you the first time you kissed me. I should have told you a hundred times, a thousand times before. I love you. I’ve loved you for seven years. I thought I’d love you forever but now…” I trail off, uncertain, because this is the part I’m not sure I can get out. The truth that’s been bubbling inside of me ever since Sam walked away from me at that party. “Now, I think maybe it’s time I stopped. For both our sakes.”
I somehow manage to make it out of the court and over to my bike. Feeling him watching me, I shrug on my backpack, climb onto my bike and, my hat crushed between my right hand and my handlebar, I coast down the driveway. At the bottom, I keep going, making it another mile before my vision is too blurry to ride safely.
That’s when I stop and call Devyn and ask her to pick me up.
That’s when I sit cross-legged on the sidewalk, elbows on my knees, face in my hands.
That’s when I cry over Sam Constable.
For the very last time.
55
I tried. I went after Sam. I gave him my truth. After so many years, after all our time together, I finally told him everything.
It wasn’t enough.
Or maybe it was, but it was too late.
Either way my fears held me back. Cost me Sam. My best friend. The only boy I’ve ever loved.
But it wasn’t just my mistakes that ended us. Sam has his share of the blame, too.
Even if he refuses to admit it.
I guess that’s all part of it. Part of life. Mistakes made and lessons learned. Fears, if not conquered, then at least overcome, bit by bit. Fighting the battles most important to you. Winning some.
Losing others.
Trying for something important. Celebrating when you get it.
And surviving when you don’t.
During the first month of school, I learn to live without Sam again. You’d think it would be easier this time. He was only back in my life for the summer, barely enough time for me to get used to him being there once again.
But it’s not easier. It’s harder.
I thought it was bad when he was in LA. When I couldn’t see him every day. But passing him in the halls? Seeing him daily in the cafeteria?
Much worse.
I get through it, though. I mean, what other choice do I have? It’s not like I’m going to drop out of school just so I can avoid seeing the boy.
Although I may have considered going the whole homeschooling route, but Dev wouldn’t go for it.
So, yeah, it’s hard. But each day gets just the teeniest, tiniest bit easier. At the rate I’m going, I should be able to walk past him without wanting to break down in tears by spring break. And I’m sure I’ll no longer think about him every single minute of every single day by the time graduation rolls around.
Until then, I just keep moving forward.
Unlike last year, I’m not going through my emotional pain and upheaval alone. I hang out with Whitney, Tori and Kenzie as often as our schedules allow, which is usually two to three times a week. Tori and Kenzie are both on the varsity volleyball team so they’re busy with practices, matches and weekend tournaments, and Whitney just started working part-time at the hospital gift shop, while I put in eight hours during the week at Glenwood and another eight on Saturday.
But the three of us sit together at lunch every day, making sure to keep plenty of people—usually T.J., Colby, Jackson and Fiona—between me and Sam.
Yep. Sam and I sit at the same lunch table. In the beginning, it was super weird, and the first day of school, when I took the empty seat next to Whitney, I thought for sure Sam would get up and leave, but he didn’t.
He also didn’t look at me. Something I know for certain because I may have snuck a quick glance or two—or twelve—his way.
I stopped doing that by the end of the first week.
Hey, two can play the You Don’t Exist To Me game.
He’s just way better at it than I am.
But I think we’re both getting used to it. This New Normal where I’m here and he’s here but we’re not together. Where we don’t talk. Don’t look at each other. Where we pretend the past seven years never happened.
That we never happened.
You’d be surprised what you can accept when you don’t have any other choice.
I have a New Normal at home, too, but Dev and I are slowly adjusting to Zoe and Taylor being gone. I still miss them like crazy—talking to them almost every day on FaceTime is not the same as them being here, especially when Taylor starts crying for me and there’s nothing I can do to comfort her—but it helps to know them being
in Erie really is for the best.
We’ve also had to tweak our finances now that it’s just us. Without Zoe’s income, things are tighter than usual, so I’ve had to push aside my wild, secret dream of quitting Glenwood Landscaping and using all my free time to focus on my baking.
I’ve pushed it aside, but I’m keeping it alive by mulling over some different ways I could possibly make money doing what I love, like maybe starting a dessert blog or, as Whitney suggested, trying to sell some of my desserts, either to local stores or out of our trailer.
If those ideas don’t pan out, I’ll think of something else.
That’s who I am now. A girl who doesn’t give up. Who takes charge of her life.
For the most part, anyway.
What can I say? I’m a work in progress.
And I’m no longer content to wait around for life to happen to me. I want to be the one in charge. Going after my dreams. Making things happen. Starting with my future.
I’ve been looking online at different culinary arts programs. There are a couple close to home like PTC and Erie County Community College in Buffalo, but not even those are going to be doable.
Not right after graduation, anyway.
Devyn was right. Even if I were to get a scholarship to help with tuition, it wouldn’t be enough.
But in a few years (three if I’m lucky, five more realistically) after I’ve worked a full-time job and one or two on the side, after I’ve saved as much money as possible, I’ll go.
It’s not a foolproof plan. Life is still going to happen, the bad and the good. And when it does, I’ll have to, once more, adjust accordingly. There may even be a few times when I’ll have to do whatever it takes to get through.
But that’s okay. Because for all the other times, I’ll be the one in control.
The one making things happen.
56
“I’m going to have to have a lobotomy,” Kenzie says, all heartfelt melodrama and weary acceptance. She looks like a forlorn fairy, her hair parted on the side, her bangs held in place with a sparkly barrette. The top of her short, light blue dress is shiny and formfitting, the bottom flaring out from her waist, like cotton candy. “That’s the only way I’ll ever be able to go on.”
The Art of Holding On Page 37