“Ms. Jolie?”
I snapped out of the discussion I was having with myself, feeling more than a little crazy.
“Don’t you agree?” the student was asking.
I hadn’t heard anything that was said. “Keep working it out amongst yourselves.”
Sam’s voice drifted through my mind. “My whole purpose for living now
is making you healed and happy and watching you smile every fucking day, knowing I’m the one responsible for it”
“Come with me …” he’d said. Had he meant it? I think he had. What if he’d meant it? Truly. Not just for now, but for always.
I stood there, remembering. “Kate, you are my Everest. And now I don’t want to come down for anything.” And “I love my music and racing and the adrenaline of both, but this … There is no other thrill like you.”
I closed my eyes at the onslaught of emotions that were ready to carry me away with them. If I left this life, would I be leaving Ethan? That’s how I’d always felt.
But are you happy, Kate? Sam’s voice seemed to say. Ethan would want you to be happy.
“I don’t think I could ever be happy without you, Sam,” I whispered under my breath.
I recalled the last song we had written, right before he told me he was leaving. “And I realize you are the one I want to stay.”
He’d said that to me once before—after we’d first made love, long before we’d written the song together.
Oh my God! He’d had it planned. Written that lyric down just before he told me about the tour. He didn’t want to let me go! He’d wanted me to stay with him, to go with him!
And what if, a year down the road, he ends up cheating on you or sick of you?
Then I’ll deal with that, if it comes up, in a year from now, I thought, feeling peace for the first time in two weeks.
“Excuse me, Ms. Jolie!” I snapped my head up to find the class staring at me and Lexy Bordeau standing in front of me with a box in her hands. “I found this on Sam North’s chair. Looks like it’s for you.”
My name was written across the top in bold black marker. Immediately I recognized the handwriting.
Shaking, I took the box from her hands. “Are you alright?” she asked, concerned.
“Yeah, more than alright,” I answered and then called out, “You’re all dismissed early today. Have a great Christmas holiday!”
I rushed back to the desk and ripped the box open. Inside were at least a dozen envelopes, all addressed to me from Sam. They were dated over the past two weeks and had obviously gone through the post office. I hadn’t been back to my place since we split. He still had a key … probably came to my place, saw them still there, and took them back. There was a CD player too. I lifted it from the box.
What the …? Folded around the handle was a piece of paper.
I unfolded it and froze. There, written in Sam’s neat handwriting was a song … but it wasn’t just any song. My heart leaped into my throat to choke me. I breathed through my nose, trying to steady myself.
Did he know?
Sam had written the words to “If You Only Knew” by Shinedown, and before the lyrics he had written:
Kate, I hope you find this. I love you so completely and I believe in you and us. I’ll never give up on us. Whatever it takes, no matter how long we’re apart or how far away we are from each other … this love we have will find a way.
I’m helping you check off #9—Play your favorite music. Shinedown was your favorite band, I know that, so maybe these words will speak to you as if I wrote them and sang them just for you.
If you only knew, you’d be here next to me.
If you only knew, you’d have never walked away.
If you only knew, you’d know I meant everything I said and I want you by my side.
… If you only knew,
Sam
Push play – Track 6
“If You Only Knew” had been on my favorite album, The Sound of Madness. And that was the concert tour Ethan and I had gone to see, and the same album that had played in the car as he died.
Turn it on. My memory of Ethan, happy and alive, seemed to urge me on.
I shook my head no.
Wait to see how alive I am in you when you listen to it.
The two men I loved most in the world, Sam and Ethan. Did I have to let one go to still love the other? Would I be staining the memory of my brother if I left to be with Sam?
My finger was trembling as I held it over the silver plastic. I closed my eyes and dropped my finger.
The music swirled up from the player and into my every pore. In that moment, I heard the boy I loved with my whole heart telling me he loved me back and still wanted me, that he couldn’t live without me and that he needed me for his very breath; simultaneously it was my brother saying he’d be with me no matter what I decided and that he loved and forgave me and wanted me to live my life for me.
“Sam,” I breathed.
I grabbed my phone and dialed his number, but he didn’t pick up.
“Shit, shit, shit!” My watch read 11:55 a.m. He’d said the bus left in the morning. I felt my heart begin to sink.
But he played last night. He’d have slept in, and he’s always late. I still have a chance.
I rushed to grab my laptop, briefcase and coat. No way would he still be at his apartment. He would have left already.
What was the name of the tour bus company his band was going to use? I couldn’t remember. The room around me blurred as my eyes filled with tears. Think, Kate, think!
It was something “Tour Lines.”
Maybe there was a clue in the letters? But I didn’t have time to read through letters, it was already almost noon!
I picked up the CD player and song and stuffed it back into the box before running out the door.
Once I was outside, it hit me. Celebrity Tour Lines!
I grabbed my phone and Googled directions from the university to the tour lines.
“Oh fuck.” My heart dropped into my stomach. It was impossible.
The tour lines were on the other side of the city, by King County Airport. Riding my bike, it would take me at least forty-five minutes, maybe fifty, and there wasn’t another bus due for half an hour.
I looked back down at my phone. Google Maps said in the current traffic conditions it would only take fifteen minutes.
At that moment a yellow taxi cab zipped past and turned the corner by the university.
“A cab?” A cab was a car! “Fifteen minutes.” I trembled.
Without another word, I ran out toward the street with Shinedown singing in my head.
Oh, Sam, if you only knew.
Chapter Nineteen
“Raging Fire”
Phillip Phillips
Kate
I didn’t have time to waste or think or panic. I flagged down the yellow taxi and watched as the driver pulled to the curb.
“Oh, fuck!” Steeling myself, I threw open the back door and slid inside.
Immediately, I began to hyperventilate.
“Where to, lady?” The driver spoke, but it seemed like it was an echo from far away.
“Celebrity Tours, by the airport.”
“You got it.” His hand slapped the taxi meter and the numbers fell to zeroes.
“Sam …” Attempting to steady my breath as the driver swerved into the afternoon traffic like a freaking madman, I tried to think of the only person who could have ever gotten me to get into a car again.
A smile played across my lips. The memory of my last time in a car wasn’t sad or fearful, but was thrilling and had possessed my very soul. I laughed out loud and the driver peeked at me through his rearview mirror, looking at me like I was manic.
Sam had changed even the worst memory in my life, altering my terror of cars into a reminder of our love.
“Can’t you drive any faster?!” I pressed the driver.
Sam
“Dude! You have to hurry up. We have suits wai
ting for us.” Logan was starting to get mad. So were the other guys for that matter. Everyone was on the bus and ready to go.
“Just five more fucking minutes!” I snapped back.
“Sam, you said that forty minutes ago. She’s not going to show.”
My eyes closed against the hurt of that statement. A statement I knew was absolutely true. I’d tried everything and she didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Not now anyway … maybe not ever.
I twirled the long stemmed red rose I held between my fingers.
“Come on, man, it’s a long way to L.A.”
“Yeah, okay,” I conceded.
I thought somehow she’d have changed her mind … I was just being an idiot.
Dropping the flower to the concrete pad I turned and stepped onto the tour bus that I would have been so excited to be on under any other circumstances. Now it just felt like a confining prison. How the hell was I ever going to get through this?
I watched out the window for a moment as the driver pulled out before I settled onto one of the sofas.
“I can’t wait to meet the guys from Three Days Grace.” Lucas was talking to anyone who would listen. Him, Zach and Noah were wound up with the sheer excitement of the situation.
“And this bus is so fucking awesome!” Zach looked around as if he thought he might wake up.
I wished I would wake up … with Kate in my arms again. I was exhausted actually, not having slept well since she left.
“You know, guys, I’m going to catch some shuteye,” I announced and stood up to go into the back. Instinctively, I felt my pockets for my phone then remembered I’d tossed it into the console drawer at the front of the bus. I’d been sick of looking at it every fucking thirty seconds to see if she’d called. I waved to the boys and started down the hall.
“What did you do, Cam? Cut him off?” Noah laughed.
“Hell, no!” Cam, our driver, answered. “What’s the matter with the asshole?”
“Hey, Sam,” Logan called out. “Would Kate have hopped a cab? Because we have some douche all over our ass.”
“No, Cam must have done something.” My Kate would never have gotten into a taxi.
Lying down in the bed, I stared up at the ceiling, trying to turn off my brain as I shielded my eyes from the light with my bent arm.
A second later I heard a car, which I was assuming was the cab, laying on its horn beside us. The guys were still talking at each other when I heard “If You Only Knew” by Shinedown playing louder than the radio up front. That was one hell of a coincidence.
“SAM NORTH!” A familiar feminine voice shouted.
I sat bolt upright. No way. No fucking way!
“Sam, it looks like you already have a crazy stalker fan, and she is hot!” Noah called.
“Blonde?” No way was it Kate.
“Put your foot on it and lose them,” Lucas said, disinterested.
“IS SHE BLONDE?” I demanded. Damn it, I needed to stop. It wasn’t her!
“Yep!” Lucas called back.
I jumped up out of the bed and to the window, throwing it open to stick my head out.
It was my freaking CD player, the one I’d left for Kate. Our eyes locked.
“KATE!” I screamed out the window.
“SAM!”
“PULL THE BUS OVER!” I yelled, running up front.
Logan gave Cam the go ahead, and I stood holding onto the seat as the tour bus careened into the breakdown lane. I had the door open before we even came to a stop and jumped to the blacktop.
The yellow taxi had stopped about forty feet behind us. Kate pushed open the door and came running toward me.
We crashed together somewhere in between the two vehicles.
“Oh my God, Kate.” I tangled my hands into her thick, messy mane of hair and kissed her all over her tear and mascara streaked face. “Are you real? Are you fucking real?”
“Yes I’m real and I’m sorry, Sam, I’m so sorry. I should have never let you go!” she cried.
“You never have to apologize to me. Don’t you remember?” I laughed and cried at the same time, not caring who saw me.
I held her out to look at her face, to see her clearly, to make it sink in that she had really come after me.
“How did you do it?” I wiped her fresh tears with my thumb. “How did you ride in the cab?”
Her lungs let out a burst of nervous laughter. “I thought of us in the backseat of your Charger.”
I laughed and picked her up off the ground, holding her so close I was probably painfully squeezing the air from her lungs.
“I want to come with you,” she sobbed into my neck. “I don’t ever want to be away from you again. I’d sacrifice the very beat of my heart not to lose you.” She paraphrased the song I’d left for her and that I heard still playing back behind her.
“Me too, Kate, every beat of my heart.”
Chapter Twenty
“Mirrors”
Justin Timberlake
Sam
“So, this is your favorite place in the world?” I asked her.
She turned her head, and her bright beaming smile outshone the sun above us.
“Yup. Ethan and I would sit floating in this very spot until the sun was long gone.
We both sat close to one another, as the waves swelled under our surfboards, at Maverick’s Beach in Half Moon Bay, California, Kate’s hometown.
“It feels good to share this place with you.” She reached over and took my hand, twining our fingers together.
I pulled her closer and her board bumped mine. Both of us laughed.
“The biggest wave comes down from Alaska this time of year.” She watched a few surfers chasing waves a little distance from us.
“Are you going to do it?” I challenged.
“Do it?” she echoed like she didn’t know what I was talking about.
“I want to see some of those championship moves.”
“It’s been a long time, Sam.” She was still grinning, though, with the possibility.
“Hmm … I bet I could get you to try at least one wave before we leave,” I persuaded.
“Really? How would you do that?” She leaned in closer.
“You know how hot you look in that wetsuit?” I leaned in and reached for the front zipper. “You should unzip it just a little bit so I can have a good view of your gorgeous cleavage.”
She slapped my hand, but bit her sweet bottom lip at the suggestion just the same. She wanted me.
“My mom and dad liked you. That was a battle won.”
“They’re good people. Plus, your mom made me homemade pie. Can you make pie like that?”
“Any kind,” she assured me. “You haven’t seen all my skills.”
After our big meetings with the music and PR executives and our kickoff show in Los Angeles, the bands got five days off for Christmas to fly home and see their families. Kate and I had spent two days here with her folks. She’d shown me her bedroom from when she was a teenager, her favorite town haunts and, most importantly, her beloved beach. We’d checked off to-do list item numbers 8, 9, 10 and now 12, and only had #11 left. I hoped I could get her in my dad’s old farm truck. I had a feeling she’d drive on our property. Those weren’t real roads, just finely worn grooves in the earthen landscape of the prairie.
“All the skills I care most about,” I teased back.
Today was our last day here before we flew to the ranch so she could meet the rest of my family. Of course they were all dying to meet her.
“Here comes one, babe. I think it’s got your name on it,” I encouraged.
“Just for you,” Kate declared, paddling out away from me and readying her body and board.
A moment later she was standing on her board, guiding it as if she were making love to it and the wave of water that propelled her.
“Man, I could kill you guys!” I growled.
“Kill away,” Josh said as he shoved me toward the stage.
“Y
ou know, it’s against my contract to sing without permission.”
“Don’t worry, Sammy!” Will cupped his hands over his mouth. “We won’t tell your producers.”
Jake and Livie, Caleb and Piper, and Nate and Jules just laughed hysterically. Fuck it, I wouldn’t have had any sympathy either after how much shit I’d given them.
I rolled my eyes and picked the overused karaoke mic up off the Wilds’ stage floor while they all catcalled and whistled out to me.
“Rock it, Bieber!” Nate shouted.
“Yeah, and don’t forget the falsetto notes!” Jake followed.
I downed the contents of my beer bottle, drumming up some liquid guts. Why was the place so fucking packed? It was the holiday weekend! Didn’t these people have anywhere else to be?”
“Stop procrastinating!” Caleb laughed.
I bent down to the karaoke master and whispered the name of the song I was forced to perform, because of my own asinine bet. Oh yeah, Kate and the girls got a huge kick out of that piece of info.
Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” started up, and I stood there following the words on the teleprompter.
“We want a performance, superstar!” Kate shouted up at me.
Traitor.
What the hell, might as well. I shook my hips then crawled down the stage to sing the song directly to her.
She screamed like she was my biggest fan and stuffed a dollar bill into the waistband of my jeans. That had my family roaring with laughter!
I turned around, jumped back up on stage and shook my ass as I finished the final chorus with gusto.
When it was all over everyone patted me on the back.
“Fucking Sam! You deserved it,” Josh chuckled. “‘I’ll never fall in love. Jake, Caleb and Nate are all pussy whipped,’” he mocked me.
“Look at her, Josh!” I held a hand toward Kate. “Can you possibly blame me?”
“No, man, I cannot,” he said, deadly serious. “She is gorgeous.”
“Thank you,” Kate replied to Josh’s compliment. “And thank you, Boyfriend.”
“Nice pun.” I gripped her knee and leaned in for a kiss. And for that song I wanted tongue!
“I am good with words you know. I was a professor …”
True North Book 3 - Finding Now Kate and Sam Page 20