by Angela Peach
"Hey, don't cry! Come on, everything's going to be fine!"
"I'm crying because I'm happy! For the first time since I…well, since I lost you! When you cancelled on me earlier this year, I thought you'd found someone else, and I tried to tell myself that I deserved it, after the way I treated you! I deserved to be miserable! I'm so ashamed of how I treated you."
"What's important now is that we're both here, willing to make a go of it, right?"
"More than anything!"
"Then it's going to work!" I stated with determination.
I drove the rest of the way back to my flat trying to ignore the fact today was Gray's funeral.
19
Sam Kind Of Wonderful
DANEKA'S DECEMBER
I'd walked around the shops five times looking for a special Christmas present for Sam, but had come across nothing, and I was now approaching a state of panic over my lack of ideas for her. So far, I'd got her a bottle of perfume I knew she liked, but that was it. She already had a bracelet that I'd bought for her four years ago, and the earrings and necklace she wore were very dear to her being an eighteenth birthday present from her parents. I didn't want her to feel obliged to take them off to wear something I might buy for her, so jewellery was out. Everything else I came across seemed either too impersonal or not something I thought she would like.
I went home, completely frustrated with myself.
"Hello? Sam?" I called out as I walked in the front door. I could smell something beautiful cooking, a wonderful welcome for my cold nose and empty stomach. I took my hat, boots and scarf off and called out again, wondering why she hadn't replied as I walked through to the lounge. She was sat on the sofa, hunched over and sobbing, and I rushed over.
"I didn't…I wasn't snooping…oh god!" she cried, looking at me with red eyes. Shocked, I reached out to comfort her before I saw what she was holding in her hands.
It was my watch. The one Alison had given me with the inscription on the back.
Daneka, Love Always, Alison.
I knelt on the floor in front of her and prised it from her fingers, setting it to one side before taking both her hands in my own.
"Sam? Look at me baby?" I waited until her eyes focused on mine, then took a deep breath. "I should have told you about her. I'm sorry, but it's over, okay? I promise you."
"Were you in love with her?"
I paused a second, knowing that she deserved an honest reply, but also that she'd be able to tell if I lied anyway.
"Yes. I was."
Please don't ask, please don't ask, please don't…
"Are you still in love with her?"
…ask.
I drew in a long deep breath.
"I think there's a part of me that always will be, just like I never stopped loving you."
"We were together for four years! How long were you seeing Alison for?" she cried, looking utterly betrayed.
"I…we weren't…she was married!" I blurted out. "We just had feelings for each other."
"Just had feelings? You just said you were in love with her!"
"It's not how you think it…"
"Stop! Just stop it, Darcy! I don't want to hear your excuses. She's the reason you blew me off before, isn't she? When you told me your feelings had changed and you didn't come over? You just didn't tell me it was because you were in love with someone else who was already married, for Christ's sake! Oh god, this can't get any worse!"
"Sam, baby, I made a mistake, please? I'm sorry."
"Did you sleep with her?" she asked softly. I closed my eyes and nodded.
"Once."
There was a long pause.
"Did she blow you off too? Is that why you came running back to me, baby? Cos she didn't want you anymore? Am I…am I your back up plan?"
"No! It wasn't like that! Look, I was confused when I was with her, we both were, and I never really knew what was going on, or how she felt…I never had that with you! It always felt right when you and I were together, and it wasn't until I found out she'd been lying to me the whole time that my head cleared and I realised I'd made a huge mistake letting you go."
There was another long pause, and in the back of my mind I briefly wondered what she'd put on to cook and whether or not it was going to burn. Then she sat back against the sofa, removing her hands from mine to run one through her hair.
"You were always my one and only. Always. I never slept with Jerry, you know? I told him I wanted to wait and he respected that, but the whole time I was just looking for a way out. I always thought I was your one and only too, but now you tell me you've been loving someone else and I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, if she were to knock on your door tomorrow and beg you to come back, I don't even know if you'd say no."
"Sam, I love you. I want to be with you."
She closed her eyes and smiled sadly.
"Nobody calls you Daneka. You never even let me call it you. You were obviously very intimate with her, right?" With a sigh, she opened her eyes and sat forward again. "Darcy, if there's even a point one per cent chance that you could leave me for this woman further down the line, I mean even the most remote chance, I need to know now. Because I can't do this if there is. I just can't" she whispered.
I held her gaze.
"There's no chance I would leave you for her. No chance, I swear."
She smiled, but it was a sad smile.
"I don't believe you, baby. But it's good enough I guess. Come on, I asked Nicki to give us a night together, and I have a joint of lamb roasting…"
"Sam, wait. I mean it! I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I have since the moment I first lay eyes on you. Wait here a second" I jumped up and ran to my bedroom, heart pounding with nerves. I took the small box from its carefully hidden place in my wardrobe and opened it up to look at it. There would be no going back from this. I returned to the lounge and knelt back down in front of her.
"I'm going to give you your Christmas present early. I love you with all my heart and I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and …I want to ask you if you'll spend the rest of your life with me…as my wife?" I held out the box with trembling fingers, and she took it hesitantly. A small frown creased her brow as she gently prised the lid open and saw the ring inside.
"It's beautiful" she whispered. I held my breath as she took it out of the box and held it up to look at it closer. "It's just beautiful."
"So? Will you? Will you marry me?"
She looked at me, and I could see her expression had softened.
"Of course I will!"
I took the ring from her and pushed it onto her left hand ring finger. It was a perfect fit, the resizing I'd had done when I bought it last year had paid off. She stared at it in complete and utter disbelief, and I wondered if I wasn't wearing the same expression.
Did I really just do that?
I searched my heart. Yes, I could see myself with Sam for the rest of my life even if I would probably never stop wondering about Alison.
So why do I feel so scared?
Sam leaned forward and kissed me softly, but when she pulled back I went with her, deepening the kiss. I tugged her jumper up and slid my hand across the smooth skin of her stomach. Heat flooded through me as I found her nipple pushing through the lace of her bra and I squeezed it hard as I tried to manoeuvre us down into a more favourable position. I wanted her right now! I pulled her breast free from her bra and palmed it, hungrily thrusting my tongue into her mouth.
"Mm, Darce, wait a sec, stop, stop, stop" she mumbled, twisting her head away.
"Are you kidding? It's been nearly two years!" I said, kissing her neck. She pushed me off gently but firmly and sat up, looking flushed and awkward.
"For me, yes."
I sat back, the mood killed.
"Look, honey, you were the one who suggested taking things slowly again, and now I know that you've been with someone else, I think I'm going to need some time to get my head round it. Because rig
ht now it's sort of all I can see when I look at you" she said, looking pained. I nodded and pushed myself to my feet.
"I understand." I took a deep breath and forced a smile onto my face. "Hey, did I hear something about some lamb roasting in the oven?"
She smiled back, and together we went to the kitchen and finished preparing our dinner.
It was a ridiculous mistake to have made, and I was aghast at myself for making it. The only thing I could do now was try and cover it up.
"I, uh, I thought it would smell good on you. Don't you like it?"
"Um, yeah, sure I like it!" Sam said, trying to sound enthusiastic. "It's just not the sort of fragrance I normally go for, but it smells great!" To prove it to me, she spritzed some on her wrists and rubbed them together. I cringed inwardly, feeling like a complete idiot for buying Sam the perfume that Alison had said she really liked. What should have given it away was that it was a fairly new scent that had only been released early this year. I felt sick.
"If you don't like it…"
"No, I do! I promise, it's very lovely baby. Thank you" she leaned across to kiss me on the cheek. As she did, the perfume flooded my senses and an image of Alison leaning across to me in the shop saying 'I really like it! What do you think?' flashed before my eyes. It was like a slap in the face and I almost had to physically stop myself from recoiling.
"I'm sorry honey, I guess I'm a little out of touch."
"Don't be sorry! I had my real present early, right? Now, I just have one more gift for you!" she said happily, holding out her hand. In it was a small box and I had more than an inkling what would be inside it.
"Oh my god, Sam, this must have cost you a small fortune!" I gasped when I opened it.
"No more than the one you gave me." She took it from the box and slid it onto my ring finger. "You see, I was going to get you a nice watch, but then I saw you already had one" she said tactfully. "Now we both have a ring so it's more official!"
The ring was perfect. It fit perfectly. So why was I still thinking about Alison? Wondering if she was still wearing the ring Gray gave her, or if she'd taken it off? If she was thinking about me?
"I love it! I love you! Thank you!"
The rest of the day was a struggle for me. I genuinely loved Sam and was truly happy with her. We gelled so well and everything was easy and comfortable. We knew each other inside out and our relationship seemed to just carry on from where it had left off, and I really did want to spend the rest of my life with her.
But.
I just could not stop thinking about a certain City Girl.
There was a part of me that wondered if we could ever have worked, whether we'd just had an overly intense friendship that would have fizzled out over time. I knew I was slightly obsessing over her in my head, but I seemed to have no control over the thoughts racing round like it was a never-ending Grand Prix. She'd not only deleted me from facebook, but blocked me as well, so I couldn't even look at her profile page which I knew was probably for the best. I just wish I knew how to put her out of my head, because god only knew I wanted to.
Nicki returned back to the flat on the twenty eighth after spending Christmas with her family, and immediately sensed something was wrong. She tactfully waited until Sam was in the shower before she questioned me on it though.
"Alison" I replied quietly. She sighed.
"Darce, I'm not being funny babe, but I saw this coming a mile off. You're so typical, you're almost textbook."
"What do you mean?"
"Look, you're a Piscean. You're represented by two fish swimming in opposite directions, and that is you all over! It has been for as long as I've known you! You want to be a vegetarian, but you love meat too much, so you make do by eating extra veg with your meals. You want to go travelling, but you love your home comforts too much to leave it all behind and start again from scratch. You love horror films, but you hate watching them! You spent ages pining for Sam when you couldn't have her, and now that you've got her, you're pining for Alison!"
"But I've made my decision about who I want to be with. How do I know I'm not just wanting her because I know I can't have her?"
"That is probably the exact reason why you want her! If Sam ditched you tomorrow and went back to the states, and Alison then called you up to go over and see her, you'd probably get all angry about how she lied to you again and how you were second best and…"
"Okay, okay, I get the picture. So what do I do? How do I forget about her, or at least just get her out of my head?"
Nicki tilted her head at me and softened her voice.
"Are you one hundred per cent certain you've made the right decision, Darce? Because unless there's a part of you that's still hoping for a future with Alison, you should be able to focus on Sam and what she can offer you. But," she looked me carefully in the eye, "if you are still hoping, and I think I know you well enough to know that you are, you have to think very hard about all these promises you're making Sam. Because the longer you lead her on, the more you're going to destroy her…and yourself."
"I swore to Sam that if Alison knocked on my door tomorrow and begged me back that I'd say no" I said quietly. "But I think I was lying to myself more than to her. How can it be possible to be in love with two people equally? I mean, whoever I choose, I think I'd always be thinking about the other one and knowing how much they'd be hurting."
"I thought you'd already made your choice?" Nicki said, raising her eyebrows at me. I chewed on my bottom lip, wondering at my slip. I had made my choice. I'd chosen Sam. I felt sick to my stomach at the sticky situation I'd got myself into. Nicki saw my warring emotions and gave me a warm hug, holding me close for a long time. "Look, sweetie, I know you'll do right by Sam and she will make you happy. I also know you won't go searching Alison out, so you're just going to have to focus on the here and now. Let. Alison. Go."
"Hey, everything okay?" Sam asked, walking into the lounge with a towel around her. I smiled, then lied again to her (something I seemed to be getting very good at.)
"Yep! Everything's great!"
New Year's Eve rolled around and we'd just finished getting ready to go out when Sam received a phone call from her mother, and as we had loud music playing in the lounge, she went to the bedroom where it was quieter. When she didn't reappear after twenty minutes, I went looking for her, hoping that I'd find her talking to her father. Unfortunately, it was not good news and I found her crouched in the middle of my room, tears streaming down her freshly made up face. I threw myself to the floor in front of her.
"Sam? Oh my god, what is it?"
"It's dad! He had a heart attack this morning."
"What? Is he okay?"
"He's in the hospital now. Mom…she said she told him she was going to call me so I could come home, and he went crazy at her! He told her…he told her…" she dissolved into more tears and I waited patiently. "He told her he never wanted to see me again, not even if he was going to die!" She hugged the phone to her stomach as she stared incredulously at me. I held her tight, feeling her shake from the pain she was suffering. I couldn't think of anything comforting to say to her, so I just stroked her hair. Nicki came and found us a few minutes later carrying two glasses of (very) strong rum and cokes. When she saw the state of us, she demanded we down them on the spot before dragging us back out to the kitchen, where she fixed us all a potent cocktail of whatever came to hand with a dash of lemonade. When we'd downed them, she passed a bottle of vodka to Sam and a bottle of whiskey to me, then held aloft a bottle of rum.
"We are leaving this year, and everything in it, behind us! In four hours we are going to be in a fresh new year, so let's go out there and say 'FUCK YOU' to this year, and 'COME ON' to the new one!" she shouted enthusiastically. It was infectious, and I was pleased to see Sam smile.
"FUCK YOU!" I shouted, holding up my bottle.
"FUCK YOU!" Nicki shouted, clinking hers against mine. We both looked at Sam. She lifted her chin, and very loudly shouted,
"FUCK YOU!"
We all clinked our bottles together, then swigged, wincing and laughing in unison at the alcohol as it burned our throats.
"Now, COME ON!" Nicki roared. "Let's go out there and fucking fuck this fucking year off!"
I watched Sam dancing to the funky music and my heart swelled. All day my thoughts had swayed back and forth between Alison and Sam, but after that awful phone call where Sam's mum had tearfully begged her not to come home, my mind and heart had totally focused on my fiancée. I knew I had made the right choice now, for sure. I loved Sam more than anything, and I was certain we would be happy together.
At five minutes to midnight I joined her on the dance floor, both of us holding onto each other for support because we were so trashed.
"I love you baby! As long as I have you, I know everything's gonna be okay. I'm gonna hold onto you and never let you go!" she drawled, her southern accent more pronounced with the alcohol.
"I love you too! I'm def'netly not going anywhere! You're stuck with me now, honey!" I slurred, pulling her close until my mouth was against her ear. "And I wanna make love to you later, to welcome in our New Year."
Sam kissed my neck and groaned.
"Mm! That sounds perfect!"
"…seven, six, five, four, three, two, one…HAPPY NEW YEAR!"
As I kissed Sam, I was aware of some relentless part of my mind that flickered to Alison and what she was doing.
20
Back To Where It All Began
FEBRUARY
"So, what do you want for your birthday?" Sam asked as we walked through the park. It had snowed overnight, and she'd got as giddy as a child when she woke up and saw how it had settled like a fluffy white blanket.
After I'd convinced her to have a hot mug of tea and some porridge, we kitted ourselves out in warm winter clothes and went out for a walk in the snow. It was such a beautiful day, I'd had a constant grin on my face, feeling truly content for the first time in a long time. I carefully thought over her question.