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Silence followed my jumbled-up answer. I knew it wasn’t good enough, and that frustrated me to no fucking end. After how open and trusting Sam was with me, I felt like not reciprocating was equivalent to a slap across his face.
And yet, still, I let the silence lapse, finding no words to fill it with.
“Your parents?”
“They weren’t the only ones I lost that day, Sam.” My throat constricted. As if someone had tied rope around my windpipe and suddenly snatched it tighter. I never talked about this. Not to anyone. Not to a therapist, not to a friend, not to a random stranger online. No one.
Sam lifted from my chest, holding himself up on one arm, the other resting comfortably on my stomach. His thumb made slow circles on my skin. He felt like an anchor in that moment, one I desperately needed. The waters were getting more than choppy. There was a tsunami cresting the horizon, and I felt fear for the first time in a long time.
“What happened?” Sam’s questions worked like a surgeon’s scalpel, delicately cutting away until the bleeding red heart was exposed.
Fuck. I can’t do this.
I literally couldn’t fucking do this. My throat tightened by the second. My chest followed suit. The tsunami that had been roaring in the distance had reached the shore, wiping me out in the blink of a permanently shut eye.
“I… it’s…” I choked on my words. The sound that came from my throat resembled someone’s last cry before they drowned. A sob that tried to be disguised as a cough, fooling absolutely no one.
I looked away from Sam, whose amber pools of brown eyes reflected a deep concern.
He didn’t need to be worried about me. No one did. This was why I kept the wall up, so that no one had to worry. No one had to care, because no one would know just how broken the pieces inside me really were. How shattered and devastated I felt every single morning, when I woke up and dashed all hopes that the past ten years was just a prolonged nightmare.
Who would have thought? The man who I’d met under suspicion of murder was the man who knew exactly how to unravel me.
And I almost lost him tonight…
My pulse hammered, making my stomach twist into a tight fisherman’s knot. I could keep silent. I could keep everything bottled in. My demons hadn’t seen the light of day, not since the accidents, so why give them that power now? Why dredge up all that pain, all the suffering? Especially after the night we had shared, from the tears Sam had shed when I’d rescued him to the explosive bliss that had taken us over only moments before…
I should stay quiet. I shouldn’t give in. I don’t need to do this now.
Sam didn’t say a word, but what he did next might as well have been him placing a key into a cobweb-covered lock.
With his thumb, he gently wiped away the streak of tears I had felt escape me. I looked to him, our eyes meeting, a message inside of his, a comfort. With just a look, he spoke to me. Told me it was safe, that I could trust him. The same way he had trusted me by giving himself to me tonight.
And so I did. I gave myself to Sam. Scars and all.
“My brother loved video games.” The dam erupted open. “He loved playing those online role-playing games you talked about. We would play them all the time together. We were close. So close. When our parents died… it was a darkness I could never describe. The darkness was everywhere I looked. Except when I’d look to Brian. When I’d look to my younger brother, I felt like I could see a light. No matter how distant it was, there was a light. He always shone brighter than bright.” I choked. Composed myself. “We were together when we got the news. I was also with my boyfriend, Arty, at the time. We’d been together for three years at that point. When we found out what happened, the entire world seemed to stop. Nothing felt real. Not even time. Once the shock wore off, we had to drive to the hospital to identify the bodies. I shouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel. I should have let someone else drive.” I swallowed what felt like a bucket of knives. “I didn’t see the other car. None of us did. He took the red, but I couldn’t react in time. Side-swiped us off the road. Car caught fire.” My lip shook as more tears slid down my cheeks. Images of the accident seared across my vision. I could begin to feel the heat of the flames building.
“I was the only survivor.”
“Oh, Rocky. No. No, Jesus. I’m so sorry.”
