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Dean walked with us to BeLew’s school and work. We ate together in the mess hall most days while his other women stared and I scanned the space for Sam. I never saw him.
I spent my days trying to ignore my pathetic messes of discarded relationships. I thought of Sam every moment. I pined for him like a sick schoolgirl. Dean didn’t love me, but he wanted to own me. I loved him only because my heart had once. If I loved you before, I loved you forever. Despite that, I could not and would not give my body to Dean again. With a line of women ready to satisfy his needs, he could wait forever. I hated the idea that Sam may not wait.
With no choice but to carry on and survive, I focused on work. We had a full growth of radishes, which I proudly plopped into Lori’s kitchen like I had cured cancer. They were sad little vegetables, but I had grown something in this hellhole that would nourish the bodies of others. That was something. I needed a win after all the mistakes I had made - mistakes that kept me in this place with men that tortured my heart.
I continued my nights helping her in the kitchen as the boys did school work and played. BeLew wanted to test out and be in the same class as Lori’s kids. They were on a mission, and they spent every evening testing and quizzing each other. They needed consistency, and being together provided that. Being ripped from Sam was a step back.
They saw Sam regularly enough. I never took him off the guardian list for school and he visited daily. Dean allowed it, to my surprise. He accepted my explanation that BeLew loved Sam, and they had lost enough people in their short little lives.
Sam’s paperwork had gone up in smoke, and the Captain assumed it was one of the men on the Galene who was responsible. I heard Sam worked in engineering and asked about me often.
He still went by Sam.
“He says it’s his nickname,” Lori told me one evening as we chopped radishes. We were trying to pickle as many as possible before they went bad. Decomposing radishes smelled like gasoline, and Lori didn’t want any alarms in her kitchen.
“I used to eat these in tea sandwiches with my mom,” I smiled at the memory. “We would play tea party and take the crust off the bread, stuffing them with odd combinations like radishes and mayonnaise. I hated them, but I thought they were refined or something.”
“Do you still think of yourself as refined when you eat them? Give yourself a minute to mull it over, because we will eat them for months.”
“I haven’t thought of myself as refined since I was seven.”
“How are you doing with... everything?”
I grabbed a knife and chopped. “Do you think the girls in the lower decks would like a tea party?”
“As I’ve said before, I love your ability to change the subject, Row. It’s quite the skill. I hope you’ll teach me one day.”
“Maybe I should hold a seminar.”
We chopped and piled the pieces high. Lori had machinery that did a lot of the work for us, but there was always more to do by hand. It seemed like most of the items that needed repair around the kitchen were fixed right away, and she implied Sam had a hand in that.
“What do you think of Sam’s situation?” Lori pressed. “Row, what do you want to do? Tell me how to help you.”
I ceased my chopping and stared at the knife I held, frozen in time. I set my hands on the counter, letting the knife clatter as it slipped from my grasp.
He still went by Sam. After knowing who he truly was, he still went by Sam.
Lori’s chopping stopped, and she stepped over, hooking her arm in mine. “If you tell me to stop bringing it up, I will.”
“No, you won’t,” I murmured. “Please… don’t.”
I wanted to hear about him, and I hated myself every time my heart fluttered at the mention of his name. He penetrated my soul and my every thought. I slept in a bed next to Dean, wishing I saw Sam’s scarred yet beautiful body lying next to me. I had no information about who he was and why he was here. His ticket on an island jumper meant he was something to somebody, but I couldn’t find a way to speak with him and find out what.
Dean kept guards on our floor, and they didn’t permit Sam to even enter our stairwell. He had tried and failed many times. I wasn’t blind to the random recruits that seemed to linger in front of the kitchen, either. A drone followed overhead when I walked the deck. Someone was always watching, always tracking.
Dean ripped Sam from me without my permission, but my distrust made me agreeable to our separation. He had hurt me, and he never had the chance to explain why. What if my heart couldn’t take the explanation? I had seen us as a family - in this together.
“I miss him.” I could barely exhale. “Every single day.”
No tears left my body. I still hid those outward emotions when I could, even though the innermost part of me wanted to scream and cry and hurt him as much as he had hurt me.
Lori remained immobile, watching as I thumbed the blade of the knife that lay on the cutting board. I pushed too hard and watched the blood pool over the silver edge, hoping to feel something else, another form of hurt.
“It’s been four weeks. I want to see him.”
Lori pulled the knife from me and tossed it in the sink. “I can arrange a meeting.”
My eyes stayed on the blood. Lori was angry with him for a few days after the incident in the storage unit, but something had changed in her after a conversation with him. Sam had gotten to her, and that changed Lori’s perception of the whole mess.
