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Before he let her mood get her down again, he passed her the green. “We still have to do blue, purple, orange, pink, and yellow. Then we’ll let the popcorn sit overnight, and we canstring it tomorrow. Once we’ve done it all I’ll help you with the paper chains.”
Samara cocked her head to the side, looking at him inquisitively. “Why are you so excited about doing this? I know we’re friends, and I know you're friends with Fin and Chloe as well, but why are yousoexcited about making Christmas decorations for my nephew’s birthday?”
“Because making the paper chains and strings of popcorn, it reminds me of growing up as a kid. Every Christmas Eve, my brother, sister, parents, and I would all sit around laughing and talking as we colored popcorn, strung it up, and made paper chains to hang all around the tree. We’d have Christmas carols playing in the background, and we’d eat Christmas cookies and drink hot chocolate, the Christmas tree would be twinkling, and the fire crackling, and everything was so perfect. Heidi was too young her first Christmas, but …” he trailed off. Although he knew he needed to remind Samara that she wasn't the only one who had made mistakes and that she didn't have to keep punishing herself for it, actually saying the words was a lot harder than he thought it would have been.
“I’m sorry, Mike.” Samara abandoned the stove and put a hand on his arm.
“She would have been ten by now, and we would have been sitting doing this together on Christmas Eve, laughing and talking, and having fun. But she’d not here. Because of me. Samara, you think that just because there was something in your past you wish you could take back means that you have to suffer for it for the rest of your life, but you aren’t the only one that wishes they could take something back.”
“What happened to Heidi was an accident,” Samara reminded him.
Yeah.
An accident.
That was what it had been ruled.
Just an accident.
A tragic accident.
But calling it that didn't change the facts that he had run over his twenty-month-old daughter with his car, killing her instantly.
He had gotten a girl pregnant when they were both in college. At twenty years old, neither of them had loved the other, and their baby hadn't brought them together. Instead, they had decided to co-parent, sharing custody and all decision making when it came to their daughter.
One day he had been dropping Heidi off at her mother’s, he’d taken his daughter inside, done the usual handover summary of how she’d slept, and what she’d eaten, and what they’d done, then he’d kissed her cheek, said goodbye and gotten into his car. Only his ex hadn't noticed Heidi follow him out the door. Assuming Heidi was safely inside, he reversed out the driveway, never seeing the toddler until his car hit her.
The case had been investigated, deemed an accident and no charges had been filed, but the knowledge that he had killed his precious baby girl had metaphorically killed him. He had started drinking to try to dull the pain. Having joined the police force about a year before his daughter’s death, he had tried to hide his drinking, and for a while he had. But then he’d made a mistake on a case, and someone had died, and that was it. He’d quit, and stopped drinking cold turkey, he’d called up his old friend Brady who had recently taken over a private security firm and taken a job, and for the last few years, he had managed to regain some control over his life.
But that control was always hanging on by a very thin thread.
A thread that could snap at a moment’s notice.
“We’ve all made mistakes, and no one’s are bigger than mine,” Michael told Samara. “I care about you, I know that finding outwhat your stalker plans to do makes you want to offer yourself up to him, but don’t, Samara. Please. I’ve already lost one person I loved in the most horrific way possible, I don’t want to lose another.”
“Love?” Samara echoed, her beautiful blue eyes looking up at him seeking the truth about his feelings for her.
“We’ve been friends for years now, I care about you a lot,” he said, backtracking slightly because the prospect of allowing himself to love another human being with the same depth of love he’d had for his daughter was utterly terrifying and made him want to lose himself in a bottle of scotch.
“Friends, right.” Samara nodded, her gaze returning to the stove where the pot had boiled dry. “We better start that one over.”
Michael knew he should tell her. Explain to her that what he felt for her went so far beyond friendship that they weren't even in the same stratosphere. Explain the fear of loving another only to lose them. Explain that he was an alcoholic and that he couldn’t ever risk himself hurting her.
He should, but he couldn’t.
Heidi was dead because of him, and innocent people were dead because of him. How could he risk Samara being hurt because of him?
Friends was safe.
And for his own sanity as well as hers, he had to choose safe.
*****
9:44 P.M.
Beneath him, Ashley’s eyes fell closed, and her head tipped back as she fell over the edge into indescribable ecstasy. Between her internal muscles clenching around him and the blissful moan that fell from her lips, Sawyer was also tossed over theedge into ecstasy with a blissful moan of his own.
As he slowly rode down from the high he would never get enough of, he slid out of Ashley and reluctantly left the bed only long enough to toss the condom in the bin in the bathroom, then quickly returned to join his fiancée in bed.
