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Why wasn't he doing everything within his power to make her his?
At the back of his mind, Michael had always known that he felt something for Samara beyond friendship, but the last few days, realizing what he could have lost if Samara hadn't escaped the stalker had forced him to confront his feelings.
Confronting his feelings had made him realize that he loved her.
He’d never been in love before, but what he felt for Samara was strong. It was like a physical thing that had taken up residence in his heart and poked at him and poked at him, annoyed he wasn't doing anything about it.
Now it was time to decide.
Confess that what he’d said last night was true and that he loved her, or keep quiet and accept that friendship wasn't such a bad thing to have.
The problem with accepting that all he and Samara might ever have was friendship meant accepting the risk that one day he would have to watch Samara move on and have a relationship with another man. Or even worse, watch her never move on and remain alone just because she thought that she had to punish herself for something she hadn't even done wrong.
Samara sighed and stood up, and Michael realized that she had been waiting for him to say more only he’d gotten lost in thought.
“I should really get started wrapping Christmas gifts,” Samara said, collecting tape and scissors from a drawer. “I was putting it off, but there are only a few days to go, so I better get it done.”
Before he could say anything, she had disappeared up the stairs.
It was time to decide.
And he honestly didn't know which was the best option.
His heart had one opinion, but his head had another.
Life had been so much easier before Heidi’s death. It was hard to live and have any trust and confidence in yourself when you had a piece of yourself missing.
He didn't have any gifts to wrap, he’d done that a couple of weeks ago. He was one of those people who usually had his Christmas shopping finished well before Halloween, but there was still some of the colored popcorn leftover from last night so he might as well make another string. He’d hoped to get a little Christmas spirit in Samara by making the popcorn strings and paper chains, but he thought the conversation about mistakes in your past not meaning you had to give up your future had kind of put a dampener on things.
Maybe he could get a second chance at making her like the holiday a little more with the gift wrapping.
“Mike?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you help me with the bags?” Samara called out from upstairs.
“Sure thing.” He left the popcorn on the table and took the stairs two at a time. “Whoa, that is a lot of stuff,” Michael said when he saw the amount of gift bags she had.
“I might not like Christmas, but it doesn’t mean I don’t like buying gifts for the people I love,” she said with a smile.
That was one of the things he loved the most about her, she was always way more interested in other people than she was herself. It was a great quality to have, except when it made you vulnerable to a violent stalker who would use that against you.
“You're amazing, you know that, don’t you?”
Samara’s cheeks tinted pink, and her large blue eyes dipped down to look at the floor, a curtain of dark hair falling forward partially obscured her face.
“Don’t do that,” he rebuked, stepping closer and gently grasping her chin, tilting her face up, and tucking her hair behind her ear. “Don’t pretend you aren’t amazing and very special. You think that feeling so abandoned and unwanted that you attempted suicide means you have to try to make up for that by being perfect, but you're wrong. I'm not a psychologist, but I'm pretty sure that was a cry for help, a cry for someone to care. Well, I care, Samara.Icare.”
He had intended that to touch her, make her see herself as he saw her, but instead, her eyes grew watery and her gaze dipped again, refusing to meet his.
“What’s wrong?” Was she just upset about him mentioning her suicide attempt when she was thirteen or was there more to it than that?
“I … it was … there was more …” she stammered.
“There was more what?” he asked. He wanted to help her, he just didn't know what she needed help with.
Samara opened her mouth, but before she could say anything his phone buzzed. It was still downstairs on the table, and although he didn't want anything to interrupt whatever Samara needed to get off her chest, it could be something about the stalker.
