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“You know how I just said it’s okay to let people in?” he reminds me with a smirk and then rests his hand on my thigh when I don’t respond. He rubs his fingers back and forth in soothing strokes. Like he’s comforting me. It feels like a setup.
Silence greets me, backs me into a corner. Waiting for me to make the next move.
“It’s not fair that you decided to make this trip a fucking therapy session.”
His laugh is brief before he replies, “Life’s a therapy session, Allie Cat.” He doesn’t move his hand, he just keeps it on my thigh and I find myself wanting to put my hand on top of his and run my thumb along his knuckles.
“Sam … Sam is who I let in.” I give him that small bit of information even though it’s not quite what he asked. He asked who I told. I gave him who I let in. Big difference, but he doesn’t need to know that. Hearing her name makes me feel like I’ve betrayed her. Has it been that long since I’ve said her name out loud?
“What’d he do?” Dean asks and I let out a genuine laugh, pretending the tears in the corners of my eyes are from humor.
“Sam as in Samantha.”
“Oh, a chick?” Dean leans forward and then relaxes back in his seat, clearly not expecting that. “So, was this like, a thing?” he asks me, and the smile stays plastered on my lips.
“Sorry to disappoint you, but I’m only into dick.”
“Got it,” Dean says. “She was a friend?”
I just nod and look back out the window although I don’t really see anything. Blurs of scenary as we make our way along the highway. I remember when Sam and I met in preschool. We were so young and stupid, fighting over some rainbow eraser until the teacher took it away and made us share a plain one. Back when everything was okay, and we were just kids. When “best friends for life” meant something special.
“What was she like?” he asks me. Dean isn’t getting the hint but for some reason, I like it. Maybe it’s the memories or the soothing sound of the engine rumbling and the wind passing by the car. Or maybe it’s just been a while since I’ve thought of Sam back before the night that changed everything happened.
It takes me a moment to think of the best way to answer him. “A lot like me,” I start, although it’s not quite right. I’m just pretending to be a lot like her.
“Big boobs. She was gifted with them.” I add that difference humorously and I think about stopping there, but I don’t. “She had the most beautiful smile and laugh. She used to joke that she was going to be a dentist because everyone would pay big bucks for a smile like hers. And she laughed at everything and it was real.” I remember how happy she always was. “She was just a very confident, happy person.”
“Sounds like a good friend,” he says after a moment.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” I scold him when I notice he’s spending more time looking at me than he is paying attention to driving.
“What happened?” he asks me.
“My mom didn’t want us hanging out,” I tell him and I’m surprised how easily I said it. Like it doesn’t feel like my heart is shattered by the memory. “We were just girls, fourteen and fifteen at the time.”
“Why’s that?”
“People said some things. Blamed some things that happened on Sam, and my mom said it was her fault.” My voice cracks and I feel myself breaking down, so I reach for the volume on the stereo again. I turn it up, feeling guilty about so much and not wanting to deal with it.
Guilty about what happened back then.
Guilty about what’s going to happen.
“Hey,” Dean says softly, and I just barely hear him over the constant bass of whatever song this is. I don’t recognize it. I glance at him, wishing I could hide, but he does that thing again, taking my hand and kissing the tips of my fingers. “You did good, Allie Cat.”
If guilt could kill someone, I’d be dead.
DEAN
This is a bad idea.
The shrink was wrong. Driving all the way to 24 Easton Avenue in Brunswick wasn’t anything I needed. As I watch my mother, who’s sitting on the steps of the porch taking another puff of her cigarette, I already know I’m not going to get anything from her. And that this was a bad idea.
Closure, mending fences—whatever the hell Dr. Robinson thought I’d get from this isn’t here.
My mother looks the same in a lot of ways but also beaten down, as if the years haven’t been kind to her, or maybe I just remember her differently. She’s in loose-fitting clothes that make her seem even smaller than when I saw her last. She looks frail beneath them.
Dr. Robinson is just like everyone else, thinking I’m exaggerating or that my perception is skewed. But showing up out of nowhere to tell my mother I’m working on my anger and making progress was a fucking mistake.
