Chapter 26

Sam never called on Saturday and when I called her it just went to voicemail. I considered calling Simon to see if she was okay, but I didn’t want to seem too needy. Then my world came apart at 8:17 Sunday morning while I was eating breakfast alone.

Senator Samuel Green, the author of the controversial bill to reverse the 2015 Supreme Court ruling that legalized marriage for homosexuals, has died today along with his family in a plane crash just outside of Washington, D.C.

The television reporter kept speaking, but a buzzing in my head drowned out his words. I stared at the picture of a much younger Sam with her family on the screen while my breakfast churned in my stomach. I sat there after the story ended with a spoon in my hand and my cereal turning to mush in the bowl.

I don’t know how long I sat there, but I eventually got up to put my bowl in the sink. I went upstairs, past Joe still sleeping in his room. When I pulled some shorts out of my dresser, I saw the empty space in the drawer I’d prepared for Sam. I shut the drawer slowly and pulled the shorts on under my t-shirt.

I forced my chin to stop quivering while I pulled on my socks and sneakers. Then I ran downstairs and out to the garage to get my bicycle. Mom was working in the yard and Dad was gone somewhere because his car wasn’t in the driveway.

“Heading out?” Mom asked.

I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I just nodded and waved. She looked a little worried when I quickly mounted and rode off without a word.

Mom had tried to get me to talk about what had happened all day Saturday. I couldn’t tell her without making it real, so I put her off with forced smiles and assurances that everything was fine. When I kept calling Sam from the house phone all evening, she watched me with worry creasing her brow.

I pedaled past Bethany’s street and almost turned there to tell my best friend. Only she wasn’t my best friend anymore. She had become a stranger to me, so I kept going towards school.

It took an hour to get there. I was sweating and panting hard as I dropped the bike on the grass near the front door and ran inside the building. There was no one at the residents’ desk, so I jumped over it at a run and went up the stairs that led up to the residents’ floor.

When I burst through the door it seemed like everyone who lived there was sitting on the couches around the television. Simon saw me and stood, his eyes red and full of tears.

“Steph.” The anguished sound of him saying my name made it more real than the news report had.

When I ran up, he swept me into his embrace and held me tight as my tears finally fell. The two of us were soon surrounded by the rest of the residents who wrapped us both in their arms.

I finally cried myself out. Simon let me go and drew me down to sit next to him on the couch. The news station would occasionally repeat the story of the plane crash, but in between we all spoke about our memories of Sam. I leaned into Simon’s side and hugged his arm around me. It made me feel less alone.

I pieced together what had happened while listening to them all talk. Sam’s parents had shown up Saturday afternoon. Apparently, the photographer had tried to sell the pictures of us kissing and her father caught wind of it before they made it to the tabloids. He flew in for damage control and to pick up Sam.

Sam had been hysterical when her father took her phone away. His staff packed up her room while her mother tried to calm her down. She got away for a bit to talk to Simon and he relayed her message to me.

I love you. I’ll call you as soon as I can.

Only she’d never be able to call me again. The plane had some kind of engine trouble and crashed in a farmer’s field. My mind imagined her final moments on a horrifying endless loop. She was gone. Really gone. I still couldn’t believe it.

At one point I slipped away from the common room and went to her room to be alone. It had been stripped of her things and looked sterile, but I could still smell her. Smell us. I sat on her bed and shut my eyes. The scent powered strong memories. I lost track of time as I mourned Sam.

“Are you okay?” Simon asked from the doorway.

“No.” I opened my eyes. “Not really.”

“She really loved you.” Simon came in and shut the door. “At least you’ll always have that.”

From the way he said the last, Simon was struggling as hard as I was. “She loved you, too. In her own way.”

He nodded and sat next to me on the bed. “And I loved her.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I could see it. So could she.”

He sniffed and wiped his nose. “It was hard to watch you with her, but I could tell you made her happy.”

“I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know what else to say, so I rubbed his back while he took deep, shuddering breaths. He turned at one point and wrapped me in his arms. We held each other, both of us seeking comfort. When he kissed me, it was just another kind of comfort to kiss him back.

He hadn’t shaved, but I ignored the rough texture around his lips. When I opened my mouth to his tongue, he squeezed me tighter. I knew he needed this and it didn’t feel like cheating on Sam because we had both loved and lost her. I know she loved him in her own way and I needed to feel something other than the numbing cold her loss left inside me.

When I tugged on his shirt, he stopped and stared at me for a moment. I met his eyes and let him work out if he wanted what I was offering.

“I’ve never done ... I mean, I don’t know how,” he stammered, but I kissed him quiet.

I pushed his shirt up and he let me this time. His muscular chest was warm as I ran my hands over his bare skin. He pulled at my shirt and I raised my arms to let him pull it off over my head. I didn’t have a bra on and his hungry gaze warmed me. I lay back to lift my hips and pushed my shorts and panties down. He helped me get my shoes and socks off, then stood to drop his own shorts.

I was soaked, which was a good thing because he was huge. He climbed up from the bottom of the bed, kissing me all the way to my lips. I reached down to take his heavy shaft in my hand, stroking him as I guided him into my slick heat.

Simon held himself up while we both figured out how to get him inside me. When he finally slid past my opening we both groaned out loud. I arched my back as he filled me, then he leaned over me and kissed me. I moved my hand away from his shaft as he slid all the way inside me.

“Oh, Sam,” he murmured with his eyes closed.

I didn’t care that he called me her name. In that moment I wanted to be Sam for him. He kissed me as he rocked his hips and ground himself into me. I felt the heat growing inside as the friction and my arousal rose to meet his. My body knew what to do as the sensations overcame my grief.

It was a relief to simply let him take me. I stopped remembering. I stopped hurting. We gave each other everything as he drove me over the edge. In the midst of my own release, with my nails digging into his back, he exploded into me with a cry of pain and relief. The blooming heat inside melted some of my cold grief.

Simon wept. His weight pinned me to the bed, but I wrapped my arms and legs around him to keep him there. His shaft softened and allowed his seed to leak out of me and onto Sam’s bed. I hoped wherever Sam was now that she saw this for what it meant to us.

Simon kissed my cheek and shoulder with tears on his lips. “I’m so sorry.”

I loosened my grip to rub my palms along his back. “It’s okay. I got you.”

“I didn’t mean to do ... this.” He said and tried to pull away. “I didn’t even think about you at all or a condom.”

“I’m on birth control,” I said as I let him up. “And I wanted this as much as you did. It was perfect.”

“How? I don’t even really know you,” he said.

I sat up, wincing a little at the pain in my vee as I turned to sit on the edge of the bed. “You called me Sam.”

“Sorry.” He rubbed his face and leaned over to rest his elbows on his knees. “It’s not how I imagined my first time would be.”

“It was wonderful,” I said and bent for my clothes. “You needed it. I needed it. Don’t over-analyze what happened.”

“I just can’t believe she’s gone.”

I wiped the tears from my eyes, then pulled on my panties. “Yeah.”

He just sat there, naked, watching me dress. “Steph...”

I gave him a pained smile as I tied my shoes. “Thank you for making me less alone. I need to head home.”

That got him moving. I didn’t want to open the door while he was still half-naked, so I looked around the room. The trash can was full of wadded up paper and my breath caught in my throat.

I dumped the trash can out on the floor with a strangled cry. Sam’s art! The nude she’d done of me was wadded up along with a dozen other drawings. Most were probably school assignments, because they were simple still lifes or watercolor landscapes.

The last one was a sketch of Simon. He had on a baseball cap and was smiling at something. She’d caught his inner light in the way she drew his expression. In the sketch he looked kind and handsome, just like I knew him to be.