Connections - Sam Harvey

5. we're in a Brave New World.

After crying her eyes out her whole afternoon, worrying about Musa, hoping that Sam wasn't too broken and that he'd move on soon enough, Eleanor was frozen at the sight of a red eyed Sam who was still smiling. "Sam..." she whispered in a hoarse voice, but he walked up to her slowly, gripping on to her hand as she cried silently for what must have been the fifth or sixth time that day. "No, listen okay?" Sam begged and Eleanor breathed in deeply before nodding.

Sam smiled for the first time in hours and started "Eleanor, I know why you did what you did. And at first I was upset, then angry, but I eventually came to the realisation that this is probably so much harder for you.. to do that for your sister.." Eleanor stepped away and stated with a strained voice "Then you know why I have to do this. For Musa." but before she could leave, Musa came running out from the bush and stopped in front of her.

Musa held her sister's hand gently as she started to explain. "What I told you wasn't a lie... I did truly like Sam and I was devastated. But breaking you two up was never something I wished for. And seeing how broken you each were with out each other... like halves of a heart separated... I knew that my feelings were never true. How could they be compared to how strongly you feel for each other. Whatever you have isn't worth losing on feelings I never really had." Ellie was shocked but snapped back when her friends walked out, as well as Lyra, Evangeline, Tom and Danny.

Lyra, Evangeline, Tom and Danny walked up to her next, Lyra and Tom, stepping forward to speak to her. Lyra smiled and continued "We all like you Elle. And you know you promised us that you won't hurt Sam... but you also said that you'd put your sister before him and we knew that. I'm not going to lie, we were all angry for a while but on reflection... your courage is incredible. What you did for Musa was something I could never face. And we wanted to tell you that we don't think any less of you, or your sister." Eleanor burst into a small whimper of tears and hugged Lyra tightly, before the group parted to see Sam walking up to her yet again.

He held both of her hands together, smiling at the light grin she was trying to hide with her tears. He breathed deep and expressed

"I know you don't think it's okay for you to do this.
But your sister, my friends and myself have all forgiven you and I beg that you forgive yourself.
I never thought that I'd ever depend on someone so much..
but I've been without you for four hours and it feels like decades of my life.
Even with all of the danger surrounding us, I couldn't care less.
It would all be meaningless without you by my side.

When you left...I.. I... I couldn't breathe.
It was like you'd taken the oxygen away from me.
But.... but you never took away my oxygen.
You are my oxygen.
And... I know now. I love you."

The friends were at a loss of words. Terra and Lyra were crying with the biggest grins. Tom and Danny sent subtle thumbs up to Sam, but even they had a glisten in their eyes. But they were all focusing on Eleanor.

She walked up to him and held her palm to his cheek.

She looked at her sister, at Lyra and at Bloom.

When she turned back to Sam's brown eyes, she knew what she had to say.

And it came crashing down to Eleanor all at once.
Sam was the one she wanted to be with when she cried.
Sam was the one she wanted to be with when she laughed.
Sam was the one she wanted to hold and say goodnight to every night.