Confession

c h a p t e r f o u r

That week had been too good to be true. Sam knew it from the moment her eyes opened early Wednesday morning that the smooth sailing would leave consequences for her at the worst possible time.

After only a measly two and a half hours of sleep, Sam jolted awake from a horrible dream. She had lost most of her eyesight, her hearing, and her sense of touch in this dream. After finding herself in an argument with a faceless girl that had left the girl with tears streaming down her face, Sam had gotten up from the table she was sitting at to get into a car. One that she didn't know how to drive, as she had found herself on farmland, desperate to find a road that led to safety, but unable to control the wheel or see past the fog-lights extending from the front of the car. Pure, unadulterated terror forced her from the vehicle once she realised she would surely kill herself if she stayed on the path a moment longer.

Throwing herself from the car, she stumbled through waist-high grass, scratching against her skin and soon tearing wounds into her calves and thighs. Exhausted and panicking, Sam ended up on her hands and knees, sobbing so hard she cried, and begged for it to be a dream.

Sam awoke a moment later, eyes shooting open to recognise the ceiling of her bedroom, the fan turning slowly. Her breathing was laboured, heavy puffs of air that posed a great pressure on her chest. She struggled to push the sheets off her sweaty body and fell out of bed onto the floor. Like in her dream, she stayed on her hands and knees until she started sobbing so hard her spine rolled with it.

Her fingers curled into her eye sockets as the tears fell, begging for this, too, to be a dream. But this time, she didn't wake up. She stayed in that position until her throat was hoarse from screaming into the palms of her hands, desperation an old friend that slowly pried its way into her mind, filling every empty space it could find.

Soon, Sam laid on the floor. A shell of what she was yesterday and would be tomorrow, her grief tearing her apart from the inside out. She allowed herself 24 hours, every year, on this day, to mourn. No more, no less. 

Standing from the floor, Sam made her way to the shower and let the cold water drown her.

------------

Sam knew her mother would try to call her.

No one knew how hard Sam had taken the accident, besides her family.

She knew deep down that if Ryan, mum, and dad hadn't helped her those years ago, she would be buried six feet below.

"Hey mum," Sam's scratchy voice said, her phone sitting on the vanity in her bathroom. She sat on the floor with her back against the cabinetry under the sink, unable to push herself to move.

"Ciao, il mio bambina," Annie murmured over the phone.

"I'm not a baby, mum."

"You'll always be my baby, cuore mio," Annie said softly.

For a moment, Sam wished her mum was there to squeeze her tight and push it all away. Six years and Sam still couldn't compose herself enough to even go to work, knowing she needed to respect what had happened in her own way.

"I haven't told Father Henry," said her mum. "No one has told him. He won't know that you're coming in, but I can call him so you don't need to look at him."

"Please," Sam creaked out, pulling her knees to her chest. The water slowly rolling down her bare legs and chest pooled in the space in front of her abdomen. More drops joined it, as tears fell once more. Sam wanted to smack some sense into herself as she had years previous; remind herself she had no reason to mourn, the death didn't personally affect her, why did this keep happening?