Leave The City (Book 8 of Adopted by the Josephs)

29. Samantha

"Brandi, you okay?" I asked as we got in the car. She looked... pissed.

"I'm great. I'm fantastic. Just wonderful," she said, slamming her door as we got in her car.

"What happened?" I asked, hoping she wasn't mad at me for some reason.

"Ashton. Fucking Ashton Bennington," she seethed.

"Wait, Ashton, your boyfriend, Ashton. What? What happened?" I asked. Brandi and Ashton had been dating since the end of their sophomore year.

"EX-boyfriend," Brandi said. "I caught the fucker in my pool house with Candace Becker."

"Wait... What? When?!" I asked.

"After the game yesterday. Ashton used to clean our pool. He does it as a summer job so he offered to do our pool every couple of weeks, between my parents' pool service days."

"Well that explains why he'd be in your backyard. But... Candace?  Really?"

"Really. Candace fucking Becker. God I hate them both!"

"Oh. Brandi, I'm so sorry," I sympathized. Brandi was driving pretty erratically.

"Hey, I know you're mad, but, could you slow down a little?" I asked.

"Sorry," she said, in an angry tone that wasn't aimed at me. "I'm just so pissed."

I nodded. I couldn't imagine how that felt, but unfortunately, I knew the feeling of betrayal.

"Sam, have you ever liked someone a lot, and then had your heart stomped on?"

I looked down at my hands. Thoughts of Parker and Blaine crossed my mind. Tears threatened behind my closed eyes.

"Oh. Oh Sam. I'm sorry. The shooting. I'm sorry. Was Blaine your boyfriend?"

I shook my head because I couldn't entirely trust my voice.

"No," I said. "But my friend Parker, the one whose parents took him off life support, Tri - someone told me that he'd planned on asking me out over the summer. He was going to wait until exams were done."

"Oh. Oh gosh. Sam, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't be complaining about stupid stuff like this with you."

"No, Brandi, it's okay. Really. Yeah, I'm sad about losing my friends, but don't avoid real life issues just because I might get sad. We're all human. And believe me when I say it is not worth keeping stuff bottled up."

Brandi glanced over at me and smiled.

"Thanks, Sam. I don't get it. You've had some incredibly shitty things happen throughout your life, but you're still so positive and supportive. Why aren't you a bitter bitch?  You, of all people, would totally have that right."

I shrugged.

"What's the point in being miserable to people who aren't involved in the crappy stuff I've dealt with?  It's not your fault there was a shooting at my school, or my birth dad was a prick. Or my car accident.  Why would I hold on to all that negativity?  Besides, at the end of the day, I think everything turned out pretty great. My parents are amazing, my aunt and uncle are indescribably amazing. I have great friends, here and in Ohio. My mom, my birth mom, always tried to find the good or the fun in what we did. Baking cookies was not only a lesson in chemistry, but she'd let me make them in funny shapes. She made hide and seek a game we played and would hint at fun hiding places. She taught me to read when I was like, I don't know. Three?  But it was always a game. She'd hide a few letters around the house. Like, a C on a chair, a T on the bowl of tomatoes in the kitchen. P on the phone, E on the Emergency Numbers sheet we had. That kind of stuff. She did her best, honestly," I said, a stray tear falling from my eye. I still really miss my mom.