CLOSER (SAM FENDER)

TWENTY ONE

Violet

I was dreaming about Sam again, but this time, it was different. Everything was different. It wasn't like the first one, where I dreamed we were in love which started a frenzy of unearthed feelings between us when I told him. It was much worse than that. It was a terrible dream where we ended, and he left me alone in the cold.

A fever dream.

It was the worst one I'd ever had and it took the cake.

It was the kind of cold you could get sick in.

Sam and I stood parallel from each other, bits of snow landing on our jackets and catching pieces of our hair as we trembled lightly under the glow of streetlamps. Sam's hands were shoved deep into his pockets, whether to keep them warm or keep his hands away from mine, I couldn't be sure. Neither of us had spoken since we decided to bring this outside. There were too many people around for us to have this conversation publicly, but now, it was a conversation that wasn't happening at all. Silence embraced us and anxiety crept in, something neither of us were strangers to.

I swallowed the nerves that had been plaguing me most of the night and closed my eyes for a moment. It was now or never. There were too many things that needed to be said and every second I wasted was another minute I wouldn't get the chance to do it again.

"I never meant for any of this to happen."

Sam looked up at me, his eyes meeting mine for the first time and the edges were rimmed with curiosity and grief.

"I mean it. I didn't want it to be like this. I didn't want it to be so...complicated. I didn't want to hurt you."

Sam drew in a breath and bit his lower lip habitually. "You thought it would be fun, and it would just end there, is that it?"

I shook my head. "I don't know what I thought. What did you think would happen? It wasn't all just me."

He nodded once and looked up at the sky, exhaling into the night air as a plume of his breath vaporized around him. "I thought it'd be different."

"Different, how?" I felt like I was going to cry. Years and years of friendship hung over us loosely and threatened to shatter all around us.

"I dunno know, Vi..."

"Yes, you do. You're just not telling me the truth. I know you, Sam. I know exactly when you're keeping something from me."

He lowered his gaze back toward mind and smirked a bit before speaking. "I can tell you the truth then, but you're not going to like it and it's not going to change anything. I may be daft, but I'm not unwise."

I crossed my arms over my chest and shivered. "Go on, then."

He looked over his shoulder, at the house full of our friends behind us, and a house where we'd spent the last eight months trying to sort through the mess we'd fallen into. "I wanted you to pick me, and you didn't. You still haven't. You won't. I think we both know that by now. And I can't do it anymore. Blame the holidays approaching if you want to, but something is making it harder and harder to do this with you. To do this at all."

I felt like someone knocked me down with a feather. It was the thing I feared the most. The ultimatum coming out. The moment of reckoning and I knew sooner or later it would happen. In hindsight, I could have given him the ultimatum, too. The ball was in both of our courts with this one, and we were equally guilty. I felt the tears line my eyes and I tried to blink them away but all that did was cause one to spill over and roll down my cheek.

Sam didn't move and instead stared at me, and kept his eyes fixated on the grief his words were causing me.

"You might be sorry for this, and you might not have wanted any of this to happen, but I'm not. I'm not sorry for any of it. I'm not sorry for how I feel about you, or for what I did, what we did. I'm not. I regret none of it." Sam's words were ice as he attempted to keep his voice low and yell at the same time. It made the moment that much more ominous than it needed to be. "Maybe that makes me terrible. Maybe I deserve all of this...pain and guilt for everything I've done, but I don't care. I wanted you, but you don't want me enough. I'm not enough."