SAM

| 6 |

*
s a m u e l
*

"Love is the most selfish of all passions."
- Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers

I have never been so disgusted in my whole life. About 3 hours ago, Henry announced that Samantha would be marrying either me, Lucas or that Carter boy. The funny part was her reaction. After Henry announced that he was dying and then the news of Sam's fate, Samantha lost it. She banged her hands against the table, receiving the angry glares from other patrons that have had enough with our table's outburst, courtesy of my... friend. The whole room filled with Samantha's screams and the mothers shushing...

"Sam? Are you gonna say anything?"
She snaps me out of my thoughts and looks at me expectedly.

"Well?" She questions me. I know what she wants. She wants me try and stop this plan of an archaic nature.
Yeah, that's right. I know big words.

"Sam... I... well. You know me..." I stammer and I'm interrupted. I look down at my hands.

"Samantha, sit down." Mr Perkins stern voice fills my ears.

"NO! I refuse to participate in this game that you miserable old men have derived from your thick useless brains!"

Silence cloaks us and no one else dares to say a word.

"So this is happening? She has no choice in the matter?" Dylan croaks out, disquieting the quietness.

"She does not."

And that's all it takes. I hear Sam take in a sharp breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I see her holding a plate in her hand and lifting it up. I turn around to try stop her but before I can the plate is on the floor. One big piece goes flying into my hands and blood drips down from my hand.

I look up to her in shock and she returns my look. I know she didn't mean it but I'm just surprised. She turns around and storms out of the room. As I glance around the room, I'm met with looks of anger, disappointment and astonishment. Everyone is stunned, let me just say that.

After 5 minutes, I realise that my best friend is upset and is probably about to do something reckless so I should probably go after her. I stand up and make my way to the door. I hear multiple objections towards my decision but ignore them.

And that leads me to where I am now. I've been looking for Sam for 3 hours. Not just me though because after I got out of that place, Dylan and Daniel follow and immediately split up in different directions.

That Carter boy, Cameron, also exits the restaurant and without a word, walks off into another direction.

I don't know where the others are but I'm more concerned about where Sam is.

I'm currently in Sam's 'safe place'. She's not here and that's kind of surprising but I'll keep looking. I'll always keep looking. I'm still bleeding

My head instantly turns to a bush that suddenly rustles. My experience with situations like this is the same as any teenager in this era, horror movies tell me that there are three ways that this will go:
Either I will look behind the bush and see Sam sitting there
Or
There will be a stupid build up to me looking behind the bush and some sort of animal will run out of it and scare the living daylights out of me.
Or
I'll slowly walk up to the bush and a serial killer springs out of it and kills me. How exciting.
I contemplate running but how would that look? Ignoring my better judgement, I walk up to the bush.