NINE

{1}

I need to tell you something because I feel like you're the only person I can trust with this. And it's probably going to sound crazy. You just met me and telling you this could ruin everything but... things happen to me. Weird things that I don't understand. And this time, you were there too.

I've been reciting these words in my head religiously for the past two weeks now, waiting for the right time to say them, except they're not exactly the most comforting words to blurt out when the social system has crafted my entire life to revolve around what I do and say. But still, I need to tell someone - I need to tell Sam. He's the one that was there.

"Sam..." I pick at the dead skin around my nails letting a moment pass by.

"Rachael..." he mocks. It's not hard to tell that Sam is just playing along with the seriousness in my tone as if it'll be another joke. Which makes sense since that's all he ever does, so I'm not really sure why I decided it was good time to start a deep conversation.

"I, um – " My eyes gaze away from the window where I was watching a man bend his overworked limbs onto a bus station bench and begin using his fists to scrub off the dirt crusted to the left pant leg of his jaded, steel blue overalls. The ends of it were hardened by charcoaled concrete cut just enough to expose his blistered ankles.

I stop my gaze at Sam who's sprawled out on my bed. He's lying flat on his stomach with his feet propped up on the pillow and his chin tucked between his hands at the foot of my bed. Sam has one of those faces that makes you appreciate every curve and hollow in the bone structure underlying the ridges of his skin. His skin that not even a grazing blade could deny of perfection.

I must have been staring at him for a while because his eyebrows raise as if to say "you okay over there?" My cheeks flush. I can imagine his thoughts screaming FREAK as I continue to search for something to say. Way to go, Rach. You've inconceivably screwed up another would-have-been friendship.

A pathetic noise that I call a nervous laugh parts my lips. "I, uh – " the words I've prepared to say for so long dangle from my tongue half gripping on, half begging to be released. I can't, I decide. I can't risk this moment. This little incident to become the end my connection to Sam. A.K.A my connection with the In-Between class. One step away from the Rich. God, what was I thinking? Finally someone befriended me, and I almost allow myself to throw it all away? Not again.

The dangling words have dried up now, and I'm not sure how to recover, so the silence drags on. I've never been good at simple conversation.

Sam shifts, pressing on his palms, elevating his torso off the bed. He's getting up. I find myself wanting to yell "no, stay!" but his eyes look over at me almost saying, "relax. I'm just sitting up" as if he could sense the panic racking in my head.

"So what's for dinner?" Sam is always so composed. I guess I would be too if I wasn't in the bottom sector. All the thoughts that raced through my head in the few minutes that have passed didn't even faze him. What the hell is wrong with me? I can't even do small talk. It's like I'm coiled so tight in a ball I can't function. I want to escape. No. I need to.