For the Love of Sam and Eva

The Trail of Gifts

I couldn’t get over Hayden’s confession. It kept replaying in my head over and over again. 

How on earth did something like that happen?

Although what surprised me, was that Emily was still with him. She told me she couldn’t look at him the same way again, but there wasn’t any need to be disgusted with him. She really did like him and I was rather shocked to hear that. She’d dumped a guy because he didn’t like chicken and she won’t do the same with Hayden even though he’d done something I never thought a boy would do in his entire life.

It must be because he’s hot.

Yet she was happy.

I wasn’t too happy though. It wasn’t like every time I saw him I imagined him unwrapping a tampon and experimentally–

I seriously needed to stop visualizing such bad images. It wasn’t good for my brain.

It’s time for a distraction from potential mental scarring! It’s safe to say Sam and I were as close as friends could get. We’ve done almost everything together for the past two months. I’ve taken him to one of my netball games and explained to him how the rules work, and he’s dragged me along to a local concert where he knew the bassist and gave us free entry. There’ve been moments where we’ll make each other smile, laugh and sometimes cry – that was only on my part though. Sam said he’s too manly to cry.

Pfft, yeah right.

Dad was getting suspicious of us though. I feared his overprotective instincts were going to bounce back and grab hold of me again. Nina thought it was cute I had another guy friend and Mum would give me suggestive winks whenever he came over. She’d tell me he had a thing for me, which I would casually dismiss as stupid and highly unlikely. He was a friend and a close one at that, but it couldn’t be more than that, right?

That’s what I thought until this one Monday morning.

I rolled over onto my side, groaning when sunlight attacked my eyes. I let unknown vibrant colours swim in my vision until it focused. At first, I thought I was still dreaming or had eaten something really strange last night – Mum’s chicken curry tended to produce a chemical imbalance in my brain – but once my eyes readjusted, a big smile found its way to my face. On my bed was a tiny bouquet of wildflowers, its various colours brightening up my dull grey sheets. I giggled, gripping them in my tiny hands.

I wasn’t a morning person, often grumpy and snippy at anyone who bugged me but that morning, so to feel happy was a nice change. Who put them there? I highly doubted Mum and Nina would do such a thing for me. It could have Dad. Maybe he was feeling romantic again and needed to release the energy by doing cute things for his family. I played around with my bright flowers for a few moments, counting the colours of the rainbow until I saw a little white note where my flowers had been. It was folded neatly with my name scribed on the front in messy scrawl. That didn’t look like Dad’s handwriting. I picked it up hesitantly. The little message created a little leap in my chest.

Good morning, sunshine.

I grinned, knowing all too well who’d sent me the flowers. I made a mental note to thank him later. This was too kind of him.

Nina shot me a glare when I came downstairs. Hell, she always gave me a look in the morning. My sling had been taken off the other day, and the doctor had listed me for a month’s worth of physiotherapy to help it adjust back to the way it was originally before Sam killed it. I smiled at the memory albeit the fact it wasn’t pleasant. The only pleasant part of that rather painful day was when we walked down the streets, just the two of us.