Sincerely Me

Chapter 7

It had been a full week, a complete seven days without talking to Sam and May felt lost. She had built this friendship, this alliance with this boy only to see him tear it apart. The more she thought about it, the more stupid she felt. What made her think that she ever had a chance with a boy like Sam? He was clearly higher up in the popularity chart then she and May knew that. Yet she let him string her along as if she were a puppet. She had to cut the strings in order to be herself again but something inside her felt wrong. Something was missing. Of course, she knew that she was just missing Sam but she couldn’t help but wonder if it was more than that, a deeper feeling. She had been torturing herself, doubting every thought she had for the past week. She thought that she might feel better if he spoke to her but every time she was tempted to reply to his messages and letters, she remembered him laughing with his friends and him ignoring her for them, people he claimed to hate. She quickly learnt that people like Sam don’t have the ability to love someone like May, not at seventeen anyway.

As May was coming to terms with Sam’s absence, he tried to talk to her. He was confused, he didn’t know why May was avoiding him and wouldn’t reply to his letters or go to the tree. He missed her. He had started getting depressed with the lack of communication. He couldn’t cope with not seeing her or talking to her. No matter how hard he tried, she just wouldn’t talk to him and it killed him. He could usually handle rejection, but not when it came to May. This time, every time she wouldn’t look at him, every time she didn’t show, every time she didn’t reply, it shattered his heart a little more. And each time he thought of reason why she just left, it killed him even more. He needed her. He needed to talk to her. He was going crazy without her. He didn’t realise how much he truly needed her until he wasn’t able to see her or touch her. He hated this, more than he has hated anything in his life. Sam decided that he must know what happened, even if it was the last time he spoke to May. He just needed to understand why she left.

He had memorised her timetable and waited until her class ended to make his move. She was leaving Literature when May felt someone grab her arm and pull her into the closest empty room where Sam’s friends couldn’t find them. The cleaner’s closet. May was surprised to find herself alone in a small, dark room with Sam. He was the last person she thought wanted to talk to her, but there he was.

“Don’t freak out. I just needed to see you. I had to talk to you”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I missed you”

Silence grew in the tiny space as May didn’t know how to respond and if she even wanted to continue talking to Sam. She had tried so hard to stay away from him and she didn’t wish to fall back into bad habits. She was curious to Sam’s motives behind this little get-together.

“Why are you ignoring me?”

“Right now or in general?”

“Both, I guess”

May took a deep breathe, thinking carefully of how she was going to answer his question. She wanted to yell at him for treating her the way he did. She wanted to cry, like the thousand other times he had made her feel pathetic for caring about him. She wanted to hug him and tell him that she missed him too. She also wanted to run away and never look back. She didn’t know for sure what she was going to do but she knew that she had to do something or he would keep trying, “What are we doing? You and I. This friendship that we share. Are we really friends? Are we really anything?”

Sam wasn’t sure if she was answering his questions or creating more. He was just happy that he heard her voice. It was the first time in a week that they had been this close again. Sam was going to do anything just to keep this moment from ending, “Of course we’re friends.”