Saving the Heart

♥ Chapter Ten ♥

♥ Chapter Ten ♥

    I stood outside Sam’s front door, banging on the door like the hopeless bearer of news I was.  It didn’t take long for a dog to start yapping and a gruff voice to start screaming and then the door was opened.  A lady that appeared to be in her late sixties opened the door and squinted up at me.

    “Who are you?” She snapped.  Good feelings gone.

    “Hi, I’m Kennedy, I’m here to see Sam.” The lady eyed me up and down.

    “How much is he paying you?”  I took a step away from the door, taken aback.

    “Excuse me?” I asked, slightly disturbed that she would dare ask that of me.  The dress I was wearing wasn’t that short, besides, I had thick knit leggings on under it.

    “I’ll double it if it makes you leave.” She continued.  

    “Well...no need to, I’ll be leaving shortly.  If you could just let me in to talk to-” my eyes wandered over her head to see him entering the room, “Sam!” I called out.  I had stopped by both of his places of work today only to find out that he had the day off.  His eyebrows furrowed before he shooed the lady away.

    “Kennedy, what on earth are you doing here?” He asked, leaning up against the doorway.

    “Can I come in?” I asked, standing on my tiptoes to see into the house.

    “Uh, yeah?” He took a step back into the house and held the door open for me.  I entered under his arm and the moment I went to speak I caught whiff of the house.  The smell of smoke nearly had me coughing through the light fog that hung in the air.  

    “Come on,” he told me, gesturing for me to follow him through a door that led to a narrow staircase, pulling me away from the grotesque upstairs.  I hastily followed him down the steps, revealing a small room.  

    “This is my home, sorry, I didn’t know you were coming,” he blabbed as he crossed his concrete floor over to his little bed and started to pick up the dirty clothes that were lying there, throwing them in a small hamper.  I took it all in.  The pale colored walls, streaked by water damage, the cracked concrete floors, the fluorescent light tubes that gave a dull green glow to the room.  So that’s where he got the lightbulb from.

    “So,” Sam sat down on his small bed, gaining a creak of resistance.  “What are you here for?”

    “Um,” I looked around his room and caught sight of a small wooden chair.  I pulled it over beside his bed and sat down.  “I’m here to pick you up for dinner.” His eyebrow rose.  “My dad knows, he wants to meet you.”  Sam sighed.  “You’ll like him,” I rushed, “probably, I don’t know, he already has it in his head that you’re a good kid.  You might want to you know...shower first but-”

    “What time is dinner at?” He cut me off, looking up at me with tired eyes.

    “Six.  It’s four right now, I figured I’d give you time and then we have to drive back out to my house.” Sam nodded.

    “Okay, just give me a bit to get ready.” He pushed off of his bed and strode across the room to a little door that I assumed led to the bathroom.  “There is a remote on the nightstand there,” he told me, gesturing to the small stack of cases by his bed.  “Cable is crap, but I have some thrifted movies in that there box.”  He shrugged.  “It’s better than nothing. That is, if you can work a VCR.”  And with that he disappeared into the other room.

    I grabbed the remote and pressed the on button, resulting in a loud click as a tube TV buzzed to life.  The small television was set up on a dresser at the other end of the bed.  I smiled.  It was kind of cute.