Something About Sam

The Final Chapter

We're going through a few of my boxes because Taite is insistent on decluttering the spare room so I can have a place to write music. I tell him I can write music anywhere and I don't need my own room to do it, but he shushes me and continues unpacking the few boxes that are left. I smile. 

We've been living together for a month now. Taite just graduated (magna cum laude, Class President, football star) and is headed back to veterinary school in the Fall. I bought an apartment in Boston, just a few minutes from his campus, and surprised him with it as an early birthday present. Naturally, he told me to "return it." Yes. Return an apartment. All the knowledge money can buy, and still. He says things like that.

 But eventually, he came around.

"Is that one of our Christmas cards?" Taite asks me, his arm elbow-deep in a brown cardboard box. I'm flipping through an old photo album so I don't really pay attention to him. I give a curious "hmm?" instead, smiling at a picture of Lottie and me in the bathtub when we were babies.  My mind drifts to my sister. I wonder how she's doing, sharing an apartment in London with Marley for the summer. The two of them couldn't be more different. But somehow, they work.

And then Taite says, "Holy shit," bringing me back into the room, and he's got a handful of paper in his hands and I've just realized that he has come across my Taite Jefferson PORN collection. 

"Oh my god, no Taite," I reach over to grab every last photo out of his hands, but he pushes me away rather aggressively and starts flipping through them with this stupid ass smile on his face.

"These are our Christmas cards! You have all of them! Even from when we were little! I can't be more than 5 in that one..." he pauses to muse at them, his fingers sliding over the same glossy photo paper Lydia Jefferson used to print them every year. I'm cringing because this is so incredibly creepy of me, and of course Taite had to choose that box to sort through. 

"I know," I say, moving to look over his shoulder. "God, I'm such a creep."

He laughs, shaking my chest which I've pressed against his back. "No. This is adorable." He makes the horrifying mistake of flipping over the card from 2014. The one where I've written FUCK ME TAITE JEFFERSON in red Sharpie on the back. And underlined it. Twice.

Taite can't contain his laughter. He's rolling around on the floor like God himself is making him do it. He's crying actual tears. He claims he may pee himself. I rip the card out of his hands and will the redness of my face to subside. "You don't get it! I was so in love with you! You were my dream boy!"

"Oh my god," he's still laughing. "Sam, that's incredible. I love it. You kept every single card."

"Yes I did," I retort proudly, still a little red, gathering them all up to stuff them back in the envelope they belong in. 

He turns to look at me with this adorable puppy dog face. "Sammy," he grabs my face and plants a kiss on my lips. "That's the sweetest thing you've ever done for me."

I snort. "No, I think the sweetest thing I've ever done for you is read my father's emails with your dad and come up with this elaborate plan to get myself to Virginia that summer to fucking woo you. I think that's the sweetest thing I've ever done for you."

Taite has stopped laughing. "You're kidding."

I shake my head. "I knew you were my soul mate, I had to do something about it."

"You did not know that yet, Sam. You hadn't seen me since you were five." 

I roll my eyes at him because classic: he doesn't get it. "Taite. Trust me. I knew."