Hallow Springs

Twenty

I was on my way to see him. At first, I kind of resented him for the fact that I had to talk to him about how to talk to my suspect. But it's a small town, I would have to face him at some point – better now at the beginning of our investigation than later when we close in on a suspect. Quickly after this I reminded myself that he was good man and we were just victims of circumstance.

Sam Parker was a perfect boyfriend. We had a couple of years of romance. It started with the picnics and the dinners and movies but it quickly escalated. Once we got our hands on each other, we couldn't get them off. He was strong yet tender, sensitive but yet masculine. He helped clean and he worked his ass off. He was just as sexy in a suit as he was in his truck. He really was a Swiss army knife of a man. Everything was perfect really... and then next thing I know I'm late... I'm sitting on a toilet peeing on pregnancy test after pregnancy test, hoping the result would change.

The man of my dreams had knocked me up. I remember thinking – what an asshole. I was scared as anyone would be. How would I be as a mother? I didn't know the first thing about babies or raising one. I was the youngest in my family so I never babysat or anything. I remember crying on that toilet, when I wondered how to hold a baby. They say to hold it just like a football, but I didn't know how to hold a football. I was hyperventilating, I felt like I was dying, because surely my life was over. In that moment, it's only natural to think your life is over, but nothing could be further from the truth. Not only was my life only just beginning but so was my child's.

Life got stressful after that. I was still two semesters away from finishing my degree – he was about to take the BAR. It was really inconvenient, but tough shit, life happens and now there was another one involved. I told him there was no way I was going to terminate the pregnancy, he told me there was no way he'd ask me to. That wasn't our kind of thing – it was no one's fault but our own and we knew we had to grow up fast. Studying to be a cop and him studying to be a criminal prosecutor, I guess both of us had learned that actions had consequences. The fact that we were on the page through the whole thing made me love him even more. I asked that if I couldn't finish school and had to be a stay at home mom, if we could move back to Hallow Springs where I had grown up. He hadn't even been there yet and he said he loved me and he would do anything to raise this child. Then he got down on a knee at an overlook in Kemper Park.

My thumb rubbed over my empty ring finger. I could almost still feel the depression in my skin. I had felt naked ever since I had taken it off. The truth is that I didn't want to divorce him and he didn't want to divorce me. But we weren't compatible anymore, we hated that it happened to us like it had happened to so many others. I cried to cope with my sadness – he drank to cope with his. When I looked at him, all I could see was Suzie – so we got a divorce but I kept seeing her.

"Mommy?" Sure enough there she was, barefoot and buckled into the passenger seat.

"Yes sweetheart..."

"Are you going to see Daddy?"

"Yes. I am."

"What are you going to talk about?"

"I don't know honey... I don't know..." I was beginning to get annoyed by her nosiness. I wasn't in the mood for this self-analysis. I just wanted to get the meeting over with.

"Why did you split up?"

I pulled into the parking lot and shifted the car into park.

"Because losing you was too difficult for us..."

"But don't you love each other?" Suzie was as innocent and naïve as the day she died.

"Not anymore..." At least that was what I convinced myself.

"You should give him another chance!" Suzie was only telling me what I felt somewhere buried deep under the misery.

"It's not that simple, honey..."

"Why not?" She didn't understand, how could she? I shook my head in pathetic disagreement, but didn't answer. "Why not?" Suzie's tone grew more demanding, like a snobby sixteen-year-old with an attitude problem. My grip tightened on the steering wheel. "Why not!"

"Because you will never come back!" I yelled and snapped at her.

"I'm right here! What are you talking about!" Suzie continued digging, like the snide brat she was being. She was digging under my skin so deep she was striking a nerve.

"No you aren't! You're dead Suzie! You're dead! I wish you'd just let me live my life and leave me alone! Why do you have to keep haunting me like this? You know how hard it is to see you! You die all over again each time I see you! Just leave me alone!" I screamed as angry as a mother could at her daughter. She was just like me and it drove me crazy. I held onto the steering wheel and lowered my head to my arms. Guilt immediately settled – the struck nerve tingled to my fingertips. I shook my head on the wheel.

"I'm sorry sweetie... I'm so sorry I didn't mean that!" I reached toward the passenger seat but she vanished, leaving me to face my own reflection in the window.

Would she ever come back? What was she trying to telling me and why wouldn't I listen?

For a split second, I considered that she was just my subconscious projecting itself and that there was still some small seed of hope that things could work out between Sam and I. Tears came as I realized that there was still a little girl in me, who wanted to be swept off my feet like that night in the quad. But life had happened and nothing would change that. Sam was the man of my dreams, until my life became a nightmare. And now I was here, parked outside of his office about to see him for the first time since the day my heart broke and I became Amanda Graves again.

Just breathe...

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