Same Love

63: Goodbye

His life flashed before his eyes. As he stared at Daryl, a smile on his face while he waited for his demise, he thought back on it all.As a child he had been feisty.

The kids at school never got on with him, they knew something wasn't right. He was told when he was very young that it scared other little boys when he tried to hold their hands but he didn't understand this, he didn't understand why his father seemed to never relax around him, even when his mother was there. It wasn't until he was eleven that he could guess what his feelings meant. He told his only friend, Kit and she seemed somewhat relieved, they both were.

Sam was accepted by one person but the kids at his school would still avoid him. He took to sitting reading adventure books or comic books by himself in the playground. His mother suggested that his father try to strengthen their 'bond' and from then on Sam would be taken out every evening after school while his father hunted. Sam learnt quickly, with natural skills and his father soon became closer to him, seeing the man his son had become.

Everything was going well, he was happy alone at school and with his father in the forests around their small town. He made more friends when he was thrust into high school.Suddenly he was wanted, people asked to sit with him, to know him because he looked so cool. Teenagers are funny things. Image obsessed, all slightly Bi-polar but Sam never understood the hype.

He would turn most of them down, invitations and requests. All he wanted was to be left like he was before. At sixteen he decided that he would tell his parents his big secret before he went on to pursue a career and sat them down one day. After he told them his father just sat there, baffled by this news as they had been so close after these past few years. His mother, on the other hand, went crazy. She turfed him out of the house, telling him never to come back.

That night, overcome by the hopelessness of his situation, the prospect that his family would never love him again after getting so close to his father, he took a razor blade and tried to end it all. Kit found him and rushed him to the hospital, calling his parents to tell them. Later, when he awoke in a cold white room, his mother begged him to stay, apologised over and over.

 From then on he became detached. It was strange, living with them again but he was forced to bear it. After a few months of awkwardness the hunting trips stopped all together, they hunted separately now.At age eighteen he made a big mistake. One night he got a bit drunk in the stable bar, singing, dancing on the table, and a girl came up to him. She wasn't interested in anything else but him actually, her face all made up and her short dress riding up her thighs. Sam had taken her willingness as an invitation and slept with her.

 He got her number but never saw her again.A few months later he got a call, she cursed him out, interrupting him while he was at work. he found out she was pregnant and for the next couple of months he tried to make things right, sent her money and checked on her regularly even though she wanted nothing to do with him. When his daughter was born, Taylor Crevan, he was left with her and the girl disappeared from his life forever.

His mother was not happy with him when he brought a child home, and she refused to help him out at all. He used the last of his wages for that month to buy supplies and a cot for her, hired a babysitter for when he was at work and spent as much time with her as possible, he had just turned 20 when he received a distressed call and learnt of her death.

 If his mother felt no guilt at his attempted suicide she surely felt some then and didn't come to the funeral. After that, Sam became solely focused on his work a for however many years. Later, he met Nathan. The butterflies he felt would confuse him but he thought he had truly fallen in love.Then everything went south. The flashback slowed, from quick memories to purely Daryl. His world had shifted when they had met, his heart had slowly become open and this time he really was in love. Daryl observed tears run down his face and called out but all Sam could think of was what had come before. He imagined Daryl's soft arms, his scent of oil and cigarettes, his taste and his voice. He loved Daryl.

 He couldn't bear to leave him. Sam felt his heart constrict as he heard Daryl's panicked shout, the desperation in his voice and offered the man and small tearful smile and let death come

He regretted nothing.

"Goodbye"