CHAPTER 21
BILLY
I run out of the house soon after. I need to let my anger out, and I don't want Hunter to stop me. It was my fault that Sam died. I didn't even know that I was in danger until I got hit with the cold air reacting to my dripping face. I remember swimming to the shore as fast as I could, my boot hitting something. I didn't know what it had hit, but I had wanted to get as far from it as possible. If I had only know that it was Sam, I could have helped her.
I wonder why she didn't swim up to the surface; it was only a few feet up. I stand with by back to the cliff face, the house just barely in sight. I sigh and turn around. Was it not only this afternoon that Sam was here, theorizing an escape route? I look over the edge, staring at where the three of us had hit the ground. The grass was flattened where we had landed, the snow pile having been melted. I take a step back, my fear of heights taking over.
I look to my left and see a tree, one that I couldn't recognize if my life had depended on it. Sam would have been able to label it without a problem. I clench my fists as I walk closer, trying to calm down. By the time that I am face to face with the tree, I haven't cooled in the slightest. I swing, and send my fist into the bark. I continue just hitting and swinging.
When I finish, the tree has a massive amount of bark taken out of it, and my knuckles are splintered. I choke back tears from the memory of grabbing Sam's wrist. She had been letting out anger the same way, but I had stopped her. I had looked deep into her bewildered grey eyes and told her to stop, despite the fact she wasn't satisfied. I wonder if this is anything close to the searing pain she had felt; the combination of burning fury with the guilt of being responsible for killing someone. It can't even compare, I realize; she had felt the weight of millions upon millions of people who had died from an accident.
I absentmindedly walk to the lake behind the house. I look down at it, knowing that if it weren't for Sam, it would have been me at the bottom. Why couldn't it have been me? Because nothing was stronger than Sam's goodwill? Because she didn't want the guilt of killing another person? I remember the carrying her when her leg gave out, her guilty mumbles as she slept in my arms. I remember her crooked smile when she told a bad pun, and how her eyes lit up when she laughed. I sit down at the edge of the water, the stream of memories turning into a flood of them. The thin white scars on her neck from all the times she had stabbed her fingernails into it. All the times she had temporarily ignored her personal space issues and social anxiety, just to give Hunter and me a hug.
I lay back and stare at the sky, letting the warmth of memory sink in as I looked at the full moon.
+ + +
HUNTER
After Billy had run out, Max and I sat on his cot and talked. It was getting late, but I wanted to stay up until Billy got back, as he promised. I just had to ask Max something.
"Why did you give Sam all of the notes?"
"Excuse me?"
"Sam told me that you had slipped her a few things while she was under the forced apprenticeship."
"Oh. Because I wanted her to yearn for escape, and hopefully to get back to you."
"But why?"
"Evelyn was cruel to her. She crossed many boundaries and was planning on killing Sam after she had the antidote. And, assuming you are her best friend, I figured you wouldn't really want her dying. Wait, forget I said that. That was insensitive."
I choke back tears successfully, getting much better with all the practice.
"Can I see the notebook?" Max asks me, his slight accent bouncing.
"I thought you had it..." I say. I suddenly think of how I had set it down after he was shot. I had left her journal, the last thing I could have remembered her by, in the empty highway between Evelyn's mansion and the house.
I opened my mouth to say something, but I am cut off when Billy walks in, slamming the door behind him. He is covered in mud and wood chips, but I don't ask, probably a zombie attack.
"Want to say goodbye to Sam?" Billy asks. We both walk outside, and around the lake to see the grave that Billy had dug; Max wanted to stay in the house. Sam looked as if she was sleeping, but the ground underneath her was soaked, along with her clothes and hair. My breath shudders and I feel tears roll down my face.
"Fact," I say in the same manner that Sam used. "I'm going to miss you." I begin to cry, and Billy and I hug for so long that I had soaked his shirt with my tears. Finally, when we stopped, we each took turns putting a shovel of dirt into the grave. It was at the base of a tree, so Billy took out the blade from his pocketknife and whittled off a flat portion of wood. I had run back inside and found a permanent marker, and so we wrote:
HERE LIES SAM JEAN, A BEAUTIFUL DISASTER, AGED 15
I sort of stare at the fresh dirt after it has all been piled on. I clear my throat. Billy and Max are walking away.
"Literally." I say. Billy and Max turn around. "Because, you are funny and brave and smart and selfless and honest and pretty and kind and you know how to make mistakes and I honestly just am really jealous because you are literally this beautiful disaster, Sam. And I wish I was able to tell you sooner, because I know you've had this really sucky life and honestly, it just means you are strong. You are strong, Sam, and I know you did the right things in life, despite the results. That is already better than me, and I hope you know that you never had any reason to be jealous of me."
+ + +
We decided to go to sleep a few hours later, as the sun was rising. Max insisted he sleep on the couch, Billy stayed on his cot, and I slept on Jacob's old bed, not wanting to lay in the cot where my deceased friend had lay only a few hours earlier. I look out the window, staring at the full moon that gazed down from the sky. It seemed to be mourning, or maybe I was reflecting my own emotions onto it.
I am just so angry. I should have just stayed here. No, Hunter, my conscience argues, then you couldn't have saved either of them. My conscience has taken the form of Sam's voice. This makes me even angrier.
Don't think about her, Sam's voice coos in my head. I would give anything to have her back. But if she didn't risk her life, it would be Billy you are mourning now. Or possibly even both. Sam's logical tone is shining through. Her words soothe me as I drift to sleep.
