"Just Friends"

Chapter 26

SAM

"I hate to be like this, but my best friend just texted saying he's in the car. I gotta go. But I'd like to hang out sometime," Hailey said in a quick manner, already pushing her legs to Evan's car; which was parked two cars away. I watched her drag herself to it, with her body still facing our way, and turn around.
"She seems nice." Emma raised her brows.
"She is." I smiled as I wrapped my arm smoothly around her waist. It fit perfectly.
"So where are you taking me? You said you wanted to show me something," I asked intrigued.
"I do. But I'm not telling. You'll have to wait."
"Oh, come on!" I whined.

If there's something I hate, it's surprises.
The whole I have something for you but I ain't telling you what it is got to my impatience.
It left me playfully annoyed because I wasn't about to be seriously mad, but I was mad.
Just not for real. I don't know if that makes any sense.

"Shut up." She handed me a red helmet.
I felt this rare warmth birth inside me.
"Get in the bike."

*****

There was a turquoise canvas in the sky. A brush was used in the clouds, leaving spots of a shining pink.
Infinite, miniature pieces of a stained beige made the sand below my bare feet feel tingly. The bike was set on the floor next to where Emma was sitting.

I breathed clean. My eyes closed in an automatic movement and the breeze run cold over my face.
The air tasted of freedom.

"It's beautiful," I said.
"Without a doubt."
I swept to Emma's side. I sank my hands inside the rather heated sand. It slipped through my fingers; soft, needlelike.
"Where are we?" I finally asked.
I thought about the question all the way. But when I met the blinding light of the sky, I couldn't help myself.
And I didn't regret it for a second. That moment, as I sank the beach in, was the closest thing to peace in forever.

"Yesterday I showed you some of my past. Today I thought I'd show you some more," she let out, cautiously. The atmosphere in the wall-less room changed.
I felt something sensitive coming. She was about to tell me something important, something triggering and emotional for her.
"What happened here?" I asked with care.
"As a teen, I lived with my mom. Every holiday, we'd come here.  This exact beach. We had a house some miles inside. There was this one summer, where everything changed for me. I met a girl," her voice began breaking.
An aching tension appeared in my chest.
"She was," Emma took a breathe, "beautiful. She was perfection. She was the most innocent, pure soul I'd ever met. And I was so- the opposite." She choked painfully.

I felt the reality in her words. I knew the end of this story, and it broke my heart. "I was so fucked up and broken, and she made the pieces sting a little less, you know?"
"I do. Julie does that for me."
I scanned her face. Her eyes were filled with tears, the grey inside them surrounded by lines of red.
The tears fell from her eyelashes, leaving a pool of water in the eye bags. I used my finger to dry them.

I waited for her to continue.
"My mom caught us kissing. The next day we were gone, and-" the silence broke the atmosphere.
She stared at the sea, her eyes lost.

"What was her name?" I asked.
"Amy."
"Did you ever see her again?"
"No. Not even once."
"Do you miss her?"
"Every single day. It stings -inside. I know there's nothing I can do about it. And I am alive without her. I'm living fine. I don't even think about her. It's just- a piece of me stayed with her. And it's tearing me apart."
"I'm really sorry."
"Why? It's not your fault."
"I still am. It's- I hate this. I don't have words. It's just- awful."
"I know."
"We should be allowed to love whoever the fuck we chose to. It's just love."
"Sam." She glanced at me, her eyes now dry and determined, drilling to my brain. "You are allowed to love whoever the fuck you want. Love. Love all you want."

*****

I stared at my front door, giving my back to Emma and her bike.

I processed the evening, everything that went down.
The fact that I was getting to know someone, for the first time in years.
And the bigger fact that she was a girl. A woman.

The story she told me.
The heartbreaking thought of it. The helpless sensation, and the disappointing thankful feeling towards my own experiences.
To realize that I actually had it great, considering all the pain I went through to get here, broke me.
I couldn't even imagine what realities others could be living.

I was deep in my own head when I heard a calling. I turned around and saw Emma slightly raising her hand at me, in a hesitant manner.
"Yeah?" I asked.
She toddled her way to my side. She weakly gazed at my eyes. "I was hoping," the words came out strangled, "you maybe could be a love that isn't ruined by my mother."
I found myself with no other reaction than a smile and a delicate kiss on the lips. It was all I could ponder at the time.