ENTANGLED: A McCarthy Love Story

CHAPTER 020

Sammy sat with her legs folded staring at the cheque laying on the table, it had been laying there for six weeks untouched because she couldn't decide what to do about it.
She obviously wasn't going to cash it but she also didn't think that sending it back was the better idea so she just left it there collecting dust on top of her centre table.
It was now a habit, to sit and stare at it for an hour everyday. A habit she now couldn't break.
Of course, there was obviously some misunderstanding or an accident because with the way the McCarthys felt about her when she was leaving Texas there was no way there were giving her anything let alone a check of half a million dollars.
She got up and took the envelope, she walked to the waste basket and then tossed it inside and then walked back to the sofa and sat back down. Better to just get rid of the thing, right? There was no use waiting anymore, it had already been more than a month.
She waited a minute, then two and by the next she got back up and went to fish out the envelope from the trash. She returned it to the undisturbed corner it had been sitting.
She wasn't going to cash it but it felt good just looking at it, knowing it was there. Good might be a bit of an overstatement because nothing felt good anymore, but it felt okay. It felt like she had a piece of Nick with her, which was mostly repulsive but other times soothing.
Her hands absentmindedly rubbed her belly as she let the overwhelming sadness engulf her. This was a feeling she didn't know if she would ever escape, the sadness. It felt like it was going to swallow her whole. She had thought the pain she had felt back when Nick had dumped her had been excruciating, this was worse. Her heart most of the time felt like it had been ripped out of her chest and then replaced with one that wasn't working, one that could feel nothing but pain. She wanted to crawl into a ball and cry but she knew that Vicky was getting off work soon and then she'd be here with food Sammy didn't want or need and then only leave once she was satisfied that Sammy was okay or spend the night if she wasn't. Sammy hated it but it was their normal now, not because she was sick or invalid but because she was cursed. Her life was one big curse with no reprieve because no matter how far she ran, the bad things always caught up to her.

"WE ARE STILL wearing the sweatpants from yesterday I see" Vicky said setting the bags she came in with on Sammy's kitchen counter.
Sammy sighed and then rolled over on the sofa so she'd face away. Vicky's eyes went to the well-made bed and she shook her head, the sofa now had this little depression because the girl barely got up from it.
"I bought groceries, I thought maybe we could cook together" Vicky told her friend, she knew her evening was going to be spent talking at Sammy, the girl would either ignore her all night or simply just give yes or no answers, which was somehow worse than her silence.
"You're right I'm exhausted, it's better if we order in" she went ahead to say without waiting for Sammy to reply.
"Or we could maybe go out and grab something to eat?" more silence followed. Vicky took a deep breath and told herself that this wasn't permanent, her friend would get better and things would go back to normal.
She took off her jacket and then her shoes, work had been really exhausting but she didn't have the luxury of being exhausted at the moment because her friend was suffering.
She came right around and turned on the TV filling the room with sound before going to grab the mail, nothing important just some utility bills. She put them in her purse, she'd offset them tomorrow if she got the chance.
"Have you had anything to eat today?" she asked Sammy going to confirm but the leftovers from last night that she had careful packaged was still sitting in the refrigerator so no, her friend hadn't had anything to eat all day. She took a deep breath in frustration, this wasn't working at all, it wasn't working.
"I can't do this anymore" she turned around and said to Sammy
"Then maybe you should leave" Sammy replied from where she lay on the sofa.
She could barely answer questions but she could offer suggestions, Vicky thought with a frown.
"And who's gonna take care of you, pay your bills, clean your apartment?" the list went on and on, but the time for the babying to be over. Vicky knew her friend was hurting but she obviously needed the tough love right now because her way was definitely not working and hasn't been for a long time.
"I didn't ask you to do any of that" Sammy replied
"No you just lay there and say nothing, then you count the minutes till I leave so you can cry your eyes out" Vicky said all the empathy gone.
"you are hurting, I get that. But you can't just lay in here and waste your life away. You haven't even been outside this apartment since you got back"
"It's my life to waste"
Vicky counted to ten to temper her anger and then said to her friend,
"Get up" and as expected she was met with silence
"I said get up Samantha" she said and then began to walk to where Sammy was laying stubbornly.
"Samantha get up" she was done allowing this
"Leave me alone" Sammy managed to say
"I have and that has only made this worse, so you will get up and go take a shower and then the both of us are going to go out for dinner" again the annoying silence followed
"Samantha get up" she said and began to pull on her friend's leg
"I said no!" in response Sammy used her other leg to kick her belly, hard.
She groaned in pain, but it wasn't just reflex when she got up and gave her a well-deserved slap.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry" she said almost immediately realising what she'd done, but Sammy was already out of the sofa and getting away from her
"Just leave me alone" Sammy said her hand still placing a hand to the part of her face where she had been slapped.
"I can't do that," Vicky said her voice breaking,
"you're hurting and that means I'm hurting, you're sad, I'm sad. You're stuck in this crappy apartment, then I'm stuck" she was crying now, weeks of frustration all flowing out with the tears
"you are my best friend, my sister, so I can't. I can't just leave you" she sat down on the floor and rested her face on her knees and then she cried.
Sammy felt sorry, she had never seen her friend fall apart like that and now it was happening because of her and that just made her feel so bad.
"I'm sorry" she said joining her friend on the floor.
"I didn't mean to kick you that hard"
Vicky chuckled in between her crying, she raised her face to look at her friend,
"I'm not crying cause you kicked me, you idiot. I'm crying because you're hurting and I don't know how to help you. And you won't tell me how to help you"
Sammy rested Vicky's head on her shoulder and then took her hand in hers,
"I don't know how you can help me. I don't even know how to help myself. I am always in pain and I can't describe it" she swallowed the bile that rose to her throat
"Why won't you talk to me then?" Vicky asked and then she sniffled
"Because... because..." she took a deep breath
"because talking's hard. Breathing's hard, eating's hard, everything is so hard" she replied as the first drop of tears started to glide down her face.
"you believe me, right? You believe me when I say I don't know what happened? I didn't do it" she asked
"Of course I do" Vicky lifted her face and looked at her in the eyes, her heart was breaking for her friend
"Nick didn't" now Sammy was sobbing now,
"he said I am disgusting and he never wants to see me again in his life. He hates me"
Vicky cradled her friend,
"I hate that you're in pain, I hate that all that happened to you and I hate, hate that I wasn't there with you. But I'm here now, and I'm going to help you get through this if you let me, because I love you. Do you love me Sam?"
"Of course I do" Sammy replied with a sniffle
"Then let me help you. That means no more icing me out, no more not eating, no more locking yourself in here all the time. Will you let me?" Vicky asked
"Do you really think I can get through this?" she asked
"Of course you can and you will. Do you know why?" Vicky asked and then she shook her head
"because you are the strongest person I know, you're the nicest and you're the most honest. You have survived things most people can't even begin to imagine"
"Now you're just being nice"
"I'm being honest. Because that's the truth. And if those people can't see it, if Nick can't see that, then it's his loss trust me" Vicky told her and then hugged her tightly.