"I'm grounded for the next three weeks"
Sam lay down on the bed while talking to Nate on his cell phone.
"But there's the inaugural game," Nate snorted, "and you're the quaterback"
"You have to tell my mom... they've already talked to the coach who of course agrees. It's already a lot that keeps me in the team. Plus I have to go with my father and uncle Dylan to anonymous alcoholics' meetings, I'm not an alcoholic, I don't have a problem"
"Do you want me to come too?"
"No, I'll save you Nate, enjoy life at least you, I come to school, and I go home, I deserve it after all"
"Well it's true you deserve it.. "
"Ah ah, maybe, I lost my mind and made a mistake, that's all" Sammy paused for a moment "did you see Blanca?
Nate sighed "not much, we only have science together and we're far away."
Samuel sighed.
He hadn't seen her again either, she was definitely avoiding it.
Samuel heard a knock on the door.
Grace's voice was fearful.
"Can I come in Sam?"
Samuel warned Nate that Grace was at the door and had to stop the call.
He jumped out of the bed and went to open the door.
"What do you want?"
"I brought you some cake," his sister told him with a big smile.
That smile softened Sam who immediately regretted being rude to her.
"Sorry, come on in"
Grace looked a lot like her mother, according to some photos Sam had seen at Grandma Jackie's house were pretty much identical. As soon as Grace grew up, Sam would have serious trouble keeping the boys away from her.
"I brought the Harry Potter book, would you like if we read a little together? We're never together," Grace asked him.
Samuel softened and beckoned her to get on the bed and let her rest her head on his arm.
"Are you going to be grounded for a long time?" His sister asked him.
"Three weeks Grace"
"Well you must have made it a big time"
'Enough'
"But I'm a little happy"
"How happy are you?"
"So we can be together for a while," she smiled at him.
Grace's innocence made Samuel smile.
"Are you in love with Blanca?" His sister asked him without any problems.
"I thought so"
"Are you not sure?"
"She said she's not in love with me"
"Emma is in love with you," the sister revealed to him.
'Emma?'
"Mmhh" Grace nodded, opening the book.
"And how do you know?"
"A girl knows these things," Grace replied.
"Oh really?" Nate tickled her and she squirmed on the bed.
Dylan was completing the last chapter he had written.
His face was particularly focussed on words. He couldn't give that chapter the shape he wanted.
'How is it going?'
"Ah" Dylan threw his glasses on the desk "it's still too heavy and the editor is on me for deliver It within three months"
Brenda looked at him with very sweet eyes.
She stroked his hair
"I'm sure you'll be able to do a great job, even of your first book you said so, that it wouldn't be successful, that you wouldn't finish it, and instead it was a best seller."
Dylan got up and gently kissed Brenda on the lips "because I have you," he told her.
"And I'll always be with you," Brenda replied.
Dylan began exploring Brenda's body by stroking her with his hands.
"I want to have you here and now..." he whispered to her.
He began to kiss her frantically and pulled down her shoulder straps and bra.
"Dylan you have to stop..." Brenda told him with a smile.
'Why?' He said as he ran his lips over his neck and went down to his breasts.
"Because..." Brenda replied, "in ten minutes Brandon will be here with Sammy, you have to go to the anonymous alcoholics."
Dylan dropped his head on Brenda's breast.
'It's true'
Brenda pulled up the shoulder straps and gently kissed him "let's postpone it to later?"
"Of course" he then remembered that he had to go to his publisher.
"I'll be back for dinner"
"I'll wait for you here with the twins and Blanca.."
"About Blanca..."
"She's fine," Brenda turned to her husband, "it was her decision. She said she wants things to go back to the way they were before. She doesn't want us to be angry with her. That you in particular are angry with her"
"I'm not mad" Dylan shook his head "it's just that this thing was fucking weird, they are like brother and sister."
"You can't help who you fall in love with"
"Yes, but was it love?"
"I think so, however Blanca prefers to live this year without too much thought, maybe she'll meet someone else"
"So she is going to give me a heart attack"
Brenda laughed, from the window she saw Brandon's car enter the driveway.
"They are here," he said.
Dylan sighed.
The AAs gathered in a kind of gym on the side of the city centre. There were double rows of chairs placed in a circle. They were people of all ages to whom alcohol or drugs had deformed their face, smile, expression.
Samuel didn't recognise himself in any of those faces, he had just made a mistake, there was nothing else to say, these people had made millions of mistakes instead.
He hated his father for taking him to that place, he was supposed to be training with Nate and the team.
He hated her mother's look just as much, she knew very well that she too had made millions of mistakes, she knew about the cocaine story, she knew about her grandmother Jackie.
He hated his father for being so perfect, for the expectations he had about him, his father hadn't even been there for the first five years of his life. True, he didn't know he was his son, his mother's fault. Another thing to add to those to hate his mother for.
The word hate was very common in that room. Everyone had started when they were very young, and everyone because they hated something. Uncle Dylan too.
Dylan got up " I'm Dylan I've been sober for seventeen years. I am a former drug addict and a former alcoholic. I took heroin I threw my life away, I thought I could stop when I wanted, I could do it. And instead I couldn't make it. My wife and family saved me.."
Samuel kept watching Dylan as he spoke to people. The sure way he looked them in the eye and the way he wasn't ashamed of his mistakes. In fact, he made his mistakes available to everyone, so that everyone could connect, relate each other.
Brandon looked at his son every now and then, trying to understand his thoughts.
Samuel had his own face, his own eyes, he was tall muscular. He could have had anything from life and yet Brandon felt he could even lose everything in his life.
He felt helpless and afraid but maybe a father must be afraid. Love generates fear. Fear generates courage. Courage comes from love.
Dylan stuck the keys in the lock and stopped to watch the scene of his kitchen. Brenda and Blanca talking about the next audition to become a Cheerleader for the Football team. Brenda always wanted to be a cheerleader, it was her little secret.
The twins ate something on the island. Lee Ann and Luke.
Dylan felt as lucky and alive as he had never felt before.
Brenda noticed him.
"Hei sweety, you're in time for dinner as promised" she walked over and gave him a kiss.
"How did it go with Sammy and the editor?"
"With Sammy well, at least I think, he listened in silence, not that these meetings change you in a second, but at least he came, I admit Brandon is very worried"
"Yes, I understand this"
"The editor instead insists that i must deliver the second book in three months and assigned me a new revisionist"
"One? Female?" Brenda asked, raising her eyebrow.
He put his arms around her waist and whispered in her ear "I like it when you're jealous"
"I'm not jealous," Brenda protested, "how cute is she?"
Ashley Monroe was really pretty, maybe even a little more, they had a brief acquaintance, a handshake and a coffee in front of Mr Robinson.
A quick presentation and Dylan had handed him the first finished chapters and his phone number.
"No she is horrible," Dylan replied, winking at her.
"Yes, of course you can see it from your expression"
"For me there is only you," Dylan replied, resting his lips on hers.
Blanca watched them, loved the sweet and loving moments between her parents, dreamed one day of living a love like that. She often thought of Samuel, thinking especially about the painful expression he had in his eyes on the evening of the party but was determined not to return to those places of the heart. She could find a love of her own that didn't break her family's heart. That family that had been given to her and that was her chance.
She knew Samuel was having a hard time but she was convinced that staying away would help him. His proximity could easily return them to the spiral they had fallen into the summer before.
Made of desire, of feelings of guilt.
Blanca knew there was something wrong but couldn't control it. Now instead she managed to be dominated by her rational side.
She hoped Nate would stay close enough to him to get through this difficult time that Samuel was fully able to get through.
Nate. Lately Blanca was surprised to think about him. To observe him.
Blanca shook her head quickly.
Her cell phone vibrated.
A text from Samuel "I want to talk to you. See you tomorrow morning before school?"
Blanca closed her eyes. She squeezed the cancellation button. She didn't answer.
If Samuel couldn't, it was she who should have had the strength to get out of that mess.
The next day at school Samuel waited for Blanca who didn't show up. She hadn't answered him. She was avoiding in every way to meet him.
It was extremely painful.
He found Emma near the lockers.
"Hei Sam" she greeted him with a sweet smile "how Do you feel?"
"A crap"
Emma maintained a rigourous expression.
"I don't understand why you don't react."
Samuel looked at her with very serious eyes then let himself go with his back against the lockers.
He looked down.
"Have you seen Blanca?"
"Yes," Emma sighed, "I saw her"
"Sam... " Emma didn't know how to tell him "she wants things to go back to the way they were before, but she can't if you text her and look for her so obsessively, she doesn't know what to do. She loves you, but not the way you want her"
Samuel shook his head "I don't believe this thing"
Emma didn't know what to answer. Samuel was like crazy.
"Go Back to your life Sam"
Emma stroked his cheek "when she's ready she'll be back. When you're ready enough"
Samuel pulled a folded sheet out of his pocket.
"What is it," Emma asked him, closing the locker.
"My history assignment with a giant F on it... my parents will lock me in the house for life."
"C'on ," Emma tried to reassure him, "it's just an F."
"My mother will freak out"
"You can catch up. You've always been good at school"
"Yeah," Sam sighed then walked up to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.
"And what was that for?" She asked, touching the spot that Samuel had touched with his lips.
"To be you"
Emma smiled.
"Listen I think I'll skip the next class, I'm going for a ride, let me know if there's any science homework?"
Emma nodded.
The bell rang announcing the start of the next lessons. Samuel hid in the bathrooms and then climbed onto the roof of the school. A lonely place.
Jake Thunder was waiting for him upstairs smoking the usual joint.
"Hey Walsh"
'Jake'
He smiled with a metallic smile.
"Here's your beer, do you want to take a shot?"
He handed him what he had asked for but first he reached out his hand and Samuel paid the money.
He sat next to Jake, opened the beer, lit the joint.
When he pulled out the smoke finally relaxed.
"Fuck everyone," Samuel thought.
He came home later. He took a cold shower to try to make himself a tone. He locked himself in his room and ordered his sister not to enter for any reason.
Brandon arrived for dinner time. He kissed Kelly as Grace looked at them with amused eyes.
"Hello My life love," Kelly greeted him.
"Sammy?"
Kelly shrugged and said "He is in his room"
Then she show him the F in Hi story.
'He said it was a routeing accident and went to study to recover.'
Brandon looked at his wife. Kelly was upset. Since last summer she no longer recognised his son. She couldn't give him a shape.
"Do you want me to go talk to him?"
"Please," Kelly told him.
Before Brandon walked away to climb the stairs she grabbed him by the hand.
"I love you, you know?"
Brandon smiled and even smiled at Grace who kept looking at them amused.
"I love you too"
" And I love you too Grace" Brandon winked.
"I love you too, daddy"
Then Brandon went up the stairs with the history sheet.
He would do anything for his son.
I'm starting to get some ideas about how the story will go, what do you think? Is boring to shift the focus to Samuel?
