Something About Sam

Chapter 24

I wake up in the back of a club to my phone ringing incessantly. I have the most grueling headache life has ever thrown at me. Everything is spinning. God is so far from me, he has to be on Mars. I only answer the phone to stop the ringing from jack-hammering my brain.

"Hello?" My voice sounds 30 years older.

"Sam, oh my god you answered."

My eyes slam shut. Why hadn't I looked at the caller ID?

"Look, Taite, I'm kinda fucked up right now. I didn't know it was you. I'm gonna hang up."

"No! Sam! Please don't. Please."

It had been a month since I had heard his voice. He sounded like innocence. Sweet, good natured, heart-breaking Taite Jefferson. I was amazed that he was still calling. I couldn't remember the last time he did. Maybe that was because I was too doped to even realize he still tried.

He hears me breathing. "Sam... You've disappeared. Not one text? One call? Nothing?"

I pinch the bridge of my nose, pulling the legs of some passed out girl off my lap. I try to stand up, but my head grows too heavy. "I've been busy, Taite." I hate that I'm still talking to him. One month of ignoring him, gone to shit. Why didn't I just hang up when I heard his voice?

"You couldn't have just answered one text? One text, to say you were alive? Not even one text to tell me you hate me? Or curse me out or fucking anything else besides ignore me? You couldn't have done that, Sam? After everything? Really Sam?"

He sounds like my father. Really, Sam? was one of dad's favorite lines whenever I disobeyed his rules. But Taite's voice is shaking and for the first time since he broke up with me, it hits me with so much force. It hits me so hard I gasp. Taite is sad, too. He is sad, just like me. He isn't evil. He's sad.

"You're sad too?" It was the only thing on my arid tongue.

"Are you kidding?" For a second, I smile. And I see so much. I see the two of us, making out an airport terminal, getting back together, resuming right where we paused. I see Taite front row at one of my shows. I see us kissing in his bed in his dorm. I see us on Christmas, just weeks away, sitting on the suede love seat in his family room, his fingers on my knee. "Sarah was at your show last night. With Lottie."

I wanted to say, she was? But that would mean telling Taite I haven't been in control of my body for the past few weeks, so instead, I say, "Mmhmm. Yup."

"She said you've been doing some new stuff."

"Yeah. Dance music and EDM and crap. I have a lot of things I want to do. People I want to perform with. Macklemore is coming to my show in Boston. You'll still be there, right?"

As soon as I hear myself talk about my music, I want to throw up. This isn't me.

"Of course," he breathes out. "I would never miss that." I smile, but he can't see me. "I, uh, I've been getting the tickets you send me."

Fuck. Forgot about that.

Before we broke up, I had Michelle make sure Taite got 2 VIP tickets to every single one of my shows, no matter where it is. I had her send them to his school address, but I guess he didn't figure out his mailbox situation until recently. I forgot to tell Michelle to stop sending them.

"I forgot to tell Michelle to stop sending those. Sorry."

"No," He was quick to respond. "I love them. I still have all the ones you wrote notes on."

I used to write things on them before Michelle sent them. Stupid lovey dovey crap like, Thinking of you. Miss you loads. Can't wait to kiss you.

It made me smile, that he kept them.

"I miss hearing your voice," he says suddenly, like he was hit very hard by the realization. "And talking to you."

"I miss that too," I tell him honestly. Because I miss him more than my hollow empty body knows how to cope with on its own.

 I don't want to tell him that I won't talk to him again. I don't want to tell him that my heart is twisting so much that the only thing I can think about is making it go away with the pills in my pocket, as soon as we hang up the phone.

"God, Sam," he sounds like he wants to cry, but he won't because he's Taite Jefferson and he only cries when he's breaking up with you, because he hates seeing people hurt. "God." That's all he says, and for some reason, I don't even have to ask what he means, I just know.

"I know."

"Talk soon?" He asks me, like two suburban mothers at the kindergarten pick-up line.

I swallow back a lump and the lie in my throat when I say, "Yeah. Talk soon."

I hang up, then stand up. Looking around, I realize I am still in the club. I check my watch. It is four o'clock in the morning.

True to my word, I swallow down the pills in my pocket.