You've Found Oliver (You've Reached Sam, #2)(6)
His face burns red as he begins to scream at me. But I quickly leave the room before things get worse. Sam is calling my name from outside. As I walk through the front door, the night air wraps around me and the memory changes one last time…
* * *
Everything goes dark for a moment. Then pinpricks of light illuminate a night sky as a bonfire comes to life behind me. It’s the last night of senior week. I’m standing at the cliffside, staring off at the mountains. As I turn my head, Sam is right there beside me. We look at each other for a moment. The others are drinking and laughing in the background.
“You’re oddly quiet tonight,” he says.
I shrug. “You know me…Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“The universe. The meaning of life. How we’ll probably never do this again.” I place my hands in my pockets, sighing. “You know, since you’re leaving me.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. I’ll only be a few hours away.”
“You might as well be in another country.”
Sam is moving to Portland, Oregon, with Julie for college. They’ve been dating for almost three years now. I swear it was only yesterday when I saw them talking for the first time. “You know I’ll visit all the time,” he assures me. “And we still have the whole summer together. We could go on a trip. Just you and me.”
“You promise?”
Sam smiles. “Anywhere you want to go.”
The thought of this makes me feel better. The two of us traveling somewhere around the world. Things haven’t been the same since he started dating Julie. She’s spending the week in Seattle, visiting her dad again. I was sort of relieved when he told me she couldn’t come tonight. I’ve been thinking about finally telling him how I feel. I’ve imagined this moment a thousand times before, but for some reason I still haven’t quite figured out the words yet.
Sam glances at the fire for a moment. I’m sure he wants to rejoin the others soon. So I should probably do this now. There’s only so much time left before graduation. Who knows if I’ll get another chance before then. I take a deep breath and say, “Sam…there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”
“What is it?”
“I’m not really sure how to say it. Because I don’t want to change anything between us…” My voice fails.
“Just tell me,” he says.
“Alright, what I mean is to say is—”
But Sam’s phone goes off. He glances at the screen. “Oh my god.”
“What is it?”
“I have ten missed calls from Julie,” he gasps. “I was supposed to pick her up over an hour ago! I think she’s walking home all alone now.” He tries calling her back, but it goes to voicemail. “She’s going to hate me for this. I should go—” He puts his phone away and heads off. Then he spins back to me. “Wait, were you gonna say something?”
The moment is gone now. I just smile at him and say, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you another time.”
“I’m really sorry about this. I’ll text you when I get home, okay?”
“You’re not coming back?”
Sam frowns. “Probably not. Julie’s over an hour away, and I still need to drop her off.”
“That really sucks.”
“I know. We’ll hang out this weekend though. I promise.”
As we hug goodbye, I get this strange feeling in my chest. I don’t know how to explain it. But it makes me want to hold on to him a little longer. The feeling stays with me as I watch him walk away.
I didn’t know that would be the last time I saw him. That there wouldn’t be a later for us. That I would wait up all night for a text that was never coming. That I lost him. And I didn’t even know it.
March 6 at 11:45 PM
It’s been almost a year without you
I still can’t believe you’re gone
Chapter
One
A paper cherry blossom falls from the shelf and lands gently on the carpet. I watch Julie bend down to pick it up. She examines each fold before placing it on her desk. Then she lifts a moving box from the floor and says, “Can you grab the other one, Oliver?”
I fold my arms. “I don’t know why you’re packing this much.”
“Four months is a long time.”
“Which is exactly why you shouldn’t go.”
Julie lets out a breath. “You could at least pretend to be excited for me.”
It’s our last day together before she heads to Copenhagen. She’s doing a study abroad program, abandoning me for the next few months. It’s spring quarter of freshman year. Julie and I both attend Central Washington University. Whose door am I going to knock on when I get locked out of my dorm at two in the morning? Who am I going to convince to skip class with me and grab free bagels at the fourth floor of the library?
Julie holds up a candle. “Do you want this?”
“Can’t,” I groan. “My new roommate says he hates ‘feminine’ scents.” Ethan is your standard straight baseball player with whom I have nothing in common. But he isn’t the worst guy in the world.